You manage several online assets: from a company website, product and disease information on blogs, to social media channels. But are your targeted healthcare professionals and consumers actually seeing your online information? Do you have Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) best practices in place? SEO is a critical component of making your digital assets work hard for you.

These techniques facilitate the indexing of your online content by search engines, like Google, Bing and Yahoo. SEO helps your digital assets rank higher on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), making your online content more visible when your target audiences look for online solutions. (Particularly relevant now that the Coronavirus pandemic and ensuing lockdowns have exploded online traffic.)

Here are five SEO tactics that you can put in place immediately:

1. Hello, is it my brand you’re looking for?

Consult Google’s Keyword Planner to discover the most searched for phrases in your healthcare category and consider the most frequently asked customer questions you receive. These will help you identify the keywords and phrases to include in your website, blogs and social media posts to ensure your content is relevant to your target market and search engines.

Many people are now using voice search via their mobiles versus typed search via their desktops. Someone with a knee injury, for example, may type “knee injuries” into Google; however, if doing a voice search, may ask “How to care for a knee injury?” Consider catering for the more detailed voice search requirements via a blog which is headlined using the longer voice search phraseology.

2. Always design for SEO

Include a sitemap on your website outlining its contents and structure. This helps the search engine spider index your healthcare site correctly, and enhances your user’s experience.

Include your keywords in your website content. Use the keywords as naturally and colloquially as possible, as search engines penalise for so-called “keyword stuffing”.

• Also use your keywords in the backend descriptions of each page’s content i.e. MetaTags. The tagged content should be a true reflection of what’s placed on the page, so as not to detract from the site’s search ranking.
• Caption and title your site’s pictures and videos.
• Make sure your site is secure, fast to download and responsive, and optimised for mobile use too.

3. Hook them with quality content

SEO is not only about attracting your customers to your digital assets; it’s also about how much time they spend interacting with those assets. The more time spent, the higher your search engine rankings.

• Showcase your brand’s expertise by sharing the latest healthcare information in your field and regularly updating content.
• Publish quality content like case studies, blog posts, videos, interviews, photos, patient and customer testimonials, medical breakthroughs and topical conversations about your healthcare sector.
• Create content that answers your audience’s most frequently asked questions; inform them of your unique offering and expertise.

4. Use social media to drive rankings

Social media helps to facilitate two-way conversation between your brand and your customers, as well as building relationships to create a loyal customer base. It’s a form of link building that can help drive traffic to your website from a larger audience than you’d normally be able to reach.

Focus on quality over quantity when it comes to content shared on social media. Put emphasis on engaging your audience’s passion points and joining in discussions that are in line with your company and brand’s expertise.

5. Optimise the reach of your digital assets

When you write blogs and create vlogs for your website, optimise the number of people in your target market who view these. Place links to these assets on your social media pages and consider launching a branded YouTube page. (A video is 50 times more likely to rank organically in search).

• Offer your blogs for publication to credible healthcare journals in exchange for back links to your website. This builds authority for your website, company and brand; also increasing your search engine rankings.
• It is imperative that all your online activities are guided by an overarching online strategy. Any digital assets or social media sites you create must be aligned to that strategy in terms of branding, messaging, objectives and targeting.

At Cingulate we’re putting the abovementioned tactics into practice for both our clients and ourselves.

Need an online strategy for your portfolio? Contact us today via www.cingulate.co.za and let us help you define your online strategy!