Almost one-quarter of physicians work a whopping 61-80 hours each week, while the majority of physicians clock-in about 40-60 hours each week.

While being a physician is in itself a ton of work that can only be performed after years of high-level education, running a medical practice puts an additional workload on a doctor's shoulders.

If you're running a medical practice and you're looking for more patients, you're going to want to boost your SEO.

How, though? Let's take a look at nine ways you can use SEO to grow your practice.

1. Publish Consistent, Engaging Content

People are constantly searching the internet for health information. If you just have a website and you're not producing content, you're likely not reaching a ton of potential clients.

Every time you make a blog post or other type of content, you're creating another opportunity for your site to come up in search results. Content isn't just about bringing traffic to your website, though. It's about providing value and building trust with a potential future patient.

2. Acquire Backlinks

One of the things that will improve your medical office SEO is acquiring backlinks. Backlinks are links on other sites that link back to your own website. This is one of the ways you can build the authoritativeness of your site.

One of the most common ways of doing this is through guest posting. This is when you write an article to be posted on the site of a different publication or business. In exchange for the content that you write, you're allowed to link back to your own site within the article or in your author bio.

Be careful if you post your backlink within the article, though. If it isn't in context, you could end up being penalized for your efforts as a result of what is known as "keyword stuffing."

If your guest post is top-notch, you increase the chances that other people will link to it often. Consider including studies, infographics, and original research.

Once your piece has been published, share it on all of your social media channels. This is a great way to maximize the SEO power of guest posts.

3. Use the Right Keywords

Keyword research is a major part of SEO for medical offices, and any other business, for that matter. There are a number of different tools you can use online such as the Google Keyword Planner. They can help you identify the correct keywords you'll want to use on your page.

4. Embrace Local SEO Marketing

When you publish content on the internet, you're entering your article into a global marketplace. While this means you can reach people all over the world, it also means that the competition for certain search rankings is incredibly fierce.

This is a negative for businesses that are online based, but a positive for brick and mortar companies. This goes for your medical practice as well.

There is far less competition locally than there is globally. You want to take advantage of this by targeting your website toward people who live locally to your practice.

5. Pay Attention to Your Reviews

Your reviews are incredibly important for your SEO score. This includes Facebook, Google, and Yelp reviews. The number of positive reviews and the frequency of these reviews will lead Google to give your site "blog credit."

Reviews from other more specific medical practice review sites don't carry the same weight as far as your search ranking according to Google. This means that you'll want to focus your reputation management tactics on these platforms.

6. Make a Google My Business Page

This is one of the easiest things you can do to grow your practice with SEO. Claiming your Google My Business page is free and does wonders for your SEO.

Here you'll be able to list your practice name, phone number, hours, and location. It will pop up on the right-hand side of the Google search page when people search for your practice.

7. Make Sure You're Site Is Optimized For Mobile

Your website needs to be optimized for mobile if you want to rank high on Google search results. More and more people use their smartphones to browse the internet every year, and if your site isn't formatted correctly for mobile devices, people will likely bounce off your site.

On top of the impact not having a mobile-friendly site has on your organic search traffic, it can also hurt your standing in the eyes of Google. When your competitors optimize their sites for mobile and you don't, they're going to rank above you.

8. Check-In With Your Successful Competition

There's no reason to reinvent the wheel. Take a look at people who rank highly in your profession and what keywords they're ranking for. Use this information to adjust your own digital marketing strategy.

9. Consider Hiring Pros

Let's face it: you're busy. Running a medical practice is no easy feat. When it comes down to it, making sure your site is ranking as high as possible, it's practically a full-time job.

If you really want to optimize your SEO, consider hiring a digital marketing agency. They'll be able to focus on your search ranking while you can focus on what matters most: your patients and your practice.

SEO For Doctors: Let Us Help You!

At BitBranding, we can help you target the right people in the right place so that you can grow your business. Contact us today to discuss how we use digital marketing strategies and SEO for doctors and other businesses to grow traffic to your site and therefore your practice.

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