Best Dermatology SEO Tips You Will Read in 2022 and 8 Useful Resources
Understand the principles of local and global SEO, and implement these learnings into your digital marketing plan to attract more patients to your private practice.
Author: Jennifer Highland, Content Manager of Miiskin | Reviewed by: Slavica Nikolić, SEO Specialist of Miiskin
Covered in this article:
What is SEO | Local SEO | Google Local Pack | Citations | Google Business Reviews | Managing Reviews | Global SEO | Content Creation | Content Types | Tools | Leads
Digital Marketing is essential to your clinic’s growth, and two of the most important parts of digital marketing are SEO-optimized content and digital advertising. So, what is SEO (search engine optimization)? SEO helps search engines understand and present content. Optimized content knows how to speak to search engines, which among other things, consists of using keywords, understanding and addressing the user’s intent, providing valuable information, and including trustworthy links. The better the content is, the more valuable it will be — and that value is how the search engine decides what to present to users.
Dermatology SEO: Global vs. Local SEO
Traditional SEO focuses on improving a website’s visibility on a global scale, while local SEO has a strict location-based focus.
While SEO and local SEO use many of the same strategies, there are some differences that you should know.
Local SEO primarily relies on online directories, listings, and social media profiles other than your website, while global SEO focuses on creating valuable and quality content for your website.
Local SEO – The Most Important Type of SEO for Dermatologists
Local SEO is the most critical type of SEO for Private Dermatology Practices, whether they have one or multiple locations.
So, why is local SEO so important?
Google is localizing results as much as possible, especially for mobile devices, because they are tied to a particular geographical area.
A report from Hitwise reveals that mobile searches in the U.S. are roughly 58% of the overall search volume1.
For many search terms, people are looking for a local service. For example, the majority of people in Minneapolis, when searching for a dermatology clinic, the first search term they will use is “Dermatologist Near Me” or “Dermatology Clinic Near Me.” After this result, the following search query will be “Dermatologist in Minneapolis.”
The first and most important step for local SEO and building a solid online presence for your dermatology clinic is to open or claim your Google Business Profile and create a profile in several local listings.
Consistent and accurate local listings are factors search engines consider when determining what sites to show in search results. Why? Because they want to provide searchers with the most accurate information. If your dermatology clinic presents a consistent presence across multiple company listings, it will begin to appear in local searches.
The most important elements where consistency is essential are:
Advanced medical and cosmetic dermatology treatment offering patient-centric healthcare delivery.
- Clinic’s Name
- Address
- Phone number
- Website
- Opening hours
Being consistent means that these elements are always exactly presented the same way across multiple listings.
Example of Local SEO NAP (Name, Address, and Phone) Consistency
Do not write your address as 400 Main Street, Suite 3, Minneapolis, MN 55455 on your website and 400 Main St, Suite 215, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55405 in your Google Business Profile.
Google Business Profile allows you to link to your clinic’s website, social media profiles, and patient reviews. It also allows you to create business tags with valuable keywords so potential patients can find you.
For example, the tags that you would like to include in your dermatology clinic would be:
- Medical Dermatology
- Cosmetic Dermatology
- Hairloss
- Acne treatment, etc.
Your Google Business Profile could potentially become the primary source of the traffic to your website and your clinic, thanks to the Google Local Pack given to everyone searching for a local business.
Resource 2: Local SEO Checklist
What is the Google Local Pack?
The Google Local Pack appears at the top of the search engine results when a person makes a search query with local intent; it is sometimes referred to as the Local 3 Pack, the Google 3 pack, or the Google Map Pack.
When Google gives a Local Pack to a person conducting a local search, it depends on the business’s relevance, distance, and prominence.
In the digital world, real-world people, places, and companies are represented by digital entities. For example, you and your dermatology clinic do not exist in the digital world. Still, by creating profiles on Google, Facebook, and all other social media channels, these “virtual entities” are used by search engines to understand what your business is, what products or services it offers, and who could be interested in your product offering.
A few essential things to appear on the Google Local Pack are:
- Consistency across your online presence
- Business Citations
- Business Reviews on your Google Business Profile
What Are Local Business Citations?
Local Business Citations also referred to as Citations, are a mention of your clinic’s name across the web, even if those mentions (or citations) are not linked directly to your website.
