How Many Visitors Should I Be Getting To My Web Site?

Daniel Rostenne

Every practice’s marketing and business plan should include strategies on how to drive more traffic to the practice’s web site. The benefits of doing so are numerous, and can have a significant bottom line impact on your practice. Not only is your site available 24x7, but it has no incremental costs in servicing additional visitors. You can drive as many visitors as you want to your site, the costs will not increase and you will likely profit from your efforts as you gain new patients from that traffic. So, how many visitors should you be getting on your web site? What kind of traffic is reasonable to expect?

Our research of over 100 active (50+ visitors per month) sites indicates that you can expect to receive an average of 172 web site visitors per month for every full time optometrist in your practice. That's 172 information displays handled by the web site instead of a staff member, representing significant cost savings to your practice. Factor in the new patients you might receive from those visitors, and the increased patient satisfaction in being able to immediately have key questions answered 24x7, and you have a compelling argument to make your web site strategy a priority. (Note: there are many free tools that compile web site statistics for you, such as Google Analytics, found at http://analytics.google.com).

If you’re in the process of creating a web site traffic strategy, or you find that your web site traffic is below average, here are 10 tips that can help you bolster your web site traffic:

• Give Patients a Reason to Visit - Create and promote a reason for patients to visit your site. The most useful reason is for patients to fill in a patient history form online before every exam, or to book or confirm their appointments online, or to purchase contact lenses online. A useful reason will almost guarantee a patient visit to your site and start educating the patient to think ‘web site first’ when looking for information about the practice.
• Educate Your Patients - Try to educate patients to visit your web site for all their basic information needs. This education might come in the form of a printed handout when they visit the office or by having your staff talk to each patient.
• Web Site Address Everywhere - Put your web site address on all your print materials (business cards, letterhead, invoices, forms, advertisements, etc.).
• Let the Phone Help You – If you have an automated phone system, be sure the recording lets patients know that they can find answers to their questions on your web site. Make sure that patients learn about your web site while they are on hold, and also modify your voicemail to include your web site address.
• Google AdWords or Other Online Advertising - Start a Google AdWords campaign or any other form of online advertising to allow new visitors to find your site more easily.
• Get More Links from Optometric Sites - List your site in all the optometry directories and online doctor finders to increase the number of places from which new patients can find you.
• Search Engine Optimization - Optimize your site for the search engines so that your site will rank at the top of Google for searches that are relevant to your practice. This will allow potential patients as well as existing patients to find you with a Google search.
• Talk To Your Patients - Talk your patients about your site. Ask them if they've visited it, get some feedback, and help educate them on the uses of your web site.
• Follow-up - After an in-office consultation with a patient, make sure you follow-up by mail or email. Direct them to your web site where they might get more information about the results of their visit and make a purchase from your site.
• Make Your Site Attractive and Up-To-Date – A number of the visitors to your web site are repeat visitors, and if your site isn’t attractive, or up-to-date with the latest information about the practice, you’re likely to lose these repeat visitors.

Remember, traffic does not build itself. You need to make active efforts to drive visitors to your web site or they won't visit. If you find that your numbers are low, and could use a boost, feel free to call or email us, and we'll be happy to share strategies with you to help increase the visitors to your web site!

Daniel specializes in SEO for optometrists and is the Editor of Optometry Web, a newsletter singularly focused on helping optometry practices make the most of their web sites. Daniel is the Managing Director of EyeCarePro.net (http://www.eyecarepro.net), a company that specializes in building web sites for optometrists.

“Each full time O.D. generates an average of 202 web site visits a month. How is your site doing?"
- Daniel Rostenne, regarding: "How Many Visitors Should I Be Getting"

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