What is the purpose of having an impressive, user-friendly website? Beyond serving your existing patients, your medical practice’s website is a potent tool for attracting new ones. By prioritizing website quality, you not only enhance the user experience for patients, but you also meet a key criterion for search engine optimization (SEO). This article explains how a SEO and website design work together to increase the likelihood of potential patients discovering your medical practice in online search results.
8 Key Elements of Website Development SEO
What is SEO in website design? Some of the key elements that overlap between search engine optimization and website design include:
- Mobile-friendly design
- Quick load times
- Secure website
- Clear website structure
- Optimized website content
- Properly optimized images
- Use of relevant keywords
To better illustrate how these SEO and website design work in tandem to drive visibility in search results, the next following sections will provide a brief explanation for each.
1. Mobile-Friendly Design and SEO
Changes that accommodate the mobile experience align with Google’s quality criteria in selecting which websites place first in search engine results pages (SERPs). Mobile-first design is the process of creating a user-friendly website that looks and functions great on both mobile devices and desktop computers. With the mobile-first indexing changes that Google has recently made, a website’s mobile version is considered the primary version. As a result, mobile friendliness is a considerable website ranking factor.
Testing a website on various devices and platforms confirms seamless operation. When testing your site, check for elements that need to be resized or removed, which can cause web pages to load slowly or make it difficult for users to navigate.
2. SEO-Friendly Website Speed and Performance
Search engines like Google prioritize websites that load quickly, recognizing that users prefer fast, efficient online experiences. Therefore, optimizing your website’s page speed and performance not only enhances user satisfaction but also boosts your website’s rankings in search engine results, leading to increased visibility and more traffic.
3. Effective Website Structure and Navigation
A well-structured website with clear navigation allows users to easily find information, resulting in a positive browsing experience and increased engagement. SEO site design also helps search engines understand and index your content, improving your site’s visibility and search engine rankings. Optimize your website’s structure and navigation to enhance user experience, increase visibility, and drive traffic.
SEO and website design structural best practices include:
- Effective internal links: Connecting pages within your website helps users explore your site more productively, and better equips search engines for indexing and understanding the content of your website.
- An intuitive and SEO-friendly site architecture: A clear hierarchy and logical category structure make it easier for search engines to crawl and index your site, making it more accessible to your audience.
- Responsive design: With increasing mobile usage, responsive web design aims to develop websites that offer optimal user experience on-screen no matter what device is being used.
4. Enhancing Indexability and Crawlability
When designing a website with SEO in mind, it’s not just about keywords and content. Improving indexability and crawlability is crucial for user experience and search visibility. Users can find relevant content easily, improving satisfaction and engagement. Search engines understand your site better, leading to higher rankings and organic traffic. SEO and web design enhancements combined create a win-win: better user experience and improved search visibility.
For instance, if you run a medical practice that specializes in dermatology, having separate pages for different treatments such as “acne treatment,” “mole removal,” and “rosacea treatment” can make it easier to find your website. The following tips will also help improve website performance.
Clear URL Structures
Link formatting is a core component of website development SEO. URLs that are too long and contain unnecessary parameters can confuse search engine crawlers. Also, URLs that are short and descriptive are easier to remember and share.
For example, long and complicated web addresses like “https://www.medicalpractice.com/documents/doc-2335344-234523-facility-menu=derivatives,” can be simplified to “https://www.medicalpractice.com/acne-treatment.”
Avoiding Duplicate Content Issues
Duplicate content and keyword cannibalization are two major issues that can hamper a website’s quality and search visibility. When search engine crawlers find identical or similar content across domains, this is seen as content taken and republished from elsewhere. Hints of plagiarism can hurt your search rankings. Also, keyword cannibalization—when multiple pages target the same keyword—will dilute your SEO efforts. To address these issues, SEO website managers can use 301 redirects or canonical tags. Regularly auditing your site for these issues helps maintain high-quality, unique content so you can improve user experience and search visibility.
Keep Content Accessible
Pop-ups, or any other website elements that block content from being seen not only annoy site visitors, but they can also make it difficult for search engines to crawl your website. Also keep in mind that Google’s web crawlers cannot view photos and video. Meta descriptions-text describing what multimedia on a website contains–helps web crawlers get a full “reading” of the website. The more information that web crawlers can digest about your website, the better it can be indexed for search queries, thus helping your SEO.
5. Page Design and Usability
Behind every Google search is a goal. A patient-centric website experience that is ready to assist the visitors in finding healthcare solutions keeps them on the website longer and leaves a favorable impression of your medical practice. Such efforts also reflect a practice’s overall authority, credibility and commitment to quality healthcare.
With the following key elements in place, medical professionals can create a website that is engaging, inviting, informative, and, most importantly, designed to enhance the patient experience.
- Strategic placement of call-to-action (CTA) buttons: The point of driving traffic to your website is to bring in new patients. Placing buttons that guide website visitors to the next step is how you recruit new patients from website traffic.
- Clear and catchy headlines: When there are many search results to choose from, having an enticing headline helps your website stand out from the competition. Headlines should succinctly communicate that your link offers the resource that will best help the patient.
- Intuitive navigation: Website design has evolved to make the user experience seamless. The more your website matches the usability expectations of healthcare consumers, the more likely they will spend more time on your site. Bounce rate is a website performance metric that Google uses to gauge whether a website is valuable to users. Providing an intuitive user experience can prevent patients from quickly abandoning your website.
