Why Your Private Practice Can’t Afford to Ignore Tablet Users

Tablet User
Tablet User

Who would have thought when Steve Jobs first introduced the iPad back in 2010 that it would become anywhere near as popular as it is today? All over the Internet, reviewers were openly mocking the tablet as a clumsy oversized iPhone.

Now a quarter of all U.S. Internet users own tablets and the figures are similar in other countries too. That means in the U.S. alone, there are 56 million people who are just as likely to encounter your site on a tablet as they would on their laptop or desktop. Your practice really can’t afford to miss the opportunity to talk to that many people, and if you don’t make your web design tablet-friendly, you will miss them completely.

Having a tablet-friendly website can mean a huge boost to your revenue.

Who are tablet users and why should your practice care?

Tablet users aren’t just a random selection of the online community. They are a discerning group of patients and are among the wealthiest because they come from demographics with the largest disposable income.

[note_box]Recently released stats give you an idea of the market your site could reach as a result of having a tablet-friendly site.

  • The gender of tablet users are pretty much evenly split—51% female, 49% male
  • About half of tablet users fall between the ages of 25 and 44
  • Just over half (51%) are college graduates
  • Just over half (53%) make over $75,000 a year
  • 71% prefer to read their news as opposed to watching it—a huge boon for bloggers.
  • Tablet users are more likely to be employed full-time (62% of tablet users are employed full-time versus 41% of the general population)

In other words, tablet users are Internet-savvy, educated and financially independent. This is why it is so important to reach this demographic.[/note_box]

Another hugely important reason to target tablet users is the way they use them to view information online. You will often see people in waiting rooms, on public transport and in coffee shops and bars using their tablets. That is in addition to them using them before they go to bed or other opportunities when they just want to wind down. They are giving their undivided attention to the information that they are browsing, so they are much more likely to explore and shop online without any distractions.

How you can attract tablet traffic

It is the sites that fail to accommodate tablet-based browsing that will eventually lose out and get left behind, so if you want your site to attract these visitors, then you need to make your user interface as smooth and visitor-friendly as possible.

The most important part of attracting tablet consumers is to make sure that your web design displays correctly on both Android and iPad tablets. Users should be able to check out your site in both portrait and landscape mode. They definitely will not want to have to zoom or swipe their device in order to navigate around your site.

[colored_box variation=”steelblue”]Now is the perfect time to start attracting highly-connected, high-income consumers and make sure that your practice is doing all it can to keep up with the times so it prospers rather than getting left behind. If you need any assistance getting your site tablet friendly, call E-Rehab. We will be happy to help.[/colored_box]

How To Use #Hashtags And Get The Most Out Of Twitter

Hashtag Notification Concept

Meet the hashtag “#.” It doesn’t look like much, but if you use Twitter and haven’t mastered the hashtag yet, it is soon going to be your new best friend.

Let’s face it: If you are new to Twitter or don’t use it very often, it can be very overwhelming. It’s hard to wade your way through thousands of irrelevant tweets to find the interesting little gems.

[note_box]The humble hashtag transforms your tweeting experience. It helps you easily find what you are looking for, as well as being able to help you get your message out there to the right people.[/note_box]

So let’s start from the beginning and show you how to use #hashtags:

What is a hashtag?

Even if you’ve never been on Twitter, you are probable still aware of hashtags without even knowing it. You may have noticed the trend for seeing a certain word or phrase with the hashtag symbol, “#” just before it.

For example, if you’re watching a TV program, let’s say The X Factor or the Super Bowl, during the links they will display the words, #xfactor or #superbowl.

Sports presenters and chat show hosts alike will tell people a specific hashtag address if they want to learn more about or get involved in certain topical stories.  Magazines, newspapers, even music songs feature the hashtag. It has now become part of our cultural psyche.

The hashtag comes alive once you go on Twitter. When you see a post with the hashtag you will find that hashtag is clickable. Clicking on the hashtag will bring up a page listing all of the recent tweets featuring that specific hashtag.

So now you know what it is, let us show you how you can use the hashtag for your business.

Find relevant people to follow

Hashtags are an excellent way to look for people who have similar interests to you. So for example, if you were watching the Super Bowl and want to see what other people were saying about the game, you could easily find out by using the #superbowl hashtag.

Now imagine how you can use this for your practice. If somebody is using a hashtag that you’re interested in, then the chances are they would be a good person to follow. So look out for hashtags that are relevant to your practice or prospective patients by following major physical therapy publications and organizations.  This makes it very easy to find key people in the physical therapy industry, as these are the ones who will be regularly tweeting people using these hashtags.

Make your practice easy to find

You can make your private practice easy to find by using hashtags, as they will allow relevant people to find you right away. Hashtags will not only help you get discovered, but as you begin to tweet more often, they can also be a great way to categorize your tweets into different areas.

So if your practice happens to offer a variety of services, you will be able to segregate your tweets by using hashtags relevant to the specific areas you want to highlight. This will help you to target your tweets to the right people and make it easier for them to not only find your tweets but to also follow and engage with you.

Join in the conversation

As hashtags group together all the tweets with a common theme, you can effortlessly seek out the hashtags that focus on your particular niche. Once you find them, join in the conversations that are already happening on Twitter and share your expertise. These conversations give you a ready-made platform to showcase your knowledge and help make you an authority on the subject, meaning more people will be inclined to seek you out for treatment in the future.

Get people talking

Don’t rely on joining in other people’s conversations. Take the initiative and start a discussion off yourself. This is a useful way to drive engagement with your practice.

Encourage people to interact with you on various topics or ask for their opinions.  For extra interaction don’t forget to promote your hashtag by adding it to your social media bios, your website and your marketing material. After all, it’s pointless to have a hashtag if nobody sees it.

Use hashtags to promote events

Hashtags are unbelievably useful for spreading the word if you are promoting an event. Not only that, but you can create a buzz and boost interaction with attendees during the event.

We have even seen some promoters add their hashtags to promotional items which is a brilliant idea, but don’t stop there. At the event, feature your hashtags prominently on your pop up stands and media displays. Why?  Because this could encourage attendees to tweet about the event, upload photos and comment on the presentations etc.

All of this activity can really help to boost interest in your event on social media. If it happens to be a regular event, it could increase attendance at your future events.

[colored_box variation=”steelblue”]

Hashtag reminders

Keep your hashtags short and sweet. Long hashtags can be difficult to read and eat up precious characters in Twitter’s small 140-character limit.

Another potential pitfall of extended hashtags is the longer they get, the more susceptible they become to being misspelled when people are typing them out.  Not only will this dilute the power of your hashtag, but your message will get lost in the Twittersphere.

Don’t go hashtag crazy. You don’t need to use a hashtag on every tweet, but if you do use a hashtag, limit them to one or two in any single tweet.

The whole point is to focus your content on one or two key subjects, so using too many hashtags in one tweet means you will be joining too many conversations. Not only does it make it hard to monitor, it will also make your tweet difficult to read.[/colored_box]

Attract More People To Your Practice And Expand Your Patient Base

Attracting More People to Your Physical Therapy Practice
Attracting More People to Your Physical Therapy Practice

Do you need more customers? Are you sick of people visiting your website but not calling to schedule an appointment?

Much worse than having no visitors to your website is actually getting visitors, but no new patients. That can be quite frustrating.

If that has happened to you, don’t despair. We are familiar with marketing for small physical therapy practices and know a few tricks to help you attract not only new patients to your website, but expand your patient base with ones who will eventually decide to come to your practice for treatment.

Identify your target audience – don’t try to reach out to everybody

The first and most important step for any business is to identify your target audience. Do it right, and you will have a much easier time converting visitors into patients. Do it wrong, and you risk creating a product/service that nobody (or not enough people) wants.

It is well known customers want to interact with brands they can connect with.

To do this, you need to know what kind of image you want to portray and then adapt your marketing to directly appeal to the ideal brand of patient you want to attract to your practice. This is done by creating ideal buyer persona (an image or profile of your ideal patient) based on their buying habits and lifestyle.

So instead of searching for patients, help them find you. Go to the sites and places they go to; put yourself in the places they want to be and invite them to come and see you. If you have a clear image of who you want to serve, you are going to be in a better position to give them what they want.

A lot of companies make the mistake of thinking that everybody is a potential customer. They are not! You need to focus on the dreams and desires of the people most likely to become patients, and then pay them special attention by treating them well.

