Everyone who owns a business wants to increase overall traffic. The more people you can reach, the more lucrative your business will be. This is increasingly true for dermatologists in private practice. Because dermatology is one of the most competitive medical specialties, increasing your traffic is paramount.
One great way to increase the number of patients your practice will see is by stealing a few pages out of the playbook of marketing companies. Your dermatology practice needs to operate like a marketing company if you want to maximize your profits.
Website Usability (And User Experience)
One of the biggest issues plaguing medical practices across the spectrum is inadequate websites. In the digital age, a functional website is as essential as anything else when it comes to promoting your business. There is nothing more irritating than trying to find out more about a business on an ugly and dysfunctional site.
Oftentimes, a website is a new patient’s first impression of your practice. There are hundreds of other dermatology practices with great websites that will lure those patients away from your business. You want a clean design with easy-to-use functionality and a format that is useful both on desktop and mobile.
Familiarize yourself with the inner workings of your site, or have someone who can help you quickly fix any issues that arise. In a competitive industry, there is no time to have a website that is down.
Social Media
Social media is an incredible tool to broaden a business’s reach in the market. Useful sites for a dermatology practice include Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube.
Tools like Instagram and TikTok are especially useful if you are gearing your services toward a younger audience. YouTube is great for longer, more informative videos, while Facebook shines with long-form text posts.
It is essential when getting into social media use for a medical practice to look at trends and follow suit. TikTok especially relies on short-term trends that can result in viral videos. If you do this right and consistently, you have the potential for regular viral posts. Some medical practices have mastered this. Download the apps and use the search bar to see what other doctors are posting—follow their lead.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the process of improving the quality and quantity of traffic to your website through search engines like Google. What SEO does is drive organic and free traffic to your website. Websites should always contain keywords that improve the chances of them popping up in a Google search, but investing in SEO can further this. SEO will make your website rank higher in the Google algorithm. Simply put, this means more eyes will be driven toward your site. More eyes mean more clicks.
SEO would help your dermatology practice appear higher in search results than other businesses within the specialty. Three-quarters of internet surfers never go past page one of their search results, so assuring you can appear high on page one is one of the simplest ways to market your practice.
Content Creation
While SEO is efficiently simple, its benefits do not come without some work. Content creation is one of the best ways to stay relevant within this optimization. As much as possible, you should create blog posts about your practice. These blog posts convey information to readers, and they also contain keywords that will rank highly. For example, take a blog post on acne. This is a hot topic that people often search, so writing a snippet that can rank for the term “acne treatment” will increase traffic to your site.
Keep in mind that SEO is boosted when readers spend a long time on a webpage. A good way to use this to your advantage without typing hollow words is to include media within your posts. Try a video on the topic (even better if it is one you made) and an embedded Instagram post from your practice’s profile.
Overview
The aforementioned steps can help you market your dermatology practice more effectively. With some time, marketing agencies’ tools can become your greatest power within the advertising sphere.
Operating in this manner will save you time and money. Additionally, staying up-to-date on SEO tips and website creation will constantly bring new strategies. This keeps your ideas fresh and avoids monotony within your online marketing persona.
There are hundreds of great ways to market your practice, but thinking like a marketing agency is the first step. Running your practice this way will increase traffic and profits, which can catapult you ahead of your competition.
