People who need urgent care usually don’t have a lot of time to search for the best clinic in their area. As someone who owns a care clinic, you want to be the first thing that people see on search results whenever they seek immediate care.
In this article, we’ll share with you the steps on how to find top-performing SEO keywords for urgent care centers along with other tips on how to improve the quality of your website that will surely increase your brand’s visibility!
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to the process of improving the quality of your urgent care website so that your business shows on top of relevant search results. Before we share with you the steps on how to optimize your care clinic’s website, it’s important that you know the different types of SEO strategies. This includes On-page SEO, Off-page SEO, and Technical SEO.
On-page SEO refers to the process of improving the quality of your urgent care clinic’s web pages to improve your rank on search engines. This includes the use of external links, optimizing your URLs, title tags, and meta descriptions, as well as publishing content that satisfies your prospective patients’ intent.
On the other hand, Off-page SEO refers to the process of improving the quality of your website using strategies outside your website. Its purpose is to make your care clinic’s website trustworthy and authoritative. Some of the off-page strategies include posting on social media, writing guest blogs, posting on forums, and creating backlinks.
Lastly, Technical SEO is the process of making sure that search engines can easily browse and index your urgent care website. Some of the tactics include a fast page loading speed, fixing duplicate content, making your urgent care clinic’s website secure, etc.
Want to start SEO for your Urgent Care Center but don’t have time to do it?
Why is SEO important for Urgent Care Clinics?
You might be wondering, is SEO really THAT important for your walk-in clinic? Absolutely! In fact, it is one of the most efficient digital marketing strategies aside from Google Ads.
Moving forward, here are other reasons why you should do Urgent Care SEO:
- It makes your urgent care clinic easy to find.
- Since people who are looking for urgent care centers are usually in a hurry, they have no time to visit the other pages aside from page 1 of Google’s Search Results Page. One thing that using the right keywords does for your urgent care center is that it increases your site ranking. The more relevant and optimized your published content is, the higher you’ll rank on Google.
- It boosts traffic.
- The more relevant keywords you use on digital platforms (e.g. your urgent care website, Google My Business Profile, and social media pages) the higher the chance of bringing in more traffic to your site.
- Businesses that can be found on top of Google’s Search Engine Results Page have higher chances of getting tons of traffic especially if it has all of the details that a patient is looking for.
- Increases credibility.
- People are more likely to trust websites that appear on the first page of Google’s Search Results Page. So, if your urgent care website appears on the top three SERP results, you have a higher chance of getting more clicks and organic traffic! Not only that, but it also creates a better image of your brand.
Want to optimize your site but don’t have enough time?
Tips on How to Do SEO Urgent Care Centers
Now that you have an idea of how SEO works, here are tips on how to optimize your urgent care clinic’s website to stay on top of the minds of your potential customers!
1. Audit your website
Website audit refers to the process of evaluating the potential factors that might affect your urgent care website’s performance. This is the first thing that you should do before making changes to your website because it helps you see which pages on your urgent care website need to be improved.
Tips on how to audit your urgent care website:
- Use an SEO audit tool like Semrush
- Use Google Search Console to detect issues with your urgent care website’s performance, issues with indexing, and user experience.
- Evaluate the links pointed back to your website
- Check if your forms are working
- Make sure that you are tracking your conversions
- Analyze your website’s design (e.g. check to see if all of the buttons and links are functioning properly, elements are cluttered, etc.)
- Create a checklist to make sure that you don’t forget to review essential elements on your website
2. Implement relevant keywords
To increase the chances of your urgent care clinic showing up on relevant search queries and being discovered by your prospective patients, make sure to use keywords that are related to the services that you’re offering. To make that happen, you should do comprehensive keyword research. This way, you’ll have a better understanding of what search terms are commonly used by your target audience.
How to find SEO Keywords for Urgent Care Centers
1. Identify your niche
To save time thinking about the topics you want to discuss on your website, you could start by writing a list of all the things you know about your urgent care clinic. From the treatments, you provide down to the most common issues that your patients frequently experience. Knowing your niche helps you rank on specific terms and get focused traffic to your site.
How do you know if the niche you chose is worth pursuing? When you see the Google SERP results of the keyword mostly show low-quality pages, this means that the competition of your chosen keyword isn’t that intimidating and is worth a shot!
2. Use keyword research tools
If you want to start doing keyword research by yourself, you’ll get tons of ideas by using keyword research tools. This will not only help you save time but will also give you in-depth details about a specific search query.