For example, if people talk about specific treatments received and mention your clinic by name, these are called citations. If a patient received outstanding care and says your clinic’s name and a staff member by name, this is also a citation. These citations and keywords give search engines context to make your clinic trustworthy.
Managing local citations can take a lot of work — but there are some local citation tools you can use to save time and effort. These two tools are affordable and work well for small businesses.
Resource 3:
BrightLocal SEO Academy
What Are Google Business Reviews?
Google reviews help your business stand out. They provide potential customers (in this case, patients) with helpful information about your business. They appear next to your Business Profile in Maps and Search.
Google Reviews will consider the review quality, score, and keywords within the review text.
The more reviews you have, search engines rank you higher because they will get more opportunities to understand the data.
Customer reviews are an integral part of any business; unfortunately, many medical practice owners do not know how to handle or respond to negative reviews.
Tips to Respond to Patient Reviews Online
- Be consistent and brief – Create a concise template to respond to online reviews. Designate the person that will respond to reviews and a time to do so.
- Offer to solve the problem – This action indicates to other Google users that you provide excellent customer service.
- Apologize and move on – If someone has a poor experience, abstain from defending yourself or your staff. Apologize for the poor experience, express your wish to do better in the future, and move on.
- Do not dismiss negative feedback – Refrain from dismissing negative feedback, especially if you receive it more than once. It is essential to listen to feedback, whether it is positive or negative.
- Thank your patients – Remember to thank your patients every time they write a positive review. Draft a quick, customizable response that you can use each time.
Resource 4:
Software to manage local SEO and citations and reviews
Whitespark
or
BrightLocal
Global SEO for Dermatologists
Writing search-engine-optimized (SEO) content that resonates with your audience is an excellent way of attracting patients to your dermatology practice.
Remember that well-optimized content is written for humans, not search engines.
Create unique, high-quality, helpful content that will help your readers.
Write content for humans, and optimize it for search engines.
Website content is any textual, aural, or visual content published on a website, created to drive traffic, generate new leads, promote your brand, etc.
SEO-optimized content is content created to target specific search keywords to attract organic traffic from search engines.
There are different types of web content: website copy, blogs, case studies, ebooks, white papers, videos, images, audio, animations, etc.
Company blogs are one of the most popular content types. Although company blogs are very effective, they require a lot of time and tremendous effort if done correctly.
Most companies with successful websites have small teams consisting of a content writer, an SEO specialist, a graphic designer, and sometimes a web manager.
That being said, it doesn’t mean you can’t produce quality content; you need to commit to doing it right, which means following the steps listed below for every piece of content you decide to publish.
Steps to Write a Search-Engine Optimized Content
- Build Expertise, Authority and Trust (E-A-T) on your website to boost SEO
- Choose a topic (dermatologist/physician)
- Do keyword research on the topic to find the related keywords (SEO specialist)
- Check the top-performing results that rank on the search engines for related keywords (Content writer/SEO specialist)
- Create a content layout to improve the existing content found on the web (Content writer)
- Write the first draft of the content following the proposed layout (Content writer)
- Optimize content for search engines (SEO specialist)
- Review the piece to ensure it is medically correct (physician)
- Get multimedia visuals to accompany the content (images, videos, infographics) (Graphic designer)
- Publish content on your website (Content writer/Web manager)
- Share your content on social media
- Build links
- Analyze your results
Writing unique and quality content that ranks well and satisfies users and search engines is a lot of work. But one good article ranked high is much better than ten blog posts with great advice that nobody can find or read because they are not optimized, easy to read, and understand.
It is better to write a few evergreen content pieces that rank high in Google than 20 blog posts without good SEO work2.
Keyword Research Steps
Choosing the right keywords will help you produce unique and quality content with excellent potential to attract new patients through organic search traffic.
1. Check the traffic potential
If a keyword doesn’t have a traffic potential (no one is searching for it), it won’t bring you any traffic.
2. Check the search intent behind the keyword
Checking the keyword intent is important to create content that matches the intent behind the user’s search
- Educational (a user wants to learn something)
- Transactional (a user wants to buy something)
- Navigational (a user wants to find a specific website, service, or brand)
3. Check the keyword difficulty
Anyone can rank for any keyword with the right effort.
But, some keywords are harder to rank for than others. Some keywords need more effort to start ranking. That is why you should check the keyword difficulty before you choose to target it.
