What are the French most interested in regarding their health? In the past, patients would go to their doctor with questions or concerns. The latter reassured him, gave him information, a diagnosis and possible treatment. Nowadays, people don’t ask their doctors, they ask Google.
What are the most popular medical queries and health keywords in the search engine? Here are the Google health and medical searches in France.
The year 2020 and the coronavirus
Unsurprisingly, Google searches related to the coronavirus outpaced all other health topics in 2020. They exploded the week of March 15-21. According to SEMRush, the coronavirus had generated more than 26 million searches in France. The SEO news site Abondance analyzed in detail the searches of Internet users between March 16 and 19 and drew 8 conclusions:
- The number of searches associated with a country was primarily for Italy. France was in 4th place among European countries.
- The term ” coronavirus ” is used more often than ” covid 19 ” or ” covid-19 “.
- Corsica is the most popular region in France, followed by Brittany and Alsace.
- The main suggestions from Google are coronavirus followed by country names.
- “Coronavirus + France” generated 74,000 searches. When “coronavirus + symptom” and “coronavirus + symptom” are counted, the total is 58,300 and is in second place.
- The questions mainly typed are: ” how to catch the coronavirus “, ” how the coronavirus spreads in the world “, ” how to avoid the coronavirus “, etc.
The most frequently asked questions to Google before the coronavirus
Analyses prior to the covid 19 crisis show the search patterns of the French before the 2020 upheaval.
In 2017, the website My-Pharma.info had compiled a list of the ten most frequently typed health questions in the Google search bar. The first concern of the French was the flu with the questions:
- ” how to treat the flu “
- ” when to get the flu shot “
Here are the other top 5 health searches:
- ” how to quit smoking “
- ” how to treat a sore throat “
- ” how to sleep well “
That same year, Google spokesperson Evan Barbour Grippi revealed the top 10 most asked health questions in the US:
- ” what causes hiccups “
- ” how to stop snoring “
- ” Where do kidney stones come from?
- ” why am I so tired “
- ” how long does the flu last “
CNN also analyzed some trends with the SEO tool Google Trends to show that searches related to the “ketogenic diet” (a fat-based diet) jumped 400% worldwide. The term opioid also rose 13% following the topic discussed by President Donald Trump. These figures show that health searches are often linked to current events or the lives of celebrities. For example, the term “lupus disease” ranked as the tenth most searched for disease on Google was when singer Selena Gomez talked about her experience.
The most typed-in drugs in the search bar
The website Newpharma, the online pharmacy, analyzed which drugs were the most sought after to learn more about the health of the French and their medical concerns. Here are the top 10 Google searches for drugs:
- amoxicillin, an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections;
- tramadol, a powerful painkiller;
- levothyrox, a drug to treat thyroid disorders ;
- ibuprofen, used as an analgesic for inflammation;
- prednisolone, an anti-inflammatory drug;
- Alprazolam, the generic of Xanax, is an anxiolytic and hypnotic;
- Xanax itself is in 7th place;
- ketoprofen, another anti-inflammatory drug, prescribed for inflammatory rheumatism;
- atarax, an anti-histamine recommended for anxiety disorders;
- Vitamin B9 or folic acid which affects the production of genetic material and amino acids.
Top disease queries
Newpharma offers another SEO study that dates back to 2018. This time it concerns the diseases that have been the subject of the greatest number of requests on the Internet in one year. The online pharmacy discloses a ranking of the 100 most sought-after diseases, again mostly related to current events. Here are the top 5:
- endometriosis with a monthly search volume of 175,500. She has been coming out of the shadows for some time. It affects one in ten women.
- Charcot disease for 144,900 queries. Otherwise known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), this degenerative disease leads to paralysis.
- Lyme disease, with 114,400 investigations, is caused by a tick bite and raises many controversies in the medical sector.
- Fybromyalgia, with 110,000 claims, causes pain and fatigue especially in women.
- Crohn’s disease, for 95,900, is an inflammatory bowel disease.
Search trends are real tools to learn more about the health of Internet users. All this data recorded by Google is valuable for the medical industry, especially for developing an effective SEO strategy. They allow us to analyze behaviors and learn more about the health of French people, who increasingly use search engines to answer their questions and seek insurance.
Alioze is a web agency specializing in healthcare. We can help you identify the most effective keywords in your field of expertise and optimize your natural referencing and visibility in Google search.
Sources:
- trends.google.com
- abundance.com
- topsante.com
- ouest-france.fr
- my-pharma.info
- femmeactuelle.fr
- newpharma.com
- femmeactuelle.fr