Here are some of the tools that we recommend you use when doing keyword research for urgent care centers:
Google Keyword Planner
In your Google Ads account, you can get keyword ideas and suggestions in just a few minutes! Keyword Planner is a free tool that gives you suggested bid estimates and creates a plan out of the list you’re about to create.
Here’s a guide on how to use it:
Step 1: From your Google Ads account, go to “Tools & Settings”
Step 2: Under “Planning” select “Keywords planner”
Step 3: You’ll be given two options which will either give you keyword ideas or get search volume forecasts.
Step 4: Clicking “Discover new keywords” will prompt you to this page. You’ll have to enter services that are offered by your urgent care clinic or enter your website to filter keywords that are irrelevant to your field. Then, click “Get results”
In this example, we used “urgent care.”
Step 5: After typing in the services offered by your urgent care clinic, you’ll see a table showing all of the relevant keywords along with the average monthly searches, level of competition, top page bid (low range), and low page bid (high range).
You can even filter the urgent care keyword ideas you got by checking or unchecking the box that corresponds to the type of keyword you don’t want to show up to. For example, if you are not affiliated with any healthcare insurance company, unchecking the box beside “healthcare company” will remove urgent care-related keywords that might usually go along with the names of healthcare companies.
Or if you think the keywords that were shown aren’t enough, you can broaden it by adding more keywords based on the suggestions.
By clicking “Get Search Volume Forecasts” you’ll have to enter the phrases you want to include per line or separate it using a comma in between.
In this example, we separated the keywords we are going for by adding them line by line. Then, click “Get started”
Then, it’ll show you the volume forecast of the phrases you entered earlier.
Haven’t set up your Google Ads account? Read our step-by-step guide on How to Create Google Ads for Urgent Care Centers to learn more.
Manual Keyword Research
Step 1: On your preferred search engine, enter the keyword you want to use on your urgent care blog.
Step 2: Check out each post that appears on Google’s Search Results Page.
Step 3: Press Ctrl + F followed by the keyword you’re planning to use on your urgent care blog. It’ll show you the number of times your focus keyword was used along with the strategic areas where you can place your target keyword (e.g. headings, paragraphs, or title tags).
Step 4: Take note of the way each post is written (e.g. long-form content, listicles, or category page), strategic areas where focus keywords are placed, along with the number of times the keyword is used throughout the content.
Step 5: Repeat steps 3 and 4 under each post under the Search Results Page (SERP) and make sure to apply those strategies on your future posts so that it ranks high on relevant search queries.
Google Sheets
Keyword research can get complicated sometimes, and one way to compile all of your keyword-researched ideas is by using G Sheets. Here, you can categorize your keyword list by creating designated columns for each topic. You can find lots of keyword research templates on sites like Backlinko or create your own!
Keyword Surfer
Keyword Surfer is a browser extension that helps you do in-depth keyword research for urgent care-related search terms. By using this extension, you’ll directly see the average monthly searches as well as the Cost Per Click (CPC) for Ad campaigns in the search box.
Here’s what it looks like:
Answer The Public
Answer The Public is another keyword tool that helps you discover relevant topics based on people’s search terms. It will show you a visualization of the 5 Ws (Who, What, When, Where, Why) along with the “which”, “are”, “will”, “can”, and “how” phrases that people frequently use when looking for an urgent care clinic.
Here’s what it looks like:
3. Look at search intent
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- You’ll get lots of information just by looking at your customer’s search intent because these are the type of keywords they use when they’re on the verge of buying a service.
- You can see the search intent based on the search results of a keyword. It has 4 types which can be navigational, informational, transactional, or commercial.
- For example, if someone is looking for at-home remedies for first-degree burns, they’ll be searching for “how to treat first-degree burns” or “first aid for minor burns”
- But if it’s a second-degree burn or higher, commercial keywords like “urgent care for burns” are more likely to be used.
- For example, if someone is looking for at-home remedies for first-degree burns, they’ll be searching for “how to treat first-degree burns” or “first aid for minor burns”
4. Use long-tail keywords
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- Narrow your keywords as much as you can. Although it might not get high traffic, the more specific your urgent care keywords are, the higher the chance it is to rank. Not just that, you’ll get more focused traffic because people who will be visiting your page are potential patients.
- It should include a head keyword. For example, if your head keyword is “urgent care.” Keywords like “when to seek urgent care,” “urgent care services,” and “urgent care near me” could be some of the phrases you can use.
- From your list, brainstorm all of the relevant topics that can be covered by your keywords. It will usually have a low search volume, however, it has the ability to bring in more focused traffic to your urgent care website.
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Interested in doing keyword research for your care clinic’s website?
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Keyword Ideas for Urgent Care Centers
Here are some of the urgent care keywords that you should try in your marketing campaigns:
- urgent care near me
- urgent care + name of your city
- urgent care + name of the county
- urgent care + healthcare insurance company
- 24-hour urgent care near me
Additional tips for doing keyword research for Urgent Care Centers:
- Use location-based keywords
- By targeting location-based keywords, you’ll be able to drive more patients to your urgent care clinic. For example, let’s say you’re located in Los Angeles. An example of location-based keywords that you can use are “Urgent Care in Los Angeles” or “Urgent Care LA“
- Find out what people are actually looking for
- To get an idea of what people are looking for when it comes to urgent care clinics, check out the “People also ask” section or scroll down to the bottom part of Google’s Search Engine Results page to see more of the related searches.
Finding the right SEO keywords for Urgent Care Centers can be an overwhelming task. Our team is here to help.
3. Optimize your business listings
The next thing that you should do to optimize your online presence is to improve the quality of your business listings. For example, if you already have a Google My Business Profile for your care clinic, make sure that you fill out all the information that your potential patients will be needing in times of emergency. This includes your clinic’s name, phone number, location, and business hours. If you don’t have these on your business listing, or if your profile is incomplete, there’s a high possibility that they’ll look for other care clinics that have complete information.
How to optimize your business listing:
- Add real photos of your urgent care clinic
- Regularly post on Google
- Gather lots of good reviews
- Respond to negative reviews
- Switch on your notifications for new questions raised by potential patients
Haven’t created your Business Profile yet? Read our blog post on Google My Business for Urgent Care Centers to learn more.
4. Create lots of useful content
Aside from gaining the trust of your target audience, publishing high-quality content on your urgent care website will give you tons of benefits such as having high click-through rates, gaining backlinks from high-authority websites, and generating leads. Content marketing puts you on top of the search results of consumers who are most likely to do business with you.
Some of the content marketing ideas you can post on your site are blogs, educational videos, infographics, e-books, etc.
Tip when publishing urgent care-related content:
- Create a list of topics you want to share with your target audience
- Add long-tail keywords to your topics/ title
- Make it readable. Use Hemingway Editor to check readability level (recommended grade 8 level or below)
- Use Grammarly to check for potential grammar errors
- Use a content calendar so you can stick to a posting schedule
- Compress images before uploading them
- Implement keywords throughout your content
5. Manage your online reputation
85% of consumers look at online reviews before visiting a business establishment. When they see lots of negative reviews on your business listing or feedback when they search for you on social media, it’ll leave a bad impression about your urgent care clinic.
Why you should manage your urgent care clinic’s reputation?
- improves your brand’s credibility
- improves your online presence
- helps build trust in your brand
How to respond to positive reviews
- Personalize your response
- Make sure to express your gratitude by saying things like
- Invite them to engage with your brand in the future
How to deal with negative reviews
According to a survey, 94% of consumers will avoid a business that has a negative review especially if they weren’t able to address the concerns of their customers right away. So, make sure that you make time to take a look at your previous patients’ reviews on your business listings and social media pages. This way, you can immediately address their concerns and take responsibility for the inconvenience that may have happened.
Here are some tips when dealing with negative reviews:
- Acknowledge the reviewer’s experience
- If necessary, explain what happened
- Discuss the issue offline
6. Regularly monitor the performance of your website’s rank and performance
You should also make it a habit you monitor your brand’s performance. This way, you get to know whether you’re a few steps closer to reaching your marketing goals or if you need a little more work to make it happen.
Here are some of the tools that can help you analyze the performance of your urgent care clinic’s online presence:
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a useful tool that provides you with instant charts and reports that helps you analyze the performance of your landing pages and understand user behavior.
Semrush
Semrush gives you an idea of your target keyword’s rank on Search Results. It also tells you whether your content is cannibalizing other pages on your urgent care website.
Key takeaway
SEO for Urgent Care Centers is an effective way to bring in more new patients to your clinic. Although it may take several months before you see its full potential, it will be worth it especially if you are using the right tools and strategies that we’ve mentioned in this blog. If you need help optimizing your care clinic’s website, feel free to Contact Us.
