The age of the internet has dramatically changed how people receive medical information. When it comes to an initial medical diagnosis, most will forgo a doctor’s visit and instead go online, type in their symptoms and search through the results for a medical practice.

And it’s not just the younger generation who are doing this.

According to research, 84 percent of baby boomers go online to learn about medical conditions or drugs.

The number of people looking for medical advice or a diagnosis online presents a major business opportunity for medical practices looking for new patients.

However, with so many medical websites, blogs and social media pages out there, having your practice appear at the top of search results is key to capturing their business.

To do just this, here are five ways to optimize your webpage, boost your practice’s SEO and make it more likely that your website will show up in Google searches.

1. Target keywords that are specific to your practice.

Don’t focus on highly competitive keywords such as “fever,” “illness” and “health.” Hone in on words that patients would use to describe symptoms for conditions you treat. By optimizing your page around these specific key words, it will be more likely that the kind of patients with the symptoms you treat will find you.

2. Clean up your on-page SEO.

Think of this like spring cleaning for your website. Have your site administrator go through each page and tweak it in the following ways:

• Use short URLs on each of your pages.
• Add page titles that incorporate targeted keywords.
• To each page, add a meta description.
• Make sure your pages load quickly.
• Add links to other sites as well as internal links.
• Incorporate keywords into H1 and H2 title tags.

3. Target a geographic area.

If you’re hoping to attract new patients, there’s no use trying to reach people 1,000 miles away. When researching search volumes for keywords or purchasing online ads, make sure you are only targeting users who are in the county in which you are based.

4. Google local listings.

Be sure that you have your information updated and available in Google’s listings. It’s free and will ensure your practice shows up when someone does a specific geographic search on Google Maps and elsewhere.

5. Create great content.

People will come to your site because it has useful information that can help them. Strategically using keywords is hugely important, but providing content that keeps visitors on the page and leads them to click on links and share is a huge metric Google uses to measure your site’s relevance and position in search results.

For even more here are “Strategies to Impact Your Practice with Online Reviews.”