Any potential new patients in your area who need a physician will likely search online for doctors in their city. Invest in the best local SEO for physicians to make sure you are visible to these prospects.

Websites for doctors not set up and integrated with the best local search engine optimization for physicians are missing out on a big pool of potential new patients right in their own backyard.

Up to 30% of mobile search users are looking for local businesses, including local physicians and medical providers. 75% of these consumers don’t look past the first page on Google search results.

The best local SEO strategies for physicians help you find these new patients in your area.

What Is Local SEO for Healthcare?

Medical SEO aims to establish and maintain an online presence for your healthcare website so you can show up in search engines, such as Google.

Local SEO for doctors has the same purpose.

However, it includes optimization techniques specifically targeting local consumers close to your business location.

Google, the most popular search engine in the world, looks at three factors to distinguish whether a local search result is acceptable and should be listed and ranked for a relevant search.

These factors help search engines such as Google identify, classify, and rank sites, including websites for doctors and healthcare specialists.

The Pillars of Local SEO for Physicians

Proximity

This factor refers to how close a potential patient searching for your services is to your clinic. Search engines calculate the latitude and longitude of a user’s location and check the distance between the searcher’s exact location and your clinic address.

If someone in Jacksonville, Florida, searches for “family doctors near me,” Google will not show results for family doctors in Columbus, Ohio.

Generally, the closer your medical practice location is to the searcher, the more you will show up on their online search relevant to your medical specialty.

Proximity is one of the more challenging local SEO factors to manage. You will have to ensure that you have an optimized Google My Business listing that accurately shows your medical practice location.

A seasoned local SEO company for healthcare professionals uses specialized techniques such as including localized keyword phrases throughout your medical website to show your precise business location and make it available to local patients.

Prominence

You must establish your medical practice’s popularity online to achieve the best local SEO for physicians. Prominence in local SEO for healthcare is what this factor entails.

Typically, if your medical practice is well-known in your community or local area, it should reflect digitally too. However, professional local SEO specialists for doctors utilize techniques to boost this area if needed. After all, this factor is vital to achieving the best local SEO for physicians.

To increase your medical website’s prominence online, here are the crucial components you need to review.

Backlinks – Also referred to as inbound links, these are the links from other websites going to your own. Google carefully reviews the quality and quantity of your medical website’s backlinks. When Google sees that you have a number of high-quality backlinks, it understands that as a positive signal that shows you are a trustworthy local business and service provider.

Positive Patient Reviews – Gathering positive reviews from new and existing patients is another way search engines determine the prominence and trustworthiness of your medical practice. You can boost your online prominence by having 5-star reviews on popular review sites, including Google Search and Google Maps.

Ultimately, the more positive patient reviews you have, the better your medical practice website will rank in local search results.

On that note, make sure to reply to all patient reviews online – whether it’s a positive or negative reviews.

There are best practices to follow when responding to patient reviews. Keeping an active Google Business profile by replying to patient reviews is an excellent way to maintain your online activity.

Citations – Increasing your citations entails listing your medical practice’s name, clinic address, website, and phone number on as many online business directories as possible.

All your medical office information must be consistent and accurate across all business directories. Each detail should match what is shown in your Google Business listing.

Establishing your citations proves to search engines that your medical practice is a credible business provider and trusted source of information. The best local SEO for physicians includes planning and implementing an efficient citation strategy for your medical practice.

Seasoned local SEO strategists for healthcare will know that this should be done with utmost care and attention to detail to avoid any inaccuracies. Incorrect information about your medical practice in any business directory listing site can hurt your online reputation and negatively impact your Google ranking.

Social Media – Follows, mentions, likes, reviews, and other social media platform activities that search engines can trace back to your medical website can boost your online prominence.

This shows Google that you are an active and well-known entity online.

If your medical practice is not on any one of the popular social media sites and interacting with users regularly, then it’s best to start now. This way, you can build a trustworthy and credible social presence on the web.

Relevance

Google aims to show relevant and valuable results to its users while giving them a positive web browsing experience. Thus, they cautiously look at the content, service, information, design, and development of websites that ensure users’ satisfaction.  

If your medical website accurately shows and lists relevant content and if it’s created to facilitate a positive user experience (responsive design, fast page load times, etc.), you are more likely to show up on the first page of Google.

As such, relevance is one of the essential components of the best local SEO for doctors.

Make sure that your physician website design and content is not too complicated – both for search engines and for potential patients.

Leveraging the Best Local SEO for Physicians

Local SEO for medical practices focuses on targeted and localized searches.

Google and other search engines intently listen when users are looking for products and services locally – and search engines want to quickly give the best relevant search results.

Do potential patients in your community see your medical website when they search for your services online?

When you employ the best local SEO agency for physicians, you can establish a strong online presence to reach more qualified leads within your service areas.