2024 SEO HEALTHCARE STUDY
Decoding Healthcare SEO: Unveiling the Tactics of Top-Ranked Provider Sites
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Leveraging Locality | Understanding User Intent | Transactional Keywords | Listing Optimization
Cardiology | Neurology | OB/GYN | Primary Care | Urgent Care | Pediatrics
What we uncovered by analyzing tens of thousands of keywords and hundreds of provider pages across three major U.S. healthcare markets.
In 2024, organic search will remain a major channel for healthcare providers – in fact, for most providers, Google is likely to be their largest source of new digital appointment bookings, as well as the resource potential patients use most frequently to assess and compare care options.
So where should healthcare providers invest to succeed in organic search? Is optimizing Google Business Profiles and other local SEO tactics the best use of time and money? Or should health care providers work to build out large informational content libraries and boost “EEAT” signals?
To help answer these types of questions and bring more clarity to the daunting topic of SEO for healthcare providers, we analyzed search rankings, search engine results page (SERP) composition, and content strategies across six distinct healthcare categories and multiple major U.S. healthcare markets. What we discovered can help marketing managers and executives at healthcare organizations to make better, more well-informed decisions about their SEO strategies and tactics in 2024.
Our research revealed many examples of how search creates big winners and losers in healthcare: in every market and every practice area we analyzed, there are large incumbents struggling to earn visibility due to flawed or poorly executed strategies, while cleverer or more ambitious competitors win new patients through sites that work well for both Google and real human beings.
And even after over a decade specializing in search and inbound marketing for healthcare, we still saw plenty of things that surprised us, including what we believe to be some new practice-level findings about SEO for healthcare that we share below.
YMYL – which stands for “Your Money or Your Life” – refers to web pages or content that can significantly impact users’ health, finances, well-being or safety. Google particularly scrutinizes YMYL content for high-quality information, expertise, and trustworthiness to ensure users receive accurate and reliable information in crucial areas of their lives.
EEAT – which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness – is Google’s framework for assessing the credibility of web content and is a critical factor in the context of “YMYL” content. It influences how Google ranks health-related content, ensuring that information is credible and trustworthy, favoring websites that provide informative and accurate information to users.
Methodology
Our aim was to demystify SEO for healthcare marketers by providing a holistic view of the competitive landscape and covering a broad spectrum of information sources that potential patients might encounter.
Our process involved a comprehensive and methodical approach, leveraging Wheelhouse’s proprietary Lighthouse keyword analysis tool. This tool allowed us to sift through over 10,000 keywords to surface top-performing organizations for high-value queries.
Our study focused on Chicago, Columbus, and Dallas, each chosen for their distinctive healthcare settings: Chicago’s urban complexity, Columbus’ evolving mid-size market, and Dallas’ competitive, growing metro area. Together these markets provide a comprehensive view of the search landscape in American healthcare.
We focused on six critical specialties: Cardiology, Neurology, OB/GYN, Pediatrics, Urgent Care, and Primary Care. These specialties were selected based on their high patient search demand and potential to drive revenue, highlighting the key areas where providers should concentrate their SEO efforts for maximum impact.
We meticulously assessed leading pages across the three metros from a diverse spectrum of healthcare entities. This included:
01
Large Healthcare Systems
Often affiliated with universities, these organizations inherently possess an advantage in organic search due to their substantial resources. This includes access to a wide range of content creation capabilities, research publications, and a robust online presence, all contributing to their strength in search rankings.
02
Smaller Healthcare Providers
These systems include specialized or private clinics that can benefit the most from a savvy organic search strategy. By capitalizing on their niche expertise and personalized level of care, these smaller entities can effectively compete with larger healthcare systems. (See “Finding 1”, below.) Their unique selling points and specialized knowledge can be leveraged to enhance their visibility in search results.
03
Aggregator and Review Sites
These digital platforms compile provider information and available appointment slots from a variety of healthcare providers, serving as a comprehensive resource for patients. Due to their extensive listings, user reviews, and the convenience they offer, these aggregator sites are challenging to outrank in search results.
Key Findings.
How the most successful provider pages win in search–and where there is still opportunity for competitors to make their mark.
Key Finding 01
Small or regional healthcare systems can leverage their locality to beat out national organizations.
When it comes to EEAT signals, regional healthcare providers face an uphill battle due to their limited resources compared to national organizations which have the capacity to create expansive content libraries. This becomes especially critical in specialties like cardiology and neurology, where the bulk of search traffic is for educational queries by users seeking to learn about specific conditions.
To stand out against these larger incumbents, providers must emphasize their locality on condition and service pages through mentions of their related research centers, specialist availability, and map features.
For example, in Chicago, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is highly successful in neurology-related searches thanks to their robust content library, ranking for over 200 keywords totaling over 50,000 in monthly search volume (MSV). Yet UChicago, with less than half as many pieces of content, successfully ranks for just as many page one keywords. They achieved this in part by adding local context to services content, providing a breakdown of services by location, and including a map of treatment locations.
