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Do you want to be surprised?
Guess how many times “doctors near me” is searched on Google per month?
Any ideas?
Over 200,000 times...
Therefore, it is so important to have a medical website in today’s world. If you don’t you are simply missing out on new patients. Plus, you are losing money.
Today when a person goes searches the internet more than 90% start at the search engine.
It’s time to pay attention these facts that will make a dramatic difference in your medical practices success.
What you will gain from this post
You will learn the best medical marketing practices to guarantee your new patients and increased revenue!
You learn how to gain new patients with medical website design.
After reading this, what you decide to do next will determine how much success you will gain. So be sure to pay attention closely 😉
Medical Website Definition
May sound self-explanatory but there are key elements that make a medical website distinctly different from a regular or other type of website. Click here for an in depth definition courtesy http://www.dictionary.com.
Medical websites are different because they have an anatomy that is unique to the medical industry. What consists of in websites for doctors you won’t see in a website for an athlete for example.
Some of the key differences to point out are is the goal. Many websites are focused on monetary conversions directly from the site itself. On the contrary to medicals website’s their goal is pure and simple. To bring your medical practice more patients and to have them keep coming back.
There are many different online marketing techniques and strategies we will get into within this guide to give you further clarity on this is accomplished.
Overview
In this online marketing medical guide, we are going to cover a variety of medical marketing services that go hand in hand with having a healthcare website.
Stop for a second and make sure you understand this important fact. Having a medical website alone will not bring you in more patient’s contrary to popular presumptions. Having a website is great and necessary but without marketing your medical site, no patients will see it.
A good metaphor would be throwing a message in a bottle into the ocean hoping that somebody will find it. With billions of online content being produced on a daily basis, the internet’s virtual space may have surpassed the oceans physical space already…
Therefore, you simply just can’t just rely on a website alone to bring you patients. You MUST to market your practices site so the patients who need your care can find you. It is not a matter of want it is a need to market your website.
In this how-to article on medical website design we will go over the most crucial marketing factors you MUST implement.
We will tell you the five most important briefly and further in the article we will get more in-depth to each strategy.
The first factor which is the most important is pay per click marketing. Pay per click marketing is the quickest and most guaranteed way to gain new patients.
Second, would be search engine optimization or SEO. When a patient searches on google, what links pop up first is based on Google’s search algorithm. SEO takes a little more time to take in and we will explain why later in the high value article. For now, all you need to know is in the long run, SEO will have tremendous value in comparison to pay per click marketing.
Third, would be social media optimization. You may ask why does a doctor need a social media account? Who really follows doctors? That’s an excellent question and that will be answers later on this article as well.
Finally, you have branding. Branding is essential to your online presence and overall success.
If you’re still reading, Let us tell you Who We Are...
We are...
...and we have over 17 years in the medical industry.
Our medical web agency is made for one purpose only.
To specialize in serving doctors, physicians, healthcare and all medical professionals. This is what we know best, and we have proven to raise the value of medical practices nationwide.
Our only question is, will your medical practice be our next success project?
We understand you…
We know why you’re here, it’s no secret.
You are a medical professional who owns a medical practice? Sound, about right?
You’re looking to increase patients and revenue. Sadly, referrals and word of mouth just don’t cut it any more. And it’s not like patients just pop up of the street into your medical practice.
So, you may ask yourself… What’s the solution? Believe it or not, it’s quite simple.
I am about to tell you one of the biggest secrets to give you an edge on your local competitors!
GET FOUND ONLINE!
That’s it...
That’s how patients are finding doctors today! From Google, Yelp, Zoc Doc and More.
A medical website is like having a “24/7 employee” that will bring you more patients.
Pay Per Click marketing, SEO, Mobile friendly website and many other tactics WILL bring you NEW patients!
Pay Per Click Services for Medical
Pay per click marketing or PPC is the best way to market your medical practice if you are looking for guaranteed success in the quickest way possible.
If you are going to pay for advertising. You are wasting your money if you are buying ad spaces in the yellow pages or print media. For a few factors.