Example:
Let’s say you have decided to write an article about skincare routine.
If you log in to a keyword tool such as SEMRush, you can see that this keyword has a high volume of 22,000 searches in the U.S. per month, which is good, but a keyword difficulty of 95, which is practically impossible to rank for.
The same happens with the following keywords: skin care routine steps and best skin care routine.
However, if you keep scrolling down, you can see that the term best skin care routine for oily skin still has a decent volume of 590 searches per month and a keyword difficulty of 48, which means you have a higher possibility to rank for.
If you continue scrolling down, you can also see that the keyword “body skincare routine” still has a decent volume of searches of 390 and a keyword difficulty of 34. The recommendation, in this case, would be to choose this as the topic for your blog post.
Choosing keywords summary
- Traffic potential is high
- The content aligns with search intent
- You have a chance to start ranking
Remember to choose a “catchy title” to attract potential readers, for example, Ten Reasons Why You Should Invest In a Body Skin Care Routine.
Resource 6:
Keyword research tools SEMRush,
Ahrefs
,
Keyword Planner
Resource 7:
FREE title generator
SEO Pressor
Creating Engaging and Powerful Content for your Medical Practice
It can be hard to think of topics people would like to read about. We have created six topic examples so you can get started straight away.
Dermatology Topics to Potentially Drive Organic Traffic to Your Website
- Product, service, and price comparisons – What is the Best Treatment to Reduce Cellulite? – Comparison of the Different Technologies
- Problem-solving: 7 Easy Tips to Reduce the Oily Appearance in your Face this Summer
- Best Product Listing: Top 5 Face-Wash Products for Sensitive Skin
- Expert Advice: Using sunscreen during the winter reduces the chances of premature aging
- Frequently Asked Questions: Your patients probably ask the same questions repeatedly. Why not produce a content piece that allows them to educate themselves?
- Good-fit and bad-fit prospects: Who can benefit from a professional chemical peel (for example, patients with scars from acne), and who can use off-the-shelf products?
Content Formats for a Diverse Digital Marketing Strategy
These days, content can be presented in many shapes and forms. For example, you can write a blog post about a topic and then re-purpose that content into a short video where you briefly talk about the topic, or you can make an infographic.
Although there are many formats to create content, in this article, we will focus on the content formats that we believe can be used by small private practices to attract new patients.
- Blog articles
- Customer Stories/Testimonials
- Short videos
- Infographics
- Slide presentations
- Quizzes and surveys
Resource 8:
Tools to Create Engaging Content
Easy video editors: Vimeo Create, iMovies, and Inshot
Easy design tools: Canva and Piktochart
Photo editing: Colorcinch and Pixlr
Digital engagement (quizzes, calculators, surveys): Outgrow
Use Miiskin Pro to Capture the Leads You Attract With Your SEO Efforts
After attracting new potential patients to your dermatology clinic’s website with your SEO Strategy and the PPC campaigns for your dermatology clinic; it is important to ensure you can deliver care to all these patients in a timely and cost-efficient way. That is where Miiskin PRO comes in very handy.
Miiskin PRO is a digital health solution for dermatologists that helps you deliver care to more patients without working more; it reduces waiting times and no-shows; it automates patient intake, payments, and prescription renewals; and it generates a new revenue stream for your clinic.
Besides helping you improve the patient experience, the Miiskin website widget is also a great way to attract more patients to your clinic.
Once your patients are on your website, they will see the Miiskin widget, download the free Miiskin app, connect to your clinic and request a consultation.
After reviewing the case, you can deliver treatment virtually, renew their prescription or schedule a follow-up appointment.
Miiskin PRO makes it easy to turn website visitors into patients, and the best thing is that in most U.S. states, store-and-forward teledermatology is reimbursable at a comparable rate than face to face consultations.
Conclusion
SEO is not an “overnight success.” Following these tips will not skyrocket your website the next day. Search engine optimization takes time, effort, and resources. The more complex the challenges, the more likely it will take longer to see real improvements and results. And the results also depend on other so-called ranking factors3.
Despite all the effort you need to invest, the results that SEO will bring to your dermatology practice will be reliable and long-lasting.
References:
1https://searchengineland.com/report-nearly-60-percent-searches-now-mobile-devices-255025
2https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/the-beginners-guide-to-evergreen-content
3https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/google-ranking-algorithm-infographic