UChicago leverages their treatment locations to compete against national brands for neurology keywords.
This strategy works towards a long-term goal of securing shares in SERPs for high-value, high-funnel keywords through quality content, while simultaneously achieving short-term wins in lower-funnel, local-specific terms.
Key Finding 02
Understanding user intent is essential to targeting high-value search traffic.
Johns Hopkins’ POTS treatment page demonstrates experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.
Physician’s Immediate Care enjoys top rankings for urgent care keywords thanks to a well-optimized appointment booking user flow.
Key Finding 03
For keywords with transactional keywords, Google rewards sites that make it easy to search for providers, conditions and treatments.
Our analysis of urgent care, primary care, and OBGYN specialties has identified a clear trend: these fields predominantly attract transactional user intent, often indicated by bottom-of-the-funnel terms like “specialty + near me.” Successful pages in these categories typically showcase a thoughtfully designed, accessible search bar positioned prominently above the fold, facilitating quick and easy searches for appointments or physicians, and demonstrating a user experience designed to satisfy appointment booking user intents.
Consider Baylor, Scott & White as a prime example: it ranks among the top three healthcare providers for both primary care and OBGYN searches in the Dallas metro area, driving an impressive total of approximately 4,600 estimated monthly visits from these searches. While the overall authority and quality of their site contributes to this success, they outperform other providers with similar reputations and websites due to an expertly optimized homepage, which features an appointment call-to-action (CTA) search bar in a prominent spot above the fold. For providers seeking to enhance their visibility in these specialties, prioritizing a user-friendly experience, especially in streamlining the appointment booking process, is crucial for securing top rankings.
Baylor, Scott & White differentiate themselves in a competitive search landscape with a best-in-class homepage and above-the-fold provider search module.
Key Finding 04
Proactive listing optimization on aggregator sites like Zocdoc is essential to maintaining online visibility for competitive searches.
In the ever-evolving healthcare landscape, the competition for online visibility is intense, involving several different classes of healthcare providers (HCPs), news outlets, and notably rating/aggregator sites like ZocDoc and Medifind. These aggregator sites appear on the first page of search results for 42% of all health-related searches in the Chicago metro area, commanding a considerable share of market search volume, especially for transactional, lower-funnel keywords. And while seasoned healthcare marketers are likely well-acquainted with these sites, their prominence in search has only grown as Google recognizes the consumer’s consistent desire to read ‘unbiased’ assessments of high-value service.
For healthcare providers and other non-aggregator pages to mitigate the potential loss of traffic to these platforms, it’s essential that they regularly review their listings and optimize them when possible, or partner with a vendor who can effectively manage these profiles.
Percentage of keywords ranked for on page one by aggregators in Chicago.
Providers should review and optimize their listings on aggregator sites to mitigate potential loss of traffic and bookings from these platforms.
Practice-Level Findings
The most effective SEO tactics vary by practice – what drives organic traffic for urgent care, primary care and OBGYN providers doesn’t have the same impact for specialist practices like Cardiology, Neurology or Pediatrics.
PRACTICE LEVEL FINDING 01
Cardiology: EEAT signals on treatment and condition pages are essential to competing with big national brands.
In Cardiology, large regional providers and smaller local clinics are in the same boat of losing traffic to prominent brands with national reputations such as Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins. Notably, it’s the specific condition pages on both successful domains that generate most of their traffic, consistently securing top 3 rankings for high-value terms such as ‘POTS heart disease’. Take, for example, Johns Hopkins’ page on POTS, which drives an estimated 2,500 page visits a month across the 3 metros. The page does an impressive job of covering the depth of information regarding the condition, related topics, and includes a video featuring a neuromuscular rehabilitation specialist to boost credibility.
In cardiology and similar fields, for smaller entities to compete with established organizations they must follow a similar strategy focused on creating detailed, condition-specific pages with strong EEAT signals or by adding more informational resources and EEAT signals to service pages.
A prime example of this approach is the University of Illinois Chicago, which effectively employs EEAT on their high-performing Cardiology treatment page. This strategy has proven successful, driving an estimated 300 monthly clicks to that page alone from users in the Chicago area.
University of Illinois Chicago competes with established cardiology organizations by demonstrating strong EEAT signals.
PRACTICE LEVEL FINDING 02
Neurology: Small and specialized providers can win against established, authoritative sources by leveraging their deep, relevant expertise.
In neurology-related SERPs, Google often favors authoritative sources such as NIH, Mayo Clinic, and Hopkins, with the latter boasting a vast content library, including over 25 neurology-related condition pages. This bias towards extensive libraries should be viewed as an opportunity for smaller healthcare providers to leverage their specialized neurology expertise. For example, despite fierce competition from more renowned clinics, Neurology Consultants of Dallas ranks fifth for the search term “epileptologist” due to their epilepsy and seizure page, featuring detailed clinician profiles, links to their premier neuro center, and thorough descriptions of the conditions.
Neurology Consultants of Dallas ranks well for epilepsy and seizure keywords by demonstrating their specialized neurology expertise.