The first factor is more than 90% of patients who search for new doctors find them on Google.
Second factor is you have no data or analytics to measure the success of the advertisement your purchased. Third is the yellow pages can be tossed in the garbage, digital ads can’t and neither can your website.
Google AdWords is based off a bidding concept.
Meaning you bid for certain keywords, which can range from a few pennies to over $20 dollars. Remember you are not the only one competing for these keywords.
Google AdWords is the best pay per click marketing program there is. Essentially, Google dominates the search engine market and with 90% of all internet users start with a web search. This should be a no brainier to why we use Google AdWords.
Take a look at this PPC chart to your right:
It goes from "Advertisements & Extensions",
"Keywords", "Adgroups", to the "Campaign."
Starting with the most important elements at the
foundation, but keep in mind all aspects are also
very important.
Without implementing all the aspects, you are in a
way taking one leg off a four legged chair...
Did you see what I did there?
Pay per click marketing is more complex than you think. It’s not just a matter of buying an ad, throwing money on it and expecting patients to flock in.
You also must fully optimize your advertisements and make sure they are better than your competition.
One huge benefit of PPC, is you only pay when a patient clicks you advertisement!
Advertisements & Extension
When patients searches for a specific keyword(s) it will trigger paid advertisements. This is very important because from the patients search, this will determine whether they will want to click on your advertisement or not.
A few factors to consider. Your impressions, which is how many times you ad shows to a user, cost you nothing but play an important role.
Click through rate, how many time a patients clicks on your advertisement based on the number of impressions you receive.
The more impressions per clicks you get, the more Google will show your advertisement.
Why is this valuable to know? Google is monetized to make the most revenue possible. So even if someone is bidding higher then you, your ad will appear more and you can spend less.
The reason is, if your ad is getting more clicks, even if bid at a lower price, Google in the end is making more money with you. Its a win win!
It is very important that a lot of thought, research and experimentation goes into your advertisements.
This starts with keyword research, lets begin below...
Keywords
Keywords are extremely important and is something that simple can't be guessed they must be proven to work. There are many tools free and paid online to assist you in evaluating the value of a good keyword.
First and foremost again, don’t assume you know the keywords. You must research them because you may think they are searching for one thing when there really searching for something else.
Here is a perfect example. Car dealerships want to buy ads using the keywords “pre owned cars” thinking it’s a much more appealing word then “used cars.” And it is a more appealing to word to sell in person.
Here is the thing, what are people at home searching most? “used cars” or “pre owned cars”?
If you do your research, you will find “used cars” gets searched on average 1,000,000 times per month compared to “pre owned cars” which is only receives 27,000 monthly searches.
So what keyword makes more sense to advertise for?
The answer is obvious.
This is why you MUST research your keywords before implementing them into your campaigns.
The 3 Main Types of Keyword Configurations:
When you go to add in your key word you are giving the option configure your keyword to 3 different types. Broad, phrase and exact match.
Broad Match: A broad match will trigger a keyword search in any placement of that keyword, a similar keyword or phrase. Also, it may show relevant searches, synonyms or variations. Broad matches are generally not considered to be best use. In most cases using Broad matches is a waste of your money.
Phrase Match: This match type allows you to show your exact phrase or a very similar variation to it after of before your keyword. This is a good keyword setting to use but don’t most of your budget into these keywords.
Exact Match: Exact Match is the optimal choice when it comes to choosing a keyword setting. When a patient searches for your keyword they will only receive exact matches to your keyword. This way you know that the keyword you choose, is exactly what the patient intends to click on.
Ad group
Your ad group is how you categorize your keywords that correlate to your advertisements. The name of your ad group holds no value other than to help you organize your marketing.
It's very important when choosing an ad group to have a singular focus and that advertisements with them are relevant as well.
If you have an ad group with a many different types of keywords and many different types of advertisements you ad simply won't perform well or possibly even get shown on Google.
Campaign
This is what holds your key words, ad groups and advertisements.
Take in mind you can have multiple campaigns.
