After setting up your clinic, it is important to implement strategies that will allow you to achieve consistent growth and a steady stream of patients through your door.
We have outlined five simple steps to help you attract more patients to your clinic. Many of the strategies that we have included will help you to sustain your visibility long term without excessive oversight or maintenance.
- Set the foundations by increasing your search visibility
- Build citations to become more discoverable to patients
- Engage prospective patients on social media
- Re-engage your patient list with a newsletter
- Publish testimonials to instil confidence in prospective patients
Discover how to attract more patients to your clinic
Set the foundations by increasing your search visibility
Most patients begin their healthcare journeys online. Did you know that 5% of all Google searches are health-related?
Improving your visibility in Google is imperative for attracting more patients to your clinic. Here are some of the ways to increase the search presence of your site:
Check you’re indexed
Make sure that your website is indexed by Google. That way, Google can look through your website and position it in its search results. You can index your website through the Google search console.
Complete your Google Business Profile
The information you include will help Google to rank you in local search results. It will also be used in your Business Profile, giving prospective patients key information about your clinic, including your location, opening hours and contact information.
Write SEO-friendly content
Use a tool like Ubersuggest to find the related keywords and questions that patients are searching for. Make sure the content on your website targets these terms to increase the likelihood of your website appearing for prospective patients in Google.
Get links back to your website
Getting links from high quality and relevant websites can show Google that your website is high quality and an authority within the industry, worthy of ranking well in the search results. Writing press releases and providing journalists with expert comments are two of the best ways of achieving these links.
Set up your Doctify profile
Your professional Doctify profile will be optimised for search engines like Google. It will give you the ability to showcase your reviews and star rating to prospective patients, instilling them with confidence and encouraging them to get in touch.
For more information on SEO and how to improve your search presence, we have created a healthcare SEO guide and dental SEO guide. These provide detailed advice on how to rank well and become more visible so that you can attract more patients to your clinic.
Build citations to become more discoverable to patients
Listing your clinic on websites, apps, social media and local business directories can help people to discover your clinic. Known as online citations, they can also have a positive impact on your search presence, as having your clinic listed on trusted directories can help Google to verify that your business exists.
Some things to think about when building online citations include:
- The quantity of listings
- The accuracy of your listings
- The quality of the websites
It is important to pick your online citations carefully. Make sure you only ever list your clinic on relevant and high quality citation websites. In the UK, the main ones to think about include yelp.co.uk, facebook.com, thomsonlocal.com, maps.apple.com, 192.com, bing.com, google.co.uk and yell.com.
It is also incredibly important to be as accurate and detailed as possible when building citations so that prospective patients trust in your clinic and Google can trust your listings.
Engage prospective patients on social media
While often overlooked, social media can have a positive impact on your patient list. By becoming more visible on these channels, you can engage with more people looking for treatment and as a result, attract more patients to your clinic.
Amongst all the information in a person’s social feed, posts by qualified healthcare professionals rank as the most trusted. 60% of people on social media describe having confidence in posts by doctors.
When it comes to your social media posts, share insights, tips, advice and patient testimonials. Video-sharing platforms such as YouTube and Instagram also offer you the opportunity to talk directly to prospective patients and demonstrate your expertise. Cosmetic surgeons can talk about the latest treatments, physiotherapists can demonstrate key exercises and stretches and dentists can explain intimidating procedures.
Promoting your services on social media needs to be professional, consistent and relevant. By sharing great content that demonstrates your specific expertise, you may even find that your posts are shared widely across the channels, leading to increased exposure.
Re-engage your patient list with a newsletter
Email marketing and monthly newsletters are an easy way to connect with your patients and get them booking appointments with you.
Emails can act as a passive reminder of your clinic or can be targeted with special offers that appeal to specific patients. Newsletters are also a great place to share testimonials from patients, particularly if you don’t offer discounts or produce blog posts every month.
Publish testimonials to instil confidence in prospective patients
Patient feedback, when used in the right way, can be a great way of attracting more patients to your clinic.
When people are looking for a new clinic, they will often carry out research on Google before booking any appointments. A lot of the time, they will search for testimonials, feedback and reviews: “94% of healthcare patients use online reviews to evaluate providers.”
It is therefore recommended that you publish your patient feedback online. This will be easier to do if your feedback is collected digitally in the first place, through an automated system that allows you to auto-publish your patient reviews online.
At Doctify, we can help you to collect, verify and publish patient feedback for your prospective patients to read. Every doctor and clinic that we work with has a dedicated profile containing reviews from their patients. The reviews that we help providers to collect can also be used across their websites and social media channels.
Doctify is a review platform that has been purpose-built for healthcare, with many simple time-saving features to help clinics attract more patients. To learn more about Doctify, visit our Provider Centre for details of how our platform works and the benefits it can provide your clinic.
