How to increase patient numbers
What have you done recently to boost your patient numbers?
What have you done recently to boost your patient numbers?
Kris Borgraeve
November 5, 2021
Double or triple your turnover
How to increase patient numbers & turnover
What has been done at your practice to boost your patient numbers in the last 3 months? You could ask yourself, your practice manager, or your marketing provider and see what comes up. Another valuable question is: When was the last time your Google ranking was checked for your main income avenues? In fact, who is responsible to add content to your website, so you rank higher and attract more patients? If you haven’t made a particular effort to grow your practice as a business, today is a great day to start.
It pays off to ask these questions. Our most ambitious customers have implemented the power habit to ask themselves these quality questions every three months. Their turnover increased by +50% after Year 1, and by +200% two years after they started doing this.
Optimising and improving your visibility – without paying for advertising – is a smart move if you want to turn your practice into a medical marketing success story.
Unveiling the SEO myths around medical marketing
boost patient numbers
Search engine optimisation and marketing are often misrepresented. Overseas outsourcing of digital marketing work has contributed to those myths and if you want to increase your patient numbers, the challenge is to avoid the pitfalls.
It takes only a small effort to get it right: For our top customers, it all started with gaining a better understanding of effective medical content marketing. With that knowledge, you can start growing and transforming your private practice.
The two key components to understand are:
- The patient’s behaviour before they see a specialist: Patients search online, educate themselves, check out doctors and clinics and they digest the information they find. They also start building emotional connections to that information, and to anyone who is able to communicate in a way that resonates with them. This behaviour can be mapped in data charts so you know what your patients want to read on your private practice website.
- The content you put on your medical website: Mechanically adding your resume is one way to do it. Dumping Wikipedia-style clarifications and definitions of Medical-School content on your pages is another one. Neither of those quick-fix approaches has ever helped a private practice thrive. What we see across our successful medical strategies is the spectacular impact of customised content for our customers. It is based on the detailed data charts for their particular specialty. Each page is produced to answer the patient’s questions, presented in a palatable format and organised so Google flags your content as worth ranking.
Too often, we hear dramatic stories of doctors delegating this pillar of their business development to people with the wrong skillsets. (“I’ll ask the IT guys to do some SEO”).
Medical content marketing is part of your business strategy. It’s not a commodity you quickly order on the cheap. This business strategy helps you create wealth, so your clinic becomes a valuable asset rather than just the vehicle to do your work.
We can help you connect the dots even faster so you don’t waste precious years struggling to fill your waiting room.
Attract more new patients. Convert more leads.
Convert leads into patients
Remember that there are two powers at work: the power to attract and the power to engage.
Attract more visitors – potential new patients
Great and effective medical content ranks well in Google searches for a specific treatment, condition or surgery type. It makes you super visible, without paying for Google Ads. This first step is all about investing in quality content. We put in place data and research to strategically choose content for your main income avenues, in line with the patient’s Google search terms.
Engaging with the patient – bedside manners in the digital realm?
When a patient finds one of your pages, do they get to know you? Is there some personality? Is your content authentic or does it feel like a template? Our experience in online media helps you find the right tone-of-voice, colour scheme, and editorial framework to surround you with.
"You can look at your medical website as a static online brochure. Or you can be a leader and consider it a 24/7 channel that amplifies your message for the community. We help you make the transition so you can influence general practitioners and patients so more people choose you as their specialist."
When we work together, we work on the information and we make sure the values of your practice are engrained in your online profile. The way the information is combined with images and graphics changes the experience for the patient. Let’s not forget that anyone who has a health challenge is vulnerable and looking for that human touch.
We help you communicate in a way that is about the patient. Not just about you and your practice. Our data shows that this keeps patients on your website for longer and it helps you increase your conversions, in other words, your patient numbers.
Publish-Measure-Publish: The proven success loop
Boost patient numbers
- Publish: Publish good content on your website in a consistent, regular way. Cover your main income avenues first and gradually add more articles, pages or blogs, videos and links, as you build your practice. Check out our excellent article on what Google considers good content, it’s a blueprint for your content marketing strategy as a doctor.
- Measure: Your interaction with GPs and patients is an ongoing activity, as there are always potential new patients looking for information about your speciality. So it makes sense to continuously monitor what pops up in Google searches, which topics generate clicks and page views, for orthopaedics, obstetrics, bariatrics or the niche you work in. We help our customers with regular strategic sessions to learn from this data so we can put in place more effective content to grow their practice.
- Publish: With our Optimiser program, we keep the cycle going: We monitor how your original content is generating patient leads, and then we build on your strengths with new pages, additional blogs and posts. The more depth we add to your profile, the more Google remembers you as a leader. The more Page 1 results for a variety of topics linked to your speciality, the more we boost your patient numbers.
How to snap out of procrastination mode now?
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Start growing today!
boost patient numbers
Want to break out of your marketing procrastination state? Book your free 1:1 consult now and let’s talk about your practice growth.
- Tags: Patient acquisition
