Top healthcare branding best practices

In today’s competitive landscape, building a strong healthcare brand is essential for attracting patients and establishing yourself as a trusted provider. A strong brand isn’t just about looking good; it’s about connecting with patients on a deeper level. With so much information at their fingertips, people are pickier about who they trust with their health.

By following these top healthcare branding tips, you can make your healthcare business shine and attract more patients.

Healthcare branding best practices #1: Develop a consistent brand voice and visual identity.

The foundation of every good healthcare brand is a distinct brand voice and visual identity. This is more than a cool logo and snappy tagline – your brand should reflect who you are, what you stand for, and what sets you apart from your competitors.

Brand Voice: Think of your brand voice as your brand’s personality. Healthcare is a sensitive topic, so this might not be the best time to use sarcasm. A trusted healthcare provider should come off as compassionate, caring, and knowledgeable. Whatever voice you decide to use, keep a consistent tone and style for your communication.

Visual Identity: Visual identity refers to all the visual elements that represent your healthcare brand. Logo, color palette, imagery, and typography are all components of your visual identity. From websites to your Facebook page, your brand should have a consistent look and feel. When your brand elements don’t fit together, the overall picture becomes unclear and is confusing to prospective patients.

It can be easy to write off branding as fluff. You may think, who cares about the font you use? Are people really paying attention to your color palette? However, branding instills credibility and is often a major factor for patients making healthcare decisions. For more on the importance of brand identity, check out this article.

Healthcare branding best practices #2: Optimize for Search Engines (SEO).

People tend to select healthcare providers that are nearby. Although you can’t change your location, you can make sure that you’re found when people conduct searches near you. In fact, 77% of patients search online for doctors. Optimizing for SEO takes some legwork but when done correctly, pays off exponentially down the road.

For keywords to be effective, you need to know what patients are searching for and use those phrases. Avoid heavily relying on insider jargon – for example, a patient looking for weight loss surgery is likely to use this term over something like bariatric surgery.

Another key piece of keyword research is search volume. The higher the search volume, the more people are searching for the term. However, this means ranking for this keyword will be more difficult due to competition. On the other hand, low search volume means there is less competition but may also indicate that people aren’t using the term.

If you need help determining which keywords to focus on to move the needle, a trusted marketing partner like MPP can steer you in the right direction.

List locations in online business directories

Search engines rely on signals such as local content, social profile pages, and links to provide the most relevant local results to the user to gather information for local search. To boost your presence, list locations across all relevant services and directories like Google My Business, WebMD, Yelp, Facebook, medical directories, and physician review sites.

Keep names, addresses, phone numbers, and other contact information identical across listings. Misspellings, incorrect phone numbers, missing suite numbers, and other discrepancies signal to search engines that your business information may be incorrect. If this happens, you may not show up in results. It’s a good idea to check on these listings regularly to keep an eye out for outdated information.

In addition to organic SEO efforts, paid search ads can boost your presence in search results with local intent. Get the scoop on the benefits of pairing paid search and SEO in this article.

Healthcare branding best practices #3: Stay on top of reviews.

Love them or hate them, reviews matter. A healthy online presence is crucial for your healthcare brand, with a provider’s reputation being important to 83 percent of healthcare consumers.

Responding to reviews is a cornerstone of your reputation. While you can’t control what people say about you online, you can stay on top of reviews and address patient feedback, both good and bad. Remember what we said about having a brand voice? This is the time for it to shine. Avoid copying and pasting a generic response for every review. Take into consideration what is being said, and address any concerns.

Responding to reviews is more than maintaining a good reputation. It also affects local search results. Google has stated that responding to and managing reviews impacts local search visibility.

Patients are searching for healthcare online and have more options than ever. By implementing these healthcare branding best practices, you will cement your place in the healthcare landscape. Remember, consistent branding efforts and a focus on elevating local SEO are essential for long-term success. MPP has worked with all types of healthcare organizations and knows what it takes to stand out.