The Internet is Now Used as the Primary Means of Finding Local Businesses, Including Healthcare Practices.
Not too long ago, most people tended to think of the Internet as the global marketplace — Â the source where people would look up information and purchase goods and services from companies that were far away from their homes. But not anymore. According to a recent study by Comscore, 40% of all searches on the Internet are local in nature. Â The general public are now using their computers as the primary means of finding or researching a local business rather than the local Yellow Pages.
Think about it. Computers with Internet access are now a common appliance in people’s kitchens, not to mention wireless home networks that allow for use of your laptop throughout the house. Now instead of the local Yellow Pages, today consumers use their computers as the primary means of finding or researching a local business.
What does this mean for you? Clients are researching your practice and other doctors too. If you aren’t taking steps to be found for local searches related to the services your practice provides, then you are missing out on potential new patients. You’re also potentially losing patients who may have tried to find you, but couldn’t because they looked for you by specialty within your local area, instead of your name.
What were the original goals of your web site? Have they changed?
Many healthcare practices, particularly those that are insurance-based, originally developed their website to inform and educate their existing patients. In developing the site, much thought may not have been given to being found on the web or using your site as a vehicle for acquiring new patients. Now is the time to take advantage of this opportunity and to do so at a low cost.
MyAdvice SEO | Local: Does it fit every practice?
It is important to know how potential patients search for you and how far they might be willing to travel to your practice. When searching for a plastic surgeon, a prospective patient might be willing to travel relatively long distances, across the state and perhaps as far as another country. However, someone searching for a general dentist typically does not want to leave their surrounding towns.
Taking a step back to determine where your patients are located will help you select the right SEO package for you. Your strategy may be dictated not only by your type of practice, but also by your location. Maybe your local towns are spread far apart, or perhaps they are small with a major city in the center; you know your local market best and you need to take this into consideration when trying to position your practice on the web.
Market Research – What are Other Practices Doing and What do You need to Do to Remain Competitive?
Say you’re a dentist with a practice located here in our home town of Elmont, New York. You probably know who the other dentists are in the area. You might recognize the ones that advertise in the local newspaper or radio. But have you ever performed a search in Google or Yahoo! to see which competitors have an online presence, what their websites look like, how large their sites are, etc.?
These few minutes of market research can not only show you what your competitors are doing, it may shed light on what you need to do.Â
The Next Step: MyAdvice SEO | Local
The MyAdvice Team is pleased to help you in determining which keywords and localities to target for your market. And, locally targeted search engine optimization service from MyAdvice starts at only $25 per month. Not only will we optimize your site to appear for searches on all the major search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and ASK, but we will also optimize your site for up to 10 local towns as part of this fee. Additionally, we submit your site to local directories like Google Local and Yahoo Local, which the engines are now prominently integrating into their normal search results.
As a value-added benefit to this service, we will also install an advanced analytics package on your website to measure activity which occurs on your site including the number of visitors, the number of pages they view, how long they spend on the site, where visitors come from, which keywords they typed in to get to you, and more! Additionally, you will also receive periodic reports on your positioning in the major search engines for a sample of the keywords being targeted. These two information sources will give you better insight as to how visitors interact with your site as well as help you gauge the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
A Summary of the Benefits of MyAdvice SEO | Local:
- An extremely cost-effective way to acquire patients with local SEO packages – there is no more economical way to market your practice!
- Helps increase credibility when patients find you in a search.
- Keep up with competition in your market.
- Access to statistics and web analytic reports so you can view details on your web site’s performance.
The web is so local these days that your local car wash, delicatessen, restaurant, etc. are on the web and people are finding them through search. People are searching for services offered by your practice; you should be found too!
