Digital marketing for hospitals is inevitable today. Mainly due to the growing number of hospitals and competition among them to render the best services.
The growing number of urban populations and diseases have splurged the number of both public and private hospitals.
The strategies and techniques that will be discussed are:
How to do digital marketing for hospitals, strategy, trends tips and techniques in 2018. SEO for hospital, healthcare, clinics, diagnostic centres, pathology labs and pharmaceutical companies from top healthcare SEO services agency.
We shall discuss:
- digital marketing strategy for hospitals
- diagnostic centres
- pathology labs
- clinics – Dental, Eye, Physiotherapy centres etc
- Super Speciality Hospitals
- Multi Speciality Hospitals
- The role of digital marketing in healthcare, India
- The importance of digital marketing in healthcare, India
- indian healthcare industry opportunities and trends
- How to plan and developing a digital strategy for healthcare marketing
- how to do digital marketing for hospitals
- The significance of digital marketing to doctors/physicians
Before we start with the SEO and digital marketing strategies, techniques and tips for your hospital/healthcare in 2018.
Let us have a look at some vital statistics and data released by the Government of India and other agencies.
The World Health Organization (WHO) – India in collaboration with the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) Government of India.
Both jointly organized a consultation with the scheme of “UNITE TO END TB: Leave no one behind.”
WHO, India planned to use digital technology in the healthcare sector to improve patient care.
Swasth E-Gurukul: A digital e-learning platform was launched.
The Indian government in the Union Budget speech from our Honourable Finance Minister Mr.Arun Jaitely on 1st February 2018.
The Finance Minister Shri.Arun Jaitely in his budget speech quoted as below:
We have taken up programmes to direct the benefits of structural changes and good growth to reach farmers, poor and other vulnerable sections of our society and to uplift the under-developed regions. This year’s Budget will consolidate these gains and particularly focus on strengthening agriculture and rural economy, provision of good healthcare to economically less privileged, taking care of senior citizens, infrastructure creation and working with the States to provide more resources for improving the quality of education in the country.
The budget significantly promoted healthcare in its core schemes. Given below are the statistics of budget allocation and expenditure for the financial years 2017-18 & 2018-19 in various healthcare related schemes such as:
- National Rural Drinking Water Mission
- Swacch Bharat Mission
- National Health Mission
The allocation in the various healthcare related schemes as mentioned above are given in the image below:
As per the budget speech of Maharashtra, India state government on 9th March 2018. The Honourable Finance Minister Mr.Shri Sudhir Mungantiwar has given due allocation to healthcare infrastructure.
The major highlights of the Maharashtra budget for 2018-19 for healthcare sector are:
- An outlay of Rs. 964 crores for National Health Mission
- Establishment of a multispecialty hospital in Sindhudurg
- An outlay of Rs. 576 crores for Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jan Aarogya Abhiyan
As per the reports from PWC, the investment of Indian Government is only 1% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), lowest as compared to other countries in the world.
The private sector in India is actively contributing in providing healthcare services in India along with Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
In the healthcare sector including hospitals have been one of the most substantial sources of employment generation.
As per the PWC report with the investment of Rs.245 billion USD by the year 2034, additional employment opportunities of 4.30 million will be generated.
The emerging trends in the hospitals and healthcare funding as per the reports are:
- Venture capital and private equity
- Initial Public Offerings (IPOs)
- National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS)
- Public-private partnerships (PPP)
- Foreign direct investments (FDI)
In the 1st edition of Hospital strategic summits in Mumbai on 6th March 2018.
The healthcare providers laid the emphasis on creating smart hospitals, hospital care and use of digital technologies.
According to the reports and statistics from India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), During 2008-20, the market is expected to record a CAGR of 16.50%
As per IBEF, The Indian Government targets to expand the total health expenditure to 2.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2025 from the current 1.15 percent.
Digital marketing for hospitals
Now let us share some important tips on how you can successfully plan, execute and measure your digital marketing campaign.
Digital marketing strategy for hospitals
Digital marketing is the teamwork of different channels of online marketing such as:
- SEO
- Content Marketing
- Paid campaigns (PPC)
- Social Media Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Analytics
SEO – Search engine optimization is the foundation of your digital marketing plan.The distinctive aspects of your website optimized are:
- On Page SEO
- Off Page SEO
On Page SEO for Hospitals
The critical components of the on-page SEO of your hospital are:
Keyword research – Healthcare industry keywords are the core of your content marketing strategy. Research for the right keywords typed by your searchers to find the hospital as their requirements.
Fresh content – Regularly update your website and all active social media platforms with informative and useful content for the patients.
Technical Audit of hospital website – Do a regular technical audit of your website. Take the help of SEO experts. They can guide you with:
- correct title tags
- meta descriptions for snippets
- headers and footers text
- Clear and specific Image Alt tags for search engine bots/spiders to understand the context of the image
Coding structure – In the digital marketing for hospitals, coding is very vital. The website must be fully responsive. Accessible easily on all the platforms such desktop, mobile and laptop.
Off-Page SEO for a hospital
As equal to on-page SEO, off-page SEO is also very crucial. The search engine optimization in healthcare is incomplete without off page strategy.
As shown in the image above, the components of off-page SEO are:
Link Building
Ranking in the Google search results is decided by 200-page ranking factors. Link Building is one of the vital signals to search engines. The authority of the website is established from the number of quality incoming links.
Domain authority and SSL Certification
The older your website domain and with SSL certification will promote you increase the online reputation of your hospital website.
Directory Listing
There are many reputed national and international healthcare directories for listing your hospital websites.
Develop Brand value of your hospital
Website search results position and ranking are all about the reputation of the website and number of quality links. The vision of your healthcare SEO services agency has to be building the brand value and image in the industry.
Patients impose a considerable weight on the reputation of the hospital before making a choice for treatment, surgeries or operation.
Beneficial information/educating the patients
The hospitals a part of its social responsibility must not only offer quality treatment. They must also offer resources or knowledge base for prevention of the diseases.
The hospital website as a part of its long-term strategy of digital marketing for hospitals should have a dedicated blog or journal.
The benefit of having a dedicated blog is:
- Your hospital website will appear search engine result pages (SERP)
- The website traffic will increase
- The patients will navigate different menus/departments/doctors of your website
- More traffic will improve the domain authority of your website
- The patient will put more trust in the hospital
Multilingual Website
- The benefit of having a multilingual website is a numerous and dominant strategy of digital marketing for hospitals. The given below is the major advantages of a multilingual hospital website:
- In India, diverse types of languages are spoken. It will assist such patients.
- Overseas patients will also be able to translate and navigate your website. It will give a boost to medical tourism.
- There will be a more engagement with both domestic and international patients resulting in more website traffic, return on investments.
Website search link box
There is a pool of information uploaded in the hospital website. In order to assist the patients retrieve information faster have a site search link box at the top of your website.
The patient need not navigate all the menus, pages the website. The site search link box will assist him to retrieve the information he is searching.
Social Media Marketing for Hospital
Patients are more active on the social media platforms today. Social media sites are the channel to drive patients to your hospital website. Digital marketing for hospitals is very effective, and you can get to your target audiences.
Link Building with Social Media
There is an immense value of link building in SEO for hospitals. The more followers you have and they engage with your website. The more they will share links to your website. Social media are the most beneficial organic way to develop links.
With the social media, you can generate awareness, prevention of diseases and educate your patients.
Through social media, you can share case studies of complex patients treated. How well the patient care is taken. The link for the administrative help such as billing, admission, appointments, etc.
To summarize, if you are not promoting or sharing information on the social media sites regularly. You are not following a good SEO strategy for your hospital.
Don’t just have a facebook, twitter or Google Plus page. Regularly updated with latest information and announcements. Give a clear call to action like your hospital helpline numbers or website link.
Google Map
In providing prompt health care services time is very vital.
Every second count. Even a delay of a minute can cost a life.
For your hospital, clinic, diagnostic centre, pathology must have a Google map to guide your patients correctly and save their valuable time.
You can set up Google map in the Google My Business Account.
The Google map in addition to providing your healthcare location offers traffic alerts, travel options, distance etc.
I am sure your patients will thank you for this valuable information
Conclusion
Good Healthcare (hospitals) infrastructure is an essential need of all the countries. The public and private hospitals need to join hands to offer the best of medical treatment and facilities.
With the help of digital marketing – SEO, both government and private hospitals can spread the message and mission of their hospitals.
365 digital marketing is offering its internet marketing services to all types of hospitals like Multispeciality, Super-speciality and General Hospitals.
We offer online marketing and lead generation services to clinics, diagnostic centres, pathology labs and pharmaceutical companies.
We are offering digital marketing services (SEO) in the U.S.A., U.K, Canada, U.A.E.
Email: contact@365digitalmarketing.in
Call: +91-8879181833
