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You can boost rankings with medical SEO content

Create better healthcare SEO content

Medical search engine optimisation (SEO) is a vital part of digital marketing and investing in content is arguably the most effective strategy to achieve it. Medical SEO involves a range of activities, including healthcare website optimisation and creating new, original and authentic content to improve its visibility on search engines. The immediate result of SEO is greater visibility and an increase in web traffic. Over time you can establish your organisation as an authority with clinicians, patients, providers and the public. 

At 42group, we recommend medical companies and healthcare organisations take a content-first approach to SEO. While it’s important to manage the technical aspects of SEO, content can help you build human connections that power your success.

In this guide to medical SEO content, we explore the fundamentals of medical SEO – including understanding its importance, key principles, content types, writing styles and SEO strategies – to help you understand its critical importance in improving your business.

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Understanding medical SEO

So, what is medical SEO?

SEO is the process of improving your online presence to increase visibility and improve rankings in search engines including Google and Bing (but mostly Google, for obvious reasons). There are tried and tested ways to achieve this (link building, onsite optimisation, content creation, etc.) which are effective – but they may not be suitable for healthcare organisations and medical providers.

Medical SEO goes beyond basic SEO practices and focuses specifically on the unique needs and demands of patients and providers while being cognisant of the regulations and constraints of communications in the healthcare industry.

Successful healthcare and medical SEO involves taking a strategic approach to creating that medical content that is discoverable, credible and relevant to both search engines and end users.

How can you achieve that? We’re going to show you…

Medical SEO target setting – What do you want to achieve?

Investing in SEO is typically driven by a leader wanting to see their website rise through the rankings and achieve a coveted top spot. But SEO can achieve much more than that. By defining your key aims you can develop an SEO strategy and content work plan that can help you achieve it. 

Some of the potential positive impacts SEO and content can have on your organisation are:

  • Increase visibility: Let’s start at what most people consider to be the sole purpose of SEO: getting a top ranking. SEO and content can help to improve the online presence of your medical practice or healthcare organisation by appearing at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). This greater visibility inevitably leads to higher website traffic which means more potential patients finding your service, treatment or solution. The key to success is understanding who your audiences are, the search terms they’re using today and will use tomorrow, and how you can target these through content.
  • Build credibility and trust: SEO can help to establish your healthcare brand as a trustworthy source of medical information for patients, clinicians and providers. Search engines like Google rank websites based on their relevance and credibility – and that’s where content can have the biggest impact. By following best SEO practices and creating high-quality content, you can improve your site’s authority and trustworthiness. This has a positive impact and reassures patients that they are accessing reliable health information.
  • Inform, engage and retain patients: Creating valuable content builds relationships between your brand and your audience, keeping visitors engaged and encouraging them to return. We know from our own experiences that engaging content that addresses common health concerns and questions can play a part in building a loyal patient base. Because patient knowledge levels, awareness and interest change you’ll need to monitor user engagement metrics to help you refine your content strategy to better meet patient needs.
  • Drive conversions: Content is often considered passive, but it doesn’t need to be. Content can be used to encourage visitors to take specific actions, like booking an appointment, requesting information or subscribing to a newsletter. This is where SEO and digital marketing can blur as effective SEO content guides users smoothly from discovery to conversion. Every health website should have clear calls to action (CTAs), optimised landing pages and a user-friendly website design as part of a conversion-driven SEO strategy. Again, tracking conversion rates and using analytics to understand user behaviour enables you to optimise the process and make iterative improvements.

Identifying your audience

Everything to do with SEO begins and ends with your audience. Every decision you make, the content pieces you create (or commission, post and promote must deliver for your audience.

Keeping that in mind, it’s clear that identifying and understanding your audience is crucial for effective medical SEO. Here are some of the groups you’ll want to investigate and understand:

