9-point check list for a successful digital presence

CJU 9 Point Checklist for a Successful Digital Presence
A good digital presence has always been an important part of all business’s credentials. This has proven to be even more necessary for medical businesses with the impact of COVID.

The right digital presence provides potential patients with confidence in you and your brand and can be the determining factor in their choosing your practice. It allows them to find and interact with you, understand your areas of expertise, and aids in confirming trust and belief.

Don’t underestimate the power of your digital presence for converting new patients – or having them go somewhere else!
Here are our top 9 checkpoints to get your digital presence right:
Have a strategy

Know who you want to talk to, where they are, what’s important for them to know, and what the role and goal of your digital outreach is.  Don’t just go through the motions of setting up a digital presence – be strategic! Make it work for you as part of your overall business plan to help achieve your goals.

Find out more about our Marketing Plans Service here.

Build a solid platform – your website

The starting point of a strong digital presence is a good website. It is the hub of all your digital outreach and the ideal platform for medical businesses to educate and inform – the most powerful marketing tools you have available. Make your website a resource centre that provides consistent up-to-date content. This will establish your brand as an “authority” and you as a thought leader. Your patients will love this (and so will Google).

A big PS – don’t forget to be APHRA compliant. Be careful of your wording so that it doesn’t breach guidelines, and don’t have testimonials on your website.

Find out more about our Website Development Service here.

Site speed

Check your site speed. You only have 3 seconds to get your site front and centre before people leave – make sure its loading time is optimised.

Don’t be a copycat – stand out from the crowd

Your website should showcase you and your practice. To do this, it needs to:

      • Be an original design based around your brand.
      • Use real images of your doctors, your team, and your practice.
      • Have unique content.

A big mistake of many medical websites is the use of a copied template – (this doesn’t differentiate you) overused stock imagery (this doesn’t introduce you) and plagiarised content (this causes Google to penalise your site’s return in search).

Make it work for you and keep it fresh

Remember that your website is your 24/7 open medical practice and can be your hardest working employee. Utilise it for uploading and downloading information, and where suitable implement payment gateways and booking portals. Keep content fresh through regular blogs, videos, and surveys and become the expert.

What’s the goss?

Check what’s being said about you online. Medical businesses can gain a valuable advantage by good feedback or be seriously damaged by poor Google and Facebook reviews.  If there are negative reviews, check out what they are saying and then determine if you need to take action. Most negative reviews that affect medical businesses don’t relate to the clinicians or their expertise, but to the staff (and this is fixable).

Are you being found in search – and how?

It doesn’t matter how good your website is, without a search strategy it won’t be found. Google dominates search and there are two ways to rank:

      • Google Search Ads (Search Engine Marketing)
      • Organic Search Results (achieved through SEO programs)

Each strategy has its merits, determining your goals and understanding your audience is the starting point as to which option (or a combination of both) will best suit your needs.

Consider socialising

For some medical businesses, social media offers huge opportunities to engage and grow. Successful social media marketing requires good resources to ensure consistency and get results. It is the new wave of marketing for medical as it has not been widely adopted and is well worth considering.

Find out more about our Social Media Marketing Service here.

Working links

If you do have social medial platforms, make sure you have the icons on your site and that the links work. This is also important for any other links on your website. People become frustrated with broken links and may stop engaging.

Conclusion
There are lots of other factors in building a strong digital presence, but these are a good starting point. If you’re not sure what to do next, get in touch – we’re happy to chat with you and give feedback and advice.

Contact Us Today!