Consumers across the globe have come to rely on search engines for reliable, trustworthy, accurate, and timely healthcare information. This has significantly increased competition among providers, making SEO—particularly local SEO—a crucial part of any digital marketing strategy.
Local SEO is beneficial for any size business but critical for multilocation companies. By implementing local seo for multiple locations, healthcare businesses can boost their visibility in search results, attract more qualified leads, drive more patient acquisitions, and grow their revenue.
In this post, I share the three essential steps to maximize local SEO for multilocation healthcare businesses.
But first…
Local SEO for multiple locations is the process of optimizing your website, microsites, or landing pages for local search. Local SEO tactics help local consumers find your business more easily, increasing your chance of ranking in Google's Local Pack.
The process involves implementing strategies and tactics that cater to each location individually while maintaining consistent branding and messaging.
Here are three local SEO steps you can use to boost the visibility of each of your locations.
Let’s begin with key on-page SEO tactics, then cover off-page SEO.
Here’s how to do it
Before you begin a local seo strategy for multiple locations, understanding what your competitors are doing is essential. Conducting a competitor analysis allows you to examine their local SEO strategies and uncover opportunities to strengthen your local SEO and page rank.
Your corporate website must include one optimized web page for each provider location. These pages help
Location-specific pages should include
When creating location-specific landing pages, including your target area (e.g., city, town, or province) is essential for local SEO for medical professionals.
Here are a few places that must have location-specific content:
Backlinks support higher page rankings because search engines view the quality and quantity of these links as votes of confidence from other websites.
Building a backlink strategy for each of your location pages is crucial for ranking higher for local search terms. Here are a few ways you can do it
Local SEO linking is a must-have piece of your comprehensive SEO strategy.
To boost online visibility, create a highly-specific linking strategy that is locally targeted. Focus on attracting and earning backlinks from other well-regarded, industry-specific websites specific to your local search area.
This strategy helps drive high-value search traffic to each location’s landing page, microsite, or website. It’s also much more effective than a general link-building strategy for organic search because it focuses on reaching the people you can actually serve.
The next two steps cover how to boost your online visibility and local SEO page rank by optimizing, updating, and monitoring a bevy of online directories.
Let’s look at Google Business Profile first, as it is the most important by far.
Google Business Profile (GBP) is a tool that allows multilocation businesses to create a unique local profile, or “listing,” for each of their locations.
When you properly optimize location-specific web pages and publish quality, consistent, and accurate business listings on Google Business Profile for each location, you significantly improve your chances of getting promoted in Google’s Local Pack.
Here’s why that’s important—
Nearly 1 in 3 of all mobile searches are location-specific, and Google is the top search engine users use to search for local businesses.
With millions of people searching Google specifically, it makes having a GBP profile vital to success.
In addition to ensuring your business locations have correct listing information across all online directories (more on that below), here are five ways you can improve your chances of appearing in the Google Local Pack:
Adding structured data to your pages is the key to appearing in the Knowledge Panel.
Structured data is highly organized and easily decipherable by machine learning algorithms. It is coded onto a web page and describes the content of that page.
Structured data for a healthcare website might include a list of medical conditions, treatments, or symptoms. This content demonstrates your expertise in specific areas and emphasizes your healthcare organization’s strengths in knowledge through your organic search results.
Adding structured data to your web pages gives Google clear, consistent, and complete information about your business, allowing it to return your local business to relevant searches.
Google Business Profile guidelines say virtual offices should NOT be part of your local SEO for medical professionals strategy. If used, and it is reported to Google (e.g., by a competitor or patient), Google may penalize you by suppressing or removing your website from search results.
Excerpt from Google:
“If your business rents a physical mailing address but doesn't operate out of that location, also known as a virtual office, that location isn't eligible for a Business Profile.”
If you’re currently listing virtual offices in any local directory, I strongly encourage you to remove them immediately to avoid Google penalties.
Managing online directories can be extremely time-consuming and complex, and as your business grows, so does its complexity. However, maintaining them is vital to ensuring local visibility and driving high-quality leads to your business.
Claim your business listing on other popular online directories to help more people in your area learn about your products and services.
While there are several other online directories, these are the most popular
Managing mentions of your business across the web is crucial because inconsistent or inaccurate listings can negatively impact your SEO.
To help your locations dominate local search, you must scour the web and ensure your NAPW (e.g., name, address, phone number, and website) information is consistent for each business location.
Why? Search engines look at how your NAPW information appears across the web, with or without links, to determine where your business should rank in local searches.
Managing these listings can be extremely time-consuming and complex, especially when you have multiple locations to monitor.
Maintaining consistent and accurate online directory listings can be a complex and challenging task for businesses, especially those with multiple locations, for several reasons:
Claiming ownership of your business locations and verifying your listings presents unique challenges because it often requires manual verification (e.g., phone calls, emails, or postcards). Each can be time-consuming and resource-intensive—especially when managing multiple locations simultaneously.
Moreover, if your locations are geographically diverse, coordinating these efforts with on-site staff can become logistically complex, increasing the chance of errors and frustrating delays.
As your business expands and establishes new locations, ensuring each new listing is claimed and verified is essential for maintaining consistency.
When it comes to multilocation local SEO, this can quickly become an overwhelming task as the number of online directories continues to grow and the resources required to manage these listings increase exponentially.
Keep in mind that online directories regularly make changes to their platforms. Keeping on top of these changes is crucial for maintaining consistency, accuracy, and credibility. Accurate listings also eliminate consumer confusion and help your business avoid Google penalties.
Several tools are available to help your business manage your online directory listings. These tools are designed to streamline the claiming and verification process, improve listing accuracy, and save time and resources.
Marketing a healthcare organization can be challenging - even painful if you don't approach it with the right knowledge, tools, and guidance. By reading about mistakes and lessons others have learned the hard way, you can boost your marketing effectiveness and take a shortcut to success. Discover how to avoid these "Seven Deadly Sins". Plus, join over 30,000 of your fellow healthcare providers with a free subscription to our Insight Newsletter.
