Introduction
The search engine is now probably the most widely used research tool used by both patients and healthcare professionals alike when looking for health and medical related information. Around 80% of people will start their online session at a search engine. Therefore, search engine marketing and optimisation (SEO) offers many benefits for organisations looking for a highly targeted and measurable form of marketing to help raise awareness, disseminate information, educate audiences as well as promoting products and services.
This eBook aims to help Marketing & Product Managers within Healthcare, Pharmaceutical and Medical organisations understand all the different elements and benefits of paid and organic search engine marketing and how these digital tactics can be applied in highly regulated environments to help reach and interact with their target audiences.
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The Internet & Healthcare Info
“The UK is clearly relying on Dr. Google and that trend is set to grow due to the increasing pressures on our NHS”
In the UK people are increasingly looking online to assess their health as they find it harder to get a doctor’s appointment. Figures compiled by private UK healthcare provider, Benenden Health, showed that 7% of Google searches in 2019 were health-related – that’s around 70,000 per minute. A survey titled: Googling Our Health Symptoms revealed that 59% of ‘Brits’ Google their symptoms before going to see a healthcare professional and 23% of individuals rarely or never follow-up with a doctor. However, 59% of these individuals Googling their symptoms make sure the site they visit is a credible source first, but 9% are still just clicking on the first search result.
Search engines are the most visited sites on the Web.
Most searches for health-related information will take place via the major search engines, Google, Bing or Yahoo. Searches for specific diseases or medical problems, medical procedures and exercise/fitness related information are the most popular areas being researched online.
Google is by far the most widely used search engine with 92% of searchers using Google and only 3.3% using Bing and a mere 1.3% using Yahoo. Google clearly dominates the search market and should therefore be the search engine you focus on for your search campaigns.
