Localizing your online presence is one of the most important steps to take when marketing a health services business online. Optometrists can only provide their services to people in their target geographic area. Yet many clinics and businesses enter the world of online marketing blind, with little knowledge of how to tackle localized marking. One of the best ways to know if your efforts are working is to focus on analytics.
Analytics involves studying your advertising and marketing campaigns to see if they are working. It also involves running test campaigns to see what resonates with your target audience, and what does not. As you focus on building a local audience for your optometry practice, consider these tips for local SEO analytics for optometrists specifically.
Use Analytics to Understand Local Customer Behavior
One of the reasons analytics is so important to your online marketing efforts is the fact that it gives you a picture of local customer behavior. While there are some customer behavior patterns that are somewhat universal, many are not. You need to know where your local customers spend their time and what type of marketing message works with them.
When you use analytics, you can see what popular local search queries are common in relationship to optometry and visual health. You can also track how customers are finding your business. This can help you know where to better target your advertising to reach even more people.
When you know the type of content and messaging that works for your target audience, you can tailor your content to meet their needs and preferences. For example, if a particular brand of glasses frames is trending in your area, and you know this, you can create a campaign targeting that brand for your optometry shop. This may draw more search traffic and more customers.
Use Data to Set Goals and KPIs
Once you have data in hand, you can use that data to set goals. Make your goals for your online marketing efforts as specific as possible. For instance, instead of just looking to get a certain number of clicks or impressions, make a goal to get a specific number of check-ins per month or a certain number of photos or reviews on your Google Business Profile. The more specific the goal, the better you will be at reaching it.
As you work through goal setting, make sure you identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are relevant to your business and your localization efforts. These might be:
- Conversion and retention rate
- Referrals and reviews
- Monthly, local traffic
- Top 10 results for local search strands
- Click-to-calls on your Google Business Profile
- Requests for driving directions on Google Maps
Make sure your KPIs are objectives you can measure. For example, instead of saying you want to increase your number of referrals and reviews, state that you want to get 10 five-star reviews in the next month from local customers. The more specific and measurable your goals are, the more effectively you will be able to reach them.
Track Local SEO Performance
Today’s analytics tools allow you to monitor local search rankings specifically. For optometry practices, local search rankings are the most important, because you need local customers to grow your business. Why is your ranking so important? Remember, less than 1% of searchers will click to the second page of the Google results, so you want to land a spot on that coveted first page for your local search terms.
In addition to monitoring your ranking, measure the organic traffic that comes from local search. Again, this type of traffic is the most impactful for your business, so make sure you are getting plenty of it.
If you find yourself lacking in this area, adjust your local SEO strategies based on the data from your analytics. A strong local SEO plan that is backed up by excellent analytics will be effective at reaching your target audience.
Analyze Customer Engagement
Don’t just focus on clicks and rank. Focus on what your customers do when they engage with your localized content. Are they clicking on your website, then leaving instantly? A high bounce rate can indicate failure of your online marketing efforts or a poorly designed website. Are they clicking on your promotional content, but not making a purchase? Use this data to adjust the sales funnel until they book an appointment or make a purchase after clicking through with greater consistency.
The right analytics can also allow you to track how your customers are interacting with you on social media platforms. Use this data to generate the type of content they seem to appreciate most.
Assess the ROI of Your Local Advertising
One perk of using analytics is the ability to see how effective your advertising campaigns are. You can use this data to calculate the ROI of your local marketing efforts. Are you putting your money in places that are bringing in income?
Once you calculate the ROI, make sure you allocate your budget appropriately to support the high-performing campaigns, and don’t spend as much money on the under-performing ones.
Implement Geotargeting Strategies
One of the most effective ways to reach a local audience is through geotargeting, or the use of local search terms, zip codes, and advertising parameters to show your message to a specific demographic of people. Your analytics will show you how to narrow in on the most precise geotargeting area of focus. You can then tailor your promotions to reach a specific local demographic.
For instance if you find that you are not reaching a particular city in your metro area well, you can create a promotion and then advertise it heavily just to that area. This may draw he local traffic you want, and your analytics will tell you if you are doing it well.
Geotargeting is an important part of your online budgeting. When you zero in on a particular geographic area, you are able to maximize your reach without spending more than you should on an audience that’s too broad and doesn’t live in your service area.
Make Budget-Friendly Adjustments
Finally, delving into analytics allows you to make the most cost-effective changes. Each year, around $37 billion is lost from marketing budgets due to poor digital performance. In addition, around 56% of ad impressions are not seen by a business’s actual potential customers. The insights you gain will tell you where to spend your money and where you are wasting it.
Analytics also allows you to make quick adjustments when you need to. Sometimes, an advertising campaign will work well for a while, then suddenly stop working. Analytics will make sure you can stay agile and make changes to your budget allocation when this happens so you continually fund campaigns that are drawing in customers.
Streamline Analytics by Putting Them All in One Place
Local SEO analytics for optometrists are vital to ensuring your money is going where it should. You need data to create effective campaigns without wasting marketing dollars. You also need data to increase your visibility to specific zip codes, create better customer engagement, and fuel business growth.
Managing your local SEO analytics is challenging, especially when you have advertising campaigns on multiple platforms. You need the right tools to help. This starts with learning how to use Google Analytics and the numerous bits of data about your campaigns and your patients that it offers. You can also use popular SEO tools to maximize your local SEO efforts. Finally, an all-in-one platform, like Surefire Local, can help you keep all of your campaigns in one central location for easier access and control.
As you choose the right tools, make sure the one you use aligns with your business’s goals and your budget. Make sure that it has a user-friendly interface to make it easier to learn and put into place for your business.
Surefire Local provides a user-friendly, all-in-one marketing platform for local optometry practices that can help you establish an effective, localized online presence. We also offer local SEO analytics for optometrists to use to maximize their online marketing efforts. Our platform offers online review management, directories management, content marketing, social media management, local online advertising, and SEO optimizations all on one platform, alongside AI-powered analytics and reporting. This comprehensive platform frees you to spend more time seeing your patients and less time on your online marketing, all without sacrificing the success of your campaigns.
If you want to see how this all-in-one platform can help you maximize your online marketing dollars localized SEO efforts, attend a Surefire Local demo to see our platform for yourself.