Faced with the challenges of digitalisation, it is now essential for all healthcare professionals to be visible online in order to boost their activity and stand out from the competition. This mainly involves the creation of a website and its promotion on the main search engines thanks to natural referencing (SEO). At the same time, healthcare professionals must also take care to respect the rules that the legislation imposes on them in terms of digital communication… Not everything is allowed! NaddraBlog thus offers you a complete file on what SEO is for the medical professions. How can you improve the visibility of your medical website thanks to this strategy while remaining within the standards?
Healthcare professionals: a digital shift
Like many other fields, the medical sector is today at a turning point marked by the widespread digitization of services and benefits . Over the past few years, the medical professions as we have traditionally known them have been changing. Whether in rural areas or in the city, players in this sector can no longer rely solely on word of mouth or purely traditional communication to build their reputation. Digital technology brings a more modern and efficient approach which requires all businesses to reinvent themselves.
Digital competition is now the new challenge facing these professionals. Indeed, to be visible on the internet where patients can find them, they must fight a “digital battle” against the competition. The latter is made up of other professionals in the same sector who work in the same geographical area and who also implement actions to position themselves favorably on the web. In this competitive game, natural referencing often has the last word.
Related: WooCommerce: improve the SEO of your e-commerce site
The term “health professionals” used here does not refer only to physicians. It is indeed all the people working in the medical field and whose skills (and judgment) contribute to maintaining or improving the health of individuals. Professions that treat and care for people who are injured or have an infirmity or handicap are also concerned. Concretely, according to the Public Health Code (CSP), this designation applies to the medical professions (doctors, odontologists, midwives), to the pharmacy professions (dispensary pharmacists), and to the professions of medical auxiliaries. (masseurs, podiatrists, opticians-spectacle makers, prosthetists, orthotists, childcare assistants, etc.).
SEO or natural referencing: what is it?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It refers to a set of techniques that aim to position a website favorably on the search engine results pages (SERPs). Since Google is the leader in this field with more than 92% market share, SEO efforts are mainly directed towards it. It is also possible to position a medical site favorably on Bing or Yahoo using natural referencing.
The SEO's job is to target a query (one or more expressions that Internet users frequently search for) and to implement optimization actions. The purpose of this is for the client's site to appear on the first page. The first three positions are logically the most coveted. For example, a podiatrist practicing in Marseilles can target for the referencing of his site queries such as “podiatrist in Marseilles” or “podiatry specialist in Marseilles” and aim for the first position on Google.
Natural referencing in the medical field is essentially based on three pillars: content, links and technical architecture. It is on the basis of these elements that the algorithms of the engines are based to carry out their classification. Local referencing is also an important lever for the medical professions, because most practitioners offer their services in a well-defined geographical area.
SEO for healthcare professionals
The medical sector is an area in which communication and marketing actions are strictly regulated. Not all SEO campaigns are therefore adapted to the needs of medical professions in terms of digital communication.
Referencing: what does the law say for the medical sector?
In accordance with Article R4127-19 of the CSP, health professionals are not traders. As a result, all direct or indirect advertising processes are prohibited.
A health professional can not therefore opt for paid referencing ( SEA ) to promote his services on the internet. This technique consists of creating advertising campaigns with the aim of appearing quickly on the first page of engines for targeted keywords. It therefore goes against the ethics and deontology of the profession. In the same vein, advertising on social networks is also not a process that a doctor can use to make himself more visible on the internet.
Natural referencing therefore stands out as the only real strategy authorized for the medical professions. It is perfectly in accordance with article R4127-19-1 of the CSP which stipulates that doctors are free to communicate to the public or to their patients information relating to their skills and their professional background. They are also authorized to share scientifically substantiated information with the public for educational and health purposes. Thanks to natural referencing, the doctor maintains his neutrality, while making himself known on the web.
What are the challenges of SEO in the medical sector?
Doing SEO is no longer an option for medical professionals. It is a necessity to comply with the evolution of the sector. The benefits that its implementation can bring to doctors, podiatrists, and other practitioners are numerous:
- become known,
- to be more visible,
- stand out from competition,
- get new customers,
- have a better targeting of its customers,
- improve patient confidence,
- prove their expertise in their discipline,
- become competitive.
