As we near the end of 2019, it’s a great idea to start planning for success in 2020. Many private practices struggle with choosing the right marketing mix that actually works. There is so much noise out there when it comes to choosing the right private practice marketing strategies.
Before we jump in, let’s talk about what “success” looks like for your private practice. While there are certainly many different motivations my medical clients have, success in any business comes down to revenue. Your goal should be to help people heal and not need your services anymore for medical practices. So getting enough new clients is vital to your private practice’s success. In this post, I will outline 2 things your private practice should start doing or improve upon in 2020.
Photo by KOBU Agency on Unsplash
Build a Strong Website
Your potential patients care about how your website looks. According to Stanford University, 75% of people judge a company’s credibility based on its website design. Having a strong website is of the utmost importance for being successful online. Here is a self-evaluation – if you say “NO” to any of these below, it’s time for a new website:
- Is my website mobile-friendly?
- Is my website ranking for important terms my clients search for?
- Does my website generate new leads for my business?
- Is my website as good or better than my competitors?
- Does my website load quickly for visitors?
- Am I proud to send my website link to my patients or potential patients?
How did you do? Did you answer “NO” to any of the above? If you did, you should strongly consider adding web design services to the top of your 2020 list.
Pixabay at Pexels
Invest in SEO
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of ranking highly for search terms that are important to your potential patients. For example, if you’re a psychologist who offers bulimia services, you may want to rank for keywords like “bulimia treatment” and “bulimia recovery.”
But how can you perform SEO at a high level? A high enough level to surpass what your competitors are doing? You can either spend A LOT of time learning modern SEO strategies, or you can hire an SEO company. If you’re going to be building an SEO strategy for 2020, here are the main points you should focus on:
Map Rankings
As a local business, your private practice absolutely needs to be ranked highly for the most important keywords in your area. For example, if you’re a Dentist in Coral Gables, you need to be ranking for “Dentist Coral Gables” and “Coral Gables Dentist.” Here’s a general plan you can follow throughout 2020:
- Build 20-30 citations each month – Adding your business’ information on the most important citation sites is crucial to ranking on Google Maps.
- Repair 5-10 citations each month – Many times, your business’ information shows up differently on different websites. It’s important to make them all consistent.
- Have individual pages on your website for service keywords you’re trying to rank on Google Maps.
- Get lots of positive reviews from your patients (if possible)
- Completely and correctly fill out your Google My Business page.
- Get Schema markup on your website for your NAP information.
Search Rankings
In addition to map rankings, your local search rankings are critical to your business’ success. It will help if you beat out your competition for local keywords that your potential patients are searching for. To put it simply, you need to be ranked in the top 10 for keyword variations your patients are searching for on Google. Here are some things you should focus on throughout the year:
- Build separate service pages on your website
- Follow proper on-page SEO best practices.
- Make sure your website is fast.
- Write blogs that are pertinent to the services you offer
- Write blogs for other websites that send valuable “link juice” back to your website.
Content Strategy
Your content strategy can be as simple as writing a set number of blogs on your website. For example, you can choose to write 1 blog each week, giving you a total of 4 blogs per month. Here are some key points about your blog strategy:
- It would help if you wrote your blogs about the main services you offer. For example, if you’re a psychologist that works with bulimia patients, you should write content that answers patients’ questions, talks about treatment methods, and helps your bulimia patients.
- Your blog content is great for using on other channels, such as email, social media, and even creating a video about the content you wrote.
- Your content will position you as an expert in your field.
- Your content will help your website rank for more keywords, allowing more of your potential patients to find you.
- Your blogs should link to important services on your website and have a way for your reader to contact you.
I cannot stress enough the importance of creating a content strategy for your business. Content can separate your business from your competitors for the reasons I mentioned above. Content is a big part of search engine optimization that is often overlooked.
Final Thoughts on Your 2020 Marketing Strategy
If you follow the above two strategies, you will see major benefits to your local private practice in 2020. The important thing to remember is to invest in your website foundation and be extremely consistent throughout 2020, following the above points each month. This includes creating blog content regularly, creating citations regularly, creating backlinks regularly, fixing incorrect citations, and making sure your website stays in Google’s best light. Google makes the rules, so it’s important that you stay up to date with their changes, what they like to see, and how they rank websites so that your website will be chosen highly on their listings. To a lesser extent, following Bing and Yahoo should also be considered.
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