Understand Your Patient's Online Journey
Podiatrist Keywords That Matter
The first and most important step to understanding your potential patient's online journey is to uncover the search terms they use when searching for a podiatrist online.
There are a wide variety of online tools, including Google Keyword Planner, Moz's Keyword Difficulty Tool, SEMrush, Ahrefs, and SE Ranking, that you can use to discover search terms specific to podiatry.
Some of the tools listed above are free, while some others are paid. Some of the keywords patients search for a podiatrist online include foot clinics, foot doctors, podiatry doctors, podiatrists near me, podiatry clinics, and local podiatrists. By identifying the keywords that matter to your clinic, and creating a strategy around the terms, it will be easier to increase your online rankings and attract new patients.
Local Searches Rule
Using search terms like "Podiatrist near me" and other city-specific searches is one of the few game-changing strategies you can adopt to attract 300+ new patients monthly. Optimizing your clinic website for local searches enhances the visibility of your practice in geographically specific search engine results.
Your practice will be seen first when patients in your locality need the services of a podiatrist. Optimizing your practice for local searches helps you to strategically position your practice in front of local practice precisely when they’re searching for what you offer. It allows you to secure a competitive edge in the industry.
Avoid focusing on only the usual SEO and create a local SEO strategy for your practice to attract new patients from your location.
Mobile Optimization
Optimizing your website to be mobile-friendly is also essential to attracting new patients. Ensure your website is well designed so mobile users can view and use the website’s content flawlessly on any device.
Having a mobile-optimized website helps improve user experience, and with improved user experience comes more traffic and engagement which you need to acquire more patients. Ensuring your Podiatrist clinic is just one click away from a phone call to make it easy for patients to schedule an appointment with you at their convenience.
You can easily use plugins like AMP to make your WordPress website mobile-friendly without spending $ 10,000.
Enhance Your Podiatrist Clinic’s Online Presence
Google My Business Mastery
One of the best ways to boost your Podiatrist clinic's online presence is to set up and optimize your Google My Business profile for maximum visibility. First, you must claim and verify your business to optimize your GMB profile.
Doing this will grant you access to various features that contribute to your online visibility success. Use tools like Canva and others to create high-quality images that accurately represent your podiatry practice and create daily GMB posts for your podiatrist GMB, whether showcasing your services or your welcoming ambiance, ensure you're posting something that will provide more information to people about your practice.
Also, it encourages customers to leave testimonials and feedback. You should also do well by responding to the feedback left on your profile promptly to build credibility.
Local Directory Consistency
A consistent brand is a reputable and credible brand. When running a podiatry practice, there's a need to be consistent regarding NAP (Name, Address, Phone) and all other necessary information across all directories, e.g. Yelp, Manta, etc. Directory listings can serve as a major boost to local SEO when utilized correctly.
Accuracy and consistency of your NAP across your website and directories can help you rank higher in local searches.
Leveraging Patient Reviews
Collecting and responding to patient feedback can enhance your podiatric clinic's online presence and attract new clients. Collecting patient reviews and implementing a proper strategy can help you greatly in marketing your practice.
Use tools like ChatGPT and other AI to get automated responses through the Chrome extension to make it easier for patients to leave reviews. Additionally, share your patients' reviews on social media and feature them on your website so potential clients seeking reviews from patients like themselves to help decide the podiatrist to see can quickly notice your practice.
Tailored On-site Podiatrist SEO Strategies
Content is King
Crafting blog posts & articles addressing common foot problems is one of the key components of On-site SEO for a podiatrist practice. Quality content and content of interest to the kind of patients you're trying to attract will drive the needed traffic to your site, get people to engage with your page, and keep them on it.
If you aren’t investing in content marketing for your practice, then your on-site SEO game isn't solid. Content comes in numerous forms, including blogs, covering multiple topics about common foot problems to help drive leads to your page.
When you create content, you must go in-depth and provide your audience with valuable information to help drive relevant leads to your page.Ensure the content is organized and user-friendly. Writing something valuable and informative increases your chance of getting linked and shared by an audience and other brands.
Also, make sure the content matches user search intent; this will help you drive more traffic to your website, increase time spent on the page, boost your SEO ranking, and increase conversion rates.
Schema Markup for Podiatrist Clinics
Schema markup is one of the recent evolutions in Podiatrist SEO. It's an advanced technique to make a site stand out in search results. Schema markup helps your practice website rank better for all content types.
It may be challenging for a non-SEO professional, but WordPress has plugins that you can install and set up for this purpose.
Page Speed Optimization
Page speed measures how fast your website loads. For a patient seeking a podiatrist's help, every second counts. You should optimize your page speed so potential patients can seamlessly and rapidly navigate your website to get the needed information. Faster loading time can contribute to higher rankings on your podiatrist website.
It's highly recommended you use tools like Google Page Insights and the likes to analyze your page speed and adopt strategies to improve your speed. Images contribute to slow pages, compressing the images on your website, enabling browser caching and installing certain WordPress plugins to speed up your site.
Top 5 WordPress plugins to speed up your site include WP Rocket, WP Fastest Cache, WP Smush, Lazy Load by WP Rocket, and WP Super Minify.
Off-site SEO for Podiatrists
Backlinks from Health Platforms
Gaining authority through trusted health portals and websites and getting backlinks is a key element of an Podiatrist SEO strategy that can significantly boost your search rankings. The backlinks are like endorsements from reputed health platforms, which increase your website’s credibility.
Creating relevant and valuable content is key to getting backlinks. You should also participate in community discussions in online communities such as Quora, collaborate with experts in the podiatry industry, and engage in guest posting to increase your chance of getting backlinks from authority health platforms.
Local Media Outreach
Collaborating with local media for events, tips, or health columns is great for off-site SEO. Reach out to brands you would love to collaborate with for events or partner with media brands to share your expertise in health columns and tips to build off-site credibility.
Use platforms like PRweb and other sites to get featured in Business Insider, Yahoo, etc., to get more new patients to hear about your practice and its services.
Engaging in Podiatry Forums & Groups
There's no industry without its forums and groups. Search for podiatry forums and groups and take advantage of the many people seeking expert guidance on podiatry issues to get your practice outside.
Establish yourself as a thought leader in these groups by offering professional guidance when patients seek advice. This way, more people get to know your practice and seek its service.
The Power of Podiatrist Video SEO
Patient Testimonial Videos
Video content drives more traffic and engagement than most other content. Create patient testimonial videos sharing real-life stories that resonate and build trust with potential clients to drive more patients to your practice.
Making quality patient testimonial videos allows your brand to connect with potential patients at a deeper level, increase your reach online and help attract new patients monthly.
Podiatrist Procedure Demonstrations
Besides making patient testimonial videos, you can also make videos showcasing your services and common procedures conversations that watch to ease their anxiety on social media. Videos like this help to demystify the perceived complexity of podiatry procedures. It also gets patients to trust you more and seek your services.
Optimizing for YouTube & On-site Embeds
It will do your podiatry practice more good than harm to rank high on the world’s second-largest search engine. Create high-quality videos containing relevant content and promote your practice using channel keywords and specific geographic locations.
Optimize your thumbnails and take advantage of YouTube features such as Subtitles and Closed captions to boost the reach of your video. Publishing a high-retention quality video and using relevant words helps greatly with SEO on YouTube.
Continuous Performance Analysis
Setting Up Google Analytics for Success
It is important to have a system set up for continuous performance analysis. You can set up Google Analytics to help track key metrics specific to healthcare providers using plugins like Site by Google for your WordPress to install and set them up easily.
It's easy to start; you only need to create a Google Analytics account for your practice and set your analytics goal to analyze your website performance and audience overview.
Conducting Monthly SEO Audits
It is not enough to have and implement a solid Podiatrist SEO strategy; you need monthly SEO audits to know what's working and whatnot. Use tools like Ahrefs, semrush, and techniques to monitor website health.
You will spend about $100/month on these tools, but it is worth it. The audit helps check for any indexing issues, check for your site health score, age duplicate versions, and mobile friendliness.
After the audits, you will know what part of your practice SEO strategy needs adjustment.
Feedback Loop
Feedback loop can also be used to improve the practice visibility and attract more patients. You can easily utilize patient inquiries and questions to refine your SEO strategy to boost its effectiveness. Ask people how they find your practice, what they love about your practice and what they don't.
This will help you know the areas of your overall marketing strategy that are effective and those that are not. Incorporating patient feedback into your podiatry practice marketing strategy will go a long way in retaining previous patients and attracting new ones.
Future-Proofing Your SEO
Voice Search Optimization
There has been a rise in voice-activated inquiries, and your practice can only take advantage of it if you adequately prepare your website for voice engine searches. Voice search optimization is important for a podiatrist practice, so it can easily come up when patients say search terms like “How to find the best podiatrist near me” using voice search.
To optimize your practice website for voice search, research the relevant keywords for voice search in your industry, and analyze the results of the keywords you would love to target, then audit and optimize your content to boost voice search optimization.
The Role of AI &Chatbots
AI chatbots can provide personalized and consistent service based on the patient's preferences, history, and context. The use of AI and chatbots is on the rise. You can set one up to benefit your podiatry practice.
It can help offer proactive and relevant suggestions such as services or offers based on the patient's needs, which help enhance patient experience even before they visit your practice.
Staying Updated
Podiatrist SEO is ever-evolving. You must keep learning to stay updated and maximize the new developments to benefit your podiatry practice. Never get tired of investing your time and resources in learning the new ins and outs of SEO for your practice as it's an effective way to get new patients for your practice.