Don’t try to rent your audience, build your own instead

Some businesses try to take a short cut by renting eyeballs or clicks. They buy and rent email mailing lists in order to get extra customers. Sometimes the gamble can pay off, but if you want patients who are looking for the physical therapy services you offer, it is much more profitable to grow your own list instead.

This is not hard to do. For example, on your Facebook page you could provide shareable, inspirational and humorous content like images and quotes to encourage visitors to engage with you.

The people who enjoy the content on your site are generally the ones who will be more likely to come to you for treatment or refer others, and you can quickly attract a lot of eager new fans and patients.

Word of mouth marketing

The best way to attract new customers to your site is by word of mouth, and social media marketing, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., makes this easier to do than ever before. It is fast, free and easy.

We are experts in social media marketing and have lots of great ideas for you, so don’t be afraid to give us a call to see what we can do to help you.

Ditch the large-scale marketing campaigns

In the old days, marketing used to be large-scale isolated advertising and media events, but things have changed. Your patients don’t live on a campaign schedule. They are always on the move and are constantly being bombarded with new information and offers wherever they go. As a result, they have become more discerning and advert aware.

Social media makes it easy to follow a person from their first visit to your site, to the point that they become a lead and eventually, if all goes well, a new patient.

The relationship doesn’t end there, as your constant engagement and relationship building with them should continue long after their first treatment session with you. You can easily get them to come back in the future or give referrals if you handle it right.

[note_box]Use social media to establish and build relationships with potential patients, but don’t forget to continue to build relationships and engage people once they become patients. This makes it easier to get them to come back in the future or refer their friend, family and other people they know.[/note_box]

Copy your competition

Do a bit of research. Find out how your competition is attracting new patients. Do they advertise on the Internet or is it mainly offline? Do they buy advertisements in local media like newspapers and radio, or do they have a large social media following online?

If they are doing something that clearly works for them and are getting new patients, you need to try and adopt similar measures so that you don’t continue losing patients to them.

Attend physical therapy conferences and exhibitions

We are big fans of attending conferences, exhibitions and networking events. It is a great way to make new connections and spread the word about your practice to new potential patients.

This type of event is also perfect for showing potential patients how caring you are and that you strive to make all patients happy. Exceptional customer service plus excellent service will always ensure that you have a thriving business.

[note_box]People buy from people they have met. So, if you are seen and are active at events, people will be more inclined to come to you for treatment. Use these events to get people to visit your website and join your mailing list, so you can stay in constant contact with them.[/note_box]

By using some or all of these methods you will be able to attract more visitors to your website and practice, who will hopefully turn into new patients.

[colored_box variation=”steelblue”]It is an exciting time for small businesses and you don’t want to miss out on the revolution that is happening at the moment. Old marketing methods no longer work. The way that consumers buy is changing and you need to change with them, knowing who they are, where they are and why they make business decisions.

If you are interested in any of these marketing strategies or want to talk to us about other ways that we can help your practice, we would love to hear from you.[/colored_box]

Attract New Patients With Pinterest

for Physical Therapy
Pinterest for Physical Therapy

Pinterest has fast become a force to be reckoned with in the world of social media, and its influence is still growing, not just in bringing products to the attention of consumers in a visual marketplace but in resulting sales and business growth.

According to Wishpond, referrals that come from Pinterest spend a staggering 70% more than referrals from any other form of social media. Added to that, ComScore reports that Pinterest buyers “spend more money, more often and on more items than any of the other top five social media sites”. That should add up to some pretty strong motivation for you to be part of this social media community.

Why does Pinterest have this effect? Essentially it has to do with the fact that people are visually stimulated to buy. We like to see how something looks, whether it’s in situ in our home or while it’s being worn, how it works and how we can use it. More than that, we like to know the things we like are things other people find appealing and attractive, and by seeing what others are looking at, we can spot the latest trends, and see what is going to be the next big thing to do/wear/drive/watch/use in our lives.

Pinterest is perfectly designed to fill all those needs, and as a small business owner, you can take advantage of what is essentially a huge selection of people’s “Wishlists” to generate the desire in consumers for products and services. Here is a checklist of how to sign up for and get the most out of a Pinterest Business Account.

[note_box]According to ComScore reports, Pinterest buyers “spend more money, more often and on more items than any of the other top five social media sites”. This is because they are visually stimulated to buy. Use this to your advantage to generate the desire in consumers for products and services.[/note_box]

Getting Started: Setting Up A Pinterest Business Account

  1. Go to https://business.pinterest.com and click on the “Join as a business” button.
  2. Choose to set up a business account or convert your current personal account into a business account (business accounts have more tools available and there are other benefits which are outlined later in this article).
  3. Select a username. This is a unique name between 3-15 characters in length that appears at the end of your personal Pinterest URL (https://www.pinterest.com/USERNAME) (try to include Keywords that link in to your practice. This will help optimize your position in Search Engines results).
  4. Fill out all the profile information
    • Basic information section
    • Email notification
    • Link up to all your other social media networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
    • Add profile picture for your Pinterest home page (Profile images on Pinterest are square.  Pinterest will choose the center square of any image regardless of the content. So if you use a portrait picture as a headshot, you may find only part of your face is visible in the Pinterest profile, so try to crop your image down into a square format before you upload it. Remember this is your BUSINESS Pinterest. While you may pin images that are fun, your profile image should be professional, so use either your company logo or a decent headshot).
    • Add a profile name
    • Complete the “About Description” section  (You only have 200 characters, but make sure to include keywords that relate to your practice to maximize your SEO opportunities).
    • Install the ‘Pin It’ button onto your bookmark toolbar.

Verification

It is important that you verify your e-mail address in order to be able to use the Pinterest website (Pinterest allows business users to have their website address in their public profile. Verified websites have a red check mark, which tells others that your site is safe to visit. This immediately builds confidence in you.)

Start To Build Your Boards

  1. Click on “Create A Board”.
  2. Name your Board (To maximize your Pinterest appeal to others, name your boards with interesting, appealing titles and have a good mix of business and social boards. Good social boards to create include Inspiration, Cute, Travel, Pets, Themed Holiday Boards (Christmas, Easter etc), Food, Tutorials, Tips & Tricks, as well as creating boards to showcase some of the treatments and services your practice offers, as well as professional tips and advice for patients).
  3. Fill in the ‘Board Description’ (Remember to research and use keywords here too as this description is also searchable).
  4. Put the Board in a category (Once you do this, it will become visible to people who are not followers of you when they are browsing through that particular category. Otherwise you will limit the amount of people who see your images to those people who are a follower of either you or your board).
  5. Choose to make your board secret or public. (Secret boards are only visible to people you invite and are not searchable. You can make a Secret board public but you cannot make a public board Secret).
  6. Create five boards minimum with a good range of varied themes, ideally, each board should end up with at least 10-20 images.

Adding Images: “Pinning”

Ideally, you should be looking to add between 5-10 images per day. Not only will this keep your profile fresh and current, it will offer incentives for your fans and followers to keep revisiting you, especially if your content is entertaining and informative. (There are websites like PinGraphy.com that offer a paid services which in return allows you to schedule and pin images automatically at chosen days and times, which means you only have to upload in one bulk lot and the system takes care of the rest automatically)

You can add an image (known as a ‘PIN’) to one of your boards from a number of different sources:

  1. From Pinterest Search
    • Find an image to pin.
    • Click ‘Pin It’.
    • Choose one of your boards from the ‘Board’ dropdown.
    • Add description.
    • Click red ‘Pin It’ button.
  2. From Inside Your Pinterest Board
    • Click ‘Add A Pin’ placeholder.
    • Choose to add an image from your computer, from a website or from Pinterest (When pinning your own image, make sure it has a file name that has been customized to a snappy title, because on Pinterest the file name becomes the title of your image).
    • Select board to pin image to from dropdown (when pinning an image to one of your business-related boards, always remember to take full advantage of keywording the description box and title).
  3. From An Online Source
    • Find an image you wish to pin.
    • Click the ‘Pin It’ button you installed on your Bookmark toolbar.
    • Select the image.
    • Click the Pin It button that appears inside the image when you hover over it.
    • Choose the board to pin it to from the dropdown.
    • Add a description.
    • Click ‘Pin It’.

Finding Images To Pin

Pin images from a wide range of sources.

Don’t be afraid to jump on the bandwagon and re-pin a really popular or trending image. (You should be trying to connect with as many people as possible. Having popular images that attract people’s attention is a good tactic to use).

Search out images that have been re-pinned a lot of times and re-pin a number of these at regular intervals to your own boards.

