Google Medic Update- Impact on Healthcare Provider Websites and Its Solutions
Google has recently brought some changes in its core algorithm to target the websites that are rated under “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL). The websites of medical, health and fitness service providers get YMYL quality rating by Google, thus such sites are affected by Medic update. According to Google, user’s safety, financial stability, health and happiness can be possibly affected because of some web pages. Such types of pages are chuman hair wigs blonde wig with bangs nike air max 270 nike air jordan high tops yeezy adidas official nfl football authentic nfl jerseys wigs sale custom baseball jerseys nfl seahawks sales on adidas shoes nfl jerseys cheap nike air jordan 4 retro adidas shoes wig for sale ategorized as ‘Your Money or Your Life’ pages, or YMYL.
It seems that the search engine giant has made these changes to enforce discipline to the business websites associated with the health care industry. But there are always two sides of a coin. If we try to look deep into the scenario, we will find it quite effective for the websites of the healthcare service providers that come with user-oriented content.
Impact of Google Medic Update
Websites of healthcare service providers that do not care about SEO and other factors are going to face the heat of latest Google Medic Update. Operators of such websites have already recorded a sharp fall in their rankings. Optimizing service pages is one of the most adopted solutions for businesses associated with the healthcare or medical tourism industry. Thus, it is high time for the providers to learn how you can protect their websites from the latest Google Medic update.
Importance of E-A-T
Google lets everyone know about its guidelines and other information that the operators should be aware of. Google tells about the procedure how it differentiates websites based upon their qualities. Expertise-Authoritativeness-Trustworthiness or E-A-T is the system Google uses to measure the quality of the sites. Thus, it is important for a site to meet the E-A-T guidelines by improving the content and link profile of the sites.
Experts believe that the update primarily was about assessing the Trustworthiness (‘T’ in E-A-T) in a better way. Several data sources reveal that the Medic update negatively affected the sites that had trust-related issues such as:
- Several negative reviews
- Poor reputation in comparison to competitor providers
- No authority in the treatment/procedure they provide
- Providing a treatment that could possibly compromise patients’ safety
Therefore, the medical service providers should focus on building trustworthiness in their websites. This is possible by including useful content and relevant links.
How Providers Can Improve E-A-T
Those who are facing reputation issues must have clear customer service and contact information to increase the trust of their pages. The visitors must be able to easily access the information about their hospital/clinic or information related to their service, support and contact details.
Another useful way to improve trust factor is to promote treatment, procedures or services on genuine third-party platforms. For example, promoting in a leading medical tourism directory like PlacidWay will build trust and confidence among the patients.
A provider can build back links to their website from other relevant sites for increasing authority signals. This will help the providers who have lack of authority in their niche.
The financial transaction pages must be secure. When a patient decides to book an appointment, then he/she must be able to process payment through a secure medium.
The pages must be edited and maintained frequently and regularly, as Google hates presenting outdated contents to users. If you are not confident in presenting suitable content, you can hire experts, but the regular content update must go on.
Improve the Quality and Quantity of the Content
The quality of content plays a significant role in making the website Google-friendly. Make sure the site publishes only expertly-written content. Visual elements like images, videos or infographic can work a lot. Never forget to include headers, pull quotes, tabled and metadata in the web pages. High-quality external links can also improve the visibility of your site.
A study conducted on more than 10 Medic-affected sites shows that many websites cannot provide a short and simple answer to the questions asked by the searchers. Your content should match the intent of question asked by the visitors.
The use of keyword, design, responsiveness and mobile compatibility are the other factors that can determine the good performance of a website.
It is important to understand why website rankings change when Google performs an algorithm update is important if you want your site to rank. We hope that the above-mentioned facts and solutions will help you to protect your healthcare business from the heat of Google Medic update.
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