digital success factors

The only way to make digital marketing work as a doctor

The buzzwords are exhausting. Social media, ads, chatboxes, TikTok, funnels… We often have these beautiful aha-moments in medical marketing workshops when we bring it all back to the basics. Let’s do that here too so you can take a breath and start enjoying marketing, as a private practice owner.

digital success factors

The only way to make digital marketing work as a doctor

How to make your medical marketing work for you

marketing secrets for doctors

Let’s go over these success factors with a live demo. Your choice of domain, the structure of your navigation menus, and the overall authority your website conveys.

The domain you use - how good is your block of land?

domain choice for doctors

Your domain choice is a critical success factor for your medical website. If your practice is in Australia for example, we know that a dot-com-dot-au domain is a better choice simply because it confirms that you are in Australia.

If you are setting up a new practice there are a few options to choose your domain:

Just your name: www.drchrisnichols.com.au is a great choice if your goal is to establish a strong personal profile and to stick with that for a number of years.
A brand: www.thewoom.com.au is a great choice because the practice becomes an asset that can be in business even when the founder is not there.

If you are redoing your website and your practice has been known under a certain domain even if it is a terrible acronym, consider this. Google also remembers how long your domain has been in the market and rewards that history.

If you have an old – less than ideal domain – then this is what needs to happen:

Investigate if the old domain has some Google visibility. If it has been dormant and was not carrying any significant content, then chances are it is not even ranking well, despite having been around for 15 years.
If it does not have a great reputation, consider choosing a domain that is more likely to support higher rankings: definitely go for a dot-com-dot-au if you are in Australia, and consider using one of the main keywords in the domain. If you are a chiropractor in brisbane, ‘chiropractorsbrisbanesouth-dot-com-dot-au’ is a great starting point.

The navigation structure - how attractive is your digital building?

menu structures medical websites

Your navigation structure also matters. If the content is hidden, and only accessible after 2 or 3 clicks, your Google visibility will suffer and your marketing will not be successful.

This can be compared to having a shiny ad, for a practice that is located in the hospital basement next to the waste disposal rooms, with a worn-down sign that says ‘Obstetrician’. We all know how patients would react to this.

Digitally, it’s the same.

If I start interacting with your website and the menus and buttons, or the way the pages interact, are clunky, outdated or broken, then we are in the digital version of that smelly basement.

Offer your patients a premium experience from the moment they start doing business with you. This is not when they book their first consultation. It happens when they start typing your specialty and the name of your city or town into Google.

Your authority - online, are you really a leading doctor?

becoming a leading specialist

Online authority is all about content.

Hey, but I have written this brilliant white paper that my Practice Manager added as a pdf on my about page.

Sure. Unfortunately, that is not what we are talking about here.

Did you know that Google’s algorithms compare your content with other leading pages about the same topic?
Did you know that Google’s readability check tests for sentences that are too long? Short is sometimes good. Too long suggests that your page will be too hard to understand.
And did you know that the structure of the page, the way titles and images are used to offer a better reading experience, also influence your Google ranking?

In other words, your authority is defined by what you have to say and it is also impacted by how you say it.

Great pages that are laid out as magazine articles, using big photos with a small file size, loading fast on any device or screen size, and using the right keywords in the right palace in a readable and palatable article…these pages are gold.

The combined effect of many great pages on a medical website is what creates this digital authority. Online authority comes with time, as you keep publishing amazing pages or blogs, and tell Google that you are constantly adding value for the consumer, your future patients.

The one way to bring it all together

marketing specialist doctors

The one way to make this work is an integrated process. Domain choice, an optimal website that loads fast and looks great on smartphones, a navigation structure that makes it easy for the patient to reach your information, and a set of amazing content pages.

That is not something you achieve through a quick ad on Freelancer.com.

Marketing specialists who specialise in medical marketing should be able to:

Understand the mechanics of private health care
Have experience in brand positioning
Bring substantial market research to the table
Understand your business goals
Integrate research, content production and digital creativity in one process

Leading doctors who understand this, are able to position their clinic as a strong brand in their local market. As a result, growth and solid business performance come next. It’s a great moment when good things come together.

Let's meet

Let’s keep it simple

free marketing consultation for doctors

If you are unsure if and how digital marketing could make a difference in your current practice, why not make use of our free consultation offer? We will discuss your strategic options, to generate more or better patient leads, using the power of integrated digital marketing.