Look for images that are out of the ordinary, astonishing, unique or funny. These are the pins that tend to go viral (every time someone re-pins an image, the board it comes from is shown to the re-pinner, as well as being given the option of following the board or the Pinterest profile. This opens your practice’s Pinterest profile up to many more people, and the more re-pins you get, the more people will visit this profile or your website)

—Search and pin images from trending topics to add interest to your overall profile and to keep your content fresh.

—Keep in touch with other social media sites to see what people are interested in.

Pin a range of images of treatments and services offered by your practice, along with useful infographics of helpful tips, guidance and ‘How-To’ information.

Search on Pinterest for images around the theme of the board you wish to pin to (Enter your theme keywords into the ‘Search’ box at the top of the Pinterest page. This will give you a starting point to begin exploring).

Online newspapers and magazines often have special “The Top 10…” features, which could be things like the top 10 places to visit, top 5 romantic gifts, 7 worst car parking examples, etc. These are ready-made image stores, but only pin one or two examples.

[note_box]Add between 5 and 10 images per day by pinning new images of your own and repining really popular or trending images that are relevant to your practice and treatment methods. Popular images attract people’s attention, which will help your Pinterest page get noticed. But, be a polite contributor. Do not just repin other people’s photos. And, don’t forget to thank people who repin your photos.[/note_box]

Build Up Traffic On Pinterest

Add Keywords to the following:

  • Your User Name
  • Your ‘About’ Profile Section
  • Board Names
  • Board Descriptions
  • Image File Names
  • Image descriptions

Here are a number of additional tips to help build traffic for your practice:

  • Add links to the captions and information of your Pinterest posts. These links remain live, no matter how many times the image is re-pinned, so they will all lead back to your site.
  • Edit uploaded images to include a link in your pin.
  • Use a contest to increase engagement, such as ‘Pin It to Win It’.
  • Link your Pinterest to your other social media accounts.
  • Add the “Follow me on Pinterest” button to your Facebook and Twitter accounts (It makes it easier to share pins between Social media sites).
  • Add the Pinterest tab to your Facebook page (You can use the Facebook Developer Application to do this or you can go to www.woobox.com and get a free app there).
  • Add a ‘Pin It’ button on to your website.
  • Invite friends via email, Facebook, Twitter, or search Pinterest.
  • Follow other Pinterest boards or users that have high numbers of followers.
  • Follow back those who have re-pinned one of your images or who are following you.
  • Don’t just pin or re-pin content. Be a polite user and a contributor to the social fabric of Pinterest by using the ‘Like’, ‘Comment’ and ‘Share’ features too, as well as thanking those who re-pin from your board.
  • Tweet or share on Facebook some special or interesting images.

Monitor Your Stats

Use Google Analytics and Pinterest Analytics to scrutinize your Pinterest performance. Find out useful things like: which days and times that you pin bring you the biggest results, and which boards have the most followers, and then pin to these boards more often.

Maximize Visual Interest

Place your most important, popular and related boards in the center of the page, at both the top and middle of the page. (A study by Mashable gave valuable insight into how people peruse the boards of an individual Pinterest user. Most people will tend to focus on the center of the screen, so they start top center and move their eyes straight down the middle of the page and boards here get the most views.)

  • Choose the most engaging image for the cover of each board.
  • Ensure all your important boards are positioned above the fold (the top part of any page when viewed on screen).
  • Change the Board covers and arrangement at regular monthly intervals to keep your profile looking fresh.
  • Make sure to position any seasonal boards you may have in the top row.

Attract New Patients With Pinterest

By creating a well-run Pinterest business account, you will massively improve your web presence, which will strengthen relationships with many potential patients and eventually lead to more business. The visual nature of Pinterest has given it a proven track record of inspiring a viewer to progress to becoming a purchaser. By getting involved on Pinterest, your private practice can take advantage of this, which will bring you more traffic to your website and more business.

[colored_box variation=”steelblue”]The time spent creating and maintaining a well-run Pinterest business account is well worth it. The potential rewards for your practice are huge, but we know many private practice owners have their hands full running their businesses on a day-to-day basis, or they find the whole process very daunting. We can help you make the most of Pinterest and our knowledge of social media marketing can help you take full advantage of the platform. Give us a call for some guidance with Pinterest or to hear some of the ways we can help your practice grow.[/colored_box]

Avoid Chasing Away Potential Patients By Using Good Web Design

Patient Running Away From A Doctor

Attracting a potential patients to your website is hard enough, but grabbing their interest and persuading them to come to your practice for treatment is even more difficult. That is why it’s so important to good web design so you don’t frustrate or irritate your visitors by making them jump through hoops to find the information that they need.

Here are some examples of common website mistakes that make visitors leave a website within the first few minutes:

Putting up Barriers that Prevent Them Viewing the Information

Avoid putting up barriers between you and potential patients by forcing visitors to register before them can view content of your site. In most cases, the visitor will leave and try to find the information that they are looking for elsewhere.

Stale Old Content

It is no use having a glossy, professional looking site if your content is old and stale. You need to keep your site constantly updated with fresh new content. Not only will this make your site more relevant and interesting, but it will also contribute to higher rankings on the search engines.

Too Many Ads

If your site bombards visitors with too many ads that pop up, flash at them or fill the entire screen, then you are really going to infuriate them.  If it’s bad enough, they may leave the site, which is one less patient that will come to your practice for treatment. Running ads on your site makes good business sense but in order to maximize your retention rate and not chase away visitors, your ads need to be discreet and fit in with the theme of your site.

Bad Navigation

Nothing frustrates a website visitor more than a site that is hard to navigate. If it is too complicated or too hard for your visitors to find their way around, it will make them feel confused, angry and irritated. These are definitely not the emotions you want your potential patients to feel when they visit your website.

Hiding Your Website Content

It’s a big mistake to make your visitors have to search your entire website just to find the relevant information that they need. Try to group similar content in a clear, concise manner. Don’t complicate things by distributing your content and information across multiple pages that could easily have been put on one page. Bad content structure can literally destroy your conversion and retention rates. Make all of your content, especially your contact information, easy to find. It’s estimated that as many as 50% of sales are lost because potential customers can’t find what they are looking for.

Invasive Use of Audio and Video

Most of your visitors will prefer to choose what content they want to absorb. Having voice or audio content that loads up and starts playing automatically can potentially drive a lot of patients away. Give users the choice of viewing videos or listening to audio content. Don’t force them.

[colored_box variation=”steelblue”]Call us today for your free website health check. We will make your site more customer-friendly and in turn help you improve business.[/colored_box]

Join The Flock And Cash In On The Benefits Of Twitter For Your Private Practice

Twitter for Physical Therapy
Twitter for Physical Therapy

If you haven’t joined in yet, then it’s high time you did. Twitter is one of the most visited social network sites and it’s becoming more and more popular everyday.

According to a report on Statistic Brain, in May 2013 Twitter had over 554,750,000 registered users. 135,000 new users sign up every day. There are 9,100 Tweets made every second of every day.

Why should those statistics impress you? Because they make Twitter prime real estate for you and your practice, and best of all it’s free.

If you use Twitter for your private practice properly, it can be the king of social media. Companies both large and small are realizing Twitter’s true potential.

[note_box]You can use Twitter to:

  • Introduce new treatments or services
  • Communicate with existing patients
  • Find and add new patients
  • Promote and describe your most popular treatments
  • Build your practice’s brand
  • Develop and improve products and services
  • Find out what your competitors are up to
[/note_box]

The Advantages Of Twitter For Your Practice

Not everybody “gets” Twitter, and because they don’t understand, it they are missing out in a big way. Here are some of the main reasons why your practice should be active on Twitter:

  • Little or no capital
    The only cost when starting on Twitter is your time and effort. Twitter is 100% free for anyone who wants to sign up, whether you are an individual or a business. So, as a small business owner, opening up a Twitter account is a huge opportunity that you don’t want to miss.
  • Real-time updates
    One of the main advantages of using any social media site is that it gives you real time information, and Twitter is no different. With up-to-date data, your followers will be able to see information about new developments, events and other relevant information as soon as you post it.The real-time updates are also excellent for customer service updates. That means your practice can easily address patient problems and questions as soon as they are posted, which they will be sure to value and appreciate.
  • Strengthen existing connections with patients
    Twitter lets you get up close and personal with your existing patients. This personalization makes it much easier for your practice to cultivate trust with patients, which will help you establish loyalty and eventually increase revenue.
  • Paving the way for new patients
    As well as strengthening the bond with your existing patients, Twitter is equally as good at attracting brand new ones. (You can read more about how to do this further on in the article.)
  • Link to multiple sites
    When marketing online, it is important never to use just one avenue to try and gain additional sales. That is why many companies are choosing to use Twitter since they can use it to send their followers to their official websites, blogs and Facebook profiles. By doing this, it drives traffic to sites that will enable them to close the sale and boost their profits.
  • Keep an eye on your competitors
    Your competitors will no doubt be using Twitter too, and if you let them, they can start poaching your existing and potential patients. This is why an active Twitter account is vital; it helps you to keep an eye on your competition.You can also use Twitter to gather important information about any new developments on their end or if they seem to be using an effective marketing strategy. It will put your practice in a much stronger position.  If you know exactly what is happening at any given time, you can position yourself swiftly and alter your marketing to make an effective counter attack.
  • Target your Tweets
    When using Twitter, one of the biggest mistakes many independent businesses make is to try and market to everyone. They realize how huge and popular Twitter is and try to market to every person on it. Don’t fall into this trap.

