A 5-Minute SEO Guide for Medical Professionals"
For medical professionals and practice leaders, SEO may seem complex, but it’s essential for increasing your practice’s online visibility. This article breaks down SEO to the basics, equipping you with the knowledge to make informed decisions whenever the topic arises.
Let’s get started with the basics. SEO (search engine optimisation) is simply the process of enhancing your website, to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business.
In order to understand SEO, you first need to first understand the basics of how search engines function. If you envision the internet as vast library of content, consisting of billions of documents ready to be explored, you start to grasp the challenge facing search engines like Google. Their task is to determine which document to present in response to a given query. Now, picture every website as a book stored in that library. Among the billions of volumes, exists a wide spectrum of quality. Some are masterfully written, others fall short, and many are mere replicas of existing works. It’s a diverse collection, encompassing a range of reading levels and standards.
Search engines employ sophisticated algorithms to assess the value and relevance of each ‘book’ (or webpage) in their vast ‘library’ (the internet). These algorithms consider thousands of signals or factors. Each signal helps the search engine determine the most relevant and valuable pages to display in response to a user’s query.
Two of the most important takeaways from this article is that search engines strive to provide results that are:
1)Delivering the best possible answer based on the user’s intent, ensuring the best match for a search query. The best response might vary, from a table, image, or an in depth academic explanation or a concise, quick answer.
2) From an accurate and from a trustworthy source, especially crucial in professional sectors where topics affecting people’s finances and health are rigorously scrutinised
Reflect on your website or ‘book’. Can a search engine recognise your content as the top choice for relevant searches? Does it confirm your expertise and authoritativeness in the subject? For instance, if you have a page on ‘rhinoplasty’, what proof does the search engine have of your expertise? Beyond your name and credentials, do you offer additional content, such as before-and-after photos and detailed information, to showcase your knowledge in this area?
If the book’s author is unknown, much of its content is missing or copied, and its tone, structure, and style vary widely, it likely won’t be considered as a reliable source for the information it claims to provide.
SEO is fundamentally about making sure your ‘book’ is highly relevant when a search engine looks for the answer to a question from its user. As the content provider, you need to ensure your offering is easy to access, credible, and well-suited to the users’ needs.
In the past, the approach to SEO was quite different. It primarily focuses on manipulating search engines to perceive your content or website as highly relevant. This involved creating content rich with keywords and obtaining external references or backlinks from other websites, which acted as endorsements. These strategies were aimed at convincing search engines that your website was both relevant and a popular reference source.
Over time, search engines have become much better at understanding the true value of documents online. This has changed the game for SEO. Collaborating with search engines is now the only option for sustainable results.
You might also wonder why SEO professionals didn’t originally align their strategies with the search engines needs?
The truth is, many tried and were unsuccessful in achieving results. Up until very recently, high-quality content often didn’t achieve the desired outcomes, as manipulation techniques proved more effective. Doing things the right way wasn’t as rewarding, but the games changed a lot since.
Creating content that search engines would deem to be a good reference point for search queries, demands considerable strategic thought and time. SEO practitioners weren’t required to think like strategic content editors; their skill lay in creative problem-solving outside conventional norms. Today’s top performers in SEO often resemble senior content editors more than what we traditionally envision as SEO specialists. This explains why many sites that don’t appear optimised, rank highly in search results today. When you examine these sites more closely, you’ll discover the secret to ranking high lies in their content strategy.
What's the secret content strategy?
The shortest answer is – A successful content strategy lies firstly in populating your website with sufficient, relevant material that showcases your expertise in your field. For instance, if the topic is tooth extractions, your site should feature comprehensive content that confirms your authority in dental care, and more specifically, tooth extractions.
Secondly, it’s key to establish the credibility of the author writing the content, enabling search engines to recognise and trust that the information comes from a qualified professional.
When you’re next wondering why a competitor ranks so well, take a closer look at their website’s content for the relevant topic. You’ll likely discover a variety of content tailored to their target keyword, including supplementary pages, images, videos, and more.
The challenge that lies ahead is to align our idea of great content with what search engines value. Understanding how to make your content relevant for your audience while at the same time demonstrating you’re an authority in this field, is key to effectively crafting your content strategy. This shift in perspective is essential for SEO success now and into the future.
