Home EyeCarePro: Power to Build Your Practice Maximize Your Website Impressions

Maximize Your Website Impressions

Are your website and social media doing enough to bring attention to your skills and services?

jennifer denhartogChanging a digital footprint is not easy. Jennifer DenHartog, OD, discovered that when she opened her own practice. “Patients were having a hard time finding me because when they searched for me, my bio might show up on old pages identifying me with a previous employer,” she says.

During her transition to her new location, she had created a new website for Premier Vision Clinic in Clive, Iowa, with the help of marketing students at a local college. However, she struggled with keeping it from being stagnant, and she realized that patients still weren’t finding her in the new location.

When she found EyeCarePro, she realized that the company’s services offered strength in precisely those areas where she wasn’t strong. “EyeCarePro could build my website, help with search engine optimization, set up social media, help with postings and anticipate how patients would navigate the web so that they could find me,” she says.

In addition, EyeCarePro also helped identify sites and locators that incorrectly associated her with practices where she was no longer working. “The team updated it all,” she says.

That includes updating a Google Maps function that was bringing patients to the back of the building, where there was no entrance. Despite multiple efforts to get it corrected, she and her staff had no luck. In the meantime, staff spent time on the phone with annoyed patients every day who were where they thought they should be but couldn’t find their way into the building, she says. Patients would show up late and agitated, creating a level of stress every day. “EyeCarePro got it changed within several weeks,” she says. “Finally, our patients are getting directions to the front of our location, not the back.”

FOUND YOU ON GOOGLE

Today, about 35 percent of her patients every month are new patients. She asks all of them how they found her, and many say, “I used to see you years ago, and now I found you on Google.” She is also attracting local patients who find her organically through search engines. EyeCarePro provides her with analytics that show what is trending on her website, where patients or potential patients are clicking and how many calls it generates.

EyeCarePro has developed additional pages on her website, which highlight subspecialties that may not be offered at all offices, such as dry eye treatments, scleral lenses and emergency services. “I’ve drawn patients from three or four hours away who come for these specialty services,” she says. EyeCarePro supplies her with content that she can review, update and tailor as she’d like. “I choose content for my social media and blog posts, then it creates the posts for me. Ultimately, I still decide what I want to use, but it’s wonderful to have someone provide me with quality content,” she says.

jennifer denhartog website
The Dry Eye Center within her practice gains much more attention with a dedicated page on her website.

Regular phone calls with the EyeCarePro team keep her updated on not only what works but also what else she could be doing to enhance her online presence. For example,
the team encouraged her to add videos to help her connect with more patients.

BIGGER MARKETING RETURNS

When the practice recently held its one-year anniversary, the EyeCarePro team helped her market it. “EyeCarePro walked us through the steps of promoting our event, including ideas for giveaway prizes, ways to include surrounding businesses for cross-promotion, social media events and posts, creating flyers and sending email blasts to our patients. We netted an extra $7,000 that day,” she says.

She knows how impressive that is because she had tried to market her own grand opening event, sending out emails and working hard to promote it. But without a strong online presence, that earlier event was not as successful. “We have seen enormous returns on using EyeCarePro,” she says.

That extends to her new service lines as well. “In one week, I had five patients with emergency eye care needs,” a service she just began promoting more visibly. “The EyeCarePro team pointed to the opportunity,” she says. Her practice is located across the street from several medical facilities. Her account reps asked if emergency services were something she was comfortable with and wanted to promote more. “I was providing these services already, but I wasn’t talking about them. Now people who are looking for a place to go find my practice quickly.”

PATIENT EDUCATION

Because the website contains reliable information on eye conditions and treatment options, she is handing out fewer brochures. “In the dry eye center, I have the website up on my computer. So as I’m talking to patients about the options, I’ll go to that page to show them photos and explanations. ‘Here’s where you can click if you want to watch this video.’ Or she might say, ‘Read this before you come in again next time.’ I’m seeing that my acceptance rate for these services is higher now because it’s not just me trying to explain it to them.”

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