SEO & AI Search Optimization for Healthcare Guide

1. Optimizing on-page SEO

What is on-page SEO in healthcare marketing? This term refers to everything you do on your website to drive organic traffic. It’s about your content, keywords, design, user experience, and site structure. (Meanwhile, off-page SEO covers the actions you might do off your website to improve SEO, such as posting on social media and encouraging reviews.)

Know the basics:

• Keyword use: Optimize your website content with keywords that match the intent of the page. Use healthcare SEO keywords where they count: in meta tags, headings, and sprinkled throughout body text.
• Meta tags: Create SEO-friendly title tags and meta descriptions that incorporate your primary keyword(s).
• Page headings: Label headings and subheadings with the right tags and include secondary keywords. Use H1, H2, and H3 at a minimum.
• Internal linking: Use internal links to keep users moving forward in their journeys but take a user-centric approach. Focus on linking to pages that add value for users. (In other words, don’t overdo it.)
• Image optimization: Describe images in alt text and rewrite file names to be intuitive (not IMG_2628463.png, for example). Use keywords where they make sense, but don’t stuff them in. Remember that alt text is important for accessibility.

Need support? Refine your on-page SEO strategy with Aha Media Group.

2. AI search optimization strategies

AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Google’s AI Mode are changing how people search — and how your content gets found. These tools aren’t scanning for keywords alone. They’re looking for content that’s credible, complete, and clearly written.

Here’s how to show up:

• Cover the topic in depth. AI rewards content that fully answers a question, not just pages stuffed with keywords. Write with substance — and don’t stop short.

• Use clear structure and schema. Headings, lists, tables, and schema markup help AI understand what your content is about. Bonus: They boost your chances of showing up in featured snippets.

• Write the way people ask. Think about how patients talk to their devices. They ask questions like “Am I just dizzy or is this vertigo?” or “How do I prep for a colonoscopy?” Match that language to show up in conversational search.

• Think in topics, not keywords. AI understands relationships between ideas. Focus on complete concepts — like conditions, treatments, and symptoms — rather than isolated keywords.

Want content that performs in AI search and real life? Let’s take a look at your AI search performance.

3. Performing content audits

SEO content audits are like yearly physicals. They diagnose any issues that require attention. And when you do them proactively, you can get ahead of things before they become a real problem. Content audits help you:

It often helps to bring in an external team for formal content audits to get an objective point of view. Learn about our SEO content audit services.

4. Conducting SEO gap analyses

An SEO gap analysis examines your content’s performance and your competitors’ SEO strategies:

• What keywords are they targeting?
• How do they use the keywords?
• How have they organized their website?
• What appears to be missing from their strategy or content?

Perform a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) and use the information to improve your healthcare SEO strategy. For example, learn from competitor keyword strategies to identify high-value search terms and better understand search intent.

Note: You don’t need to do this process manually. Use gap analysis tools to speed up the process and scale your insights. Semrush and Moz are lifesavers in this regard.

As with content audits, it can help to get an outside perspective on competitors in your market. Team up with us for SEO gap analysis services.

5. Checking technical SEO performance

Technical SEO is its own beast. (And not the kind that knows ballroom dancing and lives in a castle.) Taming it is typically not the job of the content team, but every healthcare marketer should know the basics:

• Mobile optimization: Ensure your webpages are optimized for users on phones and tablets. When you launch new pages — or audit existing ones — check that the content is easy to read, everything is the appropriate size, and buttons work as intended.
• Website speed: Page loading speed is important to user experience and SEO. Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to check your score regularly and diagnose any issues. A strong score is over 90.
• Indexing: If Google can’t crawl your pages, they won’t appear on SERPs (and — gasp! — searchers can’t find them). Use Google Search Console or crawlers like Screaming Frog to identify any pages with indexing issues.
• Data structure: Use healthcare-specific schema to give search engines the context they need. Mark up your content so tools like ChatGPT and search engines can understand your terminology and match your pages to the right questions. On your site, link related conditions, treatments, and services so AI (and people) can easily follow the path from symptom to solution.

6. Optimizing local SEO for healthcare

Local SEO strategy is an important part of healthcare SEO for doctors, practices, and health systems. Local SEO tactics include claiming and optimizing your Google Business Profile listing(s), using location-based keywords (especially in meta text), and encouraging and responding to reviews.

Note: Be careful about how you ask patients or customers for reviews. It’s against Google’s policy to offer anything in exchange for reviews. So don’t incentivize them. That’s cheating, and you don’t cheat.

7. Understanding the connection between user experience and SEO

Google is a self-serving business. It’s in their best interest to send users to websites that offer a positive experience. This makes user experience (UX) an important factor in healthcare SEO strategy. Metrics that show a positive UX (like time on page and long clicks) help Google’s bots determine whether your page is useful, relevant, and worthy of ranking.

Factors that impact UX include:

8. Measuring SEO success

To keep improving your SEO strategy and content, you need to know how your website is performing. Platforms like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Semrush can help you track the numbers that count (pun intended, of course):

For performance insights beyond the data, user feedback and A/B tests are helpful. Consumer surveys can help you determine whether your website is providing users with what they need, and A/B testing gives you feedback you can use to immediately improve ROI. Consider testing elements like headings, call to action copy, and design elements like colors to see the impact on conversion rate.

Bonus: Advanced SEO strategies for healthcare marketers

Healthcare search is an evolving field. We’re constantly learning new strategies and tactics as new best practices emerge, and old ones become obsolete.

Here are some additional healthcare SEO strategies to explore:

1. Voice search optimization: “Hey Google, how can I treat a migraine at home?” Typing in search terms isn’t the only way to use a search engine. (Plus, people are shifting to questions over traditional search terms, anyway.) The implication? Target long-tail question-based variants of keywords. For example, if you’re targeting “chest colds,” answer the question, “How long does a chest cold last?”
2. Video marketing strategy: High-quality video content can improve UX, increase audience engagement, and indicate to search engines that your webpage is helpful to users. Many healthcare websites are still sleeping on the benefits of video content for SEO — capitalize on this opportunity. Want to know how? We can show you the way.