Again, the name of your campaign only plays an organizational role for you.
At the campaign level is where you set your daily budgets.
BONUS TIP!
Want to have the best click through rates?
Make sure you have the highest Quality Score. This is very easy to accomplish.
From keyword, ad group, advertisement, campaign to even your landing page be sure to consistently use the same keywords.
This will greatly improve your quality score!
"I want another bonus tip!" - You
ENCORE BONUS TIP!
When setting up your advertisements be sure to do A-B testing.
Meaning set up two campaigns both with different strategies. Let a week go by and see which performs better. Pause the one that performed less and keep the one that performed better.
Then set up third advertisement trying to beat your most successful ad.
Continue to do this on a regular basis and you will have a packed out waiting room :)
Search Engine Optimization for Medical
Search engine optimization or SEO is an algorithm designed by google to provide the searcher with the best results. Pure and simple, google wants to make sure when a patient searches for something they get exactly or at least the most relevant links possible.
Why?
This is what keeps google at the top of the search engine food chain. Have you ever searched on other search engines and found it to not be as valuable of an experience as google?
If so that’s why you use google. If google starts delivering inaccurate or irrelevant results when a patient uses there search engine, people who begin to use their competitors search engines instead.
Google on purpose does not disclose 100% of what makes a site SEO friendly so that people can’t scam the system.
There’s over 200 factors in googles search algorithm and no one knows the secret ones except google. Plus google is constantly modifying their algorithm on a regular basis.
Google ultimately doesn’t want people to try to crack their code. Although with the information they do provide on making a site SEO friendly, ultimately makes for a better user experience.
Some known practices for search engine optimization are listed below:
Relevancy:
-
Use keywords relevant your practice.
User Friendly:
-
Your site must be mobile friendly as today more people search the web on their mobile devices vs their desktops.
Authority:
-
Having a lot of relevant links from other sites linking to yours. *Sites linking to you sites are called back links.
There are many other well know search engine optimization strategies that can be put to good use.
White Hat Vs. Black Hat SEO:
As you have come to learn, SEO is a skill. Websites are built to be SEO optimized according to what google fills us in on. It's important to follow those methods and practices.
What you don’t want to do is try to trick google. Often times web developers will find a way to cheat the system. These people are practicing black hat SEO. You do not want to practice black hat SEO because you run the risk of being flagged or banned from google.
The appeal is often black hat SEO is quick and delivers outstanding results, but if you get caught by google its game over.
It is best to practice white hat SEO. This means you obey the strategies google provides you and you honestly make efforts to rank on google. This way you wont have to worry about being banned or penalized. Plus the cream always rises to the top.
If you are developing high quality SEO on your website, overtime your website will rise up the ranks on google.
Social Media for Medical
As a medical professional having a social media presence is very important.
Many times, doctors may dismiss the notion of the importance of having a social media presence online. They may say things like who would want to follow a doctor on social media? Or why would they care to follow a doctor on social media.
To put it simple there are less obvious reasons why it is so important to have social media as a medical professional.
One of which is gives you a new back link. As mentioned before back links increase your website’s authority ranking.
Two it raises your online presence to any potential patients. Having social media accounts will make your practice more visible to patients in need of your medical services.
Three is, there are patients out there who like following their doctors. As a result, they will share your social media posts/account with their friends, family and co-workers.
Online Branding for Medical
Why is branding important for your medical practice?
In a world where people see million of advertisements a day, you need to stand out. That’s what branding accomplishes.
For example, in less than a second it should be clear to a patient whether your treat feet or eyes.
How is this done?
There are many aspects to branding such as use of colors, text and much more.
The goal of branding is to identify your medical practice to a specific meaning. That meaning should be what your medical practice does, even better at which stand it accomplishes it at.
Conclusion
In 2018, it's simply a must to have a medical website if you are a doctor.
Want to get up to 50 new patients in a month with medical internet marketing? check this link here.
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A High Value Step-By-Step Guide:
On Everything You Need To Know About Medical Website Design
