Your website is an integral part of your orthopedic practice’s marketing strategies and online reputation efforts. First impressions matter!
In this article, we’ll share 10 useful tips for optimizing a practice website to convert online visitors into patients. These actionable orthopedic marketing strategies will enhance your online visibility and help your practice’s website reach its full potential.
1. Mobile-Friendly
Mobile use and consumption is at an all-time high. In fact, 2017 was the first year that mobile phone web traffic exceeded desktop traffic.
If your orthopedic practice’s website isn’t mobile-friendly, then your search engine rankings will take a hit, along with your patients’ online experience.
To determine whether your website is mobile-friendly and responsive, try Google’s mobile-friendly test. This free, simple test will simply indicate whether or not your page is mobile-friendly and offer guidance on how to fix errors.
2. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the leading web analytics tool, and it’s free! An invaluable marketing tool that tracks and reports website traffic, Google Analytics displays incredibly useful information such as visitor count, bounce rate, average duration, and pages per session. It also reveals the locations of your visitors, which pages are most popular, and how users navigate from page to page.
Are your marketing efforts driving more website traffic and helping you acquire new orthopedic patients? Google Analytics can help answer this question and more. This tool is essential in measuring the effectiveness of your online marketing campaigns and website outreach.
3. Embed Reviews & Testimonials on Your Website
Consumers like to do their due diligence before making purchases, big or small. And they especially like to do their research before choosing an orthopedic surgeon. In fact, 81% of patients consider online reviews when selecting healthcare providers (RepuGen).
After all, social proof is a powerful indicator of trust; therefore, you should embed reviews on your website. Your 5-star reviews are doing work for your on Google and other top healthcare review sites, but you can be stretching them further! Proudly display them on your website for prospective patients to see.
You can easily embed reviews and testimonials on your practice’s website and providers’ bio pages using rater8’s Testimonial Widget. Display your top testimonials from Google, Healthgrades, Vitals, and more.
Better yet, display reviews from rater8-verified patients. Unlike the other websites, rater8 reviews are 100% authentic.
Why’s that? Anyone can write a review on Google, which means there’s no way to ensure the reviewer is a real patient. This is a serious problem for many medical practices today. When you don’t have hundreds of reviews to bury the bad ones, just two or three reviews can inflict significant damage to your online reputation.
Oftentimes, these negative reviews are written by competitors or disgruntled former employees looking to sabotage others. Other times, they are reviews written on behalf of someone else or based on others’ experiences. rater8 reviews, however, are written by real patients, guaranteed, because only verified patients are sent an invitation to leave a review.
You can also keep all your rater8 reviews in one place with Verified Reviews pages for all your doctors. When potential patients want to read legitimate reviews, they’ll know exactly where to look.
4. Use Original Media
Humans are visual beings, and we are drawn to high-quality media. Take care to be incredibly selective about which photos you use. Avoid cheesy stock photos at all costs.
With patient permission, highlight real success stories from your medical practice. Use original photos wherever possible, particularly pre-op and post-op photos.
Be sure to also feature images of your doctors and staff. Additionally, a video on your landing page explaining what you do and who you are works wonders to establish legitimacy in the eyes of patients.
One great visual marketing resource is Canva. This free, online tool allows you to make state-of-the-art digital marketing materials such as logos, advertisements, social media posts, and infographics.
5. Credentials
Each doctor should have their own dedicated bio page, particularly for search engine optimization (SEO). In healthcare, it’s incredibly important to instill a sense of trust with your patients. Each doctor’s page should highlight their medical background, experience, education, residency, accolades, and other pertinent credentials. Remember, it is crucial to use a professional headshot!
6. Contact and Business Information
It’s critical to display key business and operating information on your website such as:
- Basic contact information: name, address, phone, and email
- Many doctors see patients at different offices. Each office location should be represented.
- Operating hours
- Don’t forget holidays!
- Urgent care information
- This is incredibly important. What is the appropriate course of action for a patient who requires medical assistance outside of business hours? Make sure this information is displayed prominently on the homepage so patients don’t have to go digging.
- Insurance and payment information
- When patients visit your website, they want to know what types of health insurance you accept. For many, this can be a make-or-break factor when choosing a doctor. Make this information accessible to all on your website. You can also note whether there are special financial arrangements available, and whether you take cash.
