3 Reasons Why You Should Outsource Healthcare SEO
Episode Transcript: 3 Reasons Why You Should Outsource Healthcare SEO
SEO is confusing. So confusing that many doctors don’t even see the point.
Why spend time and money on something so few people understand? Is there any payoff?
Even for those who see the value in ranking higher on Google, Search Engine Optimization is still a confusing world.
Many doctors choose to outsource their SEO to a trusted agency, but some struggle along and try to do it in house.
This week on the Medical Marketing Podcast, we’ll show you why outsourcing your SEO is the best way to improve your search engine rankings, boost ROI, and grow your practice.
Why SEO?
Before we begin, we have to answer an important question: why do SEO in the first place?
When it comes to SEO for healthcare, there are two important statistics you need to know:
- 8 out of 10 patients start their search for a doctor with Google
- Fewer than 1% of people ever click to Page 2 of Google
When doctors ask us why SEO is important, we tell them those two statistics. That’s usually all it takes – those are the only reasons they need.
The fact is, if you’re not on Page 1 of Google…
- You’re missing out on traffic
- You’re missing out on leads
- You’re missing out on revenue
If you want to grow your practice and get more leads, the highest-leverage thing you can do is invest in SEO to get on Page 1.
But many practices don’t know where to start…so here are 3 reasons why you should consider outsourcing your SEO.
3 Reasons Why You Should Outsource Healthcare SEO
There are three primary reasons why you should consider outsourcing SEO for your practice.
Reason #1: You don’t know how SEO works
Most doctors fall into this category: they don’t fully understand how Google or SEO in general works.
Google alone makes thousands of changes to its algorithm every year…so SEO is a very fast-paced industry.
What’s more, there’s tons of misinformation – or just old information – out there about strategies and techniques that don’t work anymore.
By outsourcing your SEO, you can rest easy knowing that an expert is handling your project. You want someone who can stay on top of industry trends and respond appropriately, rather than trying old, outdated techniques that won’t move the needle.
Reason #2: You don’t have the time
This is the second most common reason to outsource your SEO: you don’t have the time to do it and do it right.
- If you have a marketing team on staff at your practice, chances are they’re too busy with other projects. SEO is very time-intensive, so they probably don’t have the bandwidth to handle it.
- And if you’re a smaller practice, you might not have a marketing team at all. If that’s the case, marketing probably falls on you…and you aren’t likely to have the time to pour into optimizing your site, improving E- A-T, building backlinks, etc…
The point is this: it’s incredibly time-intensive to do SEO well. If you want to do SEO right, it’s really a full-time job for a person – it’s not something you can just spend an hour or two a week on and hope to see something change. SEO just doesn’t work like that.
By outsourcing, you know that you’re handing off your SEO campaigns to a team that can devote the resources necessary to do the work and do it well.
Reason #3: You want good ROI on your investment
This one seems obvious: everybody wants positive ROI, right?
Even if the first two reasons we’ve outlined here aren’t a problem for you, ROI is still important. Maybe you have a technical background and understand how Google works. Maybe you’re lucky enough to have the time and resources to pour into SEO.
If that’s you, awesome. But you still probably want to outsource your SEO. Why? Because your time is most likely better spent elsewhere:
- If you’re a doctor, you have patients to attend to.
- If you’re a marketing manager, chances are you have other projects that you can bring your unique contribution to
Adam Smith is often called the Father of Modern Economics. In his famous book The Wealth of Nations, he outlined the concepts of absolute and comparative advantage:
Absolute advantage describes a scenario in which one person can manufacture a product at a higher quality and a faster rate for a greater profit than another competitor can.
Comparative advantage is different: it takes into consideration the opportunity costs involved when choosing to manufacture multiple types of goods with limited resources.
Smith was talking about goods and services, but the concept holds true when you think about how you spend your time and what you work on.
The lesson here is this: “just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”
You might know how SEO works. You might have the time and expertise do actually do SEO yourself.
But that doesn’t mean you should.
There might be someone else out there who can take that work off your plate and do it to a higher quality, freeing up valuable time for you.
What would you do with all that free time and bandwidth?
Are there higher-leverage opportunities or projects you could work on?
Instead of trying to take everything on yourself, focus on areas where your time and attention will actually move the needle – where only you can make a unique contribution – and invest in areas where others are more of an expert than you.
By doing that, you can increase your leverage – both in the areas that you focus on and the areas you outsource to others.
So those are a few reasons why you should strongly consider outsourcing your healthcare SEO to an outside expert.
Next up? A few tips on how to find the right healthcare SEO agency to partner with your practice.
How to Find the Right Healthcare SEO Agency
Ok, you want to outsource. But how can you find the right agency?
We’ve written extensively on this, so I won’t go into too much detail. If you’re interested in learning more, check out our blog post on what to look for in an SEO agency – it’s got lots of great resources and questions to ask when finding the right agency for your practice.
In the meantime, here are a few tips:
- Look for experience in healthcare. The best partner should understand the challenges you face as a healthcare provider and be able to work with you to solve them.
- Look for positive reviews. There’s nothing more powerful than a positive review or testimonial from a satisfied client. If an agency doesn’t have positive reviews, it probably won’t be the right fit.
- Ask for a list of references. Any SEO agency worth their salt should be able to refer you to past (or current) satisfied clients.
- Look at case studies. Likewise, many agencies choose to highlight the results they’ve achieved for clients through case studies on their website. These go into more depth about the client’s unique situation or challenges, and how the agency went about solving them.
Look at other service offerings the agency offers. This one is a matter of personal preference. Some doctors like to see agencies that specialize in only one thing, while others prefer to have an agency with a “deep bench”, so to speak – one that can help them in many facets of their marketing. Regardless, take a look into the other things the agency offers and make sure you’re comfortable with the scope of their services.
So that’s it. I hope you’ve learned three things about SEO this week:
- SEO is the most high-leverage marketing strategy to get more patients, bar none.
- SEO is too important – and too time-consuming – to do it yourself.
- Investing in outsourced SEO is an incredibly high-ROI tactic you can choose to boost revenue and grow the practice you’ve always dreamed of.
Next Week
Well, that’s all for this week’s episode of the Medical Marketing Podcast. As always, thanks for tuning in.
Next week, we’ll discuss how to use SEO to beat the competition in your local market and keep them from stealing patients that should be yours.
And if you want more practice marketing resources, check out our website at www.messenger.md. We’re always sharing helpful tips and know-how to help you improve your practice marketing, grow revenue, and take your patient experience to the next level.
That’s all for today’s episode – I’m Crawford Ifland. See you next week.
