Want to make your health content smarter than Google?
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This document summarizes a presentation given by Mike Maloney from the University of Vermont Medical Center and Ahava Leibtag from Aha Media Group about how to create smarter health content. It discusses how people search for healthcare information online, focusing on symptoms and doctors. It also provides tips for developing high-value content on conditions, experts, and services. The document outlines UVM Medical Center's content strategy of developing original content on departments and conditions, featuring experts, and implementing SEO best practices. As a result, UVM saw increases in organic traffic to these pages as well as paid traffic, content engagement, and online appointment requests. The presentation concludes with lessons on prioritizing content needs, planning, execution, monitoring,
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Want to make your health content smarter than Google?
- 1. Make Your Health Content Smarter than Google Mike Maloney, University of Vermont Medical Center Ahava Leibtag, Aha Media Group November 9, 2016
- 2. University of Vermont Medical Center • Flagship hospital for 5-hospital system • Serve 1 million people in Vermont and northern New York • Teaching hospital • Only academic medical center in state • Only Level 1 trauma center in Vermont
- 3. Aha Media Group • Offers content strategy and content marketing consultancy • Specialize in content strategy, web writing and content marketing solutions for hospitals and health systems • Provides a team of content strategists and content writers with expertise in healthcare communications
- 4. 5 Year Partnership 2012: First work together 2014: Rebrand & redesign 2017: Update & redesign
- 6. Today Part I: How do people search for healthcare information? Part II: How can you deliver high-value content that prospective patients want? Part III: How can you build a content strategy that draws more traffic to your site? Part IV: Lessons learned
- 7. Part I: How do people search for healthcare information?
- 9. How do Health Searches Happen? • 84% of patients use both online and offline sources for hospital research • Search drives nearly 3x as many visitors to hospital sites compared to non-search visitors • Patients search on symptoms and condition terms until conversion • Patients who book an appointment conducted 15+ searches Source: 2012 Google/Compete Hospital Study “The Digital Journey to Wellness”
- 10. Health Topics Most Researched Top 3: 1. Diseases or conditions 2. Treatments or procedures 3. Doctors or other health professionals Source: 2012 Google/Compete Hospital Study “The Digital Journey to Wellness”
- 11. What Patients Want to Know • What’s wrong with me? • How can it be fixed? • Who’s going to fix it? • What will it cost? • Is there free WiFi?
- 12. The Internet as a Diagnostic Tool
- 14. What does this mean for marketers?
- 16. Part II: How can you deliver high-value content that prospective patients want?
- 17. Don’t Try to Be WebMD
- 18. Most Important Info on Hospital Site National Research Corp: hctransparency.org
- 19. Highlight Organization’s Offerings • Your specialists/expertise • Conditions treated & your hospital’s approach • What patients should expect • Patient testimonials • Metrics: quality, satisfaction, volume, cost • Competitive differentiators • Facilitate access
- 20. Part III: How to build a content strategy that supports this
- 21. UVM Case Study: Objectives 1. Offer robust health information to attract quality traffic 2. Instill confidence 3. Lead visitors to take action
- 22. Content Strategy • Develop original content • Feature our experts and expertise • Promote conditions, treatments and specialists • Optimize underutilized content
- 23. Tactics • Develop condition & department content • Feature experts on blog • Enhance provider directory bios • Implement comprehensive SEO strategy • Targeted paid advertising strategy • Leverage health library to fill gaps
- 24. Department & Condition Content
- 25. Blog
- 26. Provider Bios
- 27. SEO Strategy • Perform audit of on/offsite SEO • Optimize content & page elements • Implement internal linking strategy • Add consistent calls to action
- 28. Have a Health Library? Here’s How to Use It. 1. Fill gaps 2. Provide comprehensive related info 3. Serve up related relevant content: blogs, videos or social media sites 4. Include CTAs and internal links
- 29. Hybrid Page
- 30. Part IV: Results
- 31. 17% Rise in Organic Traffic: Depts & Conditions 15,000 16,000 17,000 18,000 19,000 20,000 21,000 22,000 23,000 Sessions Departments & Conditions
- 32. 33% Rise in Organic Traffic: Blog 1,500 1,700 1,900 2,100 2,300 2,500 2,700 2,900 Sessions Organic Traffic to Blog
- 33. 46% Rise in Organic Traffic: Providers 5,000 6,000 7,000 8,000 9,000 10,000 11,000 12,000 13,000 Sessions Organic Traffic to Provider Profiles
- 34. Measure Content Engagement 1:21 3:21 0:00 0:28 0:57 1:26 1:55 2:24 2:52 3:21 3:50 W/O Video With Video MD Profile Time on Page 75-100%
- 35. 258% Rise in Paid Traffic 0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000 14,000 Sessions Paid Traffic
- 36. Goal Accomplishment 1,500 1,700 1,900 2,100 2,300 2,500 2,700 2,900 3,100 3,300 Click-to-Call Actions (53%) 1,500 6,500 11,500 16,500 21,500 26,500 Doctor Tab Clicks (425%) 50 70 90 110 130 150 170 190 Online Appt Requests (85%)
- 38. Prioritize • Analytics and site search queries • Marketing priorities • Highly trafficked pages • High patient volumes • Opportunities for conversions
- 39. Plan • Personas • Page purpose • Content template • Define CTAs/success measures • Test, test and test again • Identify resources
- 40. Tools
- 41. Execute If using an external vendor: • Treat as a strategic partner • Use internal point persion – Identify SMEs – Do hand-off – Remove roadblocks • Regular status check-ins
- 42. Monitor & Enhance • Watch your analytics • Check CTA performance • Use heat mapping and click tracking • Measure user satisfaction • Look at how to add additional value (video, podcast, blog) • Review content with SME once a year
- 43. Questions?
