Depending on the medical specialty and procedure, there is a threshold regarding how far a patient is willing to travel. In rare cases, a provider’s reach is national, but for the most part, a marketing plan will be based on a localized region. So if your advertising and grassroots strategy is local, why make the digital marketing efforts any different?
What is Local Digital Marketing?
Local digital marketing is the practice of creating a presence online that is associated to a specific location.
Whether you have one location or 40 locations, here are a few tips on creating a strong local presence.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the process of getting traffic from “organic” or nonpaid listings on search engines. There is a lot that goes into ranking organically for keywords (Read more about SEO). One of the first things to do however is for WHICH keywords you want to rank. Instead of trying to rank for keywords like Orthopedic Surgeon, which has a lot of competition and could pertain to any geographic area, concentrate on ranking for local searches. Incorporate the state, county or town to the ranking keyword phrase. You will see that it is easier to rank for those keywords and you will get more qualified traffic to your site.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
SEM is a form of internet marketing to promote your website through paid advertising. Pay Per Click (PPC) is a popular form of SEM that allows ads to appear on search engines like google. Through PPC campaigns you can specifically target what geographic range you want to target by zip code, state or a certain mile radius around your practice. This enables you to specifically target people in your catch basin searching for keywords that pertain to your practice. You may want to consider targeting outside your geographic area for select services if you know that there is a void in providers in that area.
Social Media
Google + is a social media platform created by Google. You can add information about your practice and services, customize a profile photo and display patient reviews. Since the Google+ page will show up in local search results, you will want to create a Google+ account of each of your individual practice locations, not just one for the entire practice.
Facebook: If you have a small practice, one Facebook fan page should suffice. However you will often see that healthcare systems will create a primary listing and individual fan pages for all of their locations.
Review Sites
Review sites can heavily influence the opinion of a potential patient, both negatively and positive. Be aware of sites like healthgrades, Vitals, Yelp, Foursquare etc. Unfortunately people tend to use these sites as an outlet to vent about a negative experience so encourage your patients to leave comments if they have had a positive one. You can remind them in the office, send out a newsletter linking to your profile, or create a page on the website for testimonials including a link to these outside sites.
Points Group specializes in digital marketing for healthcare. Contact us to see how we can help start building your local presence today.
