29 Apr 5 digital marketing strategies for your medical practice website
As the volume of medical information online continues to grow, this translates to patients becoming more reliant on online searches to find health information and healthcare providers. This is part of the more significant shift from health care being a purely provider-driven system to becoming a consumer-driven system. Recent studies conclude that for patients with high health knowledge, the trend towards seeking credible online information is a valuable addition to helping people become more active and involved their healthcare.
YOUR DIGITAL PRESENCE MATTERS
In response to these shifts, it’s vital to understand how to promote your medical practice and get in front of patients at the start of their consultation journey. This involves using a set of effective digital marketing strategies tailored to your services. Developing a strong and healthy digital presence helps to build trust and establish your reputation.
MAKE SURE YOU START WITH A PROFESSIONAL WEBSITE
Your website should be modern, easy to navigate, and up to date – if it looks like you built it, change it now. Visiting your website is part of the collection of information that will form the potential patient’s first impression of your practice, it is essential that you make a good one. An old-school website that is hard to navigate with little data about the practice and its people will lead to distrust.
ENSURE YOUR WEBSITE IS SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISED
Search engine optimisation (SEO) includes both the technical and creative elements required to improve your website rankings on search engines, increase visitor traffic, and raise awareness of your practice. SEO includes many aspects including the keywords used on your page, links featured, or merely structuring your website in a way that search engines can adequately categorise and understand. When selecting keywords to improve your SEO, it is essential to understand the differences between “short tail” and “long tail” keywords. Short tail keywords or “head” terms are more commonly used terms and are usually around two words in length, such as “general practice”. As these head terms are searched more often, they attract more traffic and can be more advantageous. However, they are therefore also more open to competition from other sites using the same terms. In contrast, long tail keywords tend to be more specific and 3-5 words in length, such as “location of doctors in Point Piper”. Although these terms are less popular, they are more targeted to specific searches and also benefit from reduced competition for those phrases, which increases your web page ranking for those terms. To ensure your website is both professionally presented, and the content is SEO optimised, consider having your website development and maintenance undertaken by specialist developers and SEO experts to ensure your website isn’t getting buried amongst the competition.
ENSURE YOUR WEBSITE IS USER OPTIMISED
The user experience (UX) of your website is a measure of how accessible the information is so that people can easily find what they’re looking for. Your website should offer a straightforward window into your practice, so the interaction begins positively before the patient ever physically walks through your doors.
ENSURE IT IS MOBILE OPTIMISED
The latest research indicates that more than two-thirds of all Australian online sessions are now conducted via mobile devices compared to just 33% using desktops. This is a clear indication of the ever-increasing importance of properly optimising your site, layout, practice information, and blog content for mobile, so the user experience is as seamless as possible.
INCREASE YOUR CONTENT MARKETING EFFORTS
Content marketing via a blog and social media is a highly effective way to engage with existing and potential patients. For example, a large US-based clinic invested in social media back in 2005 and used podcasting as their content outlet. Within six years, the clinic gained more than 260,000 Twitter followers, 65,000 Facebook fans and their YouTube channel attracts 5,000 visitors per day. This goes to prove that in an environment where there are multiple sources of information, healthcare providers have to utilise all avenues to interact, educate and engage with patients.