Search engine optimization techniques and strategies effectively drive traffic to your site to give potential clients an overview of what your practice has to offer. The primary goal of your website is not only to get people to see it but also to get them to choose your clinic over others. Converting those views into clients takes a little more effort in this ultra-competitive business. Walking through a conversion funnel allow you to see how page views become in-person appointments by following a user’s path from website visits through conversion. Take a closer look at how content marketing can help drive traffic through the proper funnels and straight to your front door.
Understanding the stages of the funnel
The term conversion funnel describes the way people go from browsing the web to becoming your clients. It maps out the path people take from curiosity to appointments to improve your website’s chances of conversions in the future. There are three basic stages to a funnel:
- Awareness: This is the first interaction a potential client has with your practice. It often occurs when your website is returned as a search result to a person looking up a medical term or condition.
- Evaluation: At this point, the user is doing some serious perusing on your practice’s site. Blog posts created to capture the greatest interest are effective ways to pull clients from the awareness stage down into the evaluation or middle funnel. Users who spend quality time in this step are genuinely interested in the services your practice provides.
- Conversion: Your ultimate goal is to get this window-shopper to pick up the phone or click a link to book an appointment. Getting users to drop down into this sector takes know-how of creating content and fine-tuning search analytics to answer relevant questions and earn a certain measure of authority and respect. When a client converts, it is because something about what you presented gained a measure of trust.
Using Google Analytics to transition visitors to clients
To create a website that maximizes the conversion funnel, it is imperative to track a client’s journey through your page so you can fine-tune for the kind of content that leads to a higher conversion rate. Using Google Analytics can give you a better understanding of your webpage’s visitors and how they interact with your content. Breaking down the information can help you refine the way traffic is driven to and through your page.
Who views your page?
The Google Analytics page provides a wealth of insight into the type of traffic your website gets. Familiarize yourself with the users who visit your website, or rather, the data associated with them. When people conduct online searches, their IP address is recorded in Google. That address allows Google to track their activity online, including any visits to your website. Google Analytics can generate a report telling you:
- The average times the same IP address has visited your site
- The amount of time the user spends engaged with your content
- The pages visited on your site
Understanding this information can allow you to see if the content you create correlates to repeat visits from users. By tracking user engagement, you can see how many visitors convert to in-house appointments.
What content gets the most traffic?
In the past, healthcare practices relied solely on word of mouth to gain new clients. This most often came in the form of friends or family recommending a practice to someone new. However, the internet not only allows clients to find their own providers but also allows you the opportunity to attract people you would not have gotten otherwise.
The content you create can make or break your ability to funnel new users into becoming clients. By analyzing the page hits and time spent on your site, you can make changes to not only the way you present information, but the type of information visitors to your website are most interested in seeing. You may see a pattern emerge that takes your practice’s web presence in a different direction. For example, if you focus mostly on product awareness but see that users to your site tend to spend the most time reading about signs and symptoms of conditions, then you may want to create more content centered around this.
What is the bounce rate?
Your practice’s website probably has multiple layers and pages to offer the greatest chance that users would remain on a page and eventually schedule an appointment. When looking at Google Analytics, you may notice something called the bounce rate. As explained by Forbes.com, this number indicates how often someone opened a single page on your website and then left.
There is no further data available to track these users because they failed to engage with your webpage beyond that single hit. This may be someone who followed a Google search result, such as a featured snippet, to your page, and then closed it without going any further through. A fairly high bounce rate is not necessarily a bad thing unless you notice that certain pages seem to encourage users to leave your site.
For instance, if your homepage gets a high number of quick visits, then there is likely something that is either broken (like a link) or not engaging enough to warrant a user’s time to investigate further. Consider making your homepage more inviting and personal. Sometimes all it can take to retain a user is to add photos of your office and staff at work. Sometime specific articles may have higher bounce rates, either because the subject matter is not popular or perhaps the content is confusingly presented. A bounce rate analysis can help you figure out what needs fixing to retain users on your page.
We can provide solutions
If all of this talk about conversion funnels and bounce rates has your head spinning, never fear! The team here at Doctor Genius has the perfect solution for your website woes. We can fine-tune every aspect of your practice’s page to ensure that you get the best shot of transitioning page views into in-office visits. Give us a call at 877-477-2311 to set up a time to talk about what we can do for you. Let us help grow your practice.
Doctor Genius, located at 16800 Aston Street, Suite 270, Irvine, CA 92606, provides a range of services for practice success. We seek to meet our clients’ needs by providing a variety of marketing, SEO, practice optimization tools, and coaching to transform the healthcare experience. Though we work to provide the most accurate information, the content found on this website is solely intended for entertainment purposes. Therefore, we cannot guarantee that the information provided is entirely correct. You may not use the information on this site to cure, prevent, or diagnose a perceived medical issue. If you have healthcare-related needs, please speak directly to a healthcare professional. Never self-perform medical treatments discussed on this website. All images displayed are also for entertainment purposes only, and personal experiences may differ. Please note that the business tactics mentioned on this site might not be applicable to your industry or practice.