- Readable fonts and contrast: Most website visitors prefer high-contrast colors and readable fonts that are sized right and easily distinguishable from the background.
When users are spending more time on your website, this communicates to Google that you are a quality resource for what Google users are looking for in searches. This, of course, helps your SEO rankings.
6. Accessibility in Web Design
So much is done online, but the internet is designed for those without disabilities. These conventions disenfranchise many who may have vision and cognitive challenges. As technology continues to be a self-correcting environment, enhancements have been developed to make websites more accessible to those who cannot simply pull out a device and browse the internet as-is.
Keep in mind that there is always a good chance that someone in your current or future patient population will have some form of disability, and preemptively accommodating these individuals on your website not only helps patients, but also promotes an exceptional user experience that Google favors. Website accommodations for those with disabilities and impairments include:
- Keyboard navigation: Helps those who have difficulty or cannot use a mouse or any other pointing device.
- Alt text for images: For users who rely on screen readers, alt text is used to provide a description of the image.
- Contrast ratio for text: A higher contrast ratio makes text easier to read for people with visual impairments, but it also benefits people who use devices in different lighting conditions, such as mobile phones or tablets.
- Captions and transcripts: Captions, transcripts, and subtitles provide a text version of the audio content, making it accessible to a broader range of users.
- Heading structure: Properly structured headings can enhance the readability and comprehension of website content by ensuring that the content is well-organized.
7. Implementing Schema Markup
Schema markup provides additional information about the content on your webpage. It uses a special vocabulary or code that helps search engines better understand the context of your content. This can enhance the way your page appears in search results, making it more informative and interactive. In simple terms, it’s extra information that tells search engines what your content is about so that Google can be more precise in delivering useful search results.
Types of Schema Markup for Medical Professionals
There are several types of schema markup that can be particularly useful for medical practices, including:
- Blog article schema markup: Helps search engines understand the content of blog posts or articles on your website, making it easier for them to display the most relevant results to users searching for medical information.
- Local business schema markup: Helps search engines display information about your medical practice, including your address, phone number, and hours of operation.
- Event schema markup: Promote upcoming events, such as seminars or workshops, by displaying information like the date, location, and description of the event.
How to Implement Schema Markup for Your Medical Practice
Implementing schema markup may sound complicated, but there are several tools and plugins available that can make the process easier. For example, you can use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to create schema markup for your website, or you can use a plugin like Yoast SEO to add schema markup to content on your WordPress site.
8. Optimizing Images for SEO
For many website building platforms, uploading and posting images is simple. However, there are image best practices that can help your SEO. Here are some SEO and web design tips for images.
Use Descriptive File Names
Instead of naming an image “image1.png,” it is better to use a file name that describes the image, such as “smiling-doctor-with-small-child-and-mother.png.” This can help search engines understand what the image contains, making it easier for them to determine relevance for search results.
Compress Images
Large image files can significantly affect website loading speed and hamper user engagement. You can compress images using online image compression tools or image editing software. Compression not only improves the website’s loading speed but also reduces the bandwidth consumption of your website, saving you hosting costs. The key is to reduce image size while maintaining image quality.
Use Relevant Keywords in Alt Text
Alt text allows website administrators to add a description to an image. This feature can be read by screen readers for the visually impaired, and it also appears when an image fails to load. Target keywords can sometimes be placed in alt text to enhance SEO.
Use Appropriate Image Sizes
One of the most common mistakes when adding images to a website is not using appropriate sizes. Scaling large images to fit your website dimensions could affect website loading speed and can cause images to appear blurry or pixelated. This works against the quality user experience needed to perform well in search rank.
Use Structured Data Markup for Images
Structured data markup gives search engines extra information about the images on your website in a way they can easily understand. This tells search engines more about your pictures so that they can show them to people in a more relevant way.
How To Implement SEO Strategy into Your Website Design Process
One of the most important steps in implementing SEO strategies into your website design process is collaboration between web developers and SEO specialists. Both parties must be “on the same page” when creating optimized websites, as how they are set up and built can directly impact SEO.
Content Marketing and SEO
Content marketing is where SEO and website management work together to bring more potential patients to your medical practice. Guided by SEO keyword strategy, publishing content that is relevant to your target audience works like a magnet to drive traffic from search results. Blog articles, videos, provider bios, and more can all be discovered in Google search through content marketing strategy making it more likely for individuals to discover and choose your practice for their healthcare needs.
Summary: SEO and Web Design
By adding considerations for SEO into your medical practice web design, you amplify the value of your website. Websites have always been a way to serve patients online, but with the power of SEO, you can repurpose your medical practice website to attract new patients. User experience best practices, keyword strategy, image optimization, and other website tweaks help your medical practice reach more patients in Google search.
Effective SEO and Web Design Are Within Reach
Websites are a hub for patient convenience, but with digital marketing strategies like SEO, websites can grow your healthcare business. iHealthSpot’s digital marketing experts help many specialties maximize the value of medical practice websites by transforming them for increased new patient recruitment. Because we offer web design and content marketing strategies like SEO, we know how to make the two work together to achieve the best online visibility results. Contact us to learn more about how we can customize solutions to help your practice soar above the competition.
