Dreading writing content for your website? Let’s fix that. I’ll break down the steps to creating content that you can use over and over to attract your desired audience and patients in Google Search.
Successful healthcare business owners set themselves apart by creating quality content that is deemed accurate by Google. This is easier than you might expect, it’s not about getting lucky with your content, it’s about breaking your content down to a science! This should come as a relief for all of you that went to school for years and are studying experts, you can apply those learned tactics here.
4 Secrets For Creating Quality healthcare content
- Optimized Article Title and Meta Description
- Ideal Article Structure and Content for Healthcare Blogs or Pages
- Google Rules for Healthcare Websites
- Website Credibility and Backlinks
Where do I Start?
The good news is that as a health care provider, you already have a base list of keywords to pull from – your services! The key to optimization lies in predicting when people will most likely perform those searches and what key phrases they are typing into Google; that is what you will base your 12-month plan on.
Optimized Article Title and Meta Description
After you create a 12 month plan and find your target keywords, you will want to clear your browser history and perform an unbiased Google search on those keywords to find trending articles for the topic you want to write about. You will then look for patterns on the first page of search results for top ranking articles in regards to what words they use, if numbers are included in the title, etc. You will also be looking for gaps your article could fill, you’re not trying to recreate content someone else already created, you want to create something unique.
Once you find the best patterns to follow and the niche within this larger topic, you can create your unique article title.
The meta description, or the first ~200 words are going to be what people can see from a search engine, so they should tell the reader exactly what the article is about. I would not recommend adding any filler words here, because you don’t want to waste valuable real estate, or mislead readers.
What is the ideal Article Structure and Content for Healthcare blogs or Pages?
A blog or services page optimized for search engines (SEO) makes for a user-friendly blog. You can write incredibly unique content that fills all the gaps in searches that you see, but if it isn’t optimized for search engines, it will not be found.The title, structure, headings, and paragraph format of your blog post or page are easy to fix and play a vital role in where your page ranks in Google.
Structure
- Optimized title
- Url that includes “/blog/” then your optimized title
- Short paragraphs with ~3-4 sentences
- Word count of 600-900 words
- Break your article into sections
- Label your sections and include key phrases
- Multiple pictures that have alt text and aren’t overly large
Content
As a healthcare site, it’s more important for you than other websites to keep in mind the purpose for creating content. It’s to show your potential clients you are someone they should entrust their health and wellbeing to. You want content that readers will relate to and search engines can easily serve to their customers.
Articles that connect with readers in a meaningful way will capitalize on a very important feeling and that is unease. We live in a world where people can “Google” a problem they feel uneasy about prior to seeking help from a healthcare provider, the key is finding a way to capitalize on this.
Consider what your potential clients will want from your article. Spoiler alert; they want to know if you can answer their questions. To do this you may want to include the original question, acknowledge their problem, and provide them with a solution. Preferably one that has worked for someone else, because personal stories elicit an emotional response people can can relate to.
When writing, you also need to write for clarity. You are well-educated and have a large vocabulary, but you want to focus on the purpose of your writing. If your message could be lost on someone that doesn’t know the words you’re using, it serves no purpose.
Write at a lower reading level, and write for understanding. This is a method that adults aren’t expected to use with anyone but children but there is a reason it works; the goal is to meet them at their level of understanding and the symptoms they’re experiencing to build their knowledge from the ground up. If you use dialog that’s too advanced for them it can come off as condescending and creates distrust and rejection of your ideas, which is not what you want as a healthcare provider!
To stay relevant, it’s also important to create evergreen content.
What is “Evergreen” Content?
Evergreen content is content that is always relevant and highly searched. Your focus is what potential patients are expecting to gain from your article.
What “Evergreen” Content is not
Evergreen content is not content you never have to touch again and will always be optimized, because searches change daily. Just because your content is evergreen, that does not mean you don’t need to update it. It just means it can be repurposed over and over to fulfill the needs of your audience.
Example of evergreen content
A good example is common sports injuries for physical therapy evergreen content; if you write about a shoulder injury and a famous baseball star has one, you can post an article about typical recovery times, because that’s what their fans will be searching for.
Best opportunities for evergreen sports content are when local college or major league teams have players that suffer injuries. The location of people searching for physical therapy will be closer to you in proximity and likely will result in more conversions. You can repurpose this for a football shoulder injury, etc. Timing is key on these; the closer you can put them out to when the actual injury occurred, the more traffic you will see and less competition you will have.
Searches change daily, so it’s recommended you create a feedback loop for yourself when updating your content, like the strategies mentioned in this article.
Google Rules for Healthcare Websites
- Beneficial Purpose
- E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), or Page Quality
- YMYL (Your Money or Your Life)
Google ensures all websites follow the rules of the first two above requirements. However, unique to healthcare websites, Google ensures healthcare websites follow the last bullet point, Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) requirements. Meaning, that the information you share could directly impact the reader’s happiness, health, safety, or financial stability if inaccurate information is released. As an attempt to protect readers, healthcare websites have to have more credible links and associations attached to be considered a credible website that Google will serve to its customers.
This is why you need to take extra steps to be seen as credible as a healthcare provider.
Is your Website Credible? Does it utilize backlinks?
If you have been practicing for years in healthcare, it would be disheartening to find out your website has been flagged by Google as a non-credible source and possibly even as a spam website. Unfortunately, if you’re not using backlinks, I can tell you that Google has likely placed your website in this category. Even if you have a few links, you’re not as credible or gaining as much visibility with potential patients as you could be. However, you can not only fix this problem, but show Google you are one of the best options in your city.
HOW do you SHOW GOOGLE YOU HAVE A CREDIBLE WEBSITE?
Google ranks websites based on their trustworthiness and their relevance to the search topic, which is what backlinks help to do. The importance of backlinks is increased with all healthcare companies, because as a website that provides medical advice or suggestions it’s extremely important that your data is seen as credible so it isn’t at risk for being flagged as spam.
WHAT ARE BACKLINKS?
The main categories of backlinks I simplify as ones that tell Google you reference credible sites, and ones that tell Google you are a credible site. Google is unable to infer any context online, you have to link directly to what you’re related to or Google will not put you in those searches.
A reference will show Google you strive to be credible, but if you are deemed credible by an “unbiased” party that has more weight. For example, if the APTA were to post an article you wrote, and you linked to their website, Google would classify you as colleagues and you would be given access to some of their online clout.
HOW TO CREATE A BACKLINK TODAY
You can create a backlink on a high authority site today that allows comments. How? Select a blog article to edit, then source a website with high domain authority related that article. Then, navigate to the website you linked to and comment a link to your blog with some information enticing others to follow for more information on that topic.
I would allow others to do so the same on your website as long as the website is credible and relevant to your business.
Conclusion
To create content that stands out on Google and to potential clients, it’s important to have an optimized article title, meta description, structure, content, backlinks, and that it follows the Google rules for healthcare websites. All of those things are for SEO, but in order to take that extra step to appeal to clients you should also keep your audience and purpose in mind when writing articles.
For more tips follow my blog, or reach out today.
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