It’s summer, so naturally PPP and SEO for pharmacies will be focusing on products such as sunscreen, hay fever treatments and travel vaccinations. These seasonal search trends will certainly help to boost PPP (Pay Per Click) campaigns. However, if SEO is your key digital marketing strategy, then it’s necessary to think longer term.
Here’s a look at some groundwork you can be doing now to ensure that your pharmacy will be ranking highly in the autumn.
Start building autumn and winter content now
Search engine optimisation isn’t an instant process: to rank highly in Google, you need to start building that visibility months in advance. The rankings are not completely decided by bots and algorithms: Google also employs humans to assess the consistency, quality and authority of website content over a period of time.
This helps the search engine decide which websites are genuine and deserve to rank highly because they are trustworthy, useful and relevant, and which ones are trying to game the system. Therefore, if you want your website to perform well for autumn and winter related searches such as ‘flu vaccines near me’, then it’s best to start taking action now.
For example, publish informative blogs about flu-related topics such as “Who should get a flu vaccine this year” and “Is it possible to get the flu and Covid vaccine at the same time?” Ensure that your business is listed and verified on Google Business Profile and other local directories, and encourage happy customers to leave reviews to build trust.
Build social media engagement
Most people won’t be actively looking for flu jabs in the summer, but it’s still important to strengthen your social media presence so that you do have a ready audience when you want to share posts relating to flu season. Highlight other services that your pharmacy provides in store, such as travel vaccinations or blood pressure checks.
Create educational content around boosting immunity and infection control, and offer to send reminders to followers who are interested in early bookings to get ahead of the rush.
Build landing pages
Create a landing page for flu-related searches now, so that Google has time to crawl, index and rank the page. The page should be punchy but informative, with answers to common questions and a call to action, such as following the pharmacy website for social media updates, or signing up for email reminders.
If you plan to back up your campaign with paid ads, get some effective copy and graphics together now and plan your budget accordingly, so that you’re all set to go in September.
Get an online booking system in place
Build a fast, efficient and user-friendly online booking system and ask people to carry out usability tests and give feedback. The booking system should be checked on multiple devices, including phones, laptops, and tablets. This will ensure a streamlined customer experience and avoid the pharmacy losing out to competitor sites.