Your marketing strategy should be focused on a very specific market and not at every Twitter user. Your efforts should be aimed directly towards current patients and people who are actively searching for physical therapy in your area.

Once you have identified your target audience, you need to know how to structure your Tweets so you can not only locate your target audience but engage with them also.

Twitter marketing strategies to help you get more sales

There are a number of marketing strategies you can use. The main goal is get visitors off Twitter and straight on to your website. Here are some of the most effective marketing strategies that will help you to do that:

Use Hashtags

Hashtags (#) are a very simple but effective way to organize popular topics. Hashtags are very useful to your practice because they make it much easier for you to be found by people interested in the things you promote. They contain the main keywords that will help people find your practice or know what you’re promoting.

Build up a following

As soon as you set up your account, the first thing you need to do is get as many followers as you can. Remember the advice given earlier: Only try to get followers that matter. If they are unlikely to be associated with your practice in any way, then adding them to your list will be useless and waste of time. Your aim is to build up a following of responsive buyers. If you need advice on how to do this, please get in touch and we can help you.

Build on existing followers

If you already have an established list of followers from other social networks like Facebook, Pinterest or your own mailing list, then invite them to become one of your Twitter followers. By announcing the creation of your Twitter account and sending them a direct invitation, you will soon be able to attract a decent amount of followers interested in what you have to offer.

Ask for a re-tweet

Don’t be shy. This is a great way to spread the word quickly. Some businesses feel embarrassed asking their followers to re-tweet one of their messages, but it’s perfectly acceptable and is part of the Twitter culture. Don’t do it too often though, and make sure the message you are asking your followers to re-tweet is worth doing to justify the action.

Post links

Twitter can be used as both a direct and indirect tool for marketing your practice. For example, you could use it to try and close the sale directly to your clients and followers. Alternatively you can post links to external sales pages, such as one of your Facebook pages or your website, which could increase the possibility of more sales.

Have a schedule

Just as in any other online platform, spamming is frowned upon. Think very carefully about what you are going to post on Twitter as part of your marketing campaign. Your Tweets should be planned out and you should stick to the schedule.

Look at how big brands look after their Twitter marketing accounts and emulate them. Yes, it takes extra time but the rewards will be worth it. You will be able to stay visible to prospective clients for branding but without flooding their Twitter feed with pointless messages that either don’t engage or are of no interest to them.

Providing quality: what you should Tweet

People will only pay attention to what you have to say if you give them something that they are interested in. If your posts are random and nonsensical, or if you post too often, the chances are you will be “unfollowed,” and that will mean losing a potential patient.

Twitter is perfect for collecting valuable feedback. Twitter followers like to be asked for their opinion so why not ask them to write about how they feel about the treatment they’re receiving from your practice? Include a hashtag so that their Tweets will lead back to you. The question will encourage followers to reply back to you, effectively providing you with valuable feedback about your new product or service.

Another Tweet worth posting would be a contest for your practice that will engage your followers. Again, the use of hashtags will be incredibly useful.

Photo contests work especially well because a picture is worth much more than the 140 characters allowed on Twitter. Again follow successful big companies and see what kinds of things they post for inspiration.

Twitter is extremely powerful. The strategies and techniques mentioned here are just the tip of the iceberg.

We hope that this has inspired you to take your practice on Twitter. It is worth repeating again that even if you never go on Twitter, your competition will. You need to be on so you don’t lose any patients to them.

[colored_box variation=”steelblue”]We have lots of advice and tips to share with you, so if you are going to take the plunge on Twitter please talk to us first. You could go ahead and set up your own campaign right now but that could involve a lot of trial and error and you could spend many weeks or even months trying to figure out a successful marketing strategy.

Or, you could save yourself a lot of time and significantly increase your profits by letting us show you how to use this incredibly powerful tool that has the potential to drive a flock of new patients to your practice.[/colored_box]

Use This Checklist To Ensure Your Mobile Web Design Is Up To Par

Modern responsive web design computer, laptop, tablet and smartp

Just because you can see your desktop site on a mobile phone doesn’t mean that it’s using mobile web design. Mobile sites are specifically designed for the small screen, with the needs of mobile users (your patients) in mind. A mobile-friendly site helps your practice connect with patients and drive conversions.[note_box]No business can afford to ignore the fact that more than a billion people primarily access the Web from mobile devices. Some of the most recent studies indicate that about 50 percent of people with a smartphone or another mobile device use mobile search on a daily basis. And 17 percent of mobile users make a purchase after performing a search.[/note_box]

To ensure it is mobile-friendly, view your website on your smartphone, and while doing so ask yourself these questions:

Content

Does the site fit the screen?
Almost 50 percent of your audience already uses a mobile phone as their primary Internet access device. In other words, you are losing nearly half your audience if you do not make your website mobile-friendly. Make sure content fits on the screen and can be read without pinching and zooming.

Is the content readable?
Do not try to cram all the information you provide on your website into your mobile site. Make it easy for your patients to read and bear in mind that they might be reading it in a place with low light.

Does the site load quickly?
Include important information like phone numbers, addresses and maps which would be useful to people on the move. Instead of giving a detailed description about your practice, provide a one-liner, which is good enough to entice your mobile audience.

Do videos and animations load?
Avoid using large, Flash-based video files on your mobile site, as most smartphone browsers do not support Flash. Instead, use simple images to improve the look and feel of your mobile website.

Is the site responsive?
With the rapid evolution of touch-based smartphones and tablets, touch has taken over typing. When designing your mobile site, use drop down menus, check boxes, and pre-populated fields whenever possible, so that your mobile visitors can navigate and input information easily rather than having to fill in long forms.

Images

Are file sizes as small as possible?
Use simple compressed images and keep them small for faster loading. This will improve the look and feel of your mobile website—but make sure all images used on the desktop are set to resize automatically to fit a mobile device’s smaller screen sizes. We can do all of this for you (see our contact information).

Is there a home page icon set?
Nobody likes to be confused. Help users navigate between levels with clear “back” and “home” buttons.

Do all images fit on the screen?
Use plenty of negative space and don’t let the images overcrowd the page.

Usability

Do the gestures work?
Use large-centered buttons to reduce accidental clicks and make sure that they all work. This will ensure that visiting your site will not be a frustrating experience for your patients.

Is it thumb friendly?
People use their fingers to operate mobile devices, especially their thumbs. Design your mobile site so even large hands can easily interact with it.

Are number and e-mail addresses actionable?
Remember to use click-to-call functionality for all phone numbers.

Are forms easy to fill out?
Use check boxes, lists and scroll menus to make data entry easier.

Would you stay on the site?
Try to be objective and try to look at this through your patients’ eyes.

[colored_box variation=”steelblue”]If you were shocked and disappointed by the results, or would just like to talk to us about making your website mobile friendly so that you don’t lose any more potential patients, we would love to hear from you.[/colored_box]

How Your Small Private Practice Can Navigate The World Of Social Media

Private Practice Physical Therapy Practice Navigating Social Media

Let’s face it: social media is all around us. Everywhere you look it’s “Like Us On Facebook” here and “Tweet Us” there. We are surrounded by social media networks, and new ones are springing up constantly. While some businesses have seen the value of social media, many more have failed to grasp the effect it’s having on the way businesses need to market themselves.

Effective marketing relies on being able to target and reach the greatest possible number of potential customers. If traditional marketing methods become ineffective or outdated, what should a business do?

