How to Utilize the Communication Applications Available in Portal

By utilizing these features available in Portal, you’ll be able to communicate better with your patients and clients and can begin to share important information about your practice to a receptive audience.
Email marketing is a fabulous tool you can use to not only keep patients coming back year after year but re-engage previous patients who might not have stopped by in a while.

How to Add To And Manage Your Contact List

Note: You will find this information outlined at the 0:18 mark in the video above.
The first step to utilizing eCards and Newsletters in Portal is to add contacts to your contact list. Your contacts are any patients who have opted in to receiving communication from your office. When a new patient joins your practice, you can make sure to have a system in place to add that individual to your contact list.
To start, head over to the General section and select Contacts. To add new contacts, click the Add New button on the top right-hand corner of the page.


There are 2 ways to add contacts, manually or by spreadsheet. The spreadsheet must be uploaded through the templated CSV file provided.

Uploading Via Spreadsheet: To upload via a spreadsheet, use the template CSV file and remove the two sample contacts before adding your contact information.

Uploading Manually: To manually add in a contact, click “Add A Contact” and then type in their information.

Please Note: Birthdates are recommended so that you can send Birthday eCards.
Be sure to check off the newsletters: email and ecards: email boxes if you would like that specific contact to receive newsletters and eCards.

When and Who to Send eCards To

Note: You will find this information outlined at the 2:09 mark in the video above.
Cards are a good way of communicating shorter messages to your clients including, Happy Birthday, Leave us a Review, or Appointment Reminders. These are the perfect little messages to send to let your patient base know that you are thinking of them and care about their patronage.
To create an eCard, go to the Cards tab under the Marketing section and click Create Card. Then choose a category for the type of card you would like to send. Once you’ve selected the type of card, you’ll immediately be taken to edit your card.

You can then edit the elements on the card including the following:

• Image
• Headline
• Button link and messaging
• Messaging

When the header information for your eCard is updated, add your carefully crafted messaging to the body of the email and preview the eCard to make sure everything looks good together. Once you have completed your eCard, select the recipient(s) and the date the eCard should go out.
That’s it! A simple way to send reminders, celebration communication, and thank you’s to your patients.
Read More: Sending Follow Up Emails to Build Patient Loyalty

Scheduling and Sending Newsletters

Note: You will