If you were to survey your patients asking, “How did you hear about us?” it would come as no surprise if results leaned heavily toward online sources, especially Google. With mobile technology, we can find anything, any time, in one handheld device, within minutes.
But how do you make sure patients see your practice in Google search results? Better yet, how can your practice be seen FIRST in search results? Are you found in all directories, both for healthcare and for local business? Maximum online visibility is being found wherever patients are searching.
In this episode, we discuss how to build online visibility. There are many steppingstones to achieve competitive-edge visibility, and it begins with a website of exceptional quality.
We also shares a story of how one OB/GYN practice rebranded to revitalize their online visibility and reach. They were facing stagnation, but with the help of digital marketing experts, the practice is now back on track and seeing tremendous growth!
Hosted by Rebekah Duke, this episode of the Medical Advantage Podcast continues our practice marketing series based on our new eBook, hot off the presses and free to download: The Complete Medical Practice Digital Marketing Success Blueprint.
Thanks for joining us for this session of the Medical Advantage Podcast, where we take time each episode to discuss the ideas and technologies changing healthcare, and the best practices your organization can take to stay productive and profitable. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. Download our free practice marketing eBook here!
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Full Episode Transcript
Medical Advantage Podcast: Welcome to the Medical Advantage Podcast, where you can hear healthcare professionals, expert consultants, and industry thought leaders discuss the exciting new ideas and technologies that are changing the business of healthcare. Tune in to each episode as we hear from some of the most innovative minds in medicine about the future of healthcare and how your organization can stay profitable, efficient, and on top of industry best practices.
Rebekah Duke: Welcome back to the Medical Advantage Podcast. For those of you new to our podcast and new to us, Medical Advantage is a healthcare services company. We provide a broad portfolio of services for medical practices, specialists, groups, and private equity. I’m Rebecca Duke, creative at Medical Advantage with another installment of our practice marketing series based on our recent eBook, the Complete Medical Practice Digital Marketing Success Blueprint, available for download on our website. Today’s guest, here to share insights about optimal online presence to not only attract new patients, but also the right patients, is Mary Hall, Digital Marketing master of Practice Marketing Growth. Welcome, Mary.
Mary Hall: Hi, Rebecca. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Rebekah Duke: Yes. Thank you for being here. Looking forward to what you have to say. So what does online presence mean?
Mary Hall: Well, basically the most direct, description is really visibility online, making sure that you are able to be found online and that you have visibility through different mediums on the internet. Whether that’s a website, social media, search engine optimization and so forth.
Rebekah Duke: So what kind of practice does digital marketing increase its chances of being found by patients who need care? Better yet, targeting the ones who are looking for a practice just like theirs?
Mary Hall: Well, typically we start with a good foundation by having a really effective state-of-the-art website. The website is going to be the jumping off point and the point where patients are going to be able to engage with your practice. So it’s really important that you have that online presence through a website, then you need to make sure that that website can be found.
I always say that you can have the most beautiful website in the world, and if nobody can find it, then it’s kind of pointless to have it. So using the other drivers such as search engine optimization, making sure that users can find you when they’re searching for certain conditions or treatments or a specific type of provider in their local market.
Making sure that you’re being found is paramount to that online visibility. Then ensuring that you have visibility through good reputation management, making sure that you have reviews online that are positive and that you have lots of them. The more reviews you have, the better chances you have being found in Google directories.
All of those things are tied together. It’s really important that you at least set the foundation with a good website and then visibility through search engine optimization and online directories, and then review and reputation management.
Rebekah Duke: Thank you for going over those core essentials. So for practices who are just starting out their brand new practice, what would you recommend they do to build a solid foundation for online visibility?
Mary Hall: Again, the most important thing is making sure that you’re visible through a website and through online directories.
First and foremost, patients are going to find you. If you’re in the Google listings, patients are going to be searching locally. So making sure you’re coming up in those local directories like Apple Maps and online with health grades and in the Google Map section. That’s going to be critical, especially if you’re brand new.
