By using hyper-local SEO techniques while creating over 30 pages of deep-dive, easy-to-read medical content, our agency helped a large hospital client in Southern California break through the online clutter and win local search for digestive terms like “Gastritis Treatment Orange County” or “HIDA Scan Southern California.”
Read the case study: How Hyper-Local SEO Can Help Hospitals
Win Local Search (Even in the Age of AI)
The results this client saw in the first quarter after the content was posted were phenomenal, including:
- Quarter-to-quarter impressions on procedure- and treatment-related pages increased by 833%, with clicks on those pages up by an incredible 1,130%.
- The client’s page on Liver Fibrosis went from 116 impressions and two clicks in Q1 2023 to 267,372 impressions and 7,413 clicks in Q1 2024.
- A 246% increase in overall impressions and 534% increase in clicks between Q1 2023 and Q1 2024.
- 276 digestive-health keywords ranked in the top 100 search results (up from fewer than 150 before the project).
- 56 digestive keywords ranked in the top 3 results, compared to only 10 keywords in the top 3 when we took on the project.
- Organic search traffic rose to 41% of the site’s overall traffic, surpassing national benchmarks.
- 130 phone calls and 50 information form submissions from digestive health pages, when the previous quarter there had been zero.
If mhp.si can help a client crack a notoriously tough market like Southern California, our techniques make it possible to do the same where you are.
Five Tips For More Effective Hospital Website Content
What can other hospitals and health systems learn from this award-winning medical content project? Here are five insights you can apply to your own public-facing medical copy and digital strategies.
1: Remember: Local Search Matters Most to Your Bottom Line
With respected, content-rich behemoths like Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and others in the mix, ranking nationally for medical terms is nearly impossible, and often not even very useful. A patient searching for information about colonoscopy prep from Ohio probably isn’t going to travel to a hospital in Miami for a colonoscopy, no matter how good their medical content is.
But by creating authoritative content with hyper-local keywords that pair medical search terms with the name of your county, city or region — like “Bariatric Surgeon in Dallas” — providers can draw in local patients, who are signalling through their searches that they are close to making a decision for their care. That can do a lot more to attract the attention and trust of the patients most likely to come to you.
2: Information Density and Readability Are Key
In a world where AI can generate keyword-optimized content garbage faster than a copy machine, thin, vague or overly-jargony medical content doesn’t cut it anymore. Your medical content must be relatively exhaustive without wasting the reader’s time, it must cover each topic factually, and it must be understandable by the average person.
Each page in our project averaged more than 1,300 words, written in plain language but informed at every step by rigorous medical accuracy. When the copy used a medical term or acronym, we took the time to explain it without getting too deep in the weeds. No reader — or patient — left behind.
We believe this is the balance that wins patient attention and meets Google’s very high standards for medical content and inclusion in AI overviews. For executives, that means investing in content that’s not just SEO optimized and keyword-dense, but genuinely informative and reassuring to patients in its completeness.
3: AI Isn’t the End of SEO
There’s plenty of chatter online that generative AI is the Grim Reaper for traditional SEO, enabling anyone to churn out reams of cookie-cutter, keyword-optimized content on any topic they wish.
Our strategies prove that when a great institution is represented by detailed, rigorously factual medical copywriting that puts patients first while delivering great local appeal, SEO can still win the battle for trust and attention. Done properly, it can even clear the hurdle between traditional search results and Google’s AI overview, which so many content producers fear.
In this case, Google’s AI-generated search overviews for location-specific digestive terms like “Liver Fibrosis Treatment in Orange County” often cite our client’s strong, authoritative, hyper-local content. Many location-specific digestive searches even suggest the client as a trusted local source for that procedure or treatment.
4: Collaboration is the Secret Sauce
When teams are siloed on complex projects, they’re often missing out on the magic that can happen when many smart people focus their respective skillsets on a single problem.
During the Digestive Health project, our timeline was short. But breakthrough after breakthrough came because mhp.si’s SEO, copywriting and project leadership teams took the time to be in constant, sometimes hourly, communication. That close contact allowed our teams to collaborate more fluidly, tweaking sub-strategies on the fly while letting the copy and SEO teams optimize each piece for ultimate search value.
Our advice: don’t keep SEO and content creation in separate boxes, or even in separate buildings. On projects with lots of moving parts and tight deadlines, the best results happen when these critical teams work hand-in-hand.
5: Measure Success in Real Results, Not Just Google Rankings
As often as they are agonized over by SEOs, it’s easy to forget that website traffic and Google rankings aren’t really the point for most hospital clients. Sure, you want patients to find their way to your website and become better informed. But what really matters is whether that website visit translates into calls, appointment requests and patients taking advantage of the procedures and treatments you provide.
In our client’s case, their Digestive Health program has seen a big surge in actual patient leads, driven by a content strategy designed to ensure a high percentage of those visiting the client’s website are local patients. That’s leading to more patient visits, better treatment outcomes and tangible, real-world results that go far beyond rankings on a screen.
Contact mhp.si today
In the age of AI, hospitals can’t afford to be thin on content or ignore local search. As our results show, pairing hyper-local SEO tactics and great content appears to be one of the most effective ways to break through the clutter online, show up in AI overviews and connect with nearby patients who are ready to choose a provider.
At mhp.si, we’ve seen firsthand how the right approach to SEO and medical content can help hospitals thrive in the AI era, even in very competitive markets. All it takes is a willingness to adapt your content to win where it counts: with the local patients who are searching for your services right now.
Need hospital website content that can boost your visibility online and get patients through the doors? The in-house medical copywriting team at mhp.si can help. Contact us today.
