PracticeBeat - Endorsed for CCMS Members - Can Patients Find You? Steps For Improving Your Online Presence

Endorsed for CCMS Members

Can Patients Find You? Steps For Improving Your Online Presence

In the past, accessing medical care has been difficult for patients, with issues ranging from limited availability to choosing which provider is best for them. As an independent medical practice, it’s important to make sure your patients can get the care that they need without the hassle. In order to ensure that new patients look to you for quality care over the leading hospital systems, your practice should be easy to find and communicate with.

The creators of PracticeBeat, an all-in-one practice growth platform, have outlined the six steps of the patient journey and how you can utilize them to grow your independent practice.

Step One: Attract Patients Through Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Listings Management & More

The “attract” stage of the patient journey is all about how patients will find you. In this day and age, if someone is feeling an ailment or seeking a healthcare provider, the first thing they will do is use a search engine to find a provider near them. In fact, 80% of patients use internet searches to find a medical provider and 70% of them start from Google.

If you want your practice to be the one that they find, then you need a strategy that will include things like: •Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search is the #1 driver of traffic to content sites, beating social media by more than 300%. Using SEO tools and best practices helps to put your practice on the map. •Listings Management: With listing management, information such as your address, hours, and more are accurate and up to date. Nearly half of all Google searches consist of users seeking local information. Additionally, reviews make up 15% of how Google ranks a business in search results. •Social Media & Advertisement: Social media presence is a bare minimum requirement for successful practices. It is important to go further than just posting and have an effective strategy that is created for your target audience. Advertising and engaging with your target audience on multiple social media platforms can increase your potential for patient acquisition.

Step Two: Convert; Turn Visitors Into Patients Securely and Effortlessly

Step Three: Engage with Potential Patients Through Social Media

The “convert” stage is where you can take your well-designed, optimized site a step further. Even if you have a high-performing website that is ranking highly in search, you need to seal the deal by getting your patients to schedule appointments. 45% of patients prefer to use digital methods to request an appointment online. You can achieve this by utilizing HIPAA-compliant tools such as scheduling, reminders, chat, call tracking, and record-keeping. Check out PracticeBeat’s comprehensive patient acquisition platform and learn about all the different tools you should be using to convert users to new patients.

With a universal scheduling tool, your patients can make appointments with ease whenever it’s convenient for them. After they have scheduled, confirmations and automatic reminders can help to ensure your patients actually make it to their appointment and get the care they need. A call tracking tool can also help you to keep track of all of your call metrics and better understand the workings behind your patient acquisition process. Having these tools in your pocket will reduce your staff’s workload while giving your patients a quick and easy scheduling process.

Engaging more consistently and effectively with all of your patients through social media can capture the attention of potential patients even before they visit your site. Your online presence should make patients feel like they will be supported if they become a patient, or strengthen the loyalty of existing patients. This is where social media comes in to help you continue engaging with your patients. With outreach strategies like social media engagement, text and email broadcasts, and automated email campaigns, your practice will reach potential patients while maintaining unique patient-provider relationships.

By engaging with your audiences on social media, you can increase your practice’s reputation. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are a great way to attract new patients and cultivate a sense of community.

With automated email campaigns, you can put your practicespecific news, offers, and expertise right in your patient’s inbox. Scheduling recurring email campaigns for both new and existing patients can keep your patients informed without requiring any work from either of you.

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PracticeBeat – Endorsed for CCMS Members: Can Patients Find You? Steps For Improving Your Online Presence

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Step Four: Activate Your Success by Building & Managing Your Online Reputation

After you’ve established a good reputation and strong online presence, you still need to keep track of your patients BY EVAN TULL and your progress. With your patients spreading their praise for your practice, you will be able to consistently bring in new ones. In fact, 94% of healthcare patients use online reviews to evaluate providers. It’s so important to monitor your online reputation, SEO optimization, and most importantly, turn your patients into proud advocates for your practice. Managing your online reputation is vital to your practice’s success. By utilizing a reputation management tool, you’ll be able to watch as your patients do all of the promoting for you. You can make it easy for patients to leave reviews on positive experiences and boost your practice up to a five-star rating. Not only can patients leave positive reviews, but with patient satisfaction surveys, you can customize surveys for your patients and receive the specific feedback you were looking for. By utilizing online reputation management reporting and analytic tools, you can see in real-time how these efforts are helping your practice’s growth. By monitoring your progress and making it easy for patients to share their satisfaction, you can show new patients the impact you have made as a provider.

In Summary

Many healthcare practices and organizations have hired marketing design firms or even a family friend to build their website and online presence. While these sites may look beautiful and have good content to influence on-page SEO, they likely don’t function or perform optimally in patient Google searches because they lack the other critical technical SEO elements created by software engineers.

Online performance depends on technical engineering criteria and on page content SEO. When a patient searches for your type of care, the results they see are determined by the Google Search Algorithm. This algorithm has nearly 75 technical components that have everything to do with how your online presence is engineered combined with your onpage content. The Google Search Algorithm is also modified several times a month, so this must be actively managed and not just a one-time fix. And yes, your online reputation and what you do on social media are also important to creating search ranking consistency.

The solution to this problem is to find a healthcare technology provider with strong engineering experience combined with talented designers to be your digital partner. PracticeBeat is that partner.

Final Thoughts for Having Success During the Patient Journey

To grow your practice and offer exceptional care to your patients, you will need to keep the list of tools and strategies we discussed above on hand. By keeping your high-performing site optimized and easy to find, you set yourself up to rank higher on search engines. Simplifying scheduling, keeping your patients informed, and maintaining an open line of communication with patients and other providers through various platforms will allow you to grow your practice and continue to offer the best care possible.

If you are ready to attract and acquire new patients, boost engagement and communication, and enhance your overall care, PracticeBeat can help digitize the patient care journey and help independent practices grow by providing the tools and expertise necessary to outperform the competition. By delivering an effective, convenient care experience for patients, PracticeBeat helps your practice reach its full growth potential and stay competitive in the changing healthcare landscape. PracticeBeat will diagnose your online presence and share specific data on how Google sees your web presence in a free one-hour consultation. Reach out to your medical society to learn more about how PracticeBeat is assisting physicians like you, making life easier for patients, and innovating marketing in the medical field.

Note: If you are interested in scheduling an appointment to learn more about PracticeBeat please call CCMS staff at (610) 357-8531.

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