In the past, most people would read a newspaper daily. So when a business took out an advert, it was seen by most people. Today, many people catch up with current events either through news apps or from the latest hot topics circulating around in social media conversations, many of which don’t use advertisements. Where does this leave small businesses like private physical therapy practices?

[note_box]If you can’t get your marketing materials seen by your target audience, then not only will you be wasting your money, but you will see a big fall in your revenue. Your only option is to go where the people are—and that’s on social media.[/note_box]

The time people spend on social media networks is growing, almost on a daily basis. They interact with people globally, make friends there, ask others for advice there, even shop there. Because of the options given to people within the social network communities, people are much more savvy about the products and services they want to buy. How do you get the voice of your practice heard among the literally millions of other voices that are talking daily on social media?

There is no such thing as a “captive audience” within these social networks. Physical therapy practices need to relearn how to reach out and engage with potential patients, but they need to approach it in the right way. People need a good reason to investigate a business page on social media and an even better one to come back for more.

You don’t need to make mistakes to learn. Instead, you can benefit from looking at the mistakes people have made in the past so you don’t repeat them. Here are some lessons others before you have learned the hard way.

The Ostrich

There are two main reasons for ignoring social media: Businesses either think it to be a fad that only kids use to chat on and pass funny photos around, or they don’t take it seriously as an option, thinking that there are better ways to spend their marketing time than talking to teenagers.

The facts show social media is here to stay:

  • August 2013, ExportedRamblings.com reported Facebook had clocked up 1.15 BILLION active users.
  • 21st March 2013, on its 7th Birthday, Twitter announced that it had over 200 million active users creating over 400 million tweets daily.
  • In July 2013, Semiocast revealed Pinterest had over 70 million users.

What’s more, the user figures for each of these and other social media networks show no sign of waning. Social media networks continue to grow month on month. Every practice owner should ask itself the serious question: “Can my practice afford not to be using social media?” (The answer, of course, should be no!)

Jump On In…The Water’s Fine

So that’s it. You’ve decided to take the plunge into the pool of social media. So you’re going to tell people about your vacation and then—wait for it—hit them with your sales pitch. Not the smartest approach. That would be like jumping into a swimming pool when you can’t swim; you would just sink without a trace.

Each social media network is different. They have their own individual user profile, their own way for users to interact with each other, their own communities, their own rules and social etiquette, and their own way of getting users to engage with one another. Unless you investigate each network, you can’t be sure which ones are going to be the best fit for your practice. As we said before, you need to market directly to potential customers in order to promote more sales, so you need to be sure your customers are actually there before you start.

Is It The One For Me?

People will tell you that you should be on this social network or that social network. Really? You need a presence on every network going?  Considering the growing number of social networks out there, you would need days and days worth of time to keep each one of your accounts active, engaging and ticking over. So unless you have an army of employees to do it for you, you would have to choose between running your business or running your social media empire.

We all know that time is money. So rather than trying to be a jack-of-all-trades, start off with a manageable number of social networks that have a broader user profile. The popular networks of Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest are a good place to begin. There is much advice available to businesses on how to use these networks to good effect. We can also help you work out a good, effective marketing strategy to promote your practice on these platforms.

Once you are comfortable with the weekly routine of keeping these running, you can then take the time to look at other social networks to see if there are any other networks that offer your practice the chance to make contact with other sections of your potential patient base.

Aimless Participation

Social media is a vast digital landscape that is easy to get lost in if you don’t have a map or purpose for being there. You need to have a good individual marketing strategy for whatever platform you are on, as well as knowing the best way of engaging users in that network. That way you will always be focused on what you want to achieve, as well as how you are going to achieve it.

It’s Not Just Business

Imagine you met someone that you really clicked with as a friend. You spend two weeks together speaking all the time and you build up a really good rapport.  Then, without any warning, they disappear. One month passes without a word, then another and another. Six months later, they get back in touch as if nothing has happened and try to pick up where they left off. How would you feel? What if they tried to sell you something in that first conversation with you? How would you feel then? Used? Misled? Could you really see them as a friend or would you see someone who was just pretending to be friendly to get money or a favor out of you?

This is how social media differs from regular marketing. Before you can start to benefit from the connections you are making to people on each network, you need to build up a trust and rapport with them. This means being a regular part of the network community, something that can’t be done by dipping in and out every 3-4 months. The connections your business makes on these social networks need tending just like any other offline customer relationship.

The clue is in the name: social media. These networks aren’t somewhere people come to shop. There are shopping malls and digital department stores offline for that. People come to social media to engage with and socialize with other like-minded people. Being social, you find fun things to look at, interesting people to chat with, amusing anecdotes and videos, and a peek into the lives of others around the world. So if you are dull and stiff and business-like, and just in it for the sales, then people will avoid you like the plague.

As a small business, you need to strike a happy medium between staying professional and letting your potential patients see the human side of your practice. So don’t be afraid to share some of your personal side with other users. Letting your personality out gives others something about your practice they can relate to and will make them more likely to come to you for treatment.

By posting daily, commenting and contributing to the social fabric of the social media networks your practice is a part of, it keeps you and your practice visible to others and builds up their trust in you as someone more than just another company trying to sell them something.

Keeping It Real, But Not Too Real

There are horror stories galore about companies who have either pretended to be a customer to leave themselves a glowing testimonial or have paid people to put their name to a glowing review the company has actually written itself. These types of deceptive actions shatter the confidence or trust customers may have in any business caught doing it.

So the best advice for any private practice owner is to keep all the information in your posts as genuine and reliable as possible.  Talk about your day (trying to make it interesting), or maybe describe a new service you’ve recently introduced, but be sure to intersperse it with some lighter, more personal details: a vacation maybe, or something that happened while driving.

There is a fine line between personal and too much information, especially since what you post reflects on your practice.  Try to stay away from details of your life that reveal too much or details of your business relationships that may show you in a negative light.  If people see you representing your patients negatively, for example if you perceived them to be a bad or rude patient, they may assume the issue lies with your attitude, which ultimately is damaging to your reputation.

So be honest when you post, but not too honest.

Social Media Marketing: It Costs

Social media networks cost nothing to join, so businesses think that they are just a free outlet to rake sales in from without having to spend a penny doing it. Well let me ask you: How are prospective patients going to find your small practice among all the other thousand of businesses out there?

For any marketing campaign to be successful, there needs to be a well thought out, focused strategy targeting who it’s aimed at, where those prospective customers are located and how to build up communication through social media that will result in them becoming one of your patients.  You also need to know how much time and effort you need to set aside not only to implement the campaign but also to oversee it and analyze the results, and if you can use any other resources to increase the effectiveness of your posts on each of the social media networks you are using.

So while the initial cost of social media is free, there is a time and energy cost to the individuals who need to spend time cultivating and developing online relationships inside each network.

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We Can Help

We know just how busy the life of a private practice owner is. It can take a lot of time and effort just to keep the business running from week to week, and you just may not have enough time to sit down and plan out which of the social media networks will benefit your practice the most and then work out how to use each one.

We can help you with this. We have been involved in marketing small practices like yours on social media for many years and have many valuable ways to increase both the visibility of your company and its profits.

Feel free to give us a call, and we can show you how we can help market your practice on social media to produce great results.
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Understanding the Importance of Search Engine Optimization For Your Practice

Seo ChalkboardThe Internet has had a profound effect on the way that people communicate and interact with each other. The changes have also had a dramatic influence on the business world by altering the way that consumers make purchases and seek out services.

Until about ten years ago, companies reached out to consumers through trade shows, print advertising and other traditional marketing methods.

Times have changed significantly since then. Today, people start their shopping experience by looking on the Internet. In most cases they will visit a search engine, most likely Google, and begin to do their product research from there.

Your patients, both current and prospective, are no different. If they’re looking for physical therapy in their local region, they will expect to find you in the search engines and on the Internet.

This is very exciting and creates the opportunity for your private practice to use the Internet to your advantage and reach out to a wide range of patients in your local area.

[note_box]In order to have the competitive edge and to ensure that other physical therapy practices don’t steal potential patients, search engine optimization (SEO) is now more important than ever. It is not an exaggeration to say that businesses that don’t practice SEO are in a dangerous situation compared to other local businesses investing in search engine marketing.[/note_box]

What is SEO?

This is the bit when we talk to small practice owners that we see their eyes glaze over and they try to stifle a yawn. But bear with us, as search engine optimization (SEO) is very important and could literally save and transform your practice.

Simply put…

  • SEO is helping the search engine find you.
  • SEO is making your website more visible and transparent to the search engines. The most important goal of SEO should be connecting your site to the search engine.
  • SEO is helping people find you in the search engine.

