Boosting Healthcare Provider SEO Strength through Content Distribution

Authority. Trust. Expertise.

These three elements must be part of the objective of each and every piece of content you create and distribute under your healthcare brand. But not in the eyes of the author. Instead, these three elements must be supported so that the reader bestows these endowments on your content, your brand and your services. So that's the first hurdle to cross: How will you convey this to the people who might encounter your owned content?

Targeting

To prepare for success on this particular hurdle, first decide on the audience you are going to target?

1. Consumers/patients/their significant others and primary care companions/advocates?
2. Other referring providers, clinicians
3. TPAs and insurers (big box outlets, e.g. BUCAHs, etc.)
4. Employers, Unions and Self funded purchasers of group or specialized health services.
5. The media, publishers, etc.

Each will have different, subjective criteria that is used by them to award points on their particular scale that ranks your Authority, Trust and Expertise in a domain area of competence that differentiates you from your competition. So decide who your target is and write as if you are relaxing on the sofa just chatting. It is okay if you chatting to an audience of just one person (persona).

Next, refine that persona description. If for patients and consumers, what do you know about them? How old? Gender, Socioeconomic and education status, needs, wants, lifestyle, discretionary income, insurance coverage, financial wealth, home ownership and type, active, retired, activity level, urgency level, acuity level, what kind of car do they drive? What watch brand do they wear, are they label conscious in their clothing choices, shoes, accessories?

If for fellow clinicians, what would it take for you rank someone else's Authority, Trust and Expertise? Embed those messages in your content. Subtlety is key. You want them to deduce this, not poke a finger in their eye and seem boastful.

If to third-party payers, you also need to convey value proposition, safety, quality, brand alignment with theirs, and then after you've differentiated yourself, then bop 'em over the head with the price that makes you "the one".

If to the media and publishers, you need to prove you have a story their audience wants and needs to watch, hear or read.

Four Kinds of Content Marketing Strategies

• Strategies to create awareness
• Strategies to drive up interest in that which they recently became aware
• Strategies to drive conversions and leads
• Strategies that build relationships, causing them to forsake other available options

Facts about content creation

1. Not all content is digital.
2. All content is audio or visual (e.g. podcasts, videos, articles, billboards, posters, banners, events, mailings,
3. No content is free to produce if it has any value to anybody. There may be no cost to post, so just remember: When something is free to use or to post, YOU are being used. Is the trade off appropriate and worth it?

Your content and SEO Alignment

If your content is about what you do, for instance orthopedic surgery, then the procedure names and treatments are your SEO search terms, right? Makes sense?

So the more you write, record, video, present about, and post on those procedures and treatments, the more SEO love you get - as long as it is properly structured for web crawler attractiveness and algorithmic alignment.

Here's an example from Orthopaedics:

Want to own joint replacements in general?

Alright. You have your work cut out for you. My professional opinion: aim narrower and own the share of voice rather than just be in the chorus line. Focus on knees, hips, shoulders. What about wrists and ankles?

What sets you apart as a surgeon or surgical practice or ASC or hospital performing ortho surgery? The more you write, the more lift you get if the quality answers the needs, concerns and fears of patients, their caregivers, significant others, and their referring clinicians. The higher the left, the greater the gap between your authority, trust and expertise and your competitors' who aren't producing content at all or produce very little in a haphazard distribution. The higher the left, the higher the SERP ranking. And all this is organic, not pay-to-play.

But remember: Target your audience. The writing cannot be one size fits all, because it never will....fit all. Knees will be freshers or Mulligans (do overs). most people come with two of them, and a genetic predisposition to osteoarthritis. OA doesn't target one knee or hip, it is systemic. And it generally runs in families, so that opens up word of mouth opportunities if you strike gold with a targeted reader, listener or viewer. Your target's sphere of influence increases and your chance for word of mouth becomes organically exponential.

The costs? Your time for one. Fees for image licenses, soundbytes, editing (grammar, video, sound editing all come at a price) production of slides for events and presentations, equipment to record podcasts and videos, Event venue rentals and refreshments or meal costs. Promo costs. My event mailings in this small town cost about $8000 between design and printing, mailing list rental and postage. I sent out 8700 postcards, but ordered 10,000. The remaining leftovers will be distributed in discharge packets, handed out across the counter, and distributed to pharmacies, PCPs, PTs, home health agencies, etc. The dates span from August 28 - December 11, for a total of eight event dates. Another cost is the RSVP line and a few days before reconfirmation and event registration management.

But if I can seat 26 people per event, that's 52 knees and hips potential, even if they already had a replacement in the past. 832 potential cases * net profit of each case. How much would you pay to have the undivided attention and good will of 832 people? Probably more than the actual cost to market and produce 8 events the way I do it. If It didn't work, we wouldn't continue to produce the events, would we! Events are content too. Marketing the events digitally, raises SEO for the knee replacement surgery keyphrase. And it does so organically, without paying for Adwords and other pay-to-play options.

Oh but then there's the history taking on that first visit. "Hmm, so how long has your shoulder been bothering you? Well let's work on these problems one at a time and knock 'em all out and get you back to active!"

BAM! now you have problems to solve. Win them over with the first one and get rewarded with all their business, their significant others', their relatives, their churchgoers, their pickleball club, their golf buddies, and others. 832 possible joint replacement cases just exponentially exploded - if you manage your brand presence, integrity, and loyalty through lifetime customer value. Meanwhile, the ortho across the hall has ... a website that reads like an electronic trifold brochure. Big whoop!

But to get noticed even more when the mailing hits the mailboxes, you must seed the cloud so that it rains awareness and interest. that too, requires content distributed in a brand blitz campaign to create recognition, relevance, buzz, and desire to know more or curiosity.

This cloud seeding takes budget, time, opportunities to distribute content and be regarded as the trusted authority with expertise in knee or hip replacements. And the printed content in magazines and newspapers must have a digital access point so you get the SEO value in primarily non-digital advertising.

So you see how it starts to piece together like a patchwork quilt? Can this be done in other specialties? Of course! The formula is the same.

What if the provider is a multispecialty boutique hospital or physician-owned hospital or ASC? Then the secret lies in prioritization or collaboration. And that's actually harder than it sounds. Sure you can believe your docs will supply you with content. You'll be lucky to get their headshots.

Pick a likely to participate pilot group. Peruse their CVs to elucidate their passion, the languages they speak fluently, and their outside interests. Evaluate them as speakers and writers. Pull together outlines or interview questions for them. Who delivers? Who procrastinates? What's in it for them? How will you pitch them so they decide there's value in collaborating with you? Make it simple for them.

Now go back and follow the steps from the very beginning of this article - targeting - specialty by specialty, surgeon by surgeon or specialist by specialist. Choose the audience. Choose the message(s). Build the strategy. Execute the campaigns. Measure the results.

Need help? Call me!

About the Author

Dr. Maria Todd is the Director of Business Development for St George Surgical Center in St George, Utah and a consultant and interim director of business development to other healthcare providers in the USA and 117 countries.

If this article reads like a walk in the park, its because she does this day in and day out when she's not speaking, interviewing, consulting, writing, presenting, emceeing, or leading fam tours for payers, employers, TPAs, and the media.

She's always happy to answer a quick question as a courtesy or to assist you on a project based on her availability. She works exclusively with healthcare providers and is certified in digital marketing by Google to complement her other skills and education in healthcare business administration. Contact her by calling +1.800.727.4160 or sending email. Always reach out by phone first to set an appointment to reserve her undivided attention.