Introduction
It’s no secret each business is going to be and has already been negatively impacted by the coronavirus. With that said, there are several things we can do to minimize the impact of performance and keep our patients happy. It’s also a great opportunity to review SEO tactics and optimization ideas to make sure things are in great shape when they eventually return to normal.
Do’s and Don’ts of SEO
The number one thing to keep in mind when it comes to SEO is to not panic and overreact when it comes to current events taking place. Unlike other channels, SEO isn’t an immediate turn on/off kind of a channel. Google’s algorithms and crawlers operate independently of what’s going on in the world and aren’t directly impacted by things like the coronavirus. In other words, they operate as if it’s business as usual and SEO rankings aren’t largely impacted.
It’s possible and highly likely that SEO rankings will be the same or even improve in some cases, which normally leads to increases in performance. However, the search volume or amount of people searching for those keywords will be down, resulting in negative performance. So far, based on Google Trends data, we’ve seen several instances where the general interest is down quite substantially. Some of these interest levels are at multi-year lows which can be an indication of search volume. The more interest, the higher the search volume and vice versa.
When search volume returns to normal, we’ll be in great shape and should see large performance improvements.
What we can do now is take the time to make sure all SEO optimization opportunities are completed to ensure maximum performance. Those opportunities are discussed further below and do relate to Google My Business and content creation.
Updating Google My Business
Google has a local business tool called Google My Business (GMB) which allows for optimizations and a quick source of information in search results. In GMB, a business can update the common things such as name, address, and phone number. However, in regard to ensuring all opportunities are optimized, we also need to be sure that the additional features such as business hours, descriptions, and posts are updated. All of these updates are something that DoctorLogic can do for you as long as we have access to your GMB account and the information to input.
In the current state of affairs, many businesses have been forced to temporarily close or reduce hours. To stay current, Google has specifically placed guidance around this which requires updating business hours. It can also be updated by using the special holiday hours section.
Google also allows for you to update your business information, which can be temporarily altered to describe the current status, such as “emergency only appointments”.
In some cases, Google will automatically mark your business as “temporarily closed” which can be overwritten in GMB. This information is something Google pulls from authoritative sources.
Google also allows for you to update your business information, which can be temporarily altered to describe the current status, such as “emergency only appointments”.
The creation of specific posts can notify your searchers about the current status of your business. It can also be used to create special offers or other incentives to make your listing stick out more and encourage people to visit your business.
The creation of specific posts can notify your searchers about the current status of your business. It can also be used to create special offers or other incentives to make your listing stick out more and encourage people to visit your business.
While actively updating or reviewing GMB, make sure to update the other sections too. They include menus, which work the same way as a restaurant menu, and a list of products that can be uploaded via a URL or PDF document. It’s not known if either of these impact rankings, but they can help your listing stick out more in results.
Respond to reviews
Right now is also a great opportunity to review and respond to the reviews of your business, which is a known ranking factor. These reviews come from places like GMB, Yelp, and other leading medical directory websites. There’s no definitive proof that a response has to be super long, but it’s considered a best practice to write a quality response to the review.
Recapping why you should manage you GMB account
Actively managing your GMB account is a positive action for your business for a number of reasons and is viewed as an engagement factor that Google likes to see. In summary, here’s a list of things to do in GMB:
- Update business hours as appropriate
- Respond to reviews
- Update/add lists of services offered at the location
Additional content opportunities
With the extra time you have available, it’s important to review your website to ensure the current procedures listed are still relevant and accurate. If there are new procedures, this is the opportune time to add new ones. Content writing is a specialty at DoctorLogic. We can help you add those new procedures to your existing site or make changes to/refresh the current procedure pages with updated, fresh content.
Informational related searches correlated to procedures are a great opportunity to capitalize on for your business. People like to search for topics that aren’t always easily listed on a procedure page. This informational content is frequently shown in answer boxes which are a highly desirable position above traditional search results. These answer boxes can bring in additional traffic and visibility to your website.
Some content can be converted or completed in the form of video content which gives you another marketing platform to utilize as well. This video content can live on the website and can be used across other marketing platforms too.
At the end of the day, keep in mind that any type of content requires patience in order to rank well and it does not happen overnight.