5 Components to Fix in Your Web Marketing Strategy

SAN DIEGO—Some eyecare professionals think that simply having a website is sufficient for attracting new patients and increasing practice revenue. However, a successful online marketing strategy involves more than just a website. The following are five aspects of a web marketing plan that ECPs should fix immediately.

Your Website Features. Turbo-charge your website by adding video content to it. This will keep visitors on your website longer, helping you convert them into patients. In fact, the average online visitor spends almost 90 percent more time on a website that includes media. ¹Similarly, the following website features will also keep visitors on your site longer, reducing bounce rates, enhancing search engine optimization and, ultimately, increasing your new patient flow: social media buttons for easy access, an integrated blog, an e-store, click-to-call functionality on your phone numbers, a map with directions to your office location, new patient intake forms and educational resources.

In addition, make sure your website is mobile compatible, or Google will penalize it, likely causing your search rankings to drop. If prospective patients cannot access your website from a mobile device or cannot find it online because it is hidden on the fourth page of the search results, they will turn to your competitors instead.
Your Social Media Presence. Most likely, you have a business page on Facebook. However, you also need one on G+, Twitter and YouTube, at the very least.

It’s important to address whether you are taking full advantage of your social media presence. Are you running social media advertisements that target local, ideal patients? If not, there is a wealth of untapped resources at your fingertips.
Your Online Reputation. Did you know that 88 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations? ²That same percentage of consumers has read online reviews to determine the quality of a local business or practice. ³This illustrates the need for practice owners to closely track and quickly respond to their online reviews—whether they are negative or positive reviews—on sites such as Yelp.com, G+, Facebook and any others where you have a visible presence. Furthermore, a one-star rating increase on Yelp increases practice revenue 5 percent to 9 percent, according to data in a Harvard Business School study. Don’t leave potential revenue on the table by ignoring your online reputation.
Your Pay-per-Click Ads. A pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign is not something you can just set and forget. Even after you have done your keyword research and have established a PPC ad campaign, you should revisit your campaigns and make sure you are using the advanced features that are available in Google AdWords. These include negative keyword lists (so you do not pay for ad clicks that do not convert online users into patients), broad match modifiers, ad extensions (allowing you to inhabit more real estate on the search results pages without an extra fee) and mobile device bid modifiers.

You should also spend about 20 minutes each week reviewing your keyword list and PPC ad strategy, updating it as needed. Almost 65 percent of online users click sponsored ads when searching for a service or product online.⁴ This is one reason that it behooves you to combine your organic search and paid advertising efforts.
Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Plan. Less than 10 percent of people advance to the second search engine results page (SERP).⁵ This datum emphasizes the need to rank well on the SERPs. Here are some best practices you can follow to increase your chance of ranking highly. First, keep in mind that Google’s main objective is to make sure that your online presence provides a positive experience for users. If you fix the components detailed in this article, you are already making great progress toward this goal.

Aside from what is listed above, you can provide a user-friendly experience and enhance your SEO efforts by: offering unique content, including media, that keeps online users on your website longer; including pertinent keywords on each webpage (try using longer-tail keywords that are easier to rank well for than generic ones that everyone is competing for); adding meta data, such as page title tags, headings and meta descriptions, to each webpage; providing easy navigation, both on the front end for website visitors and on the back end for search engines, which crawl your website and index your pages; making sure your practice name, address and phone number (NAP) are the same across all online platforms; and encouraging popular websites other than your own to link back to yours.

If you are not marketing to Internet users in the aforementioned ways, you are likely losing potential patients and practice revenue. However, by fixing these five components now, you can make your website and web presence work for you, helping you attract new patients, retain current ones and cultivate word-of-mouth referrals. Remember, your website is your most valuable salesperson, and it never takes a vacation.

References

iMatrix is a leader in websites and web marketing solutions designed specifically for eyecare professionals. More info is also available at (800) 462-8749.