5 More Ways to Attract New Patients With Your Healthcare Website

Have you heard the latest news about people relying on the self-driving features in their Teslas and crashing? Cars aren’t self-driving yet — and it turns out that your healthcare website isn’t either.

Most web designers and online marketing firms don’t tell you this, but your medical website will work much better to bring in new patients when you provide some input. Don’t leave it to drive itself. A little more attention and the simple steps below will get many more new patients calling.

1. Interact on Social Media

Share health tips on social media—especially information about the conditions you specialize in. Post articles from your practice’s blog to help establish your website as a trusted source for healthcare information, and your followers on social media are more likely to book appointments.

Interact with patients through your practice’s social profile as well. This helps establish a personal connection. “Liking,” commenting on, and re-sharing posts from other healthcare professionals can also help boost your credibility online. It will encourage them to do the same for you, which can boost your site higher in the search rankings.

2. Respond Positively to Online Reviews

A whopping 88% of consumers now trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family. Get satisfied patients to write reviews on a variety of different platforms such as Yelp and Google. And make sure to thank patients for leaving positive reviews.

The more glowing reviews your practice receives, the more likely your website is to climb in search results. In fact, Google places a higher value on practices with five or more positive reviews.

It’s important that your practice responds to the negative feedback, as well. Since 4 out of 5 consumers have reversed a purchase choice after reading negative online reviews, your best bet is to address the complaints of unhappy patients. The more stars next to your practice’s medical website name in search results, the more likely new patients will be to click on it and book an appointment.

Want an easy way to ask for and get reviews and have them automatically posted to your medical practice’s website? Talk to us.

3. Promote Local Events and Trending News Stories on Social Media

This allows you to leverage the web traffic of popular events or news items, exposing your website to a broader audience. In a recent survey, 60% of social media users say they trust information posted by doctors more than any other group. This means users will be more likely to click on your posts than those from other sources.

When people “like,” share, comment on and link to your posts about local events, it builds relevancy for your health care website and boosts its ranking in local searches. This also helps establish your practice as part of the community, building trust among locals. The more they trust you, the more likely they’ll be to choose you as a medical provider.

4. Create YouTube How-To and Testimonial Videos

YouTube is now the second-most popular social media channel doctors use for networking. There are several good reasons to use this channel to promote your medical practice website:

• YouTube is not only a popular destination for online videos, it’s also a popular search engine. Posting on this channel will capture more search traffic and can boost your rankings on generic search engines, as well (e.g., Google and Bing).
• Videos help build a personal connection between your practice and the viewer—they’ll be able to put a face to your name. That’s why customer testimonials are rated highest for effectiveness among all types of content marketing.
• How-to videos demonstrate your medical expertise firsthand. Showing current and potential patients that you know how to treat the conditions you specialize in is much more effective than just telling them.
• Since they feature real-life patients recommending your practice, testimonial videos help build credibility among prospective patients. Consumers inherently trust the opinions of others like them.
• Studies show that those who view online videos are over 64% more likely to purchase something—whether it’s a new pair of shoes or your medical services, testimonials heavily influence consumers.
• Posting widely relevant videos, such as a how-to video, can catch the attention of other medical practitioners. When they share these videos on their own social networks, it can boost your videos and website in the search rankings.

5. Claim Citation Listings

Even if you’ve never posted a listing yourself, your business probably already appears in local business directories such as Yelp, the Yellow Pages and Superpages.com. Claiming the listing allows you to correct any errors and provide missing details. This ensures that current and prospective patients can find your medical practice.

Even better, claiming local citation listings on as many directories as possible can help advance your website in the search results. Businesses with more citation listings tend to rank higher than those with fewer, all else being equal. Citations in places such as the local chamber of commerce directory or a city business index are especially valuable, since these help prove that your practice is an established part of the local community.

Use these five self-promotion steps to ramp up your online marketing and local SEO and leverage the money you’re spending on your website to get many more patients.

Want more new patients? Talk to us.