MARC FOWLER
WHERE THE PATIENTS ARE
Y
ou’ve no doubt heard the
saying that in retail, location is
everything. Every retailer from
the gas station to Starbucks
wants to be on the busiest
corner in town. The more traffic
going by, the better.
Location is equally important
online. There are certain
websites that receive a
disproportionate share of the
digital “traffic”.
According to SimilarWeb,
the three most visited
websites in the U.S. are
Google, Facebook and
YouTube.
While you can’t improve your
physical location without the
cost and hassle of moving, you
can easily improve your online
location. Here are some tips
for being found by prospective
patients on these high traffic
websites.
As a local business, there are
two primary ways to gain
organic visibility on Google.
First is the Local Pack (red
box). In order to show up in
this section, your Google My
Business (GMB) Listing must
be better optimized than
those of competing practices.
That means completing every
possible section and selecting
the proper category for your
listing, uploading photos and
videos, gathering Google
patient reviews, and having a
comprehensive description.
You’ll find more GMB
optimization tips here.
The second way to show up
in Google is the section below
the Local Pack (black box),
often referred to as the organic
section. Google has over 200
ranking factors that they
evaluate when determining
which websites to list and
where to list them. Reviewing
all of those factors is beyond the
scope of this article. However,
we will touch on a few factors
that have been shown to have
an immediate impact on your
organic rankings.
Two of the most critical factors
include content on your website
(within the code as well as the
text used) and off-site factors
such as inbound links (other
websites pointing to your
website).
When generating results for
search queries, Google attempts
to provide the most relevant
data it can find related to the
search topic the user enters.
Having content that matches the
search query on your page is a
major factor in how your site
appears. If someone searches
for “sleep apnea treatment” and
your website content reflects
that term consistently, then
there is a higher likelihood your
site will appear in the results for
that query.
Inbound links reinforce to
Google that your site contains
valuable content. Basically,
Google’s thinking is that if other
sites refer to your site with a
link, they are endorsing your
content as having value. The
more valuable the content, the
higher your site will rank in
search results. This is a gross
oversimplification, but it gets
the point across - quality copy
and inbound links have a major
impact on how your site appears
in search results.