Optometrists spend so much time focusing on their patients and providing them with optimal eye care that their online presence sometimes suffers. Fortunately, there are a few marketing strategies for optometrists that busy eye specialists can use to increase their presence and improve their patient numbers.

1. Create an appealing website

Today’s consumers turn to the internet to find and research everything from new cars and deals on vacation getaways to doctors and other community resources. Creating a website that gets your presence online is imperative to capturing your target audience of patients. To be effective, however, it’s important that the website is designed so that it is easy and intuitive to use. Each web page should present a clear message and offer the type of information that a patient is looking for.

2. Go mobile

Getting potential patients to your website opens new doors and makes it easier for them to connect with their medical professionals. Many people use their phones and tablets to find the information they need while their on the go. Make sure your website is compatible when it is accessed with mobile devices. Pages that load quickly and correctly go a long way to exuding a professional environment that reassures users of your competence. Check mobile websites by O360.

3. Make it easy to connect

While finding information might prompt a consumer to start a search that lands them on your website, the addition of clear and easy-to-navigate methods of contacting you and your staff means they can do so at their leisure — without having to phone you and possibly becoming distracted before following through. Scheduling appointments online allows potential patients to follow up on the care they need while they are in the moment and thinking of it.

4. Apply SEO Strategies

With the way that search engines work these days, having a website that is easy to use and informative is just the beginning. If your website is not properly optimized with the latest SEO strategies, potential patients will be less likely to find a particular practice. While this can mean choosing the most meaningful keyword phrases, an effective medical website design involves deep and broad work that captures the attention of a particular audience. See how O360 can help you with SEO services.

5. Borrow From the Competition

Like other medical specialties, the field of optometry is fertile ground for technological breakthroughs. Being at the forefront of the latest research is an endeavor that takes up a great deal of time and takes away from your office. Chances are, however, that your competition is involved in some of the latest research in the field of optometry. Utilizing that research — when coupled with the offerings that make your practice unique — provides your patients with the latest information while presenting you as a knowledgeable leader. Learn more about how you can outsmart your competitors.

6. Enhance Your Unique Offerings

As mentioned above, a great deal is similar among optometrists. The secret is to embrace those similarities to provide patients with the information they need while highlighting those unique properties that only you can offer. For this reason, a generic marketing strategy will not be as effective as one tailored specifically to your practice. The medical website design you choose must highlight what you are unique about what you offer.

7. Use social media wisely

Social media is here to stay, and it’s time that you use it effectively to connect with people. The best way to do so is to adopt a two-pronged approach. First, use your practice’s social media accounts to post helpful insights, the latest news, and applicable articles to inform your followers. Second, ask for thoughts and comments on the items you post. Respond to any comments you do receive to increase your interactivity and accessibility level for those people that you are targeting as patients. Learn more about O360 social media marketing program.

8. Utilize online reviews

Online reviews help guide many of the decisions that consumers make these days. In fact, according to a study commissioned in 2013, 79 percent of consumers trust reviews that are online as much as those recommendations that they receive personally. Of those people who are searching for a new doctor, 61 percent make liberal use of online reviews before making their final choices.

Word-of-mouth marketing for your optometry practice

To generate reviews, ask your happy and satisfied patients if they would mind posting about their experience. Afterward, you can dedicate a section of your website to these testimonials from your pleased customers. See reputation management service by O360.

9. Make use of alerts

Chances are you’ll have at least one dissatisfied patient at some point in your career. Setting up alerts makes it easy to determine if a disgruntled patient has posted a negative review. If possible, always follow up with such reviewers to address their concerns. Use this incident to learn about your practice and evaluate what you could do differently. If you manage to satisfy the patient after they post the negative feedback, encourage them to redact it or publish a follow-up detailing the satisfactory resolution of the issue.

If you are an Ophthalmologist, check our marketing guide for your practice here.

10. Keep your website simple

A clean and simple website design makes it easy for your visitors to navigate and find everything they need. Given the sheer volume of information that is available on eye health and the latest techniques, it can be easy to think you need to include everything. Instead, focus on providing the basic contact information for your practice and a section for your services, blog, and latest news, and then encourage visitors to contact you and your medical staff if they have complex questions or need more in-depth information about something you posted.

A few tweaks in how you approach marketing and website design can make a huge difference in your bottom line. The key is to focus on what makes you stand out from your competition. See how O360 can build a custom website for your optometry practice.