Article updated October, 2022.

3 simple ways to attract patients to your medical practice and grow your business.

Is the Gold Package advertisement you placed in the printed Yellow Pages costing you an arm and a leg? There’s a more cost effective way to reach your target audience and get patients to your medical practice. Welcome to the world of SEO.

Potential patients will often research doctors online before deciding who to consult in the same way they might browse the internet for a new television before going in to a store. Therefore, it becomes essential that you have a strong online presence so you end up being found by your ideal patients when they go searching for you!

Medical patients are getting savvy when it comes to choosing a healthcare provider. With increasing numbers of medical clinics moving away from bulk billing and the community having to reach into their own pockets, the decision on where to spend their money is more important than ever. There are a number of industry regulations that limit the ability for medical and allied health practitioners to use testimonials in their marketing. A professional image of who you are and what you do that is readily available online helps your practice to be seen as trustworthy and reputable.

How can digital marketing help grow your medical practice?

Make sure your Medical Practice has a Search Engine Optimised Website.

Gone are the days where having your name and credentials listed in directories will suffice.  People expect information at their fingertips, especially now that mobile phones dictate the bulk of internet searches.  If you are only offering up a couple of lines of text and your contact information, yet your competitors have a professional website with images and quality content, you are falling behind. A great quality website builds trust with prospective patients and gives them a feel for your medical practice and your values.

Now, a beautiful looking website is all well and good, but it’s about as useful as a chocolate teapot if no one ever sees it.  If you are an obstetrician servicing the Illawarra, you want your website to come up when someone types “obstetrician Illawarra” into a search engine. That’s what Search Engine Optimisation is all about. SEO is a worthwhile investment and while the results aren’t instant, they are powerful and long lasting when done properly. If you’d like to learn more, it’s best to consult a reputable SEO service .

Know Your Patients.

So many business owners go about advertising their product or service without taking the time to really think about who they are aiming their marketing at. Who are your target patients? What are your areas of specialty? What problems can you solve? If your medical practice offers easy parking and great access for those with disabilities, let people know about it!

Who are the decision makers when it comes to attracting new patients? For example, if you are a geriatrician, it might be that it’s the adult children of your patients who you actually need to reach out to.

By taking some time to make notes about your patients, age, gender, common reasons for needing treatment, ethnicity etc, you can start to really focus any marketing you do from here on.

Online Engagement.

Engaging with people is so important, whether it’s about attracting new patients to your business or retaining existing ones. It’s often worth having someone on your team who is responsible for your clinic’s online engagement. Engagement could mean managing social media, updating staff profiles on your website or blog articles featuring positive patient outcomes (with their consent of course). It also means responding to reviews or complaints in a timely, professional manner.

If you’re a health practitioner, it’s likely you’ve spent thousands of dollars and several years of your life learning to do what you do. If you want to get more patients to your medical practice, enlist the expertise of someone who has taken the time to learn what they do! Contact a local digital marketing consultant to find out how to reach your goals and get on with what you’d rather be doing!