You’re a doctor, a dentist, a chiropractor. (Any other of healthcare provider for that matter.).
You heal the sick, those that are in pain and you treat every patient who walks through your door the same no matter what their ailment or complaint.
But like all doctors, there are certain patients and cases you’d like to see more of—whether you’re a specialist or a family practice doctor, there are some things you’re more passionate about.
You’re human, after all. Even medical school couldn’t change that.
You became a doctor so you can do what you love, so why not do more of it? The online marketing tools available to you today can help you build a successful medical practice with whatever focus you want.
Online marketing enables you to reach out to the precise patients you’d like to fill your days with, and to ensure those patients find you when they’re looking for a doctor or surgeon with your specific expertise.
Get more of the cases you want to treat in your office so you can treat them. Build the practice of your dreams—it’s easy, and we can show you how.
Find out what your ideal patients are searching for
If you’ve been reading our blog—or reading anything about online marketing for your medical office—you know that search engines matter a lot. According to the Pew Research Center, 77% of the US population uses a search engine when looking for health or medical information (including finding a doctor).
Google found the same percentage of patients saying a search engine was involved in their search for new doctors. More patients rely on search engines than any other referral source, including friends, family, and hospital sites.
Keyword research lets you tap into that search volume to find the perfect cases and patients for your office. When that ideal patient starts researching symptoms or a newly diagnosed condition, or when they explicitly start searching for a doctor who can help them, you can put yourself right at the top of the list as long as you know what keywords to target.
Basic keyword research is simple—figuring out if you should focus on “knee replacement” or “arthroplasty” is a quick matter of checking the search volume using Google’s Keyword Planner. Getting more precise about the patient’s you’re targeting takes a bit more knowhow but is simple enough with a bit of practice (or a partner who knows what they’re doing).
Build content that optimizes your medical office’s website for key search terms
Of course, knowing what keywords to target won’t do anything for you by itself. You have to craft original, engaging content around those keywords to start getting picked up by search engines and thus by patients. Building specific pages on your site for each condition/case type you would like to treat is an absolute must these days, and you might even consider building wholly separate websites for each specific diagnosis.
Use the questions you get asked by patients each day as the topics you publish online, and don’t be scared to get a little creative, too. Your primary goal should be providing information that answers common patient questions, but the more engaging your content is the better you’ll do with patients and with search engines. Text is great, images are essential, and video is king. Combine all three and you have a winning combination for a #1 spot on all your targeted search terms.
Reach out to get links in and watch your practice grow
Once your site(s) are flush with high quality, original, informative and engaging content, it’s time to get the word out! Search engines will get around to indexing and ranking your new pages within a month or two (there are also some ways to speed up the process), but you can magnify the results and build an even bigger marketing punch by building out your media network.
Join discussions on social media and share your content where appropriate. Reach out to local media—newspapers, news stations, city/regional magazines, etc.—and let them know about the public health implications of your focus area(s). Guest blog on healthcare-related and local-focused websites and get links back to your own site, gaining added exposure and some extra SEO juice.
A survey by SEO giant Moz showed that on-page content and inbound links from other sites were neck-and-neck in terms of determining rank in local searches, and together account for 40% of SERP positions:
Add in reputation management, social media presence, and basics like consistent profile information on other sites, and you’re more than 80% of the way to Number One.
Online marketing lets you handpick your medical patients
You’ll treat anyone who comes to you with a medical need, of course. But what if you could fill your days with the kind of work you love—the kind of work you set out to do when you became a doctor—instead of settling for whatever walks through the door?
You can do well by doing good, and you can do even better for yourself and your patients by focusing on cases that ignite your passion. All it takes is effective online marketing, and that’s well within reach.
