As experts in Local SEO, we know just how complex managing the online visibility of a brand can be. One of the most complex Local SEO structures is found in the Healthcare industry. Creating a strategy to protect and improve the local listings and reputation of Healthcare providers is not simple.
From the sheer volume of listings to HIPAA compliance and more, the Healthcare Industry has its work cut out for them. This is why we decided to dive deeper into the Local SEO strength of this industry in our 3rd edition of Chatmeter’s Local Brand Report: Reputation’s Role in Healthcare.
Why We Wrote This Report
In order to thrive in the age of the consumer, healthcare systems need to be optimized online. The next steps for any executive in the healthcare industry looking to improve patient satisfaction, retention, and reputation are through a local SEO strategy. This report is a how-to guide for large healthcare systems on new marketing strategies that will help drive local SEO success.
About the Report
To capture the scope of the healthcare industry, we took a list of the top 100 healthcare systems and narrowed it down to 10 to determine who is most optimized online. We used real customer data to determine the biggest areas of opportunity for a brand to increase its visibility in search results and improve the offline to the online patient experience.
Key Findings
- Healthcare systems are actively monitoring their online reviews with an average review response rate of 38% in the last 3 months.
- Listing accuracy is significantly lower than it should be with an average of 83%.
- Ranking visibility is low for the unbranded keywords that consumers are using to find doctors and healthcare providers.
Local Brand Visibility Score
In order to see a quick assessment of each brand across the 4 key areas of local SEO, we turned to Chatmeter’s Local Brand Visibility (LBV) scoring system. A brand’s LBV score is an aggregate of the most important metrics tied to reputation, local listings, and local SEO. Customer activity levels, listing accuracy, rankings, and customer ratings all factor into the score. For the purpose of this high-level brand comparison report, we’re omitting the local competitors’ part and social media activity of the LBV score.
Review Quality
For the 10 healthcare systems in our report, the average review rating in the last 3 months was 3.06 stars with all review ratings ranked below from lowest to highest. Additionally, we’re looked at third-party review sites such as Google, Facebook, and Yelp to break down the ratings.
The highest ratings were mostly on Facebook with an average of 3.8 stars, then Google with an average of 3.2 stars, and Yelp had a much lower average review rating of 2.4.
Listing Accuracy
In order to analyze each healthcare system’s listings, we used Chatmeter’s Listing Accuracy Report which calculates the average listing accuracy and listing presence. The report takes into consideration the number of duplicate listings, incorrect information online and how many sites each healthcare system has across 70+ listing sites.
The average listing accuracy across all 10 healthcare systems was 83% with an average of 86% listing presence.
Here at Chatmeter, we teach our clients to strive for a listing accuracy of at least 95% and listing presence of 99% because of how important listings are for local rankings. Listings accuracy, presence, and optimization account for 35% of how Google ranks businesses according to the 2018 Local Ranking Factors survey.
Recommendations for The Healthcare Industry
- Focus on Listings Accuracy to Establish a Solid Local SEO Foundation
- Implement a Local Pages Strategy to Bring Order to the Chaos
- Add Unbranded Keywords for Increase Visibility
In order to thrive in the age of the consumer, healthcare systems need to be optimized online. The next steps for any CMO in the healthcare industry looking to improve patient satisfaction, retention, and reputation are through a local SEO strategy.
Want to see the full findings? Click to download the full report now!