My promise to you is to give you 3 epic strategies you can start using right now, to boost the number of new patients into your clinic – without the drastic measures of hiring a hitman.
In addition to that I've got a few secrets you need to know as a clinic owner.
So let's put the bat down and get straight into it. Firstly, to get more patients, you need to…
Hopefully, you’re already using the standard traditional methods to get you more patients, like;
So there’s a few of the regular methods, now let’s look at what is potentially the biggest source of referrals available to you right now and it’s literally right at your fingertips.
Google.
And let me tell you why.
Here’s an example;
Let’s say your clinic is in Northbridge. If I’ve hurt my back and I live in Northbridge, the first thing I’m going to do is type in “physio northbridge” or “chiropractor northbridge”.
Now the first little secret and what clinic owners don’t often know is that your patients are becoming much more sophisticated and typing in phrases like “best sports physio in northbridge” or they’re using Alexa or Siri to ask “where’s the closest physio to me that specialises in surgery rehab?”
Google calls these keywords or key phrases and they search for and then deliver the most relevant websites that best match that persons query. When users are typing in your service and suburb, you need to be up in position 1, 2 or 3 or at least on the first page of Google. In addition, you should be displaying in a Local Pack or in a prominent advertising position.
Ranking well in Google is the number one easiest way to find instant referrals – right when they need you – you are now literally at their fingertips.
So, we know getting on Google is an epic way to get more patients, but this information wouldn’t be of much use if you didn’t know how to rank well.
If you manage your own website I’ll give you a checklist of the things you can do right now to help you improve your rankings and if someone has built your website for you, you should check with them that the items on the list are happening. But for now, I’ve added the check list below for later reference so we can get right to the second epic way to get more patients.
The good news is, there are free tools available that will help you to research things like;
Knowing your online competitors is different to knowing the brick and mortar guy down the road. Some of the businesses that are being served up your patients may not even be your direct competitors. I’ll add a link below to a great free tool that will do this for you - but for now, let’s look at what you can do with that information.
Once you know who is getting all the website traffic we can drill down to see what key phrases they are rankling well for – and once you know the key phrases, it’s a matter of working those words into your website content, into your page titles and into your metatag-descriptions.
Are you ready for secret number two? – Using these tools will help you identify if there are bigger markets (or bigger search volumes) in other suburbs close to your clinic. Knowing this allows you to set up a strategy that entices your ‘bigger’ competitors patients to you.
I’ll give you an example. I recently ran a short campaign for a client and we found that the town less than 10kms down the road from him had nearly twice the population of his suburb. So we ran a series of targeted ads along the lines of ‘The best Physio in Manly is actually in Dee Why, just 7kms up the road.”
Needless to say, knowing you competitors and enticing their customers to you can have epic results.
The third proven method to get you more patients is to;
Building an online reputation of trust, or being the best at what you do, having a point of difference or being the most qualified all add up to getting more patients, but how do you let potential new patients know that?
There are a lot of ways to build instant trust so that a potential searcher makes the choice to click on your website first. Obviously - clever, researched ad copy and smart meta-descriptions can do the trick but as I mentioned before, your patients are becoming much more sophisticated and it takes less than 3 seconds for them to hit the back button and try someone else if the ad or description doesn’t match your website or their expectation.
The first thing you can do is make sure your website is Google friendly (from a technical point of view) so you need to run an SEO health check on your website.
By this I mean check that your website is optimised for Google. The quickest and easiest way, is to use a free online health checker which I’ve also added below.
Building an online reputation takes time and effort, but there are a few things you can do right away that will help.
Do you have a good Google rating?
You know, the star rating you see in Google Reviews or Google Maps? Here’s another little secret that my clients have successfully used; ask your current patients for a rating!
As simple as it sounds, health professionals seem to avoid asking. Realising it’s a pain point for most, I sent a small pre-made sign to all my clients with their logo to display in their waiting room. The sign showed their patients simple instructions on how to add a review. The best thing about it is that it created awareness and as there was a visual cue, most of their receptionists began asking too.
The next important thing;
Do you regularly add blogs or articles to your website?
Adding professional, industry related, new and unique articles that help your patients is another great way to build an online reputation, and when it’s done correctly, can be one of the most powerful tools to build Domain Authority.
Your Domain Authority is like a rating for your website that search engines like Google use to help them determine if you are credible and trustworthy. They look at things like the quality of your content and the quality and number of backlinks you have pointing to the content.
Which brings us to the next point;
Add backlinks to your website
Once again, a simple enough task but it does require you to ‘ask’ for it. Don’t be shy, reach out to relative industry experts or associations or other websites that that might be interested in showing your content to their website visitors. Backlinking is a powerful strategy to build reputation.
Are you proactive on Social Media?
It’s no secret that Facebook, Twitter and the like are great marketing tools that all work toward building trust with your audience. Don’t let this slip by, get into a habit of posting or even just sharing helpful or inspiring messages.
So the bat might be down but the gloves aren’t off just yet. This comment hurts most of my colleagues but it’s something you should know.
You might have listened to or read the 3 most epic ways to get more patients into your clinic, BUT, as most practitioners or health professionals are busy running their business and servicing patients themselves, you probably don’t have the time or technical knowhow to do all these things.
So here’s the best advice I can offer - I’d like to show you how you can get these SEO experts to do all the work for you, without it costing a cent – in fact, if you find the right one it’s quite the opposite. These experts are in such high demand because they consistently bring in the dollars for their clients. Essentially, you are increasing your income and clinic turnover using their skills and resources.
Now this is key - there might be transactions like a monthly invoice or cost per lead – but if you’re using the right person, you would have already seen your return on investment before you make a payment.
And if they’re doing it right, the money you’ll earn in return for your dollar, should be 3, 4 or 5 times more than you’re investing.
My recommendation to you, is to find someone that specialises in your field, find someone you can trust, and find someone that has the runs on the board.
Try Googling SEO for clinics and see who comes up.
First:
If you want to find an SEO expert you can trust to provide a good ROI, look here.
Next:
Check your websites current health so you know where to make improvements:
FREE WEBSITE ANALYSIS AND HEALTH CHECK
Then:
See who your online competitors are and what they are doing to get new referrals. Start by typing in your service followed by your suburb into the keyword checker.
Note; you will have to register but the 10 free searches you get is all you’ll need at this stage. Remember to also select the correct geo database.
Then:
Check you’re on Google - checklist