8 Silly But Harmful SEO Mistakes Medical Sites

A whole lot of things can go wrong in medical SEO. In this article, I'll highlight eight damaging mistakes medical SEO pros should look out for.

Medical SEO encompasses different fundamental tools, strategies, and implementations. Getting the basics done right can be arduously tasking most times. There are overwhelming aspects to cover in medical SEO strategy, from meta tags to keywords, off-page optimization, etc.

It doesn't really matter if you're the most diligent or detailed medical SEO pro out there; the fact is: there is enough room for things to go south.

Here are eight silly mistakes, even medical SEO professionals make:

1. Leaving a Noindex / Nofollow Command on the Site after Launch

Using a noindex meta tag in your sites header code can prevent a page on a medical website or the entire website from appearing in Google. What precisely happens is Google's bot identifies the tag and instantly drops the page from the results. Usually, these commands come in handy when you're in the developmental stage of your medical website. However, if you fail to remove it before launching your site, it can cost you.

2. Not Using Google Analytics and/or Google Search Console

Both Google tools are recommended. Google Analytics provides you with the data required to understand the performance of your medical website. It gives you data on traffic, demographics, and the time visitors spend on your medical website. Google Search Console gives you some powerful insights you can implement to improve your medical website. It gives you information on technical errors, who is linking to you, and more.

These tools can give a professional the edge needed to boost medical SEO; however, many medical SEO specialists forego them altogether. This happens because they're tons of cheap tools they get used to and keep using regardless of the results they produce.  

Another common mistake pros make is not spending sufficient time on Google. Good medical SEO specialists should be able to extract everything he/she needs directly from the search engine.

3. Optimizing for the Wrong Keywords

Even with the tremendous amount of time spent on keywords, many medical SEO pros end up optimizing the wrong set of keywords. As surprising as it sounds, they end up optimizing from the medical service perspective rather than the perspective of the patients.

To break this habit, it is best to spend quality time studying the patients' search patterns. Most times, what they key into the search might not be the official terminology, so it's best to flow with the language of your target audience.

4. Not Using Internal Links

Sometimes, we get really excited about external links and neglect the internal ones. Citing your sources with authoritative and high-quality is excellent for medical SEO. Adequately cited sources make your readers take you seriously, and it tells Google that you can be trusted to provide accurate information.

5. Not Improving Content

Google has a freshness algorithm that picks up stale content over time and drops its ranking.

Stale content is content that has become:

· Devalued due to algorithm updates.

· Incorrect due to fresh information.

· Outdated due to new statistics.

· Irrelevant due to changes in how Google understands a keyword.

6. Not Optimizing for Search Intent

When you fail to optimize user search intent, it can be highly consequential to your medical SEO campaign. Luckily, optimizing search intent has become a lot easier with Google fine-tuning its ability to deliver people's searches precisely.

Generally, Google splits searches into three types:

· "Do" searches. e.g. "buy Mercedes online."

· "Know" and "know simple" searches. Informative searches like "best Mercedes car of 2020."

· "Go" searches. Navigational searches like "Mercedes car dealer near me."

7. Assuming medical SEO Is Only Concerned with Traffic

As medical SEO specialists, our primary goal is to drive organic traffic to medical websites; however, at the end of the day, if your readers do not follow through to subscribe or purchase, the purpose is defeated. Having large streams of visitors without conversions signals, you are attracting irrelevant visitors. A smaller number of converting customers is always better than multiple passers-by.

8. Putting medical SEO 'On Pause.'

When your medical SEO strategies start paying off, don't get complacent. medical SEO is not a light switch. If you fail to maintain your implementations and improve, you'll lose your ranking and start struggling.

In conclusion, even when you're firmly grounded in medical SEO, many things can still go wrong. The best course of action would be to avoid as many mistakes as possible, and your medical SEO strategies should work fine.