When it is well done, natural referencing finally contributes directly and indirectly to the increase in turnover and the economic prosperity of the medical establishments that operate it.
Related: How to Choose the Right Keywords For your SEO Strategy
YMYL and EAT: Google's requirements
YMYL and EAT are two acronyms that often come up in SEO discussions around the topic of health.
What does YMYL mean?
YMYL is the acronym for “Your money your life” which literally means “Your Money, Your Life”. This is the term Google uses to refer to pages whose content has the potential to positively or negatively impact people's lives or their finances. To use, with a few exceptions, the words of the Californian firm in its quality guidelines for webmasters, " these are the pages or subjects that could potentially affect the happiness, financial stability, health or future security of a person ”.
Sites dealing with health topics in all their forms are classified in this category by the Mountain View firm. These are information pages on medical problems, pages of doctors, information sites on drugs, nutrition, mental well-being… Of course, there are also other types of sites. that the engine considers as YMYL: platforms covering news or finance topics, e-commerce platforms, etc.
Google's requirements for YMYL pages
Google's goal is to provide the best possible search experience to users by providing them with 100% reliable and credible information. For this, the quality standards set for YMYL pages are very high. Indeed, to classify these types of sites, the Californian firm always gives priority to qualitative pages, with content that inspires confidence and a security policy that complies with the standards in force. The engine algorithms are constantly updated to be more efficient in detecting these signals.
Google EAT: what about it?
EAT stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It is a concept used by quality raters and Google algorithms to assess the overall quality of a SERP or web page. YMYL pages are particularly affected by the EAT, because they influence in one way or another the lives of Internet users. As a medical professional, you must therefore consider implementing the principles of EAT on your website to gain credibility with Google.
E : Expertise
The content and appearance of a quality medical website must denote a solid expertise of the health professional (author of the site) in the subject covered. This requires writing content with high added value and relevant. The design of the site must also be neat.
A: Authority
Authority refers to the reputation of your medical website on the web. Here, it is fundamentally a question of being authoritative via netlinking . The more quality links a site receives, the more authority it has. It is important to note that authority is assessed in relation to a given theme, and not in general. We will come back to this part later in the article.
T: Trust/Confidence
The concept of trust refers to the legitimacy, transparency and accuracy of the website and its content. It is essentially a question of respecting the security rules, having clear legal notices, an About section and a real data processing charter. You must also cite the sources of the content that is published on the site, with mentions such as “signed or published by Dr xxx…”
The practitioner's contact information should also appear clearly on the site. They must be exhaustive and not limited only to an email address or a physical address. The goal is to reassure users as much as possible by leaving as little room as possible for doubt.
Health professionals: which strategy to choose?
To take full advantage of the lever that is SEO, the medical professions must build a coherent and successful SEO campaign for their site. It starts with defining the target and the objectives with a view to implementing the necessary actions: technical optimization, content optimization, optimization of the Google My Business listing.
Define your target and your positioning
To steer your SEO efforts in the right direction, you need to accurately define your target or Buyer Persona. What is the profile of your patients (age, professional situation, marital situation, etc.)? What is their geographic scope? What are they mainly looking for? These are questions you need to find answers to early on. On the one hand, this will allow you to have a clear guideline in your digital communication and, on the other hand, you will be able to more easily quantify your progress.
Another important point not to be overlooked is the definition of your positioning and your objectives. What is the current performance of your website compared to those of your main competitors? What are your specific objectives in terms of digital visibility? Do you want to attract more traffic to generate leads and increase appointment bookings? Would you rather establish yourself as an authoritative source on your topic with in-depth articles on various topics? This preliminary work will make your job easier during the operational implementation of your SEO actions.
Select queries related to your business
Targeting queries related to your specialty is not enough to get good results. Indeed, given the great competition that exists on Google, especially in the medical field, it is not possible to perform on all requests. You must therefore do some selection work in order to focus on the most promising keywords.
Requests of the “profession + location” type are those that you should prioritize in order to boost your digital visibility (example: general practitioner Paris, dentist Lyon, etc.).
The most promising keywords are not necessarily the most sought after by your target. Long-tail queries that individually generate little traffic, but the sum of which can greatly boost your visibility, are also not to be neglected. One of the most effective strategies when embarking on a digitalization process is to first target easily accessible long-tail keywords. You can then tackle the most competitive queries in the short tail. NaddraBlog will be able to define a tailor-made netlinking strategy for you concerning the keywords most suited to your profession.