Gr8 Tip:
Do not display important information in images. Always make sure to display important information in text.
Why? Because search engines can’t crawl or read images. When search engines like Google or Bing can’t read something, they can’t process it. This will make it much harder for patients to find important information through what should be a simple search.
It’s also useful to embed a Google Map on your website so users can easily find your practice’s location and grab directions.
NAP Consistency
NAP is an acronym for Name, Address, and Phone. Ensuring NAP consistency is critical in helping potential patients find your practice, visit your website, and book appointments.
Display your NAP consistently and prominently throughout your website, such as in the header, footer, and contact page. Inconsistent NAP will have a negative effect on your search engine rankings.
Pick a format and name and stick to it! 101 20th St. N. is different from 101 20th Street North.
Humans are obviously able to understand the two addresses above are identical, but search engines will treat these as separate addresses. Multiple addresses will confuse Google, and when Google is confused, it’s less likely to feature the information in search results.
Moz Local offers a free tool to ensure all your directory listings are consistent.
7. Start a Blog
Blogs have the potential to drive high volumes of traffic to your practice’s website and build confidence, relationships, and sales. Incorporating a blog as one of your orthopedic marketing strategies will allow you to produce high-quality content that is optimized for SEO. This is where you can establish legitimacy and demonstrate authoritative knowledge and expertise in your field.
Backlinko conducted research of over 1 million websites. They found the average Google first-page result contains 1,890 words, demonstrating a strong correlation between word count and Google ranking/position.
However, this doesn’t mean that lengthy posts will guarantee a first-page ranking on Google. After all, Google values quality over length.
Create engaging content centered around target keywords related to orthopedics. Additionally, encourage readers to share this content across various social media and marketing channels.
For example, orthopedic surgeons can have dedicated pages for the conditions they treat, such as an ACL tear. Within each condition page, you can talk about:
- What is [medical condition]?
- Signs and symptoms
- Treatment
- Further resources
Content optimized for SEO will include:
- Original, engaging images
- Long, in-depth content
- Inbound (on your website) and outbound (to other websites) hyperlinks to reputable, high-authority sources
- Targeted keywords
- Think about the keywords or phrases you want to rank for, and build content around them. For example, an orthopedic practice might want to rank for “ACL tear” or “shoulder replacement.” Incorporate those keywords into your content.
8. Booking Form & Online Payment Portal
Office appointment booking and payment services directly on your website. Patients like convenient, streamlined processes. Embedding this functionality within your website will allow it to become a one-stop shop for new and existing patients.
9. Display Accolades
Have your physicians or practice been recognized as leaders in the field? Perhaps they’ve been featured in local press, magazines, or conducted interviews? Maybe they were featured in a top doctor magazine or hold a prominent position in the orthopedic field.
Display these accolades, press, and badges proudly on your practice’s website. Two perfect places to display this information: the homepage and the individual physician/practitioner pages. Place these badges where visitors can see them. Your website should sell you!
10. HTTPS
Website and data security are becoming increasingly important.
Ensure your website is using an SSL certificate. This is especially crucial if your website handles any payments or online transactions.
Once SSL is enabled on your site, your address will display with an https instead of just http. The “s” stands for secure. Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is simply the secure version of HTTP, the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website you’re connected to. It means all communications between your browser and the website are encrypted.
Studies have shown search engines give secure websites an added boost in SEO rankings. In fact, Google has been marking all sites that have not migrated to HTTPS as “not secure” since July 2018. You do not want visitors to see a “not secure” warning when they visit your medical practice’s website.
Let's Review: Level Up Your Orthopedic Marketing Strategies
These 10 tips may seem overwhelming, but remember, your website is your first impression! A powerful website is absolutely critical to your practice’s online reputation management and orthopedic marketing strategies.
Keep in mind, while some of these tips are optional, others are non-negotiable if you want to maintain a successful web presence. Your website must be mobile-friendly, include contact and business information, feature your physicians’ credentials, use an SSL certificate for security, and have consistent NAP. Once you’re all set with these, take it a step further and get ahead of the SEO game with embedded testimonials, original media, or a blog. And remember, rater8 has your back when it comes to sharing all that social proof you’ve earned.
