Digital marketing optimization involves promoting your services in various forms of electronic media, but just a digital presence isn’t enough
Attempting to wade through how-to books or websites on digital marketing optimization is often confusing and frustrating. Such guides are peppered with acronyms and terms that are often not well-defined (if at all) or even relevant to your practice.
So how can you optimize your digital marketing campaigns? Read further for a basic rundown of some of the common terms and concepts that are used in digital marketing optimization to understand how they might be useful for your online presence and why you should apply them.
Digital marketing optimization and ‘bang for your buck’
Obviously, digital marketing involves promoting your services and products in various forms of electronic media, such as paid online advertising or social media. However, it is not enough to just have a digital presence.
You will also want to get the best possible “bang for your buck,” so to speak. This is where the concept of optimization comes into play.
Paid versus organic traffic
There are a number of tools that you can use to measure how much return on investment (ROI) you are getting on your digital marketing campaign as a whole, or on specific areas of it. For example, digital marketing traffic can be categorized as either paid or organic.
Paid traffic comes from pay-per-click platforms such as Google AdWords or advertising on social media websites. Most other digital marketing traffic can be categorized as organic, as it is generated from search engines, rather than from a monetary basis.
Examples of organic traffic include Yelp reviews, your LinkedIn professional page, or local-interest news articles featuring you or your practice.
Search engine optimization
You are probably most familiar with the term search engine optimization (SEO). This method for optimizing your digital marketing involves improving the quality and/or quantity of organic traffic to your website by making your website rank higher on search engine results.
As a general rule, the best way to improve your SEO is with high quality, informative content that will capture the attention of prospective patients with both the headline and the opening paragraph. Remember, the goal with SEO is to get that prospective patient to click on the link to your website, based on those first few lines that show up on a search engine’s results page.
Conversion rate
So what is the ultimate goal of trying to optimize your digital marketing plan? In just one word: Conversion.
You want to get all of those prospective patients who have clicked through to your website and read your content to convert into actual patients by either purchasing products you have available or booking an appointment in your office (if you are seeing patients). Offering discounts for first-time patients or product purchases is a simple, effective means to improve your conversion rate.
Starting a referral program, in which patients can earn discounts by referring friends and family is another excellent way to also improve your conversion rate.
It’s important to remember the ultimate goals of your digital marketing campaign. First, you want to drive more prospective patients to your website. Second, you want those prospective patients to convert to actual patients, based on your website content. Understanding how to optimize your online presence can help you get the most out of your marketing campaign so that you can reach these goals.
