Healthcare search marketing: what is it? I came across an SEO firm that claims a top search result for “Healthcare search marketing” and I am reminded of the debates about SEOs ranking for “SEO”. But then “healthcare search marketing” really is a broad term, and in no way as meaningful to it’s market as SEO is to the search marketing market.

This appears to be a classic case of marketing to the client, while mis-representing niche marketing competence. The potential client (perhaps a pharmaceutical company or a PR firm working on a project for big health system like Kaiser Permanante) may search “healthcare search marketing” to find a marketing firm, but the target market won’t. The targets of healthcare search marketing are so-called “conditions” or “indications” and “medications” or “treatments”. Think “rosacia” or “treatments for rosacia” or “rosacia treatment”. If an SEO/SEM firm specializing in heathcare search marketing proclaimed it held the #1 spot for “rosacia” (on behalf of a client, obviously) that would be special. It would be indicative of talent and skill. By the way, that is a mis-spelling of “rosacea”, a common skin affliction. Cool. They not only rank #1 for rosacea but knew enough to go after and rank for rosacia! I bet rosacia gets more search traffic than rosacea. That’s a good SEO/SEM firm for healthcare marketing!

But no, just as those looking for SEO find the firms that are best at ranking for SEO (and not necessarily the best at ranking for anything else), those looking for healthcare search marketing or conditions, afflictions, and related treatments will find firms good at showing you they can do what you think needs to be done, even if they can’t do what actually needs to be done. For many of those firms, the money you spend with them, figuring out what you really need, is enough.

Is it any wonder most of heathcare search marketing is driven by referral and word of mouth? So what is a #1 ranking for “healthcare search marketing” worth?

I’m going to guess this is another example of C-Ego ranking. The CEO wants to see a #1 rank for something, and that’s why it’s a target. Of course I might be wrong. It might be very impressive to potential clients when they land on the SEO firm home page and see the proclamation “we rank #1 for healthcare search marketing”. I can just imagine the client meeting… “we define healthcare search marketing on the web”.

Related info:

FirstRanked tops the SERP and healthcare search marketing is their specialty.
Catalyst competes at #2 with rich content on-theme. It’s also their core focus (nice 301 BTW ;-))
#3 is a standard directory.
Bill Hartzer is the cross-over site in the “healthcare searchmarketing” SERP, with very thin content. He’s got strong SEM relevance, of course, but we might see this post competing up there for the same reasons.
SMTUSA is another dedicated medical marketing firm
DMNews covered search-engine marketing for healthcare
SEMPO did a case study in healthcare marketing via search engines
Marshall Clark has a health marketing blog
Novartis ranks for “healthcare search marketing”… not sure why that’s relevant

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Topical Tags:c ego healthcare marketing healthcare search marketing public relations rosacea rosacia rosatia sem SEO