When you are new to marketing online, the constant evolution of the internet can seem fairly daunting. As a physiotherapist, what you really want is to spend your time treating patients, not battling with an online marketing strategy. However, without the latter, the former is never going to happen. With that in mind we have outlined the 5 most critical steps that you should take in order to get your marketing ball rolling.
Make Sure That Your Online Branding is up to Scratch
There are no bones about it. Every business, including your physical therapy clinic, needs to have a website if they are to succeed in today's market. Not just any website, but a well designed and fully functional website. This is your first step. Even if you already have a site, you need to spend time combing through it for any errors, discrepancies or out dated material. It must be completely up to date and include all of the relevant information – especially your practice's contact information and directions for finding you. The website needs to be optimized for mobile users. Your website is your first impression, so make it count!
Claim All of Your Business Listings & Profiles
Once you have your website and branding perfected, the next step is to claim all of the relevant profiles and listings on various different websites like Facebook, Twitter, Google and so on. You will want to make sure that no-one else claims them, so grab them as early as possible. Nobody really looks in the phone book or yellow pages these days, they just Google for the service they need. The good news is that Google My business has made it easier than ever before to completely set yourself up on all of the Google platforms with one central dashboard.
Get Listed on Review Sites & Learn to Manage Them
A growing number of people are turning to the internet for healthcare related services like physiotherapy. When they are choosing between two local practices they will do what all online consumers do and turn to reviews from previous patients to help them reach a decision. This means that you need to set your practice up on the main online review sites including Google+, Yelp and Facebook. You also need to learn how to manage the reviews once they start rolling in. It is good practice to respond to all reviews whether they are negative or positive. You especially need to address bad reviews publicly as this shows consumers that you are being proactive about fixing the problems that have been highlighted.
Get Started With Social Media
Social Media is continuing to play a huge role in internet marketing and it is vital that you adopt it for your physical therapy business. If you are new to social media then the vast volume of sites can be a little bit overwhelming. However, you do not need to jump onto all of them in the beginning. Claim your practice's brand on the sites, but only devote your time to developing Facebook and Google+ at the beginning. Once you feel that you are confident with those you can start to build in other social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn.
Work on Your SEO in Order to Attract More Patients
Finally, you will want to get bust with SEO. You may have expected this to be one of the very first steps, but in reality all of that other stuff needs to be performed first. That does not mean that SEO is not important – it is essential that you appear in the right search results if you are to attract new patients.
In conclusion, following these steps will give you a basic start in internet marketing for your physiotherapy clinic. However, it is important to bear in mind that this is by no means an exhaustive list and is only intended to help kick start your internet marketing strategy. If you need help getting a great website together for your practice then here at PatientSites we can help you to build up your online presence. Why not get in touch today?