Recently updated: January 4th, 2019
In this current era of go digital, Search Engine Marketing in India is a popular trend irrespective of the business. But, its role in the healthcare sector cannot be rejected. The trend of hospitals providing digital services brings stability to the Indian healthcare sector which is falling short on infrastructure and other resources. Through digital marketing in the healthcare sector brands can easily reach out the patients from remote villages. Blogs, articles and a good market campaign can bring your website in the eyes of your prospective clients.
Before reading on the importance of SEO Marketing in the Healthcare Sector, take a look at some of the essential facts:
These facts are well supported by the quote of John Weston, CMO at Mayo Clinic, said that the “The consumer-to-patient journey is largely a digital journey at their moment of need”. He added further “If I were diagnosed with something tomorrow, one of the first things I would do is go online.”
This eventually takes us to the prime importance of SEO Marketing in Healthcare which is to rank on top in the Google search. Let’s see at some of the other benefits of SEO in the Health Care Sector:
In the era of increasing health awareness, patients want to come well-informed. Around 60 percent of patients research about the website before coming for treatment. In such a scenario, a good website that gives them reliable information that ranks well in the Google search comes as a prime priority. Thus, have a website that offers information about your key services. Talk about your physicians, their qualification, their education, office locations and a photo. Link the names of the physicians to any of their publications or write-ups they might have contributed to.
India is the hub for affordable medical services. Many patients from foreign countries fly to India for getting affordable treatment. This is a great opportunity for medical hospitals to turn them to their customers. For this, SEO has a great role which will help your page rank higher in the Google search. This will eventually bring on more clients and business to you.
A good reputation of the hospital is the prime need for it to attract patients from India as well as abroad. Here, comes the role of digital marketing. Launching positive online marketing campaigns, writing quality blogs, engaging webinars and sprinkling it with the touch of SEO are some of the ways to attract audiences at large. Daily viewers flocking to your Facebook page and liking health related posts will definitely help you create a positive brand image.
SEO marketing along with other tools of Digital Marketing helps you create a long lasting relationships with customers. For instance, take a look at this post of Fortis Healthcare Facebook Page.
“Did you know that men are twice as likely to develop oral cancer than women? There are several causes for oral cancer and we are listing down a few of the high-risk factors.
Visit the nearest Fortis Hospital to seek medical consultation and get yourself screened for oral cancer if any of these risk factors concern you.”
With this example, it is clear that such kind of information will bring the consumer back to the page of Fortis Hospital. This somehow creates an unconscious relationship between the viewer and the brand.
As in my case, I have a very strong association with TOI. My day is not completed seeing the posts from the brand. This sort of association is created between the viewer and the brand through blog posts. This eventually impacts the brand name. Thus, creating an interesting FB page along with well- written blogs and then applying the magic of Search Engine Optimization to it is all you need to create an everlasting bond with the consumer.
Through SEO marketing it is essential that you can reach to a large number of audiences. An informative blog post published on the facebook page can easily inform a person living in a far off village about the risk factors of cancer or other diseases. Thus, publishing of blogs and using SEO services to make sure that they are read is one of the vital tools to educate viewers in villages or small towns.
Cost factor is another reason to go for SEO marketing. It is one of the economical forms of internet marketing strategies. In other forms of internet marketing, you can earn instantly. For instance, through article marketing and other free strategies, the company can earn only for a short run. PPC is another way to bring in quick traffic and business. But, all these strategies are short lasting. SEO is the only way to make a sustainable income in the long run.
With SEO you can expand your customer base targeting even more customer than before. For instance, if 1, 000 visitors come to your website. Think how much possibility you would have to convert it into your customers. Also, multiply this with months and years. This will show the amount of profits generated over the long run. Thus, going for keywords that the patients would use is a great way to come into their searches. For this, you can take help of the keyword planner. It is important to note here that SEO is not a onetime activity. You need to regularly analyze the keyword and update them.
Opting for SEO in the healthcare sector is a great choice because it give more ROI. The results are measurable. Through Google Analytics, you can track the traffic, the increase in rankings and conversions. The amount invested in SEO yields more return when compared to other sort of internet strategy. Thus, opting for Higher ROI is a great alternative. Apart from higher ROI, SEO helps you to make your website more user-friendly. It makes navigation easy helping readers to find information easily. Thus, SEO makes your website more approachable helping the search engines to crawl through your website.
With SEO you can enhance the patient experience increasing their retention rate. Patients can order medicine online and can ask their queries on online chat adding to their experience. Also, patients can book appointments, give feedbacks and read feedbacks of other customers. This eventually reduces cost for every acquisition.
The future of SEO Marketing in India is very vital as India is about to come as a digital leader in the Healthcare sector. India took a resolution in May 2016 and opted for mobile health. This action of India was supported by 30 nations. This clearly shows that the country will be a leader in the health care sector. Even Narendra Modi, India’s honorable Prime Minister gave equal importance to the Digital Health. This change will definitely create a great need for SEO services in the healthcare sector. This will create the need for developing mobile responsive website creating a great need for creating impressive designs. The ranking of the site depends on creating a great design for the website.
We have seen the importance of digital healthcare sector. On Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, Healthcare makes around 70 percent of the share. As far as Google plus and Pinterest is concerned healthcare contributes around 20 percent of the share. This shows how much brands are giving value to content creation and using backlinking to rank at the first page of Google search. SEO Marketing in the Healthcare Sector is very important.
Thus, the creation of a site that is easy to navigate along with interesting blogs is a must to create a reliable patient base.
In the end, SEO Marketing is one tool that will come out as your savior in the world. If you are eyeing a way to convert your leads into prospective customers and that too in the era of digital marketing, then SEO is a must for you. Whether you are a doctor, a medicine supplier or a medical representative SEO is a must for your organization. Your website plays a significant role in attracting more visitors and generating more leads.
However, SEO marketing has many benefits but it offers many challenges as well. There is a privacy concern, issues of intense competition, exploding data volumes, having limited information on the patient, the proliferation of digital channels and social stigma.
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