When working to attract new patients to an ophthalmology practice, search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial. Great SEO techniques go a long way in connecting with new prospective patients, especially with local SEO practices.
Many businesses use traditional SEO to reach potential customers and clients nationally or internationally. However, local SEO for ophthalmologists is more effective at generating patients. By combining different types of locally targeted keywords, you can brainstorm hundreds of potential local SEO keywords.
Using artificial intelligence (i.e. A.i.-driven SEO), you can even generate and rank for more than 10,000 local SEO keywords.
The Different Types of Ophthalmology Keywords
Depending on your campaign and the goals you set, you can target different types of ophthalmology keywords, including:
Branded Keywords
These keywords can include the provider name, such as “Dr. Xavier Logic,” “Dr. Logic,” “Doctor Logic,” etc. They may also include the practice name, such as “[Brand Name] Eye Care Center.”
Your site should naturally rank for branded keywords with organically incorporated uses in your content. One exception to this would be if a local competitor shares the same provider or practice name. In these cases, you may need to optimize your pages to rank higher. This could involve writing in-depth about your services on dedicated pages with multiple instances of your brand name.
Procedure Keywords
Ophthalmologists often offer different types of procedures, such as LASIK, eye exams, cataract surgery, and glaucoma treatment. These keywords typically come with high search volumes, but they also see a lot of competition. This can make them harder to rank for than more precisely targeted keywords.
Specialty Keywords
Prospects will sometimes search for an eye care professional by directly naming the specialty. They may type in “ophthalmologist,” “eye doctor,” or even “eye care clinic.”
Similar to procedure keywords, specialty keywords are often difficult to rank on their own. This is why ophthalmologists benefit more from using locally targeted keywords in addition to these more generic industry terms.
City Keywords
Ophthalmologists that practice in specific areas will want to target them using city keywords. These could include terms that target cities from San Francisco and San Jose to Dallas and New York, along with smaller cities in various states.
While there’s no point in ranking for cities on their own, these terms can be powerful when combined with other terms.
Insurance Keywords
Potential patients often want to ensure the specialist they see falls under their insurance plan, making it beneficial to target certain insurance keywords. Some examples of insurance companies to target include United Healthcare, Blue Cross, Cigna, and Humana.
Like city keywords, these terms won’t do you any good when targeting them on their own.
Pricing Keywords
In addition to finding out whether they can save money by finding an eye care specialist on their insurance plan, prospective patients want to know if there are any offers, discounts, or specials available. They’ll also want to know more about pricing in general. This is where pricing keywords come into play.
Terms like “price,” “cost savings,” “specials,” “offers,” and “discounts” are helpful when used with other more targeted keywords. Keep in mind that the competition for these terms is high whether using them alone or combined with procedure keywords.
How to Combine Ophthalmology Keywords for Local SEO
As discussed, effective combinations of different targeted keywords will produce better results than using each type alone. Based on what you want to rank for, there are several possible combinations.
Specialty + City
One potential combination is specialty and city, in which cases you can target specific cities and your particular specialties. Examples of this could include “ophthalmologist New York,” “New York eye doctor,” “ophthalmology practice in New York,” and other variations. These will attract more local prospects searching for a new ophthalmologist in their area.
Procedure + City
Another potential combination is procedure and city. You might target variations such as “Dallas eye exam,” “LASIK San Francisco,” or “eye exam in Dallas.” Using these terms in your SEO will attract local prospects interested in specific procedures that you offer.
Procedure + Pricing + City
To go even more in-depth with your keyword targeting, consider targeting procedures, pricing, and cities together. “LASIK special in San Francisco” and “price of cataract surgery in New York” are some potential variations to use.
These combinations will attract local prospects who want to find out how much they’ll need to pay for a procedure in their area.
Procedure + Insurance
Another detailed combination is the procedure and insurance. Some examples here could include “Blue Cross Blue Shield LASIK” or “does Blue Cross Blue Shield cover LASIK.”
With the help of these combinations, you’ll be able to attract local prospects who want to know which local practices take their insurance.
Branded + City
If your practice or provider shares the same name as another, you can target terms that connect your brand with your city. Examples of branded, city-targeting keywords could include “Dr. Logic Ft. Worth” and “Sunset Eye Care Center Salt Lake City.”
How to Use Ophthalmology Keywords
Once you’ve chosen your keywords, use a keyword research tool such as Google Keyword Planner to check that they have an existing search volume.
To get the best results from your targeting efforts, you need to write naturally for humans, not for Google. In the old days of SEO you could stuff content with many keyword instances and rank well, but this doesn’t work today. Be sure to avoid keyword stuffing and ensure you naturally introduce terms into your content. This will make your content more appealing to website visitors and, subsequently, search engines.
Some places to implement keywords are the title, meta description, a minimum of one header, and at least once in the body content. But again it must be stressed: write for humans first. If Google detects that you are using keywords unnaturally, it will assume you are trying to game the system. This may means making small variations such as changing “refractive surgery Atlanta” to “refractive surgery in Atlanta.”
How to Target 10,000 Local SEO Keywords
Ordinary SEO agencies choose a handful of keywords to target. They have a limited ability to scale up to target thousands of keywords, making them potentially inefficient. Meanwhile, DoctorLogic combines all the advantages of a digital marketing agency with proprietary A.i.-driven SEO. Our A.i. was specially designed to generate and rank keywords in healthcare sectors like ophthalmology.
To see how its done, check out our free, no-obligation demo.