Beyond Text: How Multimedia Boosts AI Search Performance

Healthcare search has come a long way in a short time. Patient preferences have shifted, and AI has touched every part of our lives — even how we search for care.

People are using AI to seek care, and healthcare marketers need to know how to show up in (increasingly competitive) AI-driven spaces. 

What’s the secret sauce for search performance in the age of AI? Strategic use of multimedia.

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Dig into all the ways AI has impacted the search landscape.  

Importance of multimedia in healthcare marketing

Thanks to AI-driven search options, healthcare marketers are experiencing: 

• Traffic declines, especially for top-of-funnel queries that AI can answer 
• Less search visibility as new features clutter search engines 
• More difficulty competing against the medical centers that account for 72% of AI Overview answers
• Changes in patient search behaviors, including where and how they search

To improve search rankings, reach patients, and stay competitive, we need to look beyond the text and integrate more multimedia into our content.

Benefits of using images for healthcare SEO

Healthcare SEO has always been competitive, but it’s getting harder to earn visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). There’s a trifecta of obstacles:

1. Too many features: Search features like knowledge graphs and featured snippets are pushing organic results out of sight, below the fold. 
2. Favored sites: AI Overviews favors a handful of healthcare websites, like Mayo Clinic and Healthline.
3. Too many sources: AI Overviews often cites several sources for each query, making it hard to drive clicks through AI referral traffic. 

 Using multimedia improves your chances of ranking and standing out on search engines. 

With rich imagery, you gain the opportunity to rank in video and image panels. Better yet, your multimedia content could rank in AI Overviews — helping you compete against authoritative medical centers and draw attention. 

For example, look at the Google search below. What draws your eye? 

The sciatica infographic helps OC Wellness Physicians Medical Group compete against an AI-generated panel that’s otherwise dominated by more authoritative healthcare brands.

How multimedia boosts engagement and conversion

Images aren’t only helpful for healthcare SEO. Engaging multimedia can improve patient trust — and, as a result, conversions. 

This makes video content and images even more valuable for middle- and bottom-of-funnel content like provider bios and service line pages.

A note about provider bios

Our 2024 study shows that 92% of people read a physician’s online bio before scheduling an appointment. This is up from 76% of patients in 2018. It’s never been more important to optimize your provider bios to connect with and convert your audience. 

Want inspiration? Dr. Memarzadeh’s profile on UCLA Health’s website does this well, with engaging videos that demonstrate her expertise (and, most importantly, let prospective patients get to know her).  

For more inspo, see 5 other examples of stellar provider bios.

Tips for using multimedia in healthcare marketing

What types of multimedia should you use?

There are many ways you can use multimedia in healthcare marketing. For starters:

• Photos of physicians look great in provider bios.
• Infographics drive interest on websites and social media.
• Healthcare videos make information easier to understand and more engaging. (Explore different types of healthcare videos.)
• Medical animations and diagrams can demonstrate bodily functions and surgical procedures without the “ick factor.” (Learn more about medical animations.)
• Images of your facility help patients know what to expect. 

Videos don’t have to be long to explain complex topics. Hear physicians at Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers describe how targeted therapy for breast cancer works, using medical animation. 

How to build trust through multimedia

What shines through AI-generated content on search engines? Trustworthy information from a recognizable, reliable healthcare brand. 

How to build trust: 

• Tell the stories of real patients that resonate with readers 
• Lean on subject matter experts for accurate information (and to fact-check before publication)
• Use consistent design in your multimedia content, from fonts to color palette

Optimizing multimedia content for SEO and accessibility

You’re producing multimedia content to engage patients — so make sure they can find and access the information.

Here’s how: 

• Alt text: Write alt text for humans. Optimize it for search engines where it’s natural. 
• Captions: Include accurate, proofread captions in videos. 
• Accessibility checker: Use an accessibility checker to ensure the text is large enough and colors are visible to users. 
• Schema: Use structured data to help search engines and AI algorithms understand what your content is about. 
• Patient language: Optimize subheadings with language a patient would use to search for images, like “pictures of thyroid cancer lumps.”

Incorporating multimedia in a sustainable way

When your plate is already stacked, sourcing multimedia content for healthcare marketing feels like yet another task added to the list. So let’s make this as easy as possible. 

Create visuals that you can repurpose and reuse across channels. Develop social-friendly website graphics and produce videos that you can snip to serve a range of needs in your content calendar. 

Ride that multimedia content ‘til the wheels fall off. That’s how you make your content strategy sustainable, long-term. 

What else can you do about AI search?

Are you taking every opportunity to perform in AI search? See the big picture with our AI Search Visibility mini-audit.

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