Whether you have just opened your clinic or it has been established for a while, you’ll need to get new patients through those doors as frequently as possible. But you can’t rely only on patients finding your clinic from word of mouth.
If you want to boost your new patient enquiries and increase the number of patients you see, you’ll need to drive traffic to your clinic’s website.
At Ignite, we’ve found that many clinics and practices either don’t have a website or they have a very outdated website that doesn’t appear on the first page of search engines and puts people off immediately. If this sounds like you, you’re missing out on new patients!
And if you have a website set up, read on to get some tips to get the most out of it.
There are several tactics you can use to drive traffic to your clinic’s website.
We’ve listed the most important here, which you can get cracking on immediately!
#1 Optimise your clinic’s website with SEO
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the practice of improving the ranking of your website on the search engine results page (SERP), which will bring more higher-quality visitors to your site.
You want your website to be one of the first that pops up on a potential patient’s SERP.
Over 70% of website clicks happen on the first page of the google SERP, while the second page brings in just 6% of website clicks. So, how do you get your website up there with the best ranking on Google?
It’s going to take a fair amount of work, and you’ll need to dedicate time to your website, but with determination, you can improve your site’s ranking and effectively increase the number of people interested in the treatments you offer landing on your site.
The alternative is to get in touch with healthcare marketing experts, where we can do the heavy lifting for you!
If you are willing to brave it alone, check out these tips to help you get on your way.
Three quick steps to improving your SEO
- Use Google’s Keyword Planner to search for keywords related to your clinic and treatments. Find new keywords, including long-tail keywords that will help users find your website when searching on Google – we have a more in-depth blog explaining how to find the best keywords for you here. (link)
- Create great content – not only will this help users stay engaged once on your website, but it will also help them find you in the first place. Insert the keywords you’ve found into blog posts and other pages on your site. Expert tip: don’t keyword stuff. Google recognises this and will penalise you for it – and don’t sacrifice good writing for SEO. Use headings and bold text to help highlight your keywords when possible. Create quality content that is relevant to your clinic.
- Add links – add external links within the text on your site to help search engines recognise your website as valuable. You can include links to other websites’ blogs with relevant information, healthcare articles, or studies to help add authority to your treatments.
#2 Create a Google Business Profile
With a Google Business Profile set up, your business will be easier to find.
You can fill out your address, include contact details and post pictures and updates.
When people search for clinics in the area, this will help with local SEO. Google will recognise where the search is coming from and recommend your clinic if it meets the requirements of having the appropriate keywords and being in the correct location.
#3 Use social media as a free marketing tool
It’s safe to say most of your potential patients use social media, whether that’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or another platform. Using social media to engage with your patients and reach a new audience is an excellent way of driving traffic to a clinic’s website, and you can do it for free!
You can check out a full post dedicated to social media marketing. But here are the basics:
- Set up your accounts and link your website in the bio section
- Create valuable content where patients will see what they can gain from a treatment
- Create a community by engaging with those that like and comment on your post
- Using insights, monitor which types of posts do well, attracting people to your website
If you have a high engagement rate on your social media posts, more people will be drawn to your profile; therefore, the chances of them clicking through to the link are higher.
This is a great way to reach new patients, and it’s free; however, to make the most of social media, you’ll need to consider paying for ads.
#4 Advertise your clinics on social media platforms
Why advertise when these social media platforms let you showcase your services for free?
Well, there’s a catch. It’s been a much-debated topic amongst advertisers and marketers, and the prevalent belief is that if you have a business account, platforms like Facebook and Instagram will reduce how much your posts and profile are seen by users, even those that already follow your accounts. This is to encourage you to advertise with them.
While this can be frustrating, these social media platforms double as very effective advertising platforms. The subtlety of the ads that mirror posts allows users the illusion that they aren’t being bombarded with ads left, right and centre. This is excellent news for your clinic, as it will enable you to promote your services to an audience that would otherwise be unlikely to hear about your clinic.
For help setting up Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns, get in touch with us at Ignite. You can also check out our more in-depth blog on social media campaigns here.
#5 Invest in PPC Ads
If you use Google ads correctly, you are pretty much guaranteed an increase in new patient enquiries. One of the benefits of using Google Ads as opposed to other advertising platforms is that your ads will only be shown to those actively searching for your clinic or the types of treatments you offer in your area.
You’ll need to have your ads set up correctly for this to be effective. This can be complicated, so we have created a guide you can check out here to help you get started (link to guide/blog post). At Ignite, we’ve found using a combination of both social media and Google ads to be the most effective way of getting new patients through the door.
#6 Get testimonials and reviews for your website
If your clinic has been up and running for a while, you will no doubt have several patients satisfied with the treatments that will be more than happy to leave a review.
Mention that they can leave a Google review and send a follow-up email. The more reviews you have, the more likely it is that someone will click on your website, having found your clinic on Google. Over 90% of consumers read reviews before making a purchase, so it’s a successful way to get high-quality leads onto your site!
Google has also been known to reward businesses with reviews by boosting their ranking on the SERP.
Don’t forget about email marketing
The final method we will discuss for driving traffic to your website is using email marketing. Usually, your patients will have agreed to receive these emails at some point. It’s an incredibly effective way of increasing patient engagement, and your emails can direct them straight to your website.
The healthcare industry’s average email open rate is just over 21%.
The average click-through rate where patients will click on the links you have included is 2.69%.
These numbers may seem low, but they just exceed the average marketing email open and click-through rates.
For your clinic to exceed these averages, you’ll need to capture your patients’ attention and get them to engage once they have opened the mail.
Tips on increasing open rates and click-through rates with email marketing
- Write emails with value – talk about yourself and your clinic, including any exciting news, like a new treatment on offer
- Find out what your patients are interested in and include it in the content you are putting out there in the email
- It’s hard to get people to open emails, so make sure there is a catchy subject heading
- Avoid words like ‘’discount’’, and ‘’free’’ as your emails could be filtered out and sent to the junk folder of the recipient
It’s not always easy to generate new patient enquiries, but you’re missing a trick if you aren’t using the internet in 2023 to help your clinic grow. Optimising your site and trying out other marketing tactics will help you get ahead of your competitors!
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