As recently as 2-3 years ago, just having a website was enough to help you compete for new patients online. Today, as more potential patients have turned to the Internet to find information about their doctors, competition on the Internet has become much more intense. The ways to market your practice on the internet have grown as well.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a necessity if you want patients to find your website on Google and the other major search engines. If your site is not using the correct keywords, uses “blackhat” SEO tactics, or does not even use keywords at all, it will be highly unlikely that new patients will find your website.
Increasing your level of exposure online will help you as well. Obviously, the more opportunities people have to find you, the more new patients you can attract. Putting yourself on popular directories and review websites can bring more patients to your website. You should also contact any organizations you are a part of and ask them to link to your website.
 |
Getting people to visit your website is one thing, but converting them from a website visitor to a new patient is a completely different challenge. You only have a few seconds to grab a website visitor’s attention, so your homepage should be compelling. Include your logo, phone number, and a picture of the staff and/or office. These are all important items to include, but the most important is a call to action. A nice looking website is important and imperative to success, but there must be a reason for someone to call your office. This could be a promotion, a web only special, highlighting a service that differentiates you from the competition, or anything else that will make that person pick up the phone and set up an appointment.
 |
Marketing to your current patients is just as important as marketing to new patients. Staying in touch with newsletters, birthday cards, social media (especially Facebook and Twitter) and other forms of online media is a highly effective way to keep your patients informed about what is going on in your practice. Communicating with your patients on a regular basis will help ensure that they will be repeat patients in the future. A large portion of new patients for most practices is referrals. Patients will be more likely to recommend you if you are communicating with them. They can forward your newsletter to their friends and family members or “Like” your page on Facebook, which all of their friends will see in their newsfeeds.
You might now be asking yourself “How do I do all of this and still see patients all day?” There are many resources available to help you with these different facets of your online marketing plan. At OnlinePodiatrySites.com, we can help you with ALL of the aforementioned pieces of your online marketing plan. We can provide you with a fully optimized website, an Ecommunications suite, social media integration and automation, custom patient educational videos and much more. In addition, we consistently have strategic marketing calls with our clients to discuss how to formulate your overall marketing plan and how the online piece fits in. All of this with $0 start up fee, NO contracts and a low monthly fee.
Visit our website at www.OnlinePodiatrySites.com or call us at 888-932-5560 to get started.
|
888-932-5560
|
