Getting patients into the office from your website usually happens in two steps – first they find your website, and then from your website they contact the office. From the technical end of things, these two distinct phases are search engine optimization (SEO) and conversion or website optimization.
When you are evaluating your website to see what can be improved, you need to assess whether or not you have a traffic problem (SEO) or a conversion problem (website optimization). And when you look at your website’s analytics data, the hallmarks for each of these problems should be easy to spot.
Simply put, if nobody is going to your website then you are not going to get patients into the office from your website. You can have the most optimized website in the world, but if nobody visits it, then there’s nobody there to convert. If this situation is what you are experiencing on your website – very low traffic flow – then you likely have an SEO problem and you should consider implementing an SEO campaign for your website.
Conversely, if you have a lot of traffic to your website, but you are not achieving your website goals (people using the contact form, people staying on your important pages, high bounce rates on the home page), then you have a conversion problem. A conversion problem is often a messaging problem – people are visiting your site, but they are not performing the actions you expect them to do. The reason could be a confusing home page, difficult navigation or a host of other issues, but if this issue is plaguing your website then you need to consider a website optimization analysis to see why the people who visit your site aren’t finding the information that the are expecting to find, and how you can fix it.
It’s important to distinguish between traffic problems (SEO) and conversion problems (website optimization), but once you identify which problem is prevalent on your website, then you can take action to make the changes you need to fix these problems. If you have questions about your website or about what type of problems your website may have, contact Dr. Wank for a complimentary consultation.
