I spent seven years in the Corporate Communications Department at Cleveland Clinic. I produced videos, wrote blogs and sent emails daily, all in hopes of raising national awareness of The Clinic.
We had everything we needed (or so we thought) to do our jobs successfully: sophisticated video equipment and computers, an army of medical experts willing to comment on any topic, and the resources to feed the world our content. But the one thing we did not have was an SEO strategy. We weren’t a healthcare SEO company—or even a company with in-house SEO experts at the time. We were a hospital, so search engine optimization (SEO) wasn’t even on our radar. The Marketing Department may have known SEO, but not the Corporate Communications team.
Why does it matter? Because we were just throwing our content against the wall of the world wide web and hoping it would stick. Yes, some of it did, but if we used the mentality that healthcare SEO companies do, we would have been much better off. Our content would have been optimized, so it would have ranked much higher—and drawn more people to our site.
In my role as Brand Journalist at Kuno Creative, I’ve gotten a lot better at developing SEO keyword strategies for my healthcare clients. So, I want to share with you how our SEO services help healthcare clients consistently land on Page 1.
A company with SEO services (like ours) can make sure your video’s description and title (on YouTube) are optimized. This will help it rank high in search results.
Here’s an example of how we used our SEO services to optimize a video about varicose veins for one of our healthcare clients. It featured three people with three different vein issues who all found a solution—our client.
Once we finished the script and edited the video, the hard work began. There’s a lot of competition in the healthcare industry, so if anyone was going to have the chance to see this video, we had to optimize appropriately and strategically it on YouTube and on our client’s website.
It starts with a plan. We develop SEO strategies based on keyword research. One of the tools we use to optimize content and help us with our keyword research is called SEM Rush. The keys to optimization are volume and low keyword difficulty. SEM Rush helps us find the strongest keywords available. The tool shows us things like:
You can see on the chart below, our research found the long-tailed keyword “varicose vein pain” is strong. More than 4,000 people are searching this term each month, and the keyword difficulty is right where we want it to be.
Armed with this knowledge, we optimized the title of the video, the description of the video on YouTube and all of our social media posts by using the keyword “varicose vein pain.” The impact on the ranking factor was astounding.
It only took that video two weeks to grab more views than a similar video we produced for the same client three years ago. I will say it again: More views in two weeks than the other video with a three-year head start.
We optimized it even more by adding another keyword that doesn’t have the same amount of volume but does have a low keyword difficulty. Mixing in more than one keyword gives us a better chance to rank high on Google. But you have to have the tools to provide that kind of knowledge.
Now, when you search “varicose vein pain” on YouTube, our video is right there on Page 1, currently ranking fifth.
Use SEO Services to Optimize Blogs
A strong SEO strategy can also work wonders for your healthcare blog. Again, it comes down to having the right tools to optimize your content. Take, for example, this post we did about chemical stress tests.
We determined the best keyword phrase to optimize content around based on the client's goals and the data. We found 3,600 people a month searching this term, the keyword difficulty is in a good spot.
Knowing this, we optimized around chemical stress test (and a couple of additional keywords with strong volume and low keyword difficulty). It took a few months, but this blog now ranks at the top of Page 1 of Google when you search the term “chemical stress tests.”
It’s a great feeling when it happens, but this isn’t the only one. We’ve optimized several blogs for our client that are ranking at or near the top of Page 1 of Google. This has led to a drastic increase in numbers for their website.
Let’s start with the blog. In less than a year, we have seen blog views improve by nearly 86 percent and subscribers increase by more than 44 percent.
If you have more people coming to your site, more of them will find your landing pages. That’s the case here. Take a look:
But the most telling number is new contacts. New contacts are up an astounding 145%.
Healthcare will always be a hot topic. Millions of people search medical terms and conditions daily. The way they search for information is changing, too, as more people turn to their smartphones or voice assistants.
You can blog about these topics or make videos about them all you want. But to ensure your chances of being seen, you must have a strong team behind you and have the tools to make it happen. A company that provides SEO services will do the legwork for you. Optimization is key.
If you’re looking for more SEO strategies that will make a difference for your healthcare company, download our Ultimate SEO Checklist. You’ll find out how you can create a SEO strategy that will convert visitors into customers.
