Local SEO today involves building a robust presence for your medical practice online with the specific aim of improving practice visibility within the local market. Google is a major player in the local search market and it has stamped its position in the digital ecosystem. What this means is that there is hardly any consumer activity that does not involve Google.

Whether it is over a desktop or a smartphone, optimizing for local Google search is absolutely necessary for medical practices that want to make a strong brand impression.

Regularly Update and Improve your Medical Practice Information

The need for more detailed information about your medical practice such as your location address, phone numbers, pricing, hours of operation, patient reviews is necessary if you want to increase visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). Potential patients will actively look for this kind of information up front before making the decision to consult with your practice. Google and other leading search engines give preference to brands that actively update their business listings with any necessary and extra information. This is why medical practices need to continuously update and enhance practice information as a way of improving local SEO.

Great Patient Experiences is Crucial to Local SEO

The most important driver to patient conversion is excellent customer service. However, today the customer experience journey begins from the moment a potential patient discovers your medical practice brand right till the moment he or she decides to consult with your medical practice. Every single point or area of brand engagement needs to be optimized if you want patients to positively experience your brand. According to a Gartner report, 89% of companies will use excellent customer service as a major brand differentiator in 2016. So the kind of patient experience your brand delivers will influence your local market position. Include patient ratings along with all other practice information in your listings. If people are saying good things about your brand, highlighting it in the right places can help bring the right kind of attention to your medical practice.

Add a Local Flavor to your Blog

A good way of optimizing for local audiences is by giving your medical practice blog a local flavor. Post updates about your local community. You can create a separate link for your local community; include pictures of regular patients and post their stories. Shoot a video interview with a happy patient or ask for recommendations of how to further improve patient service and invite comments and suggestions. You can also do a post on your practice journey so far or include stories and pictures of your staff and their interaction with patients at your clinic. Posting about your community can help show how deeply involved you are with your local community.

Make sure you post the photos to all your social sites and to your local listings with a link back to your medical practice website.

Connect with Your Local Community

Local events can provide your medical practice with fantastic opportunities to connect with local audiences. Take part in local events or make sure someone from your staff is present at these events. Take some photos and post them to your website, blog, social sites and to your local listings. You might also want to consider adding a local event calendar to your website with regular updates on any local events. If you are involved with local charities or are affiliated with any local organizations that are involved in community outreach programs, then talk about it on your blog and social sites. This is a great way to create buzz not only for the event, but it also opens up opportunities for earning local citations.