Insider Tips to Building a High Quality Healthcare Website

Think of Google's search page as a gateway to your healthcare website. And since the majority of online searches for information begin with Google, it’s helpful to know a bit about how the search giant “thinks.” Ultimately, creating a high quality online presence that Google prefers will help give your hospital, medical practice or facility a higher page rank among the search results. Here are some of the insider tips for better Internet visibility from the Google Webmaster Central Blog.

The specifics of Google’s complex algorithms are never published. But fortunately you don’t need to be a technical wiz to insure that your healthcare content marketing efforts will measure up to desirable standards in online search. There’s a large measure of commonsense in doing it right.

Insider tips—aimed at all Webmaster levels, particularly marketing content creators—underscore Google’s continuing efforts to deliver search results that are accurate and responsive. Google is evaluating websites for quality content. A recent post by Google Fellow Amit Singhal offers challenge questions for you to consider about website content and posted materials:

• For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well?
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
• Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
• Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does this article contain insightful or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?

The full Google article [here] contains more guidance in creating “Google Friendly” content. And you'll want to see our previous post, Why Content Marketing is a Natural Fit for Healthcare.

Stewart Gandolf