Growing Your Practice When You Don’t Have Time

One of the more difficult questions doctors struggle with during day-to-day practice management is how to get more patients. Physicians are already very busy with seeing patients, billing, insurance approvals and administrative duties. Trying to find the time to attract new patients and gain exposure online often proves to be a challenge.

Gaining exposure online

A strong online presence is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to reach new patient demographics. The problem is that websites that are not updated on a regular basis will never rank well from a search engine result page (SERP) perspective. Google looks at many aspects of a website before ranking a site high for search. Unless a search is being performed specifically for the particular physician’s or facility’s name a site will not rank well for broad category items unless there are constant updates.

How to have a high ranking website

Some of the factors that go into developing a robust online presence would be a website that is not only secure but also mobile responsive. Since July of 2019, Google began indexing sites mobile-first instead of desktop first. Once that algorithm was implemented mobile-responsiveness became one of the highest-ranking factors for Google uses while indexing and determining where a site should rank for particular searches.

What else matters for ranking

Other items that are standard SEO best practices but are often overlooked are having the right heading labels and meta descriptions on each page. Additionally, a site must be secure with an SSL certificate. One other deciding factor after the August 2018 Medic Update is YMYL. The Your Money/Your Life guide searches for content that could have a negative impact on people’s lives or finances. This is vital for physicians, hospital and ambulatory surgery center websites to address for better ranking.

Beyond website design

Creating a website that is SEO-friendly that is secure and mobile-responsive is just the beginning. High-quality content is critical. All content needs to be E-A-T worthy and should be updated on at least a weekly basis. The ideal amount of updates on a website to see steady improvement in SERP would be around 10 to 15 times per month.

It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it

High-quality content is the only way for a search engine to know if a site is providing useful information. E-A-T stands for expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. Providing high-quality content that is E-A-T worthy that links out to high domain authority websites with similar content is one of the fastest ways to be seen as a credible resource through Google’s eyes.

How to get the message out

Once a site has regular content provided at least weekly, this information should be syndicated out to social media channels. The social media channels should not be stagnant either and the address and phone number should reflect the same practice or hospital information that is on the site. This information should match the NPI lookup as well. Syndicating high-quality content to social media channels will help drive organic traffic to a website and will help reach the right patient demographic.

The importance of social media

Social media should be updated several times weekly. If not daily. The best way to grow a social media following would be to post helpful and educational information regularly as well as interact with followers. Comment on follower’s feeds and respond to comments in a timely manner. Spending approximately 30 minutes per day interacting with people of like interests will help grow an online brand.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint

Being a helpful resource to a potential patient demographic is what is referred to as assisted conversions. These people may not pick up the phone that minute to make an appointment but making a positive impression online is the first step to gaining online exposure. A site that continues to come up when someone is reaching a topic will gain trust in the patient’s eyes. High-quality content regularly will propel a site ahead of a competitor’s site that has outdated information with stagnant content.