Strategies for Success in SEO for 2024
We’ve discussed search engines and content, but SEO also involves technical aspects and link building, which are other signals SEO’s believe are important to rank better. Next, we’ll use an analogy to explain how content, technical SEO, and link building integrate in SEO, and what you really need to focus on and why.
Let’s now start to think of SEO in terms of a car comprising a physical body, an engine, and a fuel tank.
The Body: This corresponds to the content on your website; it’s what users see.
The Engine: Similar to a car, this represents the technical setup of your website -how well it runs.
The Fuel Tank: Relates to how many other websites reference your site (links to your website).
All three factors contribute to how well your site ranks. The questions essential to understand are: How are these factors weighed in importance? Where should you be directing your investments?
Where to start investing in SEO?
Let’s start with the body—The Content.
In 2024, we strongly advocate that content is the most crucial investment area. Almost every successful practice online has made a conscious effort to invest in content at some point. When executed correctly, you’re building an asset that can deliver almost immediate results.
Getting the strategy right is critical. The goal is to persuade search engines, such as Google, that your website is the primary source on the internet for numerous topics within your sector. When done correctly, mastering how to approach the strategy and connect the dots is the real heavy work here.
Haphazardly creating articles about services in your sector will likely yield little success, but once you get the formula right, you will start to dominate search engine rankings with minimal or no reliance on link development. (investment in the fuel tank).
Next, Let’s Discuss Link Building – The Fuel Tank.
Link building is the process of acquiring external links to your website, signaling to search engines that your site is referenced by others and therefore significant.
This is an area of SEO which often incurs substantial costs for many businesses, often with uncertain or sustainable returns. It’s intriguing how many people understand that building links to your website can boost its rankings. It was considered one of the strongest signals to convince a search engine to boost your rankings, but reality is, the game is up.
Over time, search engines like Google have reduced their reliance on external links as a primary ranking signal, becoming more adept at analysing content and identifying hundreds of other, more reliable signals to determine website rankings.
Take a quick look at your inbox or spam folder—link selling offers are everywhere. It’s the SEO equivalent of a chocolate bar that promises weight loss. While developing high-quality and relevant links can still offer some benefits, allocating your marketing budget towards content creation is a sustainable investment.
In the past, many small to medium businesses found success in link building, but the landscape has changed. Today, buying links is gambling with your site’s health, overlooking opportunities to invest in areas that offer genuine returns.
Finally, let’s discuss Technical SEO – The Engine.
Unless you’re a major corporation or your website is poorly constructed, investing excessive time in technical SEO will likely lead to little growth. That’s a controversial point, but it comes with years of experience and millions of dollars of budget spent into tech SEO.
Technical SEO ensures search engines can access (crawl) your website and comprehend your content. Most modern content management systems, such as WordPress or WIX, handle about 95% of that necessary technical work. Anything on top to further assist search engines in reading and understanding your content, doesn’t need to be extensively maintained once it’s done.
Search engines have evolved to identify and navigate thorough ‘technical issues’. If a site presents significant problems, it might encounter issues, but the situation needs to be quite severe before it starts to hinder ranking performance. Take into account that likely 99% of sites on the internet are not technically optimised, so it wouldn’t make sense for search engines to rank sites solely on the fact they meet high technical standards. If the content is relevant and meets the users needs, this would be their first priority. Maintaining a good standing with search engines through content richness and a positive reputation almost always takes precedence.
For smaller sites, incorporating some technical improvements to enhance search engines’ understanding of your content can be advantageous. Nevertheless, such enhancements should ideally constitute no more than 10% of your overall investment if necessary.
In Conclusion
Focus your investments where you can add genuine value, namely in content. Good content is easily promotable, and concerns about links diminish with effective promotion. Ultimately, you’ll have a content-rich site you own, serving a purpose for many years. It’s often described as investing in bricks and mortar.
Link building and technical SEO can be more abstract, often taking the lion’s share of your budget, and rarely yield the results as a good content strategy. Focus on what you can assess without technical knowledge, which is content on a subject matter you’re likely to be the expert on. Get this right, and you will reap the rewards for many years to come.
