Sponsored Content
By Rena Zoldan
Director of Marketing, EyeCarePro
August 4, 2021
A practice website that is well designed can make it much easier for patients to find you and book an appointment. This helps ensure better patient care while building profitability. Here is how to optimize your digital presence to better serve patients and grow your practice.
The Importance of a Practice Website
Sixteen years ago, most eyecare practices didn’t even have a website. But Diana Canto-Sims, OD, of Buena Vista Optical, understood the importance of having a web presence for her optometry practice.
“It’s more than just a digital business card, it’s what drives patients through your door. A strong website positions you as an expert, and if it looks and performs well, you’re on top of your game,” she explains. “The reality is, everyone goes online for everything, and as ODs, we cannot cover the sun with our hand and say, ‘I’ll be fine, word of mouth is my thing,’ because people are still going to Google you, and if they’re not wowed, they’re going to look for someone else.”
Growing Your Optometry Practice With EyeCarePro
Dr. Canto-Sims came to EyeCarePro with a one-page website, built by high-school and college kids and an unremarkable marketing agency from the Yellow Pages.
She was wowed when she discovered EyeCarePro.
“What attracted me to EyeCarePro was that you are positioned as optometry experts, with websites designed specifically for optometrists. You know your subject matter, and when I researched you more, I saw that the things you were talking about were the things everyone was saying I needed to be doing to grow my practice.”
And patient growth is exactly what the doctor ordered.
Since switching to the ODCapture plan and rebranding to a luxury optical, Buena Vista Optical is attracting high-revenue patients and has grown 30 percent in average monthly revenue, from $10,750 in 2019 to $14,025 in 2020, and up to $16,260 and growing, in 2021! New patient appointments are up 30 percent as well, and there’s a 46 percent increase in website traffic, from averaging 862 website visitors in August 2019 to 1,682 in August of 2020. In 2019, the average monthly appointment was 36, and it grew to 47 in 2020, and is up to 55 in 2021.
Because EyeCarePro is constantly making changes and updating her site and its search engine optimization (SEO), Dr. Canto-Sims generates patients who book appointments online all the time. She advises other optometrists to take advantage of the digital marketing tactics that EyeCarePro uses for its clients.
Finding The Right Marketers for Optometrists
When she first started out, Dr. Canto-Sims didn’t have digital marketing tactics, and her website struggled to generate patients. Back then, Dr. Canto-Sims did everything herself, building from the ground up. “Our domain was available, which isn’t even heard of these days,” she laughs, remembering.
As her website needs began to grow, Dr. Canto-Sims hired her first digital experts: a fresh-faced high-school student, and then a college kid who knew some code. Eventually, Dr. Canto-Sims had enough. “I was sick of getting the kid to deliver, as a side hustle, living with his parents,” she said. “There was no urgency; I couldn’t wait for him to finish finals to get my site going.”
So, when a web agency from the yellow pages reached out, she jumped at the opportunity, which turned into yet another hassle. “I looked at my finished site and thought it was the most boring website ever,” she said.
Aside from looking generic, the website was just a presence and didn’t drive revenue. Dr. Canto-Sims knew she could do better.
Luckily, Dr. Canto-Sims soon came across a website powered by EyeCarePro, and the rest is history.
Aside from the well designed, content-rich websites that EyeCarePro offers, Dr. Canto-Sims liked that she would not have to sign a contract, as she’d signed with the web agency and was dissatisfied.
The exclusive focus on optometry, the excellent quality of design and content and the no-contract policy EyeCarePro offers made Dr.Canto-Sims say, “I want that.” She signed up for EyeCarePro’s marketing plan in 2008 and has never looked back.
Increased Professionalism
In her journey with EyeCarePro, Dr. Canto-Sims shares that one of the first improvements she noticed was not only with the website, but with herself. “My self-esteem went way up; I was no longer embarrassed to send people to my site,” she notes. Her increased confidence grew along with her new online presence and gave her practice a boost of professionalism.
Optometry-Focused Content
Another benefit of joining EyeCarePro was that Dr. Canto-Sims no longer had to do the heavy lifting. “It was getting hard for me to keep up with writing articles for my practice every month, and I love that EyeCarePro writes relevant articles for me,” she says. EyeCarePro studies online search and content trends and then writes articles to help the website rank. Whether it’s the latest news in myopia management, a new contact lens, or an industry trend, it’s covered and it’s being ranked for.
Ranking on Google
“If you don’t optimize for Google, you’re losing money. When I run a report, I see thousands of dollars coming in, all generated by EyeCarePro,” Dr. Canto-Sims emphasizes. “They give me a quality website, optimized for SEO that can book patients any time of the day. It makes me money while I sleep.”
A Digital Marketing Agency You Can Rely On
The reliability that EyeCarePro provides is also really important to Dr. Canto-Sims.
“If you’re with a company that has tech issues–they may be cheap, but they may also be incompetent,” she says. “If they’re not reliable, if your website is down, then you lose money to your competitor.” Dr. Canto-Sims knows she can rely on EyeCarePro to keep her website running–along with the steady stream of patients who generate revenue.”
Booking More Patients with an Optometry-Focused Website
Dr. Canto-Sims loves that her website allows patients to book on the spot. While some doctors care only about how beautiful the site looks and how glossy the images are, Dr. Canto-Sims knows that she needs a combination of both aesthetics and conversion rate optimization (CRO).
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“Our website encourages people to book here. We have a bilingual bot that helps people from our target demographics who speak different languages, and that alone generates 100 appointments a month. Using a combination of technology and the flow of the website, all help us book new patients,” she says.
“There’s a strategy to it, I don’t know what it is, I don’t want to know what it is, I want a pro to do it for me. I want patients to book appointments, and that’s what EyeCarePro is doing. The end in mind is important to me,” says Dr. Canto-Sims. “What’s my end in mind? Is it a pretty website, or is it a website that will create revenue for my practice? If your end in mind is a website that generates revenue, you need to hire EyeCarePro.”
Rena Zoldan is the Director of Marketing at EyeCarePro, which provides ECPs with educational content that helps them advance their practices through technology, management strategies and digital marketing. Contact: rena@eyecarepro.net
