You need traffic to your landing pages, blogs, and website to make your internet marketing system run. Too many doctors spend thousands of dollars on a pretty website, and are very disappointed to find little-to-no traffic or very few new patients. Remember, more Internet traffic to your sites means more new patients. And more new patients equals more profits for your practice!
There are two major categories of website traffic: paid and free. Paid examples would include Google Adwords, newspaper ads with your website address, mailings, press releases, etc. But today I want to focus just on how to get free web traffic.
#1. Post on other blogs.
One of the best ways to get free traffic and great incoming links is to visit other people’s blogs. What you want to do is look for blogs relevant to your practice. These would be blogs on health topics, chiropractic issues, medical issues, or even legal issues dealing with healthcare. For traffic purposes, it’s best to look for local blogs, but for incoming links you can look for blogs anywhere in the world.
Visit some of the blogs and find post/articles that are relevant to your practice. Comment on the post and make sure to fill out the box for your website. This should be your blog or main website, the place that you want to rank higher in Google. I would not recommend doing this for your landing page.
Remember most blogs are an ongoing conversation; so make sure you are contributing to that conversation. Do not be promotional. Leave a comment that is relevant to the topic, not an ad for your website. Most comments must be approved by the owner, and if your comment is not related or overtly promotional, it will be deleted as if it was spam.
The first time you comment, simply use your first name and website link. With following comments, you can be a bit more aggressive by using your first name and some key anchor text, like “Dr. John – Dallas Chiropractor”. They may decide to edit out your anchor text, but many blog owners will allow it, so it’s worth a try.
(You should even comment on this post below, giving me your thoughts. Remember, enter the conversation, don’t just be promotional.”
#2. Participate on forums.
Another free way to generate traffic and incoming links is to post on message boards. This strategy is more for incoming links than for traffic, however if you are in a larger city there could be many discussion boards to post on.
Go to Google.com and search for “yourtown message boards”. You should also try the terms discussion boards and forums combined with yourtown. For example, if I practice in San Diego, I would search for “San Diego message boards” or “San Diego forums”. This is for local traffic.
Make sure that when you register at these message boards that you create a resource box (sometimes called a signature box) with your website or blog link. That way you are subtlety telling the reader to visit your site.
For an incoming links strategy, find a larger, more popular message forum and post messages related to the topic. Also, if the message board is health or chiropractic related, this may provide for a better incoming link. An example site would be http://www.healthboards.com/boards/index.php as it has a high rank with Google. Incoming links from sites with higher “Google page rank” are more valuable than sites with lower page rank. And remember your resource box on these forums, as that is where you will get the incoming “link juice”.
If you want to know exactly what page ranks a site has, you can download the Google toolbar at www.toolbar.google.com
#3. In-Office Blog Promotion.
There are numerous ways you can encourage your patients to learn more and get them to revisit your content on the blog. Why would you want your current patients to read your blog articles? There are many reasons, but here are a few: become better educated, find out about other services and products your practice offers, stay informed about upcoming events like P.A.D.’s, be reminded about referral opportunities, and so much more.
The first thing you can do is print a flyer that reads “To Read The Latest Health Articles And Updates Written By Dr. Beck, Be Sure To Visit www.blogsnamehere.com” Have this flyer in one of those nice, clear standup displays at the front desk where all of your patients can see it.
Another great place to mention your blog is in the newsletter. (You are sending out a printed newsletter to all your patients right?) Simply place a similar text like I quoted above in a prominent place in your newsletter, like at the bottom or top of each page.
You should also put your blog’s website address on all your business cards. This can be used inside and outside the office to better connect with patients and potential patients. Even if you already have a website listed, add your blog address.
#4. Submit to blog carnivals.
There are blogs out on the internet that are looking for different posts to link to on their site. They will typically get quite a few blog posts and put them together into a “blog carnival”. You can submit your content rich blog posts to blog carnivals, and in return may receive free incoming links to your site as well as a chance for good traffic.
To submit to a blog carnival, go to http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit.php. You’ll need to find a non-promotional blog post on your blog to increase the likelihood of a carnival linking to your blog.
#5. Outside Promotions.
If you do any outside promotions for your practice (you should be), I recommend you have your landing page address on any materials. Most people who pick up some information will not act on it right away. But later, when they start feeling worse, they’ll pick up that card, brochure, etc and go to our landing page to learn more.
When doing a talk, if you’re making an offer for new patients go ahead and do that first. But after that has been made, make sure you have a slide shown or a flyer handed out with your website information on it. This may sound basic, but you would be surprised at how many chiropractors don’t do this.
March 22, 2012
0 Comments