5 Things That Are Hurting Your Website and Keeping Potential Patients From Finding You

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There is a lot of mysticism surrounding SEO and what should be done on your healthcare website. You’ve likely been told you must write blogs, post on social media, and many other things. Such advice often leads people to make website changes without guidance. All they know is that they are supposed to have a website, write content, and promote it somehow.

Here are the top things you may have done on your site that hurt your SEO and keep potential patients from finding your office. 

1. Publishing Content That Is Difficult to Read

Difficult-to-read content is not necessarily high-level information that mentions medical terms. Rather, difficult-to-read content refers more to how you structure the information on your page. Here are a few common writing mistakes that make content hard to read:

Sentence and Paragraph Length

Your content is assigned a readability score based on how long your sentences and paragraphs are. Other factors contribute to a readability score, such as using the passive voice or writing too many hard-to-read words. But sentence and paragraph length are the biggest culprits. It is recommended that the majority of the sentences in your content be at most 25 words. Also, it is recommended that most paragraphs on your page are no longer than three to four sentences. 

Headlines

Headlines are the larger text on a page that helps a potential patient scan the content and find the information they are looking for. A good headline will accurately describe the information that can be found in the paragraph below it. It is recommended that you have a headline every two to three paragraphs.

Not only do headlines help patients find information, but it also helps Google understand the information on the page. For that reason, you should include relevant keywords in a few of the headlines on your page. 

 

 

Disorganized Information

You shouldn’t assume that a potential patient will read everything in your blog post or on your page. You should group relevant information in one section when writing blogs or pages. Each section needs a descriptive header that will tell the reader what they can expect to read about.  

2. Having Only One Page for Your Services

Having a page on your site listing all your services is expected and necessary. However, that page should be a navigation tool for potential patients to locate the treatment or therapy they are seeking. Every service you offer should have its own page with information about how you handle that service in your office. 

We rarely see service pages show up for search terms; if we do, it’s only one or two of the clinic’s services. Individual pages for each treatment you offer will give your site the best chance of showing up for those treatments. 

When you write content for your services pages, you want to make sure this information is included: 

  • General overview of what the service is
  • Common symptoms a patient may experience
  • Specifics on how you handle this service in your office
  • Links to how someone can schedule an appointment

Each page on your website should be a minimum of 300 words, or it will show up as a page with a low word count. Too low word count pages can negatively affect the site.

3. Technical SEO Issues

This is not an exhaustive list of technical SEO issues, but these are a few of the top things we recommend you address on your website. 

Broken Links and 404 Pages

A broken link is when you click on a link on the site, and it takes you to a 404 page. This can either be on your website or another website. To find the broken links on your site, you can input your site into a broken link checker, which will give you a report of the pages on your site that have broken links.

You can also have pages on the site that show as a 404 but don’t appear on a broken link checker. You can find broken pages on your site in the Google Search Console or by running a site audit through a resource like Ubersuggest.

Slow Loading Site Speeds

A website should load in no greater than two seconds. Optimizing your site for speed is crucial for people sticking around to find out what you offer. If they have difficulty getting the images and text to load, they will abandon the site and move on.

It’s important to note that you must optimize the desktop version of your site as well as the mobile version of the site. 

Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

Title tags and meta descriptions are what show up in search results when Google shows your site. The title is the headline you see that is linked to your site. The paragraph that shows under the tag is the meta description. Every page on your site should have a unique, custom-written title tag and meta description that accurately reflects the information that can be found on that page.

Tags and meta descriptions shouldn’t be duplicated across multiple pages. This usually happens when someone duplicates a page and forgets to update these sections. Also, titles and metas should not be longer than what can be displayed in search results. Meta descriptions should be between 155-160 characters. Title tags should be 51-60 characters. 

Duplicate Content

Duplicate content is when identical text appears on multiple pages of your site. Some amount of duplicate content is okay and to be expected. For example, the text in the menu and footer of your site will be considered duplicate content.

You may have some other sections that appear on every page, such as reviews, newsletter sign-ups, or contact forms. It’s okay to have up to 20% duplicate content on a page. However, above that percentage, you need to add more unique content to the page – use this tool to check your percentage. Do what you can to avoid reusing content from page to page.

Mobile Friendly

Since many people do Google searches on their phones, Google gives preference to sites with an optimized mobile site over those without. You can test if your site passes the mobile-friendly test here. If your site has failed this test, you need a developer to update the mobile version to render correctly on a phone.

4. Website That Is Difficult to Navigate

One thing that can make your bounce rate too high is a website that is difficult to navigate. When someone lands on your site, is it easy to figure out how to contact you? Do they know what you offer or where you’re located? If they have difficulty navigating the site and finding the information they are seeking, they will likely leave the site. 

Modern-day website pages are set up so visitors can quickly scan the page for the answers they are searching for. Also, the menu is set up to highlight the most important links someone may be looking for. Not only will an easy-to-navigate website help your SEO, but it will also increase the number of conversions you receive.

5. Content That Is Not Keyword Optimized

Keywords are the phrases and terms people Google to find answers. Adding those phrases and terms to the pages on your website is what allows it to show up in search results. However, many things need to be done to optimize a page on your site. Here are the basic steps:

Main Keyword 

Every page needs one or two main keywords or phrases that you want to show up when someone does a Google search. That main keyword should be written in the: 

  • Meta description
  • Title tag
  • One or two headers
  • First 50 words of the text
  • Four or five more times throughout the text

You mustn’t write the keyword over and over again in the text. A good rule of thumb is to write the main keyword no more than one time for every 100 words.

Related Keywords

Related keywords are closely connected to the main keyword you want your page to show up for. Using these additional terms throughout the content where it makes sense will help Google understand when to show the page in search results.

Alt Image Tags

Another part of optimizing a page is to add alt image tags to the images on your page. An alt image tag should describe what is happening in the picture. Use a keyword that makes sense in the description to help that image appear in search results. However, you shouldn’t make the alt image tag just keywords since its main purpose is for accessibility. 

While this is not an exhaustive list of issues that can keep your site from showing up higher in search results, it is a good place to start on giving your site a boost. 

This article was written by Functional Medicine SEO, a digital marketing agency dedicated to helping functional and alternative medicine practitioners grow their online visibility.