Improve Website Ranking With Coronavirus-related Content

Today, with the outbreak of COVID-19, there is a surge in the number of queries people have about the virus. So, you can develop content related to such possible queries and get people to your website. However, that content must be optimized to appeal to search engines.  Search engine optimization or SEO for surgeons has become an important healthcare marketing strategy to ensure your medical website is visible to patients looking for your services. Search engine optimization involves the use of a set of techniques that can improve your website’s search engine ranking and bring more targeted visitors to your website. The ultimate goal of SEO is to funnel prospective patients to your medical website and improve your healthcare business. 

Informative health-related content is vital in any medical website promoting healthcare services or products. Today, with the outbreak of COVID-19, there is a surge in the number of queries people have about the virus. So, you can develop content related to such possible queries and get people to your website. However, that content must be optimized to appeal to search engines.  Search engine optimization or SEO for surgeons has become an important healthcare marketing strategy to ensure your medical website is visible to patients looking for your services. Search engine optimization involves the use of a set of techniques that can improve your website’s search engine ranking and bring more targeted visitors to your website. The ultimate goal of SEO is to funnel prospective patients to your medical website and improve your healthcare business. 

SEO for doctors requires profound learning about the medical business for optimum outcomes. On a basic level, SEO is the battle for visibility on search engine results pages and to beat the competition medical businesses need to use various techniques to rank higher, seek the attention of the users and thereby increases sales. The top three search results get the most traffic  and potential patients tend to have far more confidence in businesses that appear toward the top of the search engine results when they perform a search for a particular medical service or information.

Coming back to our topic, using coronavirus related keywords in your content will help you secure a top position in search engine result pages for related queries. When creating content, there are some significant considerations to take note of: 

• Could your business get into trouble by targeting coronavirus-related keywords? 
• Is it ethical to create content about this topic, especially if it is opinion-based vs. fact-based?
• There could be issues such as getting flagged by YouTube or, having your posts removed by Facebook.

Giving reliable, accurate medical information as and when prospective patients need it has become the need of the hour.  The most important thing is to ensure the details you give out are correct and not misleading in any manner. The spread of COVID 19 has led to a change in search behaviour of users and having a proper content strategy is essential to accommodate all these shifts. So, here are some tips on how as a responsible healthcare provider, you can improve your brand visibility, stay relevant, and improve ranking during this pandemic.

• Find out all coronavirus-related keywords: Using keyword research tools is one of the easiest ways to find appropriate keywords. Tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush help to find relevant keywords related to coronavirus that might be worth using on your website to target users. Using relevant keywords in your content and customizing it to match your website is the right approach instead of posting a generic content like “What is Coronavirus”. There will be tough competition from your fellow healthcare businesses when targeting relevant coronavirus keywords.
• Find out what your audience wants to know: If you are not sure about what questions to rank for, conduct a survey among your audience to know what topics interest them. You can ask your audience about coronavirus-related concerns on social media or by using an email list. Some of the common coronavirus-related concerns are “How to provide patient care with telemedicine during COVID-19?” “Key safety measures to consider at the time of coronavirus” etc. Once you know what your audience wants, it becomes easier to publish engaging content.     
• Create an exclusive page for coronavirus: If your audience has many corona-related questions, it is better to set an exclusive page just for such queries. In this page you can give a summary of how the coronavirus impacts your audience and then expand to more specific questions. 
• Update your website with FAQs: Keep your website up to date with latest changes like working hours of your medical practice, removal or addition of any service or any other change in your healthcare business. Review your existing and potential patients’ support and FAQ pages to see whether any of this information needs to be updated in lieu of what’s happening with COVID-19.  
• Publish video content: Video content is very popular today, so publish video-based content. You can leverage SEO data using tools like TubeBuddy to find relevant keywords for your video topics. Then, you can create “top of the funnel” videos with questions that your target users are looking for that lead them to information about your healthcare services and products.
• Provide content related to sanitation and cleansing: Cleaning is an important criterion during this pandemic. So it will be useful to post cleansing- and personal care-related content like how to sanitize your house, how to clean your mobile, AirPods, etc. Adding this information to your site could help you capture search traffic as a number of people search for ways to clean certain products and stay healthy during COVID-19.
• Eliminate misleading or clickbait content: There may be several sensational articles available online that are misleading and create panic among patients. Circulating such content or creating such content can damage your healthcare brand and its credibility. So, don’t post clickbait content in an effort to drive more traffic. Provide well-researched, accurate and valuable content that will educate the patients about the virus. 
• Check SERP changes and Google updates: The goal of relevant content is to build up your E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) signals so that Google is likely to rank your site for COVID-19-related questions. Similarly keep an eye on the latest SERP changes and Google updates to modify or develop your content accordingly. 

The above-mentioned steps could help healthcare business to come up with content that can rank higher. Since this is the era of online marketing, it is important for healthcare professionals and medical businesses to understand their online reputation. Monitoring your online presence and updating your content will help you retain popularity and demand in your particular medical field.  If you are a plastic surgeon, a plastic surgeon SEO company can help you use the right strategies to conduct keyword research, analyze the current market and provide SEO marketing tools that help in improving the visibility of your medical website.