5 Reasons New Patients Aren’t Finding Your Optometry Practice Online
According to a report published by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), more than 12 million adults in the US require medical treatment for eye problems every year. This means that the demand for optometrists is very strong. If attracting new patients to your clinic seems like a tedious task, then your digital marketing tactics might be to blame. Take a look at the top 5 reasons why new patients might not be finding your optometry practice online.
1. You Have a Small Online Footprint
Gone are the days when people referred the Yellow Pages to find an optician or eye care provider in their locality. Now, it’s the online directories, i.e., the internet that they consult. If your practice’s profile information is incomplete or missing on popular online directories, especially Google, you are missing out on huge opportunities to grow your customer base.
Make sure all the local citations for your business are correct and up to date. Maintaining a Google My Business account is usually a good idea as it helps you manage your practice info and ensure the accuracy of data for potential patients searching for eye care services near you.
2. Your Optometry Website is Not Optimized
A local consumer review survey reveals that at least one in every four patients searched for a local health care provider online before visiting the clinic in person. Therefore, ensuring that your business website ranks high on local search queries should be your top priority. To optimize your practice website for the search engines, you need to follow a proper SEO strategy. Some of the main steps for creating a winning website include:
- Conducting keyword research
- Using the most-searched-for keywords strategically in your web pages
- Regularly publishing well-written, quality content
- Using internal and external links to reputable websites to increase domain authority
- Choosing a well-structured and easy to navigate web design
3. You Do Not Have Online Patient Reviews
Reviews and ratings from existing patients play an important role in attracting new ones to your practice. Therefore, you must gather and post patients reviews on your optometry practice website. Online feedback assures new patients of the quality of care you provide. Plus, it can also help increase your website ranking on the search engine results page. Google states that positive customer reviews help improve the visibility of businesses online.
You can distribute survey forms for collecting patient feedback and upload them by yourself. Or you can simply ask your patients to share their post-visit thoughts on your website.
4. You Are Not Using Social Media
More than 75% of the US adult population uses one or more types of social media websites. So, if you aren’t maintaining an active presence on these sites, you are bound to face difficulty in attracting new patients to your practice.
Staying active on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram not only raises brand awareness and your practice visibility but also helps you build a stronger relationship with your clients.
5. You Do Not Have a Blog
ODs who do not include blogging in their practice marketing strategy are shooting themselves in the foot. Blogging helps enhance your search engine ranking by positioning your practice website among the top results. To get the best results with blogging, try to offer a mix of sponsored and organic content.
Some of the main topics you must write about include the services you provide and common questions patients ask about different treatment plans.
Attracting new patients to your optometry practice requires time and effort, but you can easily grow your patient base if you avoid the common marketing mistakes discussed above.