For health systems and hospital websites, the quality of information and level of optimization of treatment pages is critical in determining ranking for post diagnosis condition keywords.
The fact that authoritative ranking demonstrates a high level of expertise, authority and overall trust in a topic, it is natural that patients will turn to search engines to research potential treatment options after a diagnosis and will assume the higher the ranked organization, the stronger the capabilities and likely success rates of treatment.
This article looks to offer a structure by which heath system websites can structure their treatment pages to maximize their chances of strong ranking versus their local competition.
Rule 1 of any core service page content for healthcare and hospital websites (or any website for that matter) is to ensure that the copy is of the highest quality and is relevant to the audience that consumes it.
It must also be optimized for the intent signals that were shown by the keyword that it was written to rank for.
To do this you should evaluate the SERP that you are hoping to disrupt. If that search result page is showing tons of images or maybe videos, you should be incorporating that into your page as well, because clearly that’s what people are looking for.
Make sure the page has an appropriate variety and frequency of formats other than text. For every 600-800 words there should be one video and one image or infographic. This will break up the monotony of a long read, can help articulate processes or experiences in user friendly and preferential formats and overall will offer a more enjoyable user experience for the audience that consumes it and consequently be more valued in the eyes of search engines like Google.
Host the videos on Youtube and embed the files into your content to save bandwidth that would otherwise weigh on page load times and ensure that all infographics and images are optimized by compressing files and adding title file names, and alt text.
Ok, so now you have the content framework, how do we ensure it is indexed, understood and valued by the crawlers? Below is the fundamentals and pre-requisite inclusions for optimizing your content.
Title tags and meta description are still so important. This is the first impression to many of your visitors on Google. Make Are you enticing a click? Are you making that an enticing call to action to your site?
H1, H2, and H3 header tags are still super important. You want to make sure that the title of your page is the H1 and so forth. But just to check on all of that would be good.
As you work through the 4 line stanza listed above you should find it natural that your H2’s and H3’s will flow into a next logical segment of content so that the natural thought processes and curiosities of a reader are satisfied. Whilst doing this, ensure that you do not use the same keywords over and over again as you proceed through the copy. If there are synonyms or variations of how individuals may think of the content contextually then ensure that you mix in the variations. This will ensure all potential searches are catered for and can be indexed by the crawlers as natural relevant alternatives but also avoid any demotions in value that can occur from perceived over use or repetition in the structure of sub categories of your content.
Education first. When someone lands on your service page from the organic section of the SERP we have to presume this is their first engagement.
They chose your listing over any other option based on intent, trust, and relevance and we must satisfy that need. By educating the visitor on the concept in your own personal style, you can deliver a frequency of keywords inline with the searcher’s query and subsets of it.
The further down the page the visitor travels the more subjective, nuanced and personalized it becomes and with it the fewer impact keywords will have.
Talk about the concept in a fashion that fits that criteria. What it is? What it is not? Where and when it can be found? How it has changed etc. The last focus before transitioning into the next phase is to consider the “why” of the topic or of the visitor’s potential need.
Essentially, you should begin your treatment pages with an education of what the conditions that you treat actually are. This stage should include factual information about any different types of ailment that is being written about, the causes of the complaint, the medical terminology and the layman’s version of it. Treat this section like an FAQ summary and providing the page and website in general is mobile responsive, you can use accordions to minify the broader content behind the question that precedes it.
These help to target featured snippets. So if you’re incorporating some of that, not only do you get the extra traffic, but you find these opportunities of getting featured snippets, which is great. You’re expanding your real estate in search. Awesome. PAA boxes are also a great way to find commonly asked questions for a particular keyword.
The second objective of your treatment pages should be to tell the patient the path to recovery. What does the process look like?
How long will treatment last?
What are the success rates?
Are there alternative treatment options available and if so how do the recovery probabilities compare?
Are their side effects to the treatment?
Does it require remaining at the hospital as an In-Patient or are there Out-Patient options available?
What support is available for patients and their loved ones?
Who are the physicians and support staff in the department and what are their credentials?
Add a summary to simplify the step by step process of receiving the treatment. This serves two purposes:
Does it meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines? Definitely look into that and make sure you check all the boxes.
TF-IDF stands for “term frequency-inverse document frequency.” It sounds a little intimidating. It’s actually pretty simple. What’s the number of times that “chakra stones” is mentioned in this particular page divided by the number of times it’s mentioned anywhere? This is basically just a calculation to determine relevance for the term “chakra stones.” Really cool and commonly used by Google. So if you can do this on your on-page, it will just help you in the long term.
You want to review for freshness. We want to make sure that this is up-to-date content. Maybe take a look at popular content the last year or two of your site and update that stuff. This should be a continual wash and repeat. You want to continue to update the content on your site.
If you need support with your Healthcare SEO campaigns then don’t hesitate to get in touch!
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