Most healthcare providers know the importance of PR, a good reputation is invaluable within the industry. But did you know that PR can also benefit a website’s SEO? Search engine optimization is grown to be one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your website and help build those hot leads that can generate higher revenue.
By using a leading healthcare agency you can benefit from positive brand awareness, but these agencies can also utilise SEO tools to get you ranking higher on search engines for numerous terms and boost the quality of your website traffic.
Below, we look at 6 easy ways you can utilise your PR agencies and in-house teams to benefit your SEO journey.
Backlinking
Backlinks are when an external domain places a link on their website to yours when a visitor clicks on this link, they will be taken to the relevant page on your domain.
However, this isn’t as simple as asking for a link on any page on the internet. Low-quality domains are no longer effective as search engines, such as Google, are becoming tighter on their rules.
These links need to be placed on high-quality, editorial websites and featured within well-written, relevant articles that will be of interest to your clients. Using an ROI focused SEO agency can help get the ball rolling if you are new to backlinking and provide insights into the best domains to reach out to.
Search engines see quality backlinks as a vote of confidence from these authority websites, which will push your ranking higher.
Brand Association
Brand association is imperative for all manner of business and is crucial for the highly competitive healthcare world.
However, search engines also need to have an association between your brand name and products. Using PR to spread awareness of your product and service and having this featured across the media, search engine users will begin to generate searches that include your brand and alongside your product.
Search engines will then begin to associate your brand with this product, leading to higher visibility when consumers who aren’t familiar with your name but are searching for what you provide.
For example, searches may search ‘children’s paracetamol + Calpol’, search engines will recognise this association, then when another user searches for ‘ children’s paracetamol’, the brand’s page will be highly visible.
3rd Party SEO
While every business wants to rank highly for competitive keywords, this isn’t always possible, especially if you are new to SEO and content marketing.
SEO takes time and is a long-term investment. However, for more instant results, you can use PR to have guest posts placed on websites that already rank for those sought-after keywords.
These websites are already experiencing high traffic for these keywords, so you know their visitors have an interest in what your brand provides.
These guest posts will contain backlinks to your website, which will then lead to visitors clicking through to your page.
Emerging Keywords
The best way to rank for keywords is to create your own, but there is a strategy to follow with this.
When a new product or service is created, new terminology will also be generated. Use PR to spread awareness of these new terms throughout the media.
If you are able to place articles within highly authoritative media outlets, the public will quickly begin to recognise this new terminology.
When users then search these terms, even without mention of your brand name, you will rank highly as no other domains will be trying to do so.
Previous PR Reclamation
This is a great way to win a quick backlink. Look for websites that have previously featured your brand, whether that be product reviews, press releases or relevant articles, but try to avoid sites that have written anything negative.
Reach out to these websites and simply ask them to place a backlink on this page. You can do so via email, phone and even social media, if the page has a specific author, try and reach them directly.
Remember, these sites are under no obligation to add this backlink and editorial guidelines may prevent this. However, this doesn’t mean your outreach is for nothing, use this opportunity to create a relationship with these journalists.
This means next time you have a new campaign, press release or product to outreach, these journalists are more likely to acknowledge your emails and increase your potential to be featured with them.
SEO Social Proof
There’s little point in trying to drive all this traffic to your site if you aren’t providing visitors with something that interests them.
Dwell time plays an important role in SEO and search engines will analyse how long someone spends on your domain, the longer the better!
Provide high-quality content within your website’s blog that will interest your visitors and get them to stay longer.
Try to vary this content, some consumers will be wanting long, in-depth information, while others will be looking for a quick Q&A on a subject, it’s important to cater to both.
If your PR team has managed to get your brand featured with key health publications, you should boast about this.
Place their logo on your homepage under an ‘as featured in’ banner. This will lead to visitors perceiving you to have a higher authority and want to explore more of your site.
The longer the time spent by each user on your domain, the more positive signal search engines will receive, all helping to rank you higher.
Remember, SEO does not happen overnight, by following the above tips, you will begin to see a change but don’t be disheartened if this is not instant. Many of those new to SEO give up too quickly, while those who push through will suddenly begin to witness a huge change over the months.
The Editorial Team at Healthcare Business Today is made up of skilled healthcare writers and experts, led by our managing editor, Daniel Casciato, who has over 25 years of experience in healthcare writing. Since 1998, we have produced compelling and informative content for numerous publications, establishing ourselves as a trusted resource for health and wellness information. We offer readers access to fresh health, medicine, science, and technology developments and the latest in patient news, emphasizing how these developments affect our lives.
