Medical practice marketing for the patient who checks the hours first.
The person booking an appointment is solving a logistics problem first and a medical one second, and most practices lose them at the logistics. Medical practice marketing, for us, starts there: the listing, the site, the search and the reviews, run for doctors and clinics around Rockford and down into the Chicago suburbs.
Ask us where to start Get a free SEO auditProof, from a clinic.
A group of clinics in northern Illinois, seven locations behind one front door, with us for the site and the search for six years. Visits from search by year, from their own Google Analytics, and beside it what people in Rockford type when they need care today, from Google's own numbers.
Before they check the doctor
Six questions get asked before anybody calls.
Tick what your listing and your site answer today, and read what a patient sees with your name on it. Every question left open is a call to the front desk, or a call to the next practice.
Your practiceMedical clinic in Rockford, IL
0 of six answered before they call
- Accepting new patientsNot said
- Takes your planInsurance not listed
- Open today until 5 PMHours might differ
- Book onlineCall to book
- Calls you backVoicemail
- Reviews, answeredReviews, unanswered
Every line in gray is a phone call, if they make it. How we run the listing
Which one of these is you?
Six lines we hear from practice managers on first calls, and one of them is usually yours. Pick it and we will tell you what is actually going on underneath.
Wrong hours, a merged listing, an old phone number or a suspended profile are all common and all repairable. It is the least interesting work on this list and it usually produces the fastest change in the number of calls.
How we run the listingA practice page that lists six providers as names does none of them any good. A real page each, with what they treat, where they trained and what a first appointment is like, is what turns a search into somebody asking for that doctor by name.
The pages that do the rankingYou cannot confirm somebody is a patient and you cannot discuss care. You can ask, you can make it easy, and you can reply in a way that thanks people and says nothing. Practices that do that carefully pull well ahead of ones that avoid the subject.
How reviews move the mapIf the average hold is nine minutes, marketing that produces more calls produces more abandoned calls. We look at what happens to the ones you already get before we spend anything on getting more.
Start with a planA weight clinic, a sleep program or an aesthetics arm inside a primary care practice is a different search, a different patient and usually a different page. Bolting it into the About page is why nobody knows it exists.
The pages that do the rankingBeing able to request an appointment, see what to bring and fill something in before arriving is not a nicety any more. It is the difference between a booked patient and somebody who meant to ring back.
How we build sitesAll of it, for a clinic.
Healthcare SEO is where most practices start with us, and it is one of six things we run. Here is the whole shop, in your situation.
The first ninety days, for a clinic.
In the order patients feel it. The first two weeks fix what a patient checks before they call.
Every location's listing rebuilt: accepting new patients said out loud, the plans listed, hours right for every day, booking from the listing, the after-hours line, and every review answered. Call tracking on from day one.
How we run the listingFast on a phone, a page for every doctor and every service in the words patients type, the plans on the first screen, and booking that does not need a phone. If the site is sound we fix it; if it is not, we say so.
What we buildA review ask built into checkout, answered in the practice's voice within a day, ads on the services with room, and the first monthly report: calls, bookings, and where each one came from.
Reviews, answered in your voiceTell us where the practice is.
Three lines and we come back to you, usually within a working day, with what we would look at first. No pitch deck, no quote until there is a plan.
Or the free look first: a free SEO audit of your site and your listing, sent over with nothing to sit through. Or call (815) 880-8676.
Questions practice managers ask before they call us.
The ones that come up on nearly every first call, answered here so you do not have to spend a call getting to them.
Fixing the Google Business Profile can change the number of calls inside a few weeks, because hours, categories and new-patient status are set rather than earned. Ranking for a service or a provider in a given town takes a few months and then keeps building.
Yes, with care. You cannot confirm that somebody is a patient and you cannot discuss their care, in a review reply or anywhere else. What you can do is ask, make it easy, and reply in a way that thanks people and says nothing about them. We write to that standard and anything you are unsure about goes past you first.
Yes, and it is the most common thing we add. People search for a person as often as for a practice, and a provider page is usually the fastest new ranking a clinic can get because almost nobody else has bothered.
Then most of it should wait. There is no sense paying to be found by people you cannot see. What is still worth doing is getting the listing right, because wrong hours and a dead phone number cost you existing patients too.
Anything that collects patient information has to be handled properly, and a plain contact form is not the right place for it. We will tell you where the line is and build to the safe side of it, and where a scheduling or intake system is needed we will say so rather than improvise.
Not for search or ads, in the same specialty and service area. If we are already doing that work for a practice doing what you do where you are, we will tell you on the first call.
What we won't promise you.
Healthcare marketing has more rules around it than anything else on this list, and most of them exist for a reason. Here is the honest version.
No promise about an outcome, no comparison that says one provider is better than another, nothing that identifies a patient. That is a rule about your license and your compliance rather than our taste.
If the average hold is long or the schedule is six weeks out, more marketing makes both worse rather than better. We will say it plainly once, and then it is a decision inside your building.
Anyone selling a guaranteed first place is guessing or selling. What can be promised is the work, reporting that shows what it did, and a straight answer about whether the competition where you are is worth taking on.
Nobody buys a plan they haven't seen.
The free audit is a look at what you already have and what it is costing you, sent over with nothing to sit through. The plan is a conversation about where the business is and where you want it to get to, and it ends with a path written down rather than a quote. Or you call, and somebody who works on accounts picks up.