SEO is a complex process that requires equal levels of analytics and creativity, while deploying industry best practice to ensure optimal results. At Bravr, we have the skills and experience to acquire strong links from other relevant and authoritative websites to targeted pages within your site. By carefully selecting these targets and using a curated list of health-related keywords and topics, our specialist healthcare SEO services can help make your site stand out.

If you want to increase your reach, there are some key points that you should consider when assessing your SEO strategy, or researching healthcare SEO agencies.

It is not uncommon for less experienced healthcare SEO professionals to keep track of their backlinks and hard links via spreadsheets. However, it does not take long for spreadsheets to become unwieldy and before you know it, you have a Frankenstein’s monster of patched-together information. This may not be a problem while you have one person who knows the system, because they created it. However, it makes it very hard for long-term oversight and means that it is virtually impossible to share or handover responsibility for link building without losing track of some activities. 

CRM (customer relationship management) software does everything a spreadsheet can do, and more. In one single location, you can manage contacts, track interactions, and oversee tasks related to specific link building campaigns. A CRM can also help you keep track of your outreach campaigns, follow up with prospects, and measure your results, giving you the information you need, when you need it, without wasting time scouring spreadsheets or looking back through messages.  Some examples of CRMs for link building are:

• LinkFuel – A scalable, searchable database for managing all the link building relationships. LinkFuel integrates with various link building metrics, email finding tools, and outreach platforms as well as helping you manage your domain blacklist, activity feed, and cost management.

• Postaga – A CRM that helps you track your email outreach campaign leads and categorises your leads by status, stage, and type. Postaga also tracks email deliverability, opens, and replies and helps you track your outreach wins, tasks, links, sales, and other opportunities.

• BuzzStream – An outreach CRM that helps you stay organised with link building. BuzzStream lets you create and manage campaigns across multiple projects and has a Chrome extension that lets you add prospects to your database from any website. It also helps you personalise and send emails, track responses, and measure performance. 

At Bravr, we see ourselves as long-term partners with our clients. We want the impact of the work we do with you to last the distance, so making our activities transparent, scalable and transferable is essential so that we can demonstrate impact, measure interactions, and you can have oversight and control as and when you need to.

Choosing the right backlinks and hard links for your healthcare website is important for improving your SEO, authority, and trustworthiness. Hard links and backlinks from other websites to your website inform search engines that your website is relevant and valuable. However, not all backlinks are created equal. A skilled healthcare SEO will have a tried and tested methodology that will help them to identify the most valuable links. The aim is to find potential links that are:

• relevant to your product, industry, or target audience
• authoritative, i.e., the website has high domain authority (DA), domain rating (DR) or trust score, and 
• natural - the link from their site to yours should have an organic flow and not appear to be misplaced or clunky. Tempting as it may be for inexperienced SEOs, you should avoid paying for links, using link farms, or stuffing keywords in anchor texts as these are considered black hat and could do more harm than good in the longer term. 

At Bravr our healthcare SEO specialists ensure the creation of relevant, authoritative, and natural backlinks by working with vetted healthcare providers.

To implement a successful SEO strategy, you have to understand data and know how to play to ever-changing algorithms. The Google Medic Update is a major core algorithm update that was rolled out by Google in August 2018 that affected the organic rankings of many websites, especially those in health, fitness, and medical niches. The purpose of the algorithm was to improve the quality and relevance of health-related search results by more stringently evaluating the authority and expertise of the content and the website.

The Google Medic Update was bad news for low standard health related websites and saw organisations of varying size and reputation having to invest in their online content to ensure that it reflected the standard of expertise and care that they could offer.

At Bravr, our healthcare SEO service includes a thorough content audit to identify and remove or improve low quality, sparse or outdated content. Once existing content has been improved, we will work to ensure that your credentials, qualifications, and experience are clear to see on the website before working to build online reputation and authority via positive reviews, testimonials, ratings, awards and links from quality sources.

The reliability of online content, and the reputation of the organisation that created it is important throughout all industries, but never more so than those that “could significantly impact readers’ health, financial stability, safety or wellbeing.” Google has termed these organisations as YMYL (your money or your life). This categorisation includes topics such as finance, current events, and medicine, and is designed to offer an additional layer of protection to consumers whose lives could be permanently affected if they trust the wrong people.

If a topic is identified as being subject to YMYL SEO, high rankers will be placed under scrutiny, which means that SEO and link building activities must be conducted by experienced professionals, or your brand could be at risk.

Not content with YMYL for niches that could impact life, Google uses EEAT: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness, to assess the credibility of a page, its author, and its website. EEAT works hand in hand with YMYL and to implement a successful healthcare SEO strategy, it is vital that you understand both, and know how they will impact your SEO performance.

Experience

Good quality content can demonstrate industry experience, which helps to prove the accuracy and authenticity of the content.

Expertise

Expertise and experience may overlap in some ways, but they are separate entities and will be measured by Google accordingly. When ranking content, search quality raters will look at knowledge, qualifications, and credentials. The production of accurate, compelling content with clear, appropriate language and referencing where relevant can demonstrate expertise; it may be beneficial to hire or collaborate with industry experts to ensure the quality of your content.

Authoritativeness

A domain’s authority refers to its reputation within its industry and niche. When assessing authority, Google will look at your reputation and recognition in your field, who is writing your content, and whether it is supported by industry professionals. Authority can be boosted by building an online presence and brand awareness, getting positive reviews and testimonials from customers or patients, and earning hard links, backlinks and mentions from authoritative websites in your niche.

Trustworthiness

The most important element of EATT SEO, Trustworthiness requires you to show that you are honest, transparent, and secure. At Bravr we help our clients to do this by providing clear information about who you are, what you do, and how you can be contacted. We also ensure that our clients display trust signals such as badges, certificates, awards, and affiliations and use HTTPS and SSL to protect your website and your users' data.

It is understandable that if you invest in something you expect to see long-term, consistent results. However, focusing on the data doesn’t always tell the bigger picture. In an industry where algorithm updates and extra scrutiny are par for the course, it is not unusual to see movements in SEO visibility, particularly around algorithm update times.

At Bravr, we understand these fluctuations and our skills and experience mean that, rather than panicking or changing things as soon as we see a drop in rankings, we will take a step back and assess the bigger picture. Armed with the knowledge that we have created a solid link profile which should help to control significant fluctuations, we will determine whether action is needed, or whether this is just a temporary blip.

The days of buying trust or cramming substandard content with keywords are far behind us. Search Engines couldn’t be more emphatic: nothing can replace or complete with in-depth, high-quality, accurate content. SEO agencies have tried countless ways to produce low-cost content, from buying in bulk to dabbling with AI created content. But Google won’t be fooled, and it can spot generic or low content easily. When it comes to creating content that appeals to both search engines and your target audience, there are no workarounds: it pays to invest in the best you can.

It is highly likely that if we are trying to rank a keyword, then others will be doing the same. The only way to beat the competition is through the creation of well-written, audience-centric content that has the right amount of depth, and industry insight to gain authority and trust, without resorting to the use of too much jargon. When it comes to healthcare and pharmaceutical links, quality is key; a trusted domain won’t accept content that is of questionable quality and accuracy. There’s no point in taking shortcuts because an unsuccessful link is a waste of time and money.

At Bravr, we understand the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, having worked with global healthcare providers to increase their reach across territories. If you are looking to up your SEO game, get in touch.