Social media has made everything on the Internet more personal. People don’t want to look hard for your site. People don’t want to do hours and hours of research in order to find information. They want it quick, 1-2-3 boom! SEO makes it possible by making your site more direct and focused on certain keywords that people would most likely go looking for when they want information provided by your site.

That is the point of SEO and that is why your practice needs it.

The benefits of SEO for your practice

The Internet has provided a level playing field for businesses no matter what the size. Small companies can have a viable online presence just as much as the large corporations, but just like in the offline world, the competition is huge and you need to have the competitive edge in order to get a good share of the market.

Search engines are there to help you. They serve millions of users every day looking for answers and solutions to their problems. If you have a website or online store, SEO will help your practice grow.

Search engine optimization is essential because:

  • The majority of search engine users are much more likely to choose one of the top five suggestions at the top of the results page. They are unlikely to continue past page 1 or trawl their way through hundreds of search results. This means that if you want potential patients to find you, click on the link and visit your site, you need to rank as high up the search engine page as possible.
  • SEO is not just about being ranked in the search engines. It also improves the user experience and usability of your site, making the viewing experience much more enjoyable for them so that they view you in a good light and will strongly consider coming to you for treatment.
  • Users place a great deal of trust in the search engines and it gives them confidence and helps build up trust in your practice if they see you occupying the top results.
  • SEO is perfect for the social promotion of your website. People who find your site by searching in the search engines are much more likely to promote it on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other social media channels.
  • SEO puts you way ahead of your competition. If two physical therapy websites offer the same services, the search engine-optimized site is much more likely to attract more patients and increase business.

As you can see, small practices have a lot to benefit from SEO. It can literally transform your site into a sales marketing machine. Let’s explore the benefits in a bit more detail.

SEO forces you to create a better and more user-friendly website (more business for you)

Implementing SEO strategies will help you to create a better, faster and much more user-friendly site for your patients.

How, you may ask? Well, despite the name, search engine optimization is not just about search engines but it also focuses on the user. If your users have a good experience on your site, then the search engines will be happy too. Everybody wins.

The same user is also more likely to come back to visit your site more often and tell their friends about how good your site was.

The search engines will recognize that people like your site and will want to refer other users to it when they use the relevant search phrases to find your practice.

You win because you have lots more traffic, bigger profits and happy, loyal patients.

Find new patients and watch your business grow

If you have invested in a website, it’s because you want to increase your patient base and get more business. It is a fact that businesses that have a website grow twice as fast as those that don’t.

SEO will help you to rank higher in the search engines, which will in turn give you more targeted visits and more patients.

Reach a whole new market

As we mentioned earlier, having a website makes excellent business sense because the Internet is growing so quickly. However, SEO will help you to find brand new patients that would normally have never known about you by substantially increasing your traffic levels within social media platforms and mobile marketplaces. There is a revolution going on and you can be part of it.

Increase your visitor-to-customer conversions

A search engine optimized-website means that your site is fast, easy to use and is compatible on mobile and tablet devices. Visitors coming to your website are much more likely to become patients, subscribers or loyal visitors. All of this translates into better conversions for you: more business.

Build brand awareness

If you have top rankings in the search engines, this is going to help build better brand awareness for you and your practice. Users are more likely to trust brands that are near the top of the search engines than those who don’t have a prominent web presence.

If you are a small practice that needs to build brand awareness because, for example, you want to target local markets, then you need to invest in SEO in order to gain the top rankings to enable you to reach your target audience.

The search engines play a very important role in building or destroying a brand.

Beat Your Competition

Imagine you have two private physical therapy practices in the same area. They both offer similar services and charge similar prices. They are both almost identical in every way. Now let’s imagine that one of them has a search engine optimized-website but the other decides not to invest in an optimized site. Which one do you think will be more successful? Which practice will gain more patients from local SEO and which one will grow faster?

It’s obvious. In this day and age you can’t afford to underestimate the power of the search engines. Your practice needs them.

If your competition is on the Internet and they are investing in SEO and social media marketing, you have to as well. If you don’t, your practice is going to be left behind and they will take all of the potential patients that should have gone to you.

If, on the other hand, they are not doing any SEO and they are slipping down the search results page, then now is the ideal opportunity to differentiate your practice and grab the top rankings.

Your business will be a 24/7 sales generating machine

A business that gets sent lots of traffic by the search engines is like a store that is open 24 hours per day, 7 days a week. That is the power of the Internet and SEO.

If you invest time and money to get your website on top of the search engines, you will attract new patients interested in your practice even when your bricks and mortar practice is closed and you are fast asleep in bed.

How Can You Take Advantage Of All of these Benefits?

    1. The first thing you need is a website. This may sound obvious but there is still a high percentage of businesses who don’t have a website (we are shocked too).If you don’t already have a website or you have a website that is tired and dated, then you can contact us free of charge and we can give you expert advice on how to take your practice online and reach a wider audience.
    2. You need somebody with SEO experience and expertise to plan your marketing campaign. Remember, money spent on SEO is an investment and not a cost. A good online marketing campaign will always bring in more profits than what you spend.
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SEO is a must for every website

In summary, SEO is a way to optimize your web site so that search engines will understand it better and give you higher rankings. It is important because a good SEO approach can drive more traffic to your website and drastically improve business to your practice.

Let us help you to build your brand and turn your website into a 24 hours sales generating machine. Contact us at E-Rehab for more advice on how to transform your practice.[/colored_box]

5 Scary Website Mistakes Your Private Practice Should Avoid

WebsiteGreat news: somebody has visited your website. Hurrah! Perhaps they might look around and decide to schedule an appointment for treatment…but wait…oh no!  Now they are leaving. “What? They only stayed for five seconds.” Yes, it’s very possible that they stayed long enough to be appalled by your website and then made a quick exit to one of your competitors. If your site is not converting visitors into patients, then you might be committing one of these deadly website mistakes:

  1. Flash-Driven Design

    Search engines hate Flash-driven design. In fact they hate them so much that they will completely ignore your site no matter how pretty you think it looks. So what if it is clever and it contains beautiful, state-of-the-art design?  Nobody is ever going to see it. Google is just going to skip right past your site as if you are the invisible man. And those millions of iPhone and iPad users who use their mobile devices instead of their desktops certainly won’t see it because they can’t see Flash on their phones. It’s pointless to annoy Google to the point where they choose to ignore you. You’re your site that won’t get any visitors. Just because you can add whistles and bells doesn’t mean that you should.

  2. The Annoying “Welcome to our Website”

    How long do you think you have to grab your visitor’s attention?  Here’s a hint: It isn’t 2 minutes, 1 minute or even 30 seconds. It is more like 10 seconds. That is all the time you have, so don’t waste it with a boring introduction. Most people don’t like to read much online, so when they first visit your website, they are probably just going to quickly scan it to see if anything catches their eye. Why would you want to squander an already-tiny attention span by reminding people which site they are visiting? Instead, use an attention-grabbing headline. People should already know where they are just from glancing at the top of your site, where they should see your logo and a snappy tagline, or a short description of your site, so there is absolutely no need for stating the obvious with a banal “welcome to our website” message. Yawn!

  3. “We…. We… We… We… We…zzzzzzzz”

    “We have a team of…” “We plan to…” “We have been in business for…” Sorry to sound blunt but…NOBODY CARES! Visitors to your website are only interested in one thing: “What is in it for me?” If your site doesn’t answer this question pretty quickly, they will probably leave. Instead of just talking about you and your site or your business, imagine that you are talking one to one with one of your typical customers and ‘speak’ to them as an individual. Tell them how your product or service is going to benefit them.

  4. Tech Speak

    Every industry and business sector has its own tech speak and industry-only words that nobody else understands. Try talking to friends and family about autoresponders, SEO and long-tail keywords and you’ll see their eyes glaze over as they slip into a coma. If you use words, terms and phrases that mean something to you but go straight over your visitors’ heads, then you are going to lose them.  We’ve already said visitors are going to scan over much of the content on your website anyway, so you should try to make it as easy as possible for them to be able to pick out and understand the main points from the bits that they do read.

  5. No Clear Call to Action

    As well as telling your visitors “what’s in it for them,” your next job is to tell them what they need to do now. It is absolutely pointless to give them great reasons why they should come to your practice for treatment, and then not tell them what they need to do next to in order to schedule an appointment. You need to have a clear call to action and make it blatantly obvious how they can make it happen. Do you want them to call you if they have any additional questions or if they’re ready to book an appointment?  Then tell them. However, telling them to call you and then hiding your number somewhere on your website is another big fail. If your call to action is telling them to “call us now,” then make sure you put your telephone number right next to it. Never assume that your visitors will know what to do next. Spell it out for them. Tell them what you want them to do. If you make it difficult for them, they will leave. Yes, they probably could figure it out, but sometimes they won’t. They will move on to the next site in the blink of an eye.

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You invest a lot of time and money encouraging people to visit your website, so why scare them off by making one of these fatal mistakes?

For more information on protecting your website from common pitfalls and encouraging potential patients to stick around and come to you for treatment, contact E-Rehab and we’ll be glad to offer you our assistance.[/colored_box]

Online Video Marketing Could be an Effective Tool to Help Your Practice Grow

Is video marketing really that important?

SAN BRUNO, CA - MAY 26: YouTube turned 6 years old this month anWith over 1 billion unique users every month from around the world, YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world, and also happens to be owned by Google.

The figures are mind-boggling. Over 4 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube.

To break it down even further and emphasize just how popular YouTube is, let us explain it another way: every day 500 years of YouTube videos are watched on social media sites and over 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter every minute.

To show you what this means for businesses, consider the case study of Red Bull. It holds the record for the brand with the most-watched YouTube channel of all time. Its videos have received a total of almost 550 million views and the channel has attracted a total of over 1.5 million subscribers.

[note_box]There is no getting away from it: video marketing is becoming more and more important as your next big marketing tool.[/note_box]

However, you may be thinking, “those figures are all very well and good but my business will never be as a big as a global brand like Red Bull. How will my small physical therapy practice benefit?”

What Your Practice Stands to Gain by Using Online Video Marketing

Your patients are spending their time watching online videos: According to TechCrunch, at the end of 2013, 90% of all web traffic was video. And global consumer and media insights company Neilsen released figures that in the US alone, over 13 million Americans watched about 3 hours of video on their mobile phones each month. That information combined with the figures presented at the start of this article should be a huge motivation for you to at least consider using online marketing for your private practice.

Your competition may already be using and benefiting from online marketing videos, as more and more companies are realizing what a fantastic marketing opportunity this is and are using videos as part of their marketing strategies. In fact, 81% of all senior marketing executives are using online marketing videos. That’s up 11% from just a couple of years ago.

If you don’t use video marketing your practice will miss out: Let me ask you a question: If one of your prospective patients was looking for information regarding physical therapy in their local area, where is the first place that they’ll go? In most cases, it will be Google or one of the other search engines. You already know that if your site can’t be found in the search engines, you’ll miss out on their business and it will go to somebody else, probably your competitor. As YouTube is the second biggest search engine, if your practice doesn’t have a presence there, again you will miss out.

Video is easy to search: Try this as an experiment. Search for a product or service on Google and see how many results come back that are video-related. When it comes to searching on Google, 70% of the top 100 searches are videos. Consumers these days are very savvy. They are searching for information on products and services and they are ready to buy when they find out what they want. YouTube is easy to search and if your business can be found then you will attract many more customers.

Consumers find videos educational, entertaining and inspiring: Over 60% of consumers spend at least 2 minutes watching a video about a product they are thinking of buying. Video is excellent for marketing because it engages your potential patients. It provides them with a visual example of the type of environment they could receive treatment in and will make it easier for them to quickly decide if they want to come to you for physical therapy. Combined with reviews and demonstrations of the treatments you offer, you will help make their decision an easier one and bring their business to your practice.

What an Online Marketing video can do for your practice

A video is a powerful tool that allows you to introduce your company to millions of potential new patients and show you in a positive light. You have full control of how you want to present your practice on a much smaller budget than traditional advertising.

When creating your online video, focus on how you can show your patients that you are an expert in the field of physical therapy by discussing some of the major treatments offered. This is much easier to do than having to rely on them reading the information on your website. Your video will establish you as an expert and show that you know what you’re talking about. This will build trust and confidence in your patients and help them to decide to come to your practice for treatment instead of your competitor.

Online marketing videos will help hugely with your ranking in the search engines. Nowadays videos are more than fifty times more likely to be on the first page of a search engine. Here’s why:

  1. There is less competition with video compared to text-only content. There are literally millions of text pages competing for the top search engine ranking. In comparison, there are only thousands of video pages competing for the same space, so your practice has a far greater of chance of getting the pole positions.
  2. Videos are ranked far more quickly than text content. It takes hours for video content to be listed in the search engines compared to weeks for text content. This gives you even more power as the content patients clients will see will be current and up-to-date.
  3. Videos go viral. It is much more likely for people on social media sites to share a video than text. This is especially true if you put together a really good video.

In addition to how much of a difference video marketing could make for your practice, it’s also affordable and requires only a webcam/or video device, a microphone and a good script to enjoy the benefits.

Online marketing videos are the hottest tool business owners have at their fingertips. In today’s environment, a video is far more likely to lead to a sale than even the best sales page on a website. It is too good of an opportunity to pass by.

Not Sure What to Include in Your Videos?

Okay, so you are convinced that video marketing is a good idea but what if you don’t have a clue what to include in your videos? Here are some suggestions to get you started making some informative and entertaining videos for your practice:

Educate your viewers about the wide range of services and treatments offered: Tell them all about the potential benefits that treatment from your practice can have for them. Show them some common exercises performed for the most prevalent conditions treated, and let them know exactly what type of treatment they’ll be receiving when they come to your practice.

Tell a story: This is a great way to get people to relate to you. Weave in lessons that your viewers can take away from it. You can talk about a past event that shaped the person you have become today. You could talk about why you decided to become a physical therapist in the first place, perhaps because you experienced an injury and grew interested in the field during your rehabilitation process. Whatever it is, your viewers will find it interesting and it will help them to relate to you and feel that they know you better. This nurtures loyalty from your patients.

Expose the myths of the physical therapy industry: Every industry and market has its own myths and misconceptions. You can debunk some of these myths and offer real-life examples that expose them for what they are. You will educate your viewers and help them to see the facts. For example, explain to patients that numerous studies show physical therapy can be just as effective as surgery for treating certain types of injuries and conditions. By seeing the potential benefits physical therapy can provide and hearing it from you, they will respect you more and feel more confident coming to you for treatment.

Ask questions and then answer them: No doubt you get asked the same questions over and over again about some of your services. Why not create a video for each question and then provide the answer. This would be an extremely popular feature of your site and will be excellent for the search engines who will send everybody who asks the same question to your website.

You could even ask your viewers to ask a question that they have about your product or service and then answer them in your next video. This is a perfect way to engage with your patients and start a discussion with them.

Feature Case Studies: Most people love real-life case studies, especially if they can see the direct results that patients experience from treatment. You could even read out testimonials from some of your happy patients.

Create a video tutorial: This is an excellent way to create video content that will be searched for regularly in the search engines and attract more visitors to your website. Many viewers love step-by-step tutorials and they are so easy to create because nobody knows your services and treatments better than you.

Show them how to perform exercises: A marketing video should sell your vision while also showing the viewer how they can keep up with exercises at home. If you can show your viewers examples of these exercises and encourage them to follow them when performing home-based programs, they’ll be more likely to do them correctly and give you their respect for helping them in this process.

Respond to your patients with video: You won’t be the only one who will create a tutorial or review video about your services.

[note_box]YouTube is full of these kinds of videos from consumers who want to share their comments with the world. So if a consumer does take the time to create a video about your practice to either praise it, highlight certain features or even to criticize it, you have an excellent opportunity to interact and engage with that patient in conversation. You can thank them, expand on what they have highlighted or even attempt to change their mind.

Remember that this conversation could potentially be watched by millions of people and they will be very impressed with how you handle the matter and you will win many more fans and patients.[/note_box]

Create a video series: A single video is fine but if you create a number of them on the same or related topic, then you are going to bring back a lot of viewers who want to see your next video in the series. Plan each video to connect with the previous video. This is going to translate into more views, more likes and more business for you.

So Are You Ready to Make A Successful Marketing Video?

If so, then these 5 tips will set you off on the right path:

  1. Define who your target audience is: Before you decide what you want to say and what you want your video to look like, you need to know who your audience is so that you can target them with your video. Think about the age of your target audience, their income bracket and other factors such as their sex. Knowing who your market is will help you to create a much better video that will be well received by the people you want to reach.
  2. Set just one goal for your video: Many beginners make the mistake of determining their target audience and then create numerous goals that they want the one video to achieve.Ideally your video will be short and have just one goal to achieve. So choose exactly what it is that you would like your video to do. Do you want to talk about your practice as a whole, give a tutorial on an injury or demonstrate some exercises? You decide what the goal is and stick to it.
  3. Turn another successful format into a video: If you already have content that has been successful, perhaps it was a blog post or a written tutorial on your site, take it and turn it into a working script for a video. Practice by reading it out aloud. Make small adjustments and retune it so the words flow naturally when spoken out loud. Share it with friends and family first to get their feedback and then when you are fully satisfied, start creating your video.
  4. Press record: It’s easy to record a video. All you need is a webcam. In fact, you can even use an iPhone or other mobile device. Don’t over think it. You really don’t need a huge product suite consisting of professional lighting and equipment to make a successful online marketing video.
  5. It’s time to share your video: Once you have created your video, you will want to share it on your website, blog or social media site such as YouTube. Get it out there and take note of the feedback. Find out what people like and dislike about your video. You will improve with every video that you make.

That is all there is to it. It’s not as daunting as you think. In very little time and with hardly any equipment, you too can be making successful marketing videos that will attract thousands of visitors and more patients to your practice.

[colored_box variation=”steelblue”]As you know, E-Rehab is a professional online marketing company and we have lots of advice and tips to share with you that will have a huge impact on your practice. Give us a call and see how we can help you take advantage of this marketing revolution.[/colored_box]

 

Getting Google to Love Your Website and Move Up in Search Engine Results

on-line marketing diagramBefore the Internet, life was so much easier with good old-fashioned phone books. Back in those days businesses were listed in alphabetical order so AadvarkA1 Services was always going to be listed above every other business in their category.

Yes, to be listed above every other business in your niche all you had to do was name your business with as many A’s in the title as you could and there you would be, at the top of the page.

How things have changed. Nowadays search engines like Google have taken over and achieving a top ranking website takes much more effort. However, the results are worth it.

For many companies, Google is their lifeblood. They recognize that Google provides their customers with trusted information from trusted websites and it is every website owner’s goal to be on the first page of Google’s search engine results, preferably sitting right at the top of the page.

The danger for many small practices is that they are too focused on getting their websites featured at the top of Google’s first page that they forget about their patients. In total contrast, Google thinks mainly about your visitors and it wants to deliver the very best information to them relating to whatever search term they use.

Why it is important that Google loves your website

Many small practices make the mistake and think that just because they have a website, that sales will automatically follow. It doesn’t work like that. Your success depends heavily on the search engines. They decide how relevant your website is and whether or not they would recommend it to other users.

It really doesn’t matter how expensive or amazing your website is; without the search engines sending you much needed traffic, you won’t be making any money. That is why pleasing search engines, and in particular Google, should be the aim of all websites. Building a good relationship with Google is not always easy, but as in real life, every good relationship takes time to grow and evolve.

The ingredients to a good relationship with Google

Here is a list of SEO tactics that will not only please Google but keep your patients happy too. This is what you need to do to gain the love and respect of the world’s biggest search engine:

Keep Your Website Fresh

Google hates stale, neglected and unloved websites. Instead, it loves to see a website that contains fresh content and up-to-the-minute news and updates.

[note_box]You need to give Google a reason to promote your website instead of your competition. The best way to do this is by providing high-quality content and updated information about your services.[/note_box]

As a private physical therapy practice, you don’t necessarily have to add new content every day, but you do need to show Google that you have not abandoned your site and you are keeping patients up to date with what’s happening at your practice.

Show That You Are An Authority In Your Niche

Whenever somebody types a search command in the search engine Google wants to make sure that they deliver the most relevant and informative results. If they didn’t, then people would use other search engines instead.

Google is searching for and will only deliver trusted sources, so if you are an expert in the field of physical therapy and have many years experience and a wealth of knowledge about the services you offer, then your site needs to reflect that information.

It’s also important to remember that the Internet is no longer anonymous. You need to show who you are, what you can do and why your customers and followers can trust you. It’s no good trying to hide behind a corporate or faceless style website. If you can convince people to trust you, Google and all of the other search engines will trust you too.

That means that you get so many more visitors resulting in increased sales.

Score 100% when it comes to ‘On Page SEO’

What on earth does that mean? “On Page SEO” is a term that essentially describes everything that needs to be done on your website itself so that it’s optimized and ready for the search engines.

Think of “On Page SEO” as laying the foundations to your online empire. You need to have solid, firm foundations and then build your business on those. Google will love you for it while other sites will be heavily penalized and will lose rankings (and customers).

[note_box]Here at E-Rehab, we can help ensure steps are taken so that your SEO (search engine optimization) is done correctly in order to give you higher rankings.[/note_box]

Never violate Google webmaster guidelines

This is another area where a business like E-Rehab protects you, but if you’re doing all of the SEO yourself you need to make sure that you don’t violate Google webmaster guidelines, as they will drop your site from the rankings in an instant.

In most cases when webmasters do violate the guidelines it isn’t intentional but simply because they were not familiar with the guidelines and did so without even realizing it.

To make sure that you stay on the right side of Google, it’s worth taking the time to read the Google Webmaster Guidelines (enter that phrase into Google and it will direct you to the right place).

As a general rule, don’t try to beat the system. If you read about some supposed fast-track trick to get extra visitors to your site or if the claim sounds too good to be true, then it probably is and it should be avoided. In the long term, you will do a lot of damage to your search engine ranking and your practice might never recover from it.

Be patient. Follow the Google guidelines, which are there to help you. The good results will come.

Be Social

Although there are no specific figures to prove the case, Google has suggested that one of the best ways to promote a website is through social media platforms.

In fact, in their Google webmaster videos, you may have noticed that they frequently mention social media as one of the most appropriate ways to promote a website.

In addition to having a positive effect with your search engine rankings, social media will have other beneficial knock-on effects as using social media will increase customer engagement as you share content that interests your customers. Social media promotes brand awareness and is a perfect way to encourage customers and other website owners alike to know about your content and spread the word by creating relevant links back to your site.

Google wants to help you to stay updated

As we mentioned before, Google wants to deliver the most relevant and helpful results to their visitors. To ensure that they do that, they provide lots of advice and help to webmasters to help keep them abreast with all of the latest trends and developments.

For example, their quality team makes more than 500 changes per year in their algorithm so you need to keep up to date or you will fall behind and your rankings could plummet literally overnight.

Currently, you should be giving special attention to making sure that your website is mobile- and tablet-friendly and looking at being active on the Google+ social media network.

This is something that we can also do as part of our service.

Have Good Titles and Descriptions

Whenever Google writes about SEO, one topic that they keep repeating is the importance of having good titles and descriptions in your website pages. These are the titles and descriptions that you see on the results page when you type in a phrase in Google.

Follow these basic guidelines:

  • Titles should be less than 70 characters (not words) in length.
  • Descriptions should be less than 160 characters.
  • Titles and descriptions should be absolutely unique for every page in your website.

Don’t stuff titles and descriptions with keywords (Keyword stuffing occurs when an article or webpage is chock-full of keywords in an attempt to increase a website’s search engine rank.). Here is an example of keyword stuffing, which will only annoy Google: Are you looking for cheap skinny jeans? If you’re looking for cheap skinny jeans, look no further. Our cheap skinny jeans website is the best place to order your new cheap skinny jeans. Feel free to check out our selection of cheap skinny jeans from our cheap skinny jeans selection.

You can see why Google would hate that but it’s amazing how many websites do it anyways, and then wonder why they don’t get ranked.

If you want to attract local patients then optimize your title and descriptions for local SEO with the name of the towns or cities you provide physical therapy services to.

Conclusion

The most important point to take away from this article is this: if you want to keep Google on your side so they continue to send your website lots of visitors and potential patients every month, you have to play by their rules.

If you don’t have the knowledge, skills or time to keep up-to-date with Google, don’t risk things by trying to do it yourself or by taking shortcuts.

The fact is, without Google it will be very difficult for your practice to succeed and draw in new patients with your online presence.

[colored_box bgColor=”#788794″ textColor=”#ffffff”]We know that SEO can be a confusing subject and it’s both annoying and frustrating when the goalposts are continually being moved. Don’t forget that you don’t need to tackle this alone. At E-Rehab, we’re here to help you and will be happy to explain the benefits and pitfalls as well managing your online marketing for you.

The investment will be worth it because the amount of traffic and patients that Google sends to your site will give you and your practice significant profits and stop your competitors from stealing business that should be yours.[/colored_box]