Optimize the technical aspect of your website
The technical quality of a medical site is the first element that influences its natural referencing. The loading speed, the internal mesh, the security of the site or the mobile accessibility are concerned.
The loading speed of a medical site is a very important indicator for Google robots. The longer your site takes to appear, the less credible it will be in the eyes of users. It is therefore necessary to do what is necessary to reduce the loading time of your pages as much as possible, the ideal being to remain under the limit of 3 seconds . With regard to the internal linking, it contributes to the good organization and the coherence of the pages of a site. A good mesh is essential to provide an excellent browsing experience for visitors and make it easier for crawlers. The security aspect is also very important. As a YMYL page, your medical website must use the HTTPS protocol.
Mobile accessibility is also an essential element that you must ensure to optimize the technical performance of your medical site. Remember to implement responsive design if it is not already done so that the display of the pages of your site adapts to all types of screens. The use of the services of a competent web developer is often necessary to carry out all these technical optimizations.
Integrate SEO optimized content
After having laid a sound technical foundation for your SEO, you must now focus on writing optimized content to improve your ranking. You must first identify the semantic field to use for each theme or subject to cover. There are many SEO copywriting tools that can help you with this step.
When writing content, care must be taken to integrate keywords with know-how , favoring above all the richness and clarity of the texts. Fraudulent practices such as keyword stuffing should be avoided, as they do neither your patients nor Google a favor. The placement of keywords in your content is also very important for your SEO. They must be present in the titles, the meta description , the introduction and in the description of the images.
Create and optimize your Google My Business (GMB) listing
To optimize your local SEO, you need to create a GMB listing. This free tool allows you to make practical information about your establishment available to the public and to be listed in Google Maps. When your GMB listing is properly optimized, it is presented in the local pack (the section of the SERP reserved for geolocated results) to Internet users who are looking for a doctor in your geographical area.
The most important information that should be on a trader's GMB record is:
- contact details,
- the opening hours of the establishment,
- photos of the firm and the team working there,
- the URL of the establishment's website or a direct link to the appointment booking page.
Collecting reviews on your GMB listing and responding to them is also important to build your reputation on the internet.
Improve your visibility on Doctolib
To improve your notoriety as a healthcare professional, it is in your interest to be correctly referenced on Doctolib (the online appointment booking tool). This not only allows you to increase your appointment bookings, but also to be more visible on Google .
To be more visible on Doctolib, here are some actions you can take:
- personalize your profile to be easily identifiable (add your opening hours, your prices, your route, your photos and your diplomas),
- indicate relevant keywords on your profile,
- choose in the Parameters section several standardized reasons for consultations,
- set up your agenda correctly by defining a minimum and maximum time limit for making appointments adapted to the realities of your practice,
- make a link from your website to your Doctolib profile.
Don't forget to keep your profile up to date so as not to provide incorrect information to your patients.
Netlinking for health professions
The third pillar of SEO is netlinking. This is a very important aspect, especially for YMYL platforms which must comply with EAT criteria. Netlinking for the medical professions consists of obtaining quality links pointing to professional sites in order to increase their popularity and notoriety. In the eyes of search engines, these incoming links, called backlinks, are comparable to recommendations or votes of confidence. They are therefore assessed as such.
The most important thing here is not the quantity of links you receive, but their quality and how they are acquired. Indeed, to be considered qualitative, a link must:
- come from an authoritative source,
- have semantic consistency,
- carry a non-overoptimized anchor,
- be naturally integrated into the main content of the host site (links in the sidebar or in the footer do not have a significant weight)
You must set up a natural netlinking campaign built according to the profile and size of your medical website.
To benefit from expert support in this regard, get support from a specialized netlinking agency like NaddraBlog. We offer medical professionals free, non-binding support to set up their netlinking campaign. Our approach, focused on quality, is risk-free and guarantees you a certain gain in popularity over the long term. After analyzing your link profile, our experts take your objectives into account to propose the best possible strategy for your site. Each element (link anchor, publication rate, type of referring domain, etc.) is carefully optimized for the success of your netlinking campaigns. A follow-up is also offered to you by our experienced SEOs.
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