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Googled: How One Hospital Boosted Its Search Results

 |  By Anna@example.com  
   April 06, 2011

Sometimes, there's a thin line separating hospital marketing messages from spam. Let's face it. Both are competing for our limited attention with a flood of buzzwords, invites, and links. Standing out in a sea of search results does not happen automatically at the click of a mouse.

More than 80% of U.S. adults are using the Internet to search for healthcare information, according to a 2011 Pew Internet survey. It is the third-most-popular online activity behind email and search engine use.

"Right now, the most accurate searches involve up to four keywords. People are no longer searching for terms such as heart failure. They are searching for 'heart valve replacement Chicago,'" explained Elizabeth Scott, CEO of Raven New Media and Marketing. "I think you need to recognize the power of regional boundaries and play this up in search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) strategies."

Luring potential patients away from WebMD and back to your practice or hospital requires some magnetic marketing techniques. With search engine optimization in mind, Emory Heart & Vascular Center  launched a marketing campaign in January 2011 designed to drive visitors to the EHVC website and increase patient volume.

Their tactics included:
  • Consolidating content by theme and keywords
  • Creating dropdown menus allowing visitors to select their conditions
  • Updating an EHVC blog at least once a week with links to the website
  • Promoting patient success stories with videos highlighting unique procedures and success stories from EHVC
  • Using social media to draw website traffic

The result? Within a month of the campaign, website traffic rose 34.8% in visits and 16.7% in page views. EHVC also ranks high on Google search results—often on the first page or in the top position for heart and vascular keywords, example: heart valve replacement GA.

"To show up in organic searches you really need to concentrate on a strategy that will allow you to own a niche such as a sub service line, a highly specialized procedure, a unique success story, or an innovation that isn't common among hospitals---otherwise you will be buried under tons of cookie-cutter service line and general hospital information," says Scott.

Social media seems like the obvious choice for a health facility to demonstrate a unique voice and offerings. A national Capstrat-Public Policy Polling survey, however,  has found that more than 85% of respondents would not use social media for medical communication if their docs offered it.

A step to making your hospital's Twitter account relevant could be tapping in to popular conversation treads. Hashtags, or Twitter search terms, start with the "#" symbol and a keyword for the discussion. The most popular healthcare hashtags are ones centered on healthcare reform. Some of the most popular healthcare hashtags by total views according to Healthcare Hashtag Project include the following:

  • #hcsm --- healthcare communications and social media
  • #opnhealth – A reform hashtag, related to #hcr (healthcare reform) and #healthreform
  • #hpm – Conversations on hospice and palliative care, related to hashtags #hospice and #palliative.
  • #MDchat – A Twitter Chat term for physicians. The term is related to others like #physician and #doctors.
  • #eldercarechat – A Twitter Chat hashtag focused on issues of importance to elder care professionals and caregivers.
  • #HealthIT – Discussions on health information technology, related terms include #HIT and #eprescribing. Influencers include @ONC_HealthIT, the Office National Coordinator of Health IT.
  • #mHealth – A tag for mobile health and telemedicine discussions, related to #eHealth

Staying niche-specific and encouraging the conversion is key to boosting patient volume, says Scott.  We forget to encourage sharing. Phrases like 'please past this along' or 'post this to your page' are powerful, communal calls to action," she said.

Word choice can make or break a hospital marketing campaign. Does your healthcare facility have a blog or Twitter account? How do you make your marketing campaigns more 'Google-friendly'?

Discuss in our comments section bellow.

Questions? Comments? Story ideas? Anna Webster, Online Content Coordinator for HealthLeaders Media, can be reached at awebster@hcpro.com.
Follow Anna Webster on Twitter

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