And then having a website that effectively describes your practice, describes what you treat, describes the credentials of the providers in the practice, gives patients the ability to request appointments online, fill out new patient paperwork, link to your patient portal. All of those things are going to be critical in making sure that you have and create that initial visibility. And then of course, making sure that through search engine optimization, you’re being found. I would say that first and foremost, those are the most important things for our brand new practice.
Rebekah Duke: Wonderful. So for practices who have been around for a while and they’ve just noticed that their market continues to get saturated and the competition is just very heavy, what is their best strategy for remaining competitive with online visibility?
Mary Hall: It’s really, really important. Again, I keep talking about the website, but it’s such a foundation builder for your marketing. So making sure that your website is up to date, making sure that it’s got the latest and greatest features, that it’s mobile friendly.
We are seeing that 70% of people are using phones to search online. So making sure that you have a very mobile friendly website that loads really fast and mobile. Making sure that you, again, are visible in search, that you have good content and good information about your practice, and then making, again, online reviews. Very, very important.
As an established practice, you should have a lot of reviews and you should have a lot of positive reviews so that people that are looking for a doctor can see right away. Wow, this practice has been around for a long time and they have a lot of happy patients. So making sure that you’re driving that message that you’re an established practice.
Making sure, again, using social media is also very important to make sure you’re reaching patients and reaching your existing patients and marketing to them. Ongoing as an established practice, you’re going to wanna build that audience through your existing patients so that they tell their friends about you and that their friends on social see what they’re talking to you about. So all of that is going to be very, very important for an established practice.
Rebekah Duke: Yes. It sounds like those core essentials are relevant at any stage of a practices.
Mary Hall: They definitely are. They definitely are. But I would say that, you know, obviously the longer you’re established as a practice the more you need to do to make sure that you’re protecting your online reputation on all the different sites like Health Grades and Vitals, and Google.
Making sure that you’re ensuring for patients that you are the right choice for them because you’re an established provider and making sure that you’re sending that message with all of your marketing.
Rebekah Duke: Yes, it requires continuous effort for sure. So you’ve been in the healthcare space long enough to see it all. Could you share a story of a practice who went from zero to the ceiling being found online?
Mary Hall: Sure, absolutely. We have a particular client in the New Jersey area that is an OB/GYN practice that has done incredibly well.
They were an established practice that had been around a long time and they had sort of stagnated a little bit with growth. And they really wanted to get out there with a message. So we rebranded for them, they rebranded with a new name for the practice actually. And then they started doing a lot of marketing online.
We built them a whole new website. We featured all of the providers on the website. Had lots of good information. We started blogging for the practice regularly with great information about the different things they treat to help with visibility through search. We did all sorts of campaigns on their search engine optimization to make sure that they started coming up for a number of different keywords in their local market on page one of search.
We started a, a very aggressive social media campaign for them where we did some paid advertising in their local market to generate new followers and get new interest in the practice. And they really, really, seen tremendous growth as a result of those efforts. And they’re extremely happy and we’re happy for them and we continue to build on that.
We’re talking to them now. We’re also doing their reputation management and helping them build online reviews. And helping monitor reviews as they come in, responding to reviews so that patients know the practice is paying attention to what they have to say. All of that is, is, you know, very, very important to them.
And it’s really been successful. We’ve seen patient acquisition triple over the last six months since we launched their new campaign.
Rebekah Duke: Yes. That sounds like a surefire recipe for success with leveraging just about every resource imaginable, starting with, as you’ve said, a well-performing website.
Mary Hall: Yes, absolutely.
Rebekah Duke: Well, that’s our time for today. Thank you so much, Mary, for being here and sharing your industry insights, and thank you listener for joining us today. For more direction on practice marketing strategy, download our eBook down in the eBook section on medicaladvantage.com. And should you have any questions, you can always email us directly at info@medicaladvantage.com. Join us for our next episode on Practice Marketing coming soon.
Medical Advantage Podcast: Thanks for joining us this week on the Medical Advantage Podcast where we discuss the ideas and technologies changing healthcare and what they mean to your organization. For more information, visit us at medicaladvantage.com and make sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast, so you never miss a show.
