How To Do Voice Search SEO for Doctors and Medical Practices

As the marketing landscape becomes increasingly more digital, businesses everywhere are also shifting their marketing strategies to maintain relevancy. Yet, medical practices often struggle to keep up with these fluctuations in an industry that restricts how patients can be marketed to. Although the medical industry has such strict regulations surrounding privacy, it is still vital that medical practices keep up with these trends as best as they can to remain visible online, including integrating voice search into their marketing strategies.

What Is Voice Search?

By now, most people are familiar with at least one type of voice search device, whether it be Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri, but they may not be as familiar with voice search as an SEO strategy. So, what does voice search do to improve your search results? Similar to integrating popular keywords into your results, integrating voice search increases the likelihood that your website will be pulled when a potential patient is looking for a service you offer, specifically when they are using a vocal search rather than a typed search. As voice search devices become a more popular way for potential customers to discover information, it is all the more vital that your practice integrates the format as well.

Why Does My Practice Need To Integrate Voice Search?

If you are still unconvinced that your practice needs to integrate voice search, some recent studies about the trend may change your mind. In a recent consumer intelligence publication, PWC published that they found that more than 72% of their surveyed respondents had used voice search, and even more so that more than 90% were aware of its existence. Most importantly though, the report highlighted that voice search is most popular with younger consumers and household with children. Recognizing that the younger generations are gravitating towards this new method of searching, it would be wise to begin implementing the functionality as the trend is likely to continue as these generations mature. In short, we are beginning to expect that voice search is not going to be a trend in the near future, but the norm. With this in mind, voice search is, and will continue to be a significant digital marketing form to invest in, even if you are a smaller medical practice.

How Can I Optimize My Website For Voice Search?

While there are numerous ways you can optimize your website for voice search, here are three tips to get your medical practice started. Firstly, work on specifically optimizing your website for mobile. As is to be expected, a large portion of voice searches are performed on mobile devices. Google is less likely to recommend a site as a voice search result if  it does not display well on mobile devices, thus it is all the more important that your website works on mobile. It is also worth checking that your website is HTTPS, not HTTP. More than half of all voice search results are sourced from HTTPS sites. By ensuring your site is a HTTPS site, you are well on your way to successful voice search integration. Lastly, focus on creating succinct content, ideally in the form of answers to commonly asked questions about your offered procedures. Brief snippets such as these increase your likelihood of being pulled in Google’s Featured Snippets section. Since this section appears above all the other search results, it only follows that your traffic will also be boosted if you secure a feature.

For more tips on optimizing your medical practice’s website for voice search, schedule a consultation with MedShark Digital today!