  1. Patients: Patients use the internet to search for information about symptoms, treatments, healthcare conditions and healthcare providers. They want clear, accessible, and trustworthy information from sources that they can have faith in. We recommend sketching out a persona for each patient type, using these to explore their pain points, content preferences, personal problems and preferred channels. This can influence your keyword identification approach, using tools to help you find the terms they’re using. When you know your audience, optimising content to address common queries can help attract and engage this audience.
  2. Healthcare professionals: Healthcare professionals are time-poor and motivated searchers. They want detailed and evidence-based information to support their clinical decisions. We can assume that they want precise, data-driven content that reflects the latest research and clinical guidelines. Similar to our recommendation above, optimising content with relevant keywords and ensuring it is accessible through professional networks can create connections with this audience. When writing for professionals, including detailed references, clinical studies and expert opinions can enhance credibility. When it comes to content, you’re going to need to invest in   resources like white papers, clinical guidelines and continuing education materials that can add significant value. 
  3. Caregivers: Caregivers do an incredibly valuable job and are likely to be looking for practical advice on managing patient care. They prioritise straightforward, actionable information that helps them effectively support their loved ones. Optimising content to address the specific needs and challenges of caregivers can help attract this audience, creating content that’s designed to answer their questions and deal with their concerns. Content like checklists, how-to articles and resources on managing stress and self-care can be particularly helpful – as well as picking up traffic. 
  4. C-Suite & Policymakers: Medical organisations may want to influence key stakeholders including C-Suite execs and policymakers. They want concise and evidence-based content that highlights the implications of medical research and practices. This group makes decisions that impact public health, so your content should inform and influence these decisions by dealing with their pain points in a rational way. Content that summarises key research findings and their potential policy implications can provide valuable insights, for example.

Key principles of medical SEO

Medical SEO is a complex and challenging area to work in. (We should say we’re not a technical SEO agency so we don’t deal with elements like website speed and performance, but we can support you to find a suitable one.) Here are some basic healthcare SEO content principles to help guide your approach to creating and optimising content that ranks well and meets user needs.

  1. Keyword research: We said it begins with the audience and it’s true. SEO is based on the identification and understanding of relevant keywords and phrases that your target audience is likely to search for. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush to find high-volume, low-competition keywords. Don’t just look for the “what” try to understand the “why”. Why are people searching for specific content and how can you leverage this to your advantage? Understanding search intent behind these keywords helps you create content that meets the needs and interests of your audience today and in the future. When it comes to keywords, including a mix of short-tail and long-tail variations can help capture a broader range of search queries. Search changes rapidly, so regularly updating and refreshing your keyword list based on current trends and search behaviours is also important for maintaining effective SEO.
  2. Quality content: We’re a content agency so it’s no surprise to hear us say that high-quality content is essential for SEO. But it is. Stats and evidence show that search engines favour content that is informative, well-written, and valuable to your audience. Naturally, ensuring your content is accurate, up-to-date and thoroughly researched enhances its quality and relevance. We’re not going to go too far into the details, but search engines want content that’s original, authentic and authoritative. Show leadership, knowledge and understanding and your content will rank well. Trust us, we know it works.
  3. On-page SEO: We’re not going to get too technical, but on-page SEO involves optimising individual web pages to improve their search engine rankings. Key on-page elements include title tags, meta descriptions, headers, and image alt text – all of which you can edit and improve simply enough. While they’re short snippets, ensuring these elements are optimised with relevant keywords and provide a clear, concise description of the content can improve your site’s visibility. Other tricks include using internal links to connect related content on your site can also enhance SEO. How? By helping search engines understand the structure and relevance of your content it improves its ranking.
  4. Technical SEO: This isn’t something we at 42group do, but technical SEO focuses on the backend elements of your website that affect its performance and search engine rankings. Key technical SEO factors include site speed, mobile-friendliness, and secure connections (HTTPS). It’s also about improving user experience. At a minimum, ensuring your website loads quickly and is easy to navigate on all devices (including mobiles) enhances user experience and SEO performance. You need a process (or a provider) to regularly audit your site for technical issues and fix them as soon as they are identified.
  5. Link building & social promo: Link building is the dark art of SEO. When it comes to medical SEO, we advise you against buying likes to boost your sites. Instead, aim to earn them through organic link-building. How? Social posting and content distribution are critical. This is a big topic, so we’ll save it for a future post.

Content types for effective medical SEO

Content can come in various types, including blogs, patient education materials, long-form content (whitepapers, opinion pieces, etc.), landing pages and multimedia content like videos and animations. Commissioning and creating content should be done according to a strategy that’s been based on audience insights and keyword information to drive engagement.

Understanding some of the different types of content can help you tailor your approach and maximise the impact of your SEO content budgets:

  1. Blog posts: Blog posts are the engine room of your SEO efforts. Regularly written, updated and optimised blogs can play a hugely beneficial role in your SEO strategy. Blogs can – and should – cover everything that’s relevant to your audience, including health tips, treatment options, patient stories, new research, company developments. and more. Regularly publishing blog posts helps keep your website fresh and can attract more visitors. Including keywords naturally within the content and providing valuable, actionable information can enhance your blog’s SEO performance – as well as encouraging social shares that can boost reach. Content length is always a tricky question. We recommend when writing on competitive terms (like medical SEO) focus on detailed long-form posts (like this one) where you can get into the details. But for search terms with lower competition, you may be able to achieve the same ranking results with shorter posts.
  2. Patient education materials: Patient-focused content like brochures, pamphlets, and website content, explaining medical conditions, treatments, and healthy living tips can have an impact on search engine performance. To cut through, they should be written clearly and engagingly to help patients understand complex medical information. As well as written words, including visuals like diagrams, illustrations, and infographics can enhance understanding and retention for all audiences.  One of the most effective SEO strategies for this group involves directly addressing common questions and concerns. Reflecting the language used by patients (and others searching for information about conditions) can When they land on your page, offering practical tips and actionable advice empowers patients to take an active role in their health management. It’s content they’re more likely to share and personally promote.
  3. Healthcare provider resources: Targeting content at providers, stakeholders and policy makers can support SEO efforts. Resources such as white papers, journal articles, and clinical study reports provide detailed, research-based information that they’re searching for. As befits the audience, this content should be highly accurate and well-researched, reflecting the latest scientific findings and clinical guidelines and including references.
  4. Local landing pages: These pages are specifically designed to attract patients searching for healthcare services in your geographic area or for your specific condition, treatment or service. Landing pages will have a single focus keyword and push for a single action you want visitors to perform. Landing pages can be ultra-precise and personalised.
  5. Video content: Video content isn’t SEO, right? Video (films and animations) can be effective tools for medical SEO. For example, videos can be used to explain medical procedures, provide health tips, and share patient testimonials. Including transcripts and subtitles can make your videos more accessible and improve SEO performance as Google can read these and will index them. Of course, sharing videos on social media and embedding them in blog posts and landing pages can increase their reach and impact – which can have an overall boost to SEO.

Medical SEO content writing recommendations

42group is one of the UK’s leading medical SEO content writing businesses. While we’re not willing to give away all our secrets (sorry) here are some of the principles you should apply to medical SEO content to deliver an impact.

  1. Concise and direct: When writing about healthcare, avoid unnecessary words and get straight to the point. As consumers and readers we all know that concise writing ensures that the message is easily understood and retains our attention. Breaking down complex information into simple, digestible parts makes it more accessible – even for highly educated and informed audiences. It can be beneficial to use bullet points and lists to organise information, making it easier to follow.
  2. Formal and professional tone of voice: Levity may work in the commercial world, but try to maintain a professional tone, especially when writing for clinicians, providers, executives and policymakers. This ensures your content is taken seriously and considered credible – something not all brands get right. Avoid using slang or colloquial language, and ensure that all medical terminology is used correctly and appropriately and that all claims are referenced. Basically, using a formal and professional tone reinforces your credibility and reliability and bills authority which can boost SEO.
  3. Engaging and relatable: When writing for patients and caregivers, you are free to adopt a more engaging and relatable tone. Using analogies, metaphors, and real-world examples are effective techniques that can make complex concepts more understandable. We find that storytelling techniques can be used to make content more compelling and memorable. It’s powerful to address the reader directly to create a personal connection. Don’t push it too far and try to be funny as this rarely works for any brand (and certainly not those in the health and wellbeing sectors).
  4. Be clear and precise: Use clear and precise language to avoid misunderstandings, especially when dealing with challenging subjects. Be sure to define any technical terms and provide explanations for complex concepts as well as links to relevant sources (like the NHS) that can improve understanding. 
  5. Stay objective and balanced: Present information objectively and avoid bias, or include any claims that could be considered false or misleading A balanced approach enhances credibility and trustworthiness, building authority with your audience. As we’ve explained above, avoiding sensationalism and exaggeration will maintain the integrity and reliability of your content. It’s all about being transparent to build trust.

Medical SEO to power growth

Medical SEO isn’t easy – but with a clear strategy, a deep understanding of your audience and a commitment to creating great content you can quickly make big improvements to your ranking and performance.

This guide is almost 3,000 words and barely scratches the surface of SEO. If you want to go deeper into how content can help you create human connections with patients, clinicians, healthcare providers and key stakeholders, get in touch today.

Want to chat with a medical content expert?

at 42group, we’re always ready and waiting to chat about how content (crated by humans, not AI) help you achieve your goals. If you’ve got a project you want to discuss, contact us today. We’ll get back to you within 1 hour.

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