- 44. Thank you! Mike Maloney University of Vermont Medical Center mike.maloney@uvmhealth.org Ahava Leibtag Aha Media Group ahava@ahamediagroup.com
Editor's Notes
- Emily Broderick, director of content development Lead a team of 18 content writers who write about a wide variety of topics, with a specialty in writing healthcare content for a consumer audience
- Historically, people have always tried to answer health questions at home and made personal choices about whether or not to consult a clinician Today, many have now added the internet to their personal health toolbox, helping themselves and their loved ones figure out what might be ailing them Healthcare is undergoing a transformation that’s driven by a fundamental shift in the expectations of patients Today’s healthcare consumers expect to get what they want with ease and speed They’re more connected to technology than any other generation, remaining attached to their networks 24/7 People are using online resources to find health information and connect with others about health conditions According to the Pew Internet Research study, 7 in 10 adult internet users search for health information online, specifically diseases and treatments When people are finding medical information on sites like WebMD, NIH, Yahoo! Health, Medline Plus and Everyday Health, how do get people to find the health content your hospital has online, and ultimately choose your hospital for their care? That’s what we’re going to discuss today …
- While there are many factors that drive healthcare consumer choice like word-of-mouth marketing, online reputation, and price and emotion, search engine ranking is probably the most influential factor. Most people conduct online research following even the most heart-felt hospital recommendation If your hospital doesn’t rank on the first page of search engine results, potential patients may not follow through on those recommendations We’ll talk more about how fresh, original content that’s update regularly can help boost your search results
- According to the 2013 Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project: 59% of U.S. adults have looked online for health information in the past year 35% of U.S. adults say they have used the internet to figure out what medical condition they or another might have, these people are called “online diagnosers” 53% of online diagnosers talked with a clinician about what they found 41% of online diagnosers had their condition confirmed by a clinician
- Eight in 10 online health searches start at a search engine In February 2015, Google expanded its health search feature to include about 900 different medical conditions These medical facts show up in the Knowledge Graph as a table of health data shows up on the right side of the search engine results page Provides the basics such as typical symptoms and treatments, as well as how common the condition is – whether it’s critical, if it’s contagious, what ages it affects, and more For some conditions, you see illustrations from medical illustrators Once you get this basic info from Google, the idea is for you to find it easier to do more research on other sites around the web, or know what questions to ask your doctor.
- Search engines play a huge role in delivering patients to your virtual front door As a marketer at a hospital or health system, you want to make sure related content is showing up this same page, whether it’s from paid search advertising or organic search In fact, More than 60% of organic traffic to your website comes via search engines, according to a 2014 study by Conductor To achieve the best possible ranking and highest engagement, your site must have fresh, original content and you must update it regularly
- The reality is that content matters. When patients find your hospital’s health content come up in search, you want to make sure you’re delivering on patients expectations Content can support SEO with: Clear, concise calls to action Clean, simple design Compelling content that answers user’s questions and help them in accomplishing tasks
- So, the question is, how can you deliver content that will attract the patient to your site and provide them value?
- Today, we’re focusing on two general categories of content: Custom content Syndicated content Much of the content on the web today is syndicated content. That is, content the original publisher makes available to other sites and applications. This is a one-to-many approach that is often used as a part of a subscription or paid service. On the flip side, custom content is content that is created to align your business objectives with your user’s needs. With fierce competition in the healthcare industry, it’s vitally important for your brand to stand out amongst competitors.
- Work occurred over a 2-3 year period
- Develop robust condition and department content Produce condition-focused doctor bios Focus blog on highly sought-after health topics
- Redesigned blog – providers write content related to conditions and treatments Patient centric health topics Tie back to provider directory Put it on our site (it was a separate wordpress site) Produced conditions related videos Authored keyword-rich bios and meta descriptions (incorporated condition and treatment keywords) Enhanced internal links from bios to departments Produced video bios (youtube and provider directory)
- IH SEO Team Site audit & Analysis Keyword Report On-site/offsite/social Reworked content w/keyword rich title tags meta description Active Internal Linking Effort Clear Calls to action
- Gap Filler Create hybrid pages when lack resources for original content Blend syndicated content with information unique to your organization Related info Provide related links to library as additional resources Treatment Content Rely on stock content for procedures that are not differentiators, a unique offering or marketing priorities Direct Traffic Flow WARNING: If you lead them away from your current conversation, they may not come back Ensure calls to action are present to your doctors/locations
- The more we optimize and add original content, the more organic traffic we get
- 65,839 lifetime views for provider profile videos
- The more we optimize and add original content, the more organic traffic we get
- We scaled back our geotargeting when we became part of a network because we didn’t want to run ads for services in a partner hospital’s market. We have recently begun expanding our online search campaigns for additional services.
- We scaled back our geotargeting when we became part of a network because we didn’t want to run ads for services in a partner hospital’s market. We have recently begun expanding our online search campaigns for additional services.
- In-house? Vendor? Hybrid?