Search engine optimization (SEO) on your site goes beyond the surface level. When you’re creating an SEO strategy, you’re probably focusing on creating engaging content and eye-catching call to action (CTA) buttons. Those may be important, but so is what happens behind the scenes of your business’s site, especially as a healthcare provider.
Technical SEO refers to the process of improving your site’s backend to rank highly on search engine results pages (SERPs) for organic traffic, conversions and visibility. When it’s incorporated into your digital marketing strategy, you’re able to focus on the crawlability, indexability and user experience of your site, all of which are important criteria for the algorithm.
Technical SEO services can help you establish, build and maintain visibility and patient acquisition for the sustainable growth that you’re working toward.
Read on to learn what technical SEO services are before diving into ways that they can help you reach sustainable growth. We’ll also discuss how BURG+CO. can help you get the best technical SEO results we can.
What are technical SEO services?
We’ve talked about what technical SEO is, so now it’s time to discuss the services that help your site be as optimized as possible for long-term success.
As opposed to on-page SEO or content-based SEO, technical SEO is all about what you can’t see that can affect your rankings on relevant SERPs. The goal of these services is to create an infrastructure that’s easy for the algorithm to sift through and figure out how the content should rank for certain keywords.
Here are the most common and effective technical SEO services:
- Site performance — Improving page load speed and using browser caching
- Mobile optimization — Making the site mobile friendly and responsive on smartphones
- Crawlability and indexability — Ensuring that the search engine bots can navigate the site
- Schema markup — Coding to help bots understand a page’s value to specific SERPs
6 benefits of technical SEO services for your practice’s digital growth
By learning about how technical SEO services can help you move your bottom line and work toward your healthcare practice’s goals, you can make sure they are given the proper time and resources in your SEO strategy.
Here are six ways technical SEO services drive sustainable digital growth:
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Improving patient engagement with faster page speeds
The power of the internet has made people expect to receive the information they’re looking for almost instantaneously. If your site’s pages take too long, users may lose their patience. If your page takes more than three seconds to load, it increases the likelihood of people leaving the site by more than 30%. This not only raises your bounce rate, but also results in missed opportunities for conversions.
Shortening your page speed can increase the patient engagement needed for conversions (e.g., booking an appointment). Providing fast and efficient user experiences should put you in the algorithm’s good graces, leading to higher rankings.
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Boosting visibility in local searches through mobile optimization
More than 60% of all web traffic comes from online devices. Not only do algorithms favor sites that are mobile friendly, but Google uses mobile-first indexing, meaning a site’s ranking is often based on indexing the mobile version. With mobile optimization, you can increase your brand visibility by being seen by more eyes. This is where local SEO comes into play.
As a healthcare provider, you want to make sure that you’re being seen as a resource for local community members. Mobile optimization can help you be ranked highly in SERPs and map results by people in your served areas.
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Building authority and trust as a secure, HTTPS-enabled site
A potential patient wants to already have a foundation of trust in you as a provider before booking an appointment. How well your site aligns with the algorithm says a lot about the quality of your practice, as people tend to associate high rankings with high quality.
The algorithm favors secure sites that use the Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) extension. Technical SEO helps you to have a secure site that users can trust to keep their information safe, leading to more engagement and conversions.
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Indexing the right pages through optimized crawlability
The crawlability of your site plays a significant role in your SEO success. If the algorithm can’t find or access your site’s pages, then those pages can’t be indexed and ranked on a SERP, which can have a negative impact on your organic traffic and visibility.
By having a clean site architecture and optimizing the crawl paths for bots, you’re making sure that your important pages (e.g., the “About Us” and “FAQ” pages) are eligible for high rankings. You also want to be on the lookout for potential crawl errors that can interfere with the indexing, such as broken links.
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Increasing click-through rates with rich results through schema markup
Schema markup is the structured data that helps the algorithm to understand the page’s information and value. It helps to ensure that the site is only ranking highly for truly relevant searches to avoid misleading people or steering them in the wrong direction based on the intent of the page. Schema markup also helps create rich results, which are enhanced results that go beyond the basic title tag and meta description.
Rich results can include:
- Images and/or videos
- FAQ drop-down menus
- Review scores
Rich results can increase your click-through rates by providing engaging SERP listings that give a deeper insight into the page.
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Improving site authority by fixing broken links and redirects
Your site’s authority refers to the credibility and impact of the content. Every site should pride itself on being trustworthy, but it’s a nonnegotiable for healthcare-related sites that can affect a person’s overall wellness. Once you’re seen as a respected authority, you’re boosting your brand reputation for long-term recognition.
By prioritizing technical SEO services, you can catch potential issues to your authority, such as broken links and unnecessary redirects. This reduces crawl waste, which is when the bots are spending time on pages that don’t provide value. You’re also increasing the amount of time that users spend on your site, which should increase your conversion rates.
Want to attract new patients to your website for sustainable digital growth? BURG+CO. can help you with technical SEO services
It doesn’t matter how informative your content is or how engaging your pages are, if your site isn’t running at its peak performance at all times, you’re not likely to reach the SEO success that you need to grow your healthcare practice. Technical SEO services should be just as prioritized in your strategy as on-page SEO and content creation. They play a key role in sustainable growth that you can scale. If you’re not sure where to start with technical SEO services, let BURG+CO. help.
At BURG+CO., we understand the importance of every aspect of your site, and how those aspects appeal to the search engine algorithm for sustainable growth. We’ll do a technical SEO audit of your site, figure out what needs to be improved and help you take the necessary steps to get the best results possible.
Our team has years of experience in helping healthcare brands improve their digital presence to attract new patients and retain existing ones. If you’re looking to perform better in search engine results and attract more potential patients to your site, we’re ready to talk to you to see how we can help.
Want expert support with your digital marketing? Connect with BURG+CO. today to explore how we can help your healthcare brand grow.