Your Google rank can make or break the success of your healthcare website. In fact, 90 percent of people don’t make it past the first page of search results, according to SEO Hacker.

If your website doesn’t have a high rank for the discovery keywords you’ve identified, it’s time for an upgrade. This might include rewriting website copy, building links on other websites, updating metadata, and adding alt tags.

When Google understands your site content, it can enable rich features for each page in search results. You can assist by including structured data — i.e. a standard format for sharing information about a page and classifying its content — on the page.

Google uses structured data to understand page contents and gather more information about it. Additionally, structured data is used to initiate special search result features and enhancements.

Use the Google Structured Data Testing Tool to assess your practice website. If you don’t like the findings, an upgrade is in order.

The average mobile landing page takes 15 seconds to load, according to Google. This is a problem, considering 53 percent of mobile visitors leave a page with a load speed greater than 3 seconds.

Use the Google PageSpeed Insights tool to check your healthcare website’s load time on desktop and mobile. If yours is greater than three seconds, it’s time for a new medical website design.

Patients use a variety of devices — smartphones, desktop computers, and tablets — to access your site, so your it needs to be able to accommodate any screen size. A responsive website has a clean design and can respond to the constraints of any device. If your website only displays properly on desktop, this is a problem that requires your immediate attention.

More than half of organic search visits in the U.S. (59 percent) are from mobile devices, as of the second quarter of 2019, according to Statista. This number will likely rise in the future, considering data from the Pew Research Center revealed 81 percent of U.S. adults own smartphones. (For one out of five, it’s their primary means of online access at home.)

A website for doctor services needs to evolve with your practice. If the content on your site is stale and no longer accurately reflects your business, immediate action is needed. Not having time to update the content on your site is a problem. However, failing to make changes because you don’t know how is an even bigger issue.

Your healthcare website is the first impression many patients have of your practice. If that makes you cringe, now is the time to do something about it.

Right now, your website is likely working against you. If you take the time to create a website you’re proud of, it will be your greatest marketing tool.

If your healthcare website isn’t working for you, it’s time to step it up. When patients are unable to easily locate the information they need — or find your practice website at all — you’re essentially giving business to your competitors.

You advise patients to carefully monitor their health, and the same rule goes for your website. Without proper maintenance, it simply cannot be effective.