9 Online Marketing Tips for Medical Practitioners to Grow Their Practice

by Shubham Yadav Digital Marketing Expert

In today’s fast-paced life, internet search is the best option for consumers when they need to research any product or service. This is why practitioners of any type of service, see their online presence as the perfect choice to grow their businesses. The healthcare industry is similar to retail, in that they both want to grow their business and increase revenue. For medical practitioners, online search and patients doing their own research is a great way to get new patients. The problem is that healthcare industry personnel are not marketers. In this blog, we will walk you through a few strategic ways of marketing, content creation and how the internet can help grow a medical practice.

Be in Touch with People Who Need Your Assistance

In conventional marketing, you need to be in touch with individuals who may become your clients in the future. In the case of online medical marketing, you can use several techniques available online. The prominent one currently is social media marketing; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube etc. are some of the popular social media websites on which you can add a variety of information, pictures, posts, and content. By sharing different types of content (videos, images, infographics, written text, links posted on social media websites) keeps the audience engaged.

Use Search Engine Optimization Techniques

Medical team desktop with doctors and medical equipment

Search Engine Optimization or SEO has proven to be a boon for the individuals in every area. SEO increases your website’s visibility, Google. Although with current privacy and tracking concerns, Duck Duck Go is becoming a bit more popular. By having your website/URL displayed at the top of the page, or at least on the first page of a google search, the website traffic will increase. As traffic increases, so do the number of customers/patients. There are different techniques used in SEO, such a building backlinks, adding content, adding Meta descriptions and researching keywords.

Decide Whether You Want Clients from Local Areas or from Distant Places

Where do you want your patient to come from? Is local important or does it not matter? No matter why type of business, it is important to know who and where your audience is. In the case of the medical field, there are a lot of practitioners who prefer local clients. The reason behind this is that most of the patients want to visit the local practitioner first in case of any ailment. But, there are such practitioners also whom patients come to meet from different areas.

These are the practitioners that are specialized in some specific field. For example, if one has to search for a kidney specialist, a liver specialist, expert cardiologist, then there is no limit where he or she goes. If you are any such specialist or your medical firm has such a specialist then you need to use the techniques, which could approach national or global patients. In the other case, there are the techniques, which you drive the traffic from local areas, which you will read next.

Use Local SEO Techniques If You Have to Approach Local Patients

As already discussed, a large number of practitioners have the client base in the local areas, and there are the chances of getting more clients from the local areas. In such a case, you need to use the Local SEO techniques. When some local patient searches for the medical practitioners, the name of your clinic or firm should come in front of him/her immediately. In local SEO, your location is added to the maps, which also helps in displaying it to people living at nearby locations. You also approach the local clients on social media sites also.

Create Content Explaining Your Services and to Educate People

Quality content is a great source to increase the ranking of the websites on Google, but before this, it is a source of providing brilliant information to the readers. This is information may be about your services as well as the medical field. Google also gives preference to the websites today which work for users. So, you need to create a great content on your website or on the external websites. It is also helpful in increasing the rapport. On your website, you need to add content to your web pages and blog space. In the case of an external website, you can use blog & article sites as well as the social media websites. Having a good Content Marketing Strategy can work wonders for your website.

Prepare Videos to Provide Information to People

It will not be wrong to say that today people like to extract information through videos more as compared to the written material. Videos provide the information in an attractive way. Moreover, when it comes to learning something practical, it is easier to learn through videos than by reading the text. You can create videos from documentaries, lectures, and presentations. Add these videos to your social media sites.

YouTube is probably the best and most popular video hosting website today, although Vimeo is not far behind. In addition, you can add videos to Facebook and Twitter as well. You can also live stream videos to your connections and followers. They can see you or your events live on the social media websites. If you are giving a lecture on the live video, then you can also answer the questions from the audience. It is a very interactive method of marketing.

You can keep the video online after ending the live session for the viewers who have missed it. In the case of medical marketing, you can use the videos perfectly. You can provide information about various diseases to the people, give them health tips, and create documentaries for your medical services or for the awareness purpose. One thing you always need to remember that you don’t just have to think about your services to the patients but also educate people in regard to different ailments and healthcare tips. It will not only benefit the patients but you will get a good rapport for your knowledge, which can also help you in attracting more people towards your services.

Work on Infographics and PowerPoint Slides

There are many other types of content that also help with improving SEO and Social Media Marketing. Infographics are graphic visual representations of information or data that are intended to present information quickly and clearly. They are the perfect combinations of graphics and written content. The text is added to the images to inform people about your services, healthcare tips and a lot more. The infographics show the information in an attractive manner, which can help you in your medical marketing.

Another form of content marketing is PowerPoint Slides. Slide presentations make the information easier for you audience to understand. In addition, you can also convert the PowerPoint presentation to video and upload on social media or video hosting websites.

Try PPC If You Want Instant Traffic on Your Website

SEO process allows your website to come on top in organic searches, but it can take three months to six months for the algorithms to work. Pay per Click (PPC) is a method where your practice pays a fee each time one of your ads is clicked. Essentially, it’s a way of buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to “earn” those visits organically. There is a method that can be used to get the instant traffic and that is PPC or Pay per Click. The single most popular PPC Advertising system is Google AdWords. This is the when you pay Google (or other search engines), for your ad to be displayed when someone searches about the services you offer. When someone clicks on your advertisements, you are charged for that click.

Use Appropriate Keywords

Last but not least, and it will be better to say the most important aspect, is keyword research in the case of online marketing. In the case of online medical marketing also, you need to search from the appropriate keywords, which you use for getting top ranking on search engines. Keywords are phrases which individuals use a lot to get the information about any product, service or anything else. Research your keywords, as well as your competitor’s keywords using tools like Google Keyword Planner. On the other hand, you can also get the suggestions through the search box of Google by entering some words. Moreover, you can use your own estimates also. The keywords can be like generic or specific. The example of generic keywords is “medical practitioner New York”. Specific keywords can be like “kidney transplant surgeon in New York”.

Originally posted on: https://getreferralmd.com/2018/10/9-online-marketing-tips-for-medical-practitioners-to-grow-their-practice/