SEO for Pediatricians: Traditional vs. Futuristic SEO Strategies

Pediatric clinics have an advantage over other medical practices. The amount of research parents are willing to do for their children often exceeds anything they are ready to do for themselves. That’s why having a stellar website is important to attracting, converting, and retaining patients.

However, even the top website design isn’t worth much without search engine optimization (SEO). By implementing a comprehensive SEO strategy for pediatricians, you are maximizing your marketing efforts.

While traditional pediatrician SEO works great for many aspects of lead generation and conversion, the future of SEO is even more exciting. Let’s take a closer look.

What Is Traditional SEO for Pediatricians?

Traditional SEO for pediatricians is a set of tactics that make your website appealing to the search engines, which in turn place it on SERP (search engine result pages) in response to the user’s query.

The better you work on your SEO campaign, the more likely your website is to grab the top spots on the SERPs. The first website on the SERPs is 10 times more likely to receive a click than the website on the 10th spot.

The key types of traditional SEO are:

• On-page SEO – adjusting your website to make it more appealing to search engine crawlers (better content, inbound links, proper keywords).
• Off-site SEO – action you take offsite to improve the website’s rankings (social media marketing, influencer collaboration, guest blogging).
• Technical SEO – adjusting technical elements of your website to make it easier to index (XML sitemap, URL structure, loading speed).

There is also a difference between local and global SEO. Local SEO tactics focus on demonstrating your website to local users’ queries while global SEO works to attract a relevant audience from all over the world.

Pediatric practices generally invest more time and money in local SEO since people are rarely willing to drive far to get doctors’ services.

Why Is SEO Important for Pediatricians?

Google receives more than a billion health-related queries every day. The majority of these users need medical services. Meanwhile, the number of people who are frustrated with the inability to find the right information is growing every year.

If, thanks to your SEO practices, a potential patient sees your website on the first page of the SERPs, they are highly likely to visit it. Once the user arrives at your website, you have an opportunity to convert them.

SEO is an organic tactic that works well over time. It’s less expensive than paid advertising, SMM, or influencer marketing. While it is successful in every aspect of marketing from lead generation to retention, it takes months before you’ll see a positive impact.

How Can You Outrank Pediatrician Competitors with Traditional SEO?

Fierce competition in the healthcare market makes it hard to attract new patients. Whether you are offering services in neonatal-perinatal medicine or work with older children, you need to stand out from the crowd. Traditional SEO can often help you do just that.

On-Page SEO for Pediatrician

Top SEO practices for pediatricians begin with on-page SEO. Besides improving your website to make it appealing to the user, you need to impress search engine crawlers. The key to making a great impression is relevant content.

Keyword Research

Keyword research involves finding keywords that are relevant to your practice. These are the words or phrases that your potential patients use when trying to find your services. Some examples of pediatrician keywords are:

• Best pediatrician near me

• Intensive care unit for babies

• Adolescent medicine vs pediatrics
• Top pediatricians in Boston
• Baby eye infection

Different keywords can have different search intent. For example, “baby eye infection” is an informative keyword.

It means that the searcher who is typing it into the search engine may not be ready for your services just yet. However, if they find the right information on your website, they are highly likely to keep you in mind when they need to schedule an appointment.

Another type of keyword is the commercial keyword “top pediatricians in Boston.” With this keyword, the user is investigating available commercial options in the area. This person is likely a potential patient who is ready to convert.

By keeping the user’s intent in mind, it’s easier to attract the right potential patients to your website.

On-Page Optimization

On-page optimization involves implementing the right keywords throughout your website in the best way possible. For example:

• Adding keywords to blog posts.
• Putting keywords into the content on landing pages.
• Leveraging keywords in page titles, meta descriptions, URLs, and image descriptions

While it works great to provide relevant keywords in many places on your website, you need to avoid keyword stuffing. It involves adding so many keywords that it makes your content hard to read and comprehend. Keyword stuffing can cause you to lose your rankings.

Off-Site SEO for Pediatricians

You can improve your website’s rankings by doing some work away from the website.

Backlinks

A backlink is a link that leads from another website to your website. These links are the bread and butter of SEO. They can improve your website’s rankings tremendously.

The best way to build high-quality links is to provide stellar content that brings true value.

While it may be tempting to buy backlinks (some websites may offer such an option), this tactic can hurt your rankings. When it comes to backlinks, quality always trumps quantity. Just one link from a trustworthy website is 10 times better than 20 links from low-quality websites.

Citations

Citations are mentions of your business that feature NAP (name, address, phone number). They sometimes result in backlinks, but there is a positive impact to directory mentions that don’t include a link. All you need to do is list your website in relevant directories such as Healthgrades.com.

However, listing your business isn’t enough. You need to maintain each listing, ensure NAP consistency (otherwise you can confuse both Google and your patients), provide updated information, and reply to reviews.

Google Business Profile

Claiming or creating your Google Business Profile (GBP) is an essential part of your SEO strategy. By filling it out, mentioning consistent NAP information, adding photos, and providing relevant service data, you are making your business visible to potential patients in your area.

When it comes to local SEO, a filled-out and well-maintained GBP is a positive ranking factor.

Reputation Management

Reputation management is the practice of monitoring and managing your practice’s image online. For pediatricians, it involves communicating with their patients (parents and guardians), asking for feedback, and encouraging reviews.

The key to excellent reputation management is replying to all patient reviews across all directories, including GBP. Keep in mind that GBP reviews are a ranking factor.

Technical SEO for Pediatricians

By optimizing the technical aspects of your website, you are making it easier for search engine crawlers to collect information and rank it properly. Without excellent technical SEO, the rest of your tactics may not work.

The top technical elements a medical website must have include:

• SSL encryption

• Responsive design

• Fast loading speed
• Simple navigation

If you build your website on WordPress, you may face major SEO disadvantages that could cause you to create a new site.

Content Marketing for Pediatricians

Content marketing involves creating high-quality content and implementing it in the right place and at the right time.

Content is a pillar of SEO. You use it to implement the right keywords, build authority for generating backlinks, offer gated materials for on-site conversions, provide solutions to potential patients’ pain points, and much more.

High-quality content helps you establish trust with potential patients’ parents or guardians. Even if they visit your website to get initial information about their problem, excellent content can drive them to convert on the spot.

The Future of Pediatrician SEO

Today, the highest-ranking websites are the result of smart outsourcing to experienced marketing agencies. Some of these agencies also handle SEO.

However, as more and more clinics outsource SEO services for pediatricians to professionals, the benefits of the above-mentioned techniques decrease over time.

Soon, the only way to stand out from the crowd will be to use innovative SEO solutions, such as A.I-driven SEO tools.

While regular professional marketers can only target a handful of keywords, agencies such as DoctorLogic can design effective websites that automatically target tens of thousands of relevant keywords organically. This is thanks to their patient acquisition platform featuring A.I.-driven SEO.