Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps create a strong digital presence for your medical practice. Regarding SEO for Nepali healthcare providers, you must craft a brilliant strategy to attract wider Nepalese audiences.
An increasing number of Nepalese patients are using Google for medical-related searches. Optimizing your website to get their attention in search results helps you grow your business.
SEO for medical practices involves various approaches, such as content creation, keyword research, etc. This blog provides a comprehensive guide on optimizing your healthcare business for digital success in Nepal.
Highlights
- Nepali medical practitioners can target wider and more diverse audiences with SEO.
- Claiming a Google Business Profile, performing keyword research, and creating engaging content are a few healthcare SEO approaches.
- Nepali healthcare professionals should follow YMYL guidelines to meet Google’s E-E-A-T standard.
- Analyzing organic rankings, accessing content engagement, and evaluating CTR are a few ways to measure healthcare SEO progress.
How SEO Helps Medical Professionals in Nepal?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps you rank higher in search results. As a medical professional in Nepal, ranking at the top of organic searches helps you gain recognition from potential patients.
Patients in Nepal use online resources to learn about their symptoms and treatment options. One of the most common approaches they rely on is organic results in search engines, preferably Google.
When you optimize your website to help resolve their healthcare-related queries, they’ll grow trust around you. It encourages them to book an appointment with you whenever they need relevant medical services.
How to Approach SEO for Nepali Healthcare?
Since patients in Nepal rely on Google to learn more about medical services, the market for healthcare providers is competitive. Create a top-notch SEO strategy to outrank your competitors and become the most reliable option.
You must implement a few tactics to succeed in healthcare SEO for the Nepalese market. Some of them are mentioned below:
1. Claim Google Business Profile
Creating a Google Business Profile (GBP) helps you enhance local SEO visibility. This helps you appear prominently on the searcher’s screen for location-based keywords.
Let’s consider a potential patient living in Kathmandu who wants to visit a dental clinic. They’ll probably insert the keyword “best dentist in Kathmandu” to get recommendations from Google.
Google will display the top three dentists in the city, and Google Maps will display location pins. This result refers to Google Local Pack. The three results that appear here are the ones with the most optimized and relevant Google Business Profiles.
Claiming and verifying your Google Business Profile is the first optimization step. After that, you need to provide complete and accurate medical service details. Some of them include:
- Address and service area
- Contact number
- Website URL
- Business hours
- Compelling description
- Photos and videos
Post regular posts and respond to all the comments that your patients provide. This signals Google that you’re active on the platform. Also, use the Q&A feature to answer the most common queries you get from potential patients.
2. Conduct Keyword Research
The next step is to research keywords that your audience searches for online. To do this, you need to empathize with your potential patients and find out what key phrases they might use to reach you.
Additionally, take help from Google Autosuggest, People Also Ask For, and Related Searches. These sections help you understand what search phrases are popular in your healthcare niche.
For instance, if you’re an Oncosurgeon, then potential patients might be searching for these relevant phrases:
- Oncologist in Bharatpur
- Surgical oncologist
- Radiation oncologist
- Oncosurgeon near me
Create an initial list of relevant key phrases. Then, use a keyword research tool to analyze their search volume, competition, and other data. Here’s an illustration of WordStream’s interface demonstrating the process:
First, you insert the keyword, choose an industry, and select Nepal as the target country. After that, WordStream provides insight into the particular keyword.
Besides, it also shows your search volume and competition for other keywords in the same niche. You can add them to your final keyword list based on their relevance.
Instead of WordStream, you can also use other keyword research tools, such as:
- Google Keyword Planner
- Ubersuggest
- Mangools
- KWFinder
- Keywordtool.io
3. Create Engaging Content
After keyword research, you must craft a content creation strategy. Insert the target keywords strategically in the most crucial pages of your healthcare website. Some of them are the homepage, services, about the clinic, contact us, etc.
The next step of your content creation plan must include healthcare resources. You can publish blogs, ebooks, videos, and other pieces of informational content that provide value to your audiences.
When it comes to blogging, start with creating a topic cluster. First, select a broad keyword and write pillar content for it. This post should provide comprehensive knowledge about that topic.
An example of such a pillar post topic could be:
Oncology Surgery in Nepal: Comprehensive Guide to Treatments and Care
Then, create smaller blog posts relevant to that main pillar post. Aim to publish around 8 to 9 blogs for each pillar topic and interconnect with internal linking. Here are a few examples of shorter blog posts:
- 10 Tips on Preparing for Your Cancer Surgery in Nepal
- Top Cancer Surgery Facilities and Specialists in Nepal
- The Role of Oncology Surgery in Nepal’s Fight Against Cancer
This approach enhances your healthcare site architecture and provides a better user experience. Consequently, Google receives the signal that your website has authority regarding the related healthcare topic.
4. Optimize for Voice Search
A significant number of Nepali searchers rely on voice search for healthcare results. This includes asking about symptoms, seeking treatment, or navigating a clinic’s location.
Optimize for voice searches by including conversational, long-tail keywords in your content strategy. A practical approach is to create sub-topics in your blog posts or add Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
Read More: What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?
5. Implement Healthcare Schema
Implementing schema markup in your website helps Google understand your content better. Various schema types for healthcare sites are:
- HealthcareService
- MedicalOrganization
- MedicalProcedure
- HealthInsurancePlan
- MedicalSpeciality
With schema markup, Google easily understands your medical services, specialties, procedures, and other relevant details. It increases your chances of ranking higher on search results.
Consequently, Google displays additional information, referred to as rich results, on its results page. For instance, it might show star ratings, FAQs, contact details, medical conditions, etc. associated with your healthcare business.
This extra information on the results page encourages your audience to visit your healthcare website. So, proper implementation of schema markup helps enhance your click-through rate.
6. Focus on Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals deals with speed, responsiveness, and visual stability. Google analyzes these user experience parameters to consider its functionality.
These parameters are crucial for optimizing your website for Nepalese audiences. For instance, many Nepal’s searches use smartphones to browse healthcare sites. So, your website must load with responsiveness and visual stability on all handheld devices.
Moreover, internet speed might lag in remote areas of the country. Your healthcare website needs a faster load speed so that potential patients can access it from any corner of Nepal.
7. Emphasize Website Security
Many patients will fill up your contact form or book an appointment at your healthcare website. Also, you’ll store patients’ medical history, ongoing treatment details, and all other information in your clinic’s database.
Such sensitive information is prone to data breaches. You can’t risk losing your patient’s data, or you lose trust in the market. If things escalate, your clinic might face legal issues as well.
Thus, always protect your healthcare website with these measures:
- Enabling web application firewall
- Using strong passwords for administrative accounts
- Installing an SSL/TLS certificate
8. Gather High-Quality Backlinks
Another crucial step to enhance healthcare SEO is to gather backlinks from reputable and relevant websites. High-quality backlinks signal to Google that your website content is authentic and provides value to readers.
Submitting your website to Nepal Medical Council, Yellow Pages Nepal, and other medical directories can be a great start. Besides, you can collaborate for awareness campaigns with NGOs and receive a backlink from them.
Tribhuvan University’s Institute of Medicine publishes research papers and other health-related content. You can partner with such educational institutions to conduct joint research in your healthcare niche.
You can also request Nepalese news sites to publish a story covering your healthcare services. Moreover, Guest blogging on healthcare and wellness websites may also result in high-quality backlinks.
What YMYL Guidelines Should Nepali Healthcare Providers Follow?
Google evaluates YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) content more strictly than other topics. This is because Google doesn’t want to negatively impact someone’s quality of life due to even a minor error in search results.
For that, it relies on the E-E-A-T standard, which refers to:
- Experience: You should have significant real-life experience with the content topic
- Expertise: You need to be a subject matter expert and demonstrate relevant knowledge and skill in the content
- Authoritativeness: Your website should be the go-to source of information in a particular niche
- Trustworthiness: Your content should be high-value, reliable, and accurate
Here are a few YMYL guidelines that you can follow to meet this E-E-A-T standard:
1. Publish Authoritative Content
Publish well-researched content on your website to strengthen its authoritativeness. Reference reliable sources, such as government websites, universities, medical journals, etc.
2. Emphasize Expertise and Credentials
Clearly state the author’s credentials in any healthcare content. For instance, while publishing heart-related content, mention the cardiologist’s name, qualifications, experience, and other details.
3. Practice Transparency to Build Trust
Always provide transparent information in your content. Promoting misleading and exaggerated claims, such as “100% cure within a week”, might appear as a scam.
Don’t try to hide or delete negative reviews. Instead, respond to each testimonial professionally and emphasize improving the service. Also, provide transparent pricing plans to avoid confusion.
4. Update Content Regularly
Stay updated with the latest healthcare innovations and changes whenever required. This approach ensures your website provides up-to-date information even after disruptions in medical technologies.
What is The Importance of Nepali Language in Healthcare SEO?
Since Nepali is the national language, several potential patients prefer to use it in Google searches. For instance, instead of inserting “health services” or “medical facilities,” they might prefer:
- स्वास्थ्य सेवा
- चिकित्सा सुविधा
Additionally, they might even use the Nepali language for voice searches. If they want to visit a nearby cardiologist’s clinic, they might say “नजिकैको हृदय रोग विशेषज्ञ” instead of “cardiologist near me.”
When they search for medical information in Nepali, they might not prefer to read the content in English. Creating healthcare content in both languages is the best way to target diverse audiences in the country.
What is The Future of SEO for Nepali Healthcare?
Internet users are growing steadily each year in Nepal. Internet penetration in the country has reached around 64% in the year 2024.
With the rise of internet users, more potential patients will rely on Google search for healthcare information. So, if you optimize for less competition keywords right now, you’ll get significantly higher traffic in the future.
This proves that healthcare SEO has a bright future in Nepal. You must start writing evergreen content so that your future audiences can find almost every medical information on your website.
How to Measure SEO Performance for Healthcare in Nepal?
Measuring the success of search engine optimization for your healthcare practice revolves around these key metrics:
- Tracking the performance of targetted keywords
- Analyzing the location of organic website traffic
- Evaluating the Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
- Accessing content engagement, etc.
What Tools Are Most Effective at SEO for Nepali Healthcare Providers?
Utilizing top-notch tools is essential to track the performance and enhance the SEO strategy. Here is a list of a few search engine optimization tools for Nepali healthcare providers:
- Google Search Console
- Google Analytics
- Ahrefs
- SEMrush
- Moz Pro
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider
How Long Does it Take to See Healthcare SEO Results in Nepal?
Getting the desired results from your healthcare efforts in Nepal depends on several factors. Some of them include keyword competition, content quality, patient reviews, etc.
On average, you can expect to see significant improvement in search rankings from 3 to 6 months to a year. If you want to target competitive keywords and receive regular organic leads, then it may take even more than a year.
Conclusion
SEO is a powerful approach to growing a healthcare business online. Optimizing your medical practice for the Nepalese audience requires you to create content that resonates with them.
The long-term benefits of healthcare SEO are immense. Implementing the approaches mentioned in the blog will result in faster SEO results. You just need to adapt to the rapidly evolving Nepalese digital space.