Similarly, smaller clinics can gain traction by showcasing their neurology centers with a robust location page, optimized for both localized intents and for authority signals, a strategy effectively utilized by Northwestern Medicine to highlight their Regenstein Center for Neurological care which drives an estimated 250 qualified visits every month.
Northwestern Medicine optimizes for local user intent with a robust location page featuring maps, directions, parking information and more.
PRACTICE LEVEL FINDING 03
OB/GYN: Patient behavior resembles primary care, with users more driven to book appointments or seek immediate, local care than with other specialties.
Our research into the search landscape of OB/GYN services revealed a significant focus on bottom-funnel keywords, echoing trends seen in urgent and primary care. Patients researching OB/GYN are intent on finding care, as evidenced by high-value search terms like “gynecologist near me” (5,400 MSV). These local-specific keywords, incorporating spatial modifiers such as “near me,” clearly indicate that users are seeking immediate care in the closest possible vicinity. Providers must recognize this intent and effectively engage patients during their decision-making phase, while also respecting the intimate nature of the specialty.
For instance, the homepage of Columbus OB/GYN creates a seamless booking experience that swiftly addresses users’ immediate needs, while simultaneously showcasing the trustworthiness and excellence of their care, which is particularly crucial in a specialty as intimate as OB/GYN. As a result, Columbus OB/GYN ranks in the top three more often than any other OB/GYN site in the Columbus analysis, and ranks for over 400 keywords totaling MSV of 70,000.
For smaller, specialized OB/GYN clinics, achieving this balance is key to succeeding in search results.
Columbus OB/GYN dominates the Columbus market with both a seamless booking experience and clearly demonstrated EEAT signals.
PRACTICE LEVEL FINDING 04
Primary Care: Patients want both practice details as well as a seamless booking experience.
Unlike top-ranking pages in other specialties that focus on niche conditions or subtopics, successful primary care pages stand out by contextualizing their services. They provide detailed information on various types and specializations of care and explain the differences between virtual and traditional care options. Despite primary care often being associated with transactional user intent, user behavior indicates a strong desire to understand what primary care involves.
This trend is evident in the success of Ohio Health’s page on Primary Care, which, in Columbus, appears in the top 3 of search results for the highest percentage of queries of any page and leads all pages in estimated monthly traffic with over 6,000 estimated monthly visits. The page is simple, yet effectively optimized to both convey information to users about what primary care is via clear copy and a dropdown menu of services, and subsequently guide them to booking an appointment with a clear CTA just below the fold and an on-page scrollable list of physical locations. Providers should aim to strike a similar balance between creating a seamless booking experience and maintaining informative content, ensuring that neither aspect is overlooked.
Despite having only three locations, UChicago wins in the urgent care market by having an optimized booking flow and emphasizing their locality.
PRACTICE LEVEL FINDING 05
Urgent Care: Small or regional urgent care providers can compete with national brands by emphasizing their physical locations and providing a user-friendly interface for appointment bookings.
Urgent care related terms show exceptionally high Monthly Search Volume (MSV), accounting for 2/3 all health-related searches in the three metro areas. Specialized clinics like Solv, CVS, and AFC Urgent Care outperform major healthcare systems in search rankings for high-traffic terms such as ‘urgent care near me’. SOLV is an example of success in this category, ranking in the top 10 of search results for over 50% of all urgent care related searches across all three domains.
Their success is linked to numerous physical locations, a straightforward interface, and an efficient appointment booking system. Local urgent care clinics can rival larger chains by adopting a similar approach: optimizing a user-friendly interface for appointment bookings, highlighting all their physical locations with on-page local SEO tactics, and ensuring comprehensive coverage in Google Business Profiles.
Despite only having 3 locations, the Urgent Care practice at UChicago Medicine outranks large brands like CVS and Solv by offering prominent CTAs to locations and “Reserve your Spot”.
Despite having only three locations, UChicago wins in the urgent care market by having an optimized booking flow and emphasizing their locality.
PRACTICE LEVEL FINDING 06
Pediatrics: Providers have a significant opportunity to drive more organic traffic by using relatively unsophisticated SEO tactics.
In pediatrics, the barrier to entry for specialized clinics competing in search is much lower than in other specialties. The SERP compositions in pediatrics are unique, featuring a larger set of pediatric private practices and other clinics earning at least some top 10 relevant traffic, with less dominance by large entities. Interestingly, for providers who find success in pediatrics, the same level of digital sophistication is not as necessary as it is for winners in other fields.
For example, the homepage of Pediatric Associates of Dallas features warm imagery of adolescents, a simple and clear main navigation bar, and clickable service listings, and drives over 1,400 estimated visits from qualified users a month. This indicates a significant opportunity for providers in this space to make inroads on valuable searches without having to incorporate an overly complex SEO strategy, ultimately driving new traffic and new bookings through their site.
Pediatric Associates of Dallas has user-friendly navigation and an exhaustive list of in-house and on-site services.