6 SEO Tips & Strategies for Dermatologists

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can help dermatologists find new patients and grow their practice.

However, dermatology is a highly specific industry that demands special attention when it comes to marketing strategies.

Dermatologists need to…

• Optimize their websites in an industry that is lagging in adopting digital strategies
• Understand the gap between their scientific knowledge and casual skin care language
• Know the priorities of their consumers when they are searching for dermatological care online

…and so much more. Let’s explore how expert digital marketers can help dermatologists employ this cutting edge strategy.

1. Establish Your Analytics Goals As Early As Possible

SEO is a complex marketing strategy in which techniques are used to improve your website’s ranking in Google or other search engines. The higher you rank, the more business you get. You might begin these efforts with goals ranging from the very broad (get more business) to the very specific (get more lead forms filled out by potential patients). If you don’t know what success looks like, you will have a difficult time knowing if you got there. For dermatologists, success might look like…

• More “Contact Us” forms filled out
• Phone calls from Mobile visits
• Visit duration
• Event goals such as Downloads, Social Media buttons, Widget Usage

The goals you set will depend on the digital framework you already have in place. These will help give you the insights you need to improve your site and let you know where to focus your SEO efforts. Every dermatology website has different needs, that’s why we use custom strategies that are tailored to your needs, and never a one-size fits all approach.

2. Optimize Your Clinic Or Office’s Website For Mobile Use

People have computers on their desks, but their mobile phones are with them at all times of the day and night. In today’s market, someone might be concerned with something they are noticing in the mirror, and grab their smartphone to Google it immediately. Those are the people you want to be there for. That’s why mobile optimization is so important. Study after study shows that the numbers for mobile users are growing all the time. You need to deliver the same level of functionality on your mobile website that you have on your desktop, and it needs to be fast. This is a really important facet of optimization because the longer people stay on your mobile website, the better the stats and rankings your website will earn. Upward momentum builds on itself in SEO. From a creative standpoint, you may also have elements on your website that are of no marketing value to you. Experienced eyes can identify these and recommend removal in order to improve your website speed.

3. Make Sure Your Dermatologist Website Loads Quickly

Page speed is not just an important element of SEO, potential patients don’t want the stress of dealing with delays when they are trying to get care. In 2010, Google said that site speed is a key component of SEO. Like the other factors, you should think of this in terms of directionality and momentum. The faster your website is, the longer people stay on it. The longer you stay on it, the higher you rank. The higher you rank, the more people visit your page. The more people who visit your page, the higher you rank. You need a fast page because the opposite scenario, in which slow pages cause traffic and rankings to drop, is true as well.

4. How Do I Make My Dermatology Office/Clinic’s Website Load Faster?

Slow websites are caused by many variables, but one aspect is the code on the backend. Sometimes, inexperienced or underqualified coders and programmers will use a cumbersome, and unwieldy script that takes forever to process. Often, the same function this code achieves can be accomplished with simpler, faster cleaner code. As expert technical and creative marketers, our team includes software specialists who can inspect your website and implement secure, functional improvements to make your website run faster.

5. Create An SEO-Friendly Blog About Your Dermatology Work

Dermatology is a field that is perfect for SEO strategies such as blogging. What if we told you that over 3 billion people search for “skin care” online in any given month? Enough of those people are potential patients for your office or clinic to make an enormous difference in your work. Creating a blog helps establish you as a go-to resource for accurate, informative dermatological information.

You might be thinking the following thoughts…

• I don’t have time to write
• I know my field, but I don’t know how to pick topics
• I don’t know what “SEO-friendly” blogs are

…among other objections.

That’s why outsourcing your efforts to expert marketers and copywriters is a sensible choice for dermatologists.

This is why you need to outsource your writing efforts. Expert digital marketers understand how important it is to bridge the gap between technical industry jargon, and the casual language used by people browsing online. We use data and analytics to create the content that best represents what your potential patients need to know. This builds trust in your brand on their part and lets you demonstrate some of your hard-earned knowledge. SEO-friendly blog content is…

• Relevant
• Well-timed
• Informative
• Accurate

…and more. Here are a few examples of topics that might make excellent blog articles.

• Dermatologist Near Me
• Laser Care From Local Dermatologist
• Do I have Psoriasis?
• Dermatologist advice on acne
• #Tips From Dermatologists On Better Skin Care

…and so much more. You can help your patients by offering this information.

6. Build Backlinks

Backlinks are an important component of optimization in which another website links to your website, usually a blog post, indicating that you are a valuable resource for dermatology. This is an excellent way to demonstrate your authority and reliability on the topic of dermatology. You have earned the expertise, and you deserve to capitalize on it. However, not all backlinks are created equal. You should never buy backlinks because search engines such as Google tend to punish this behavior. Organizing backlinks and doing proper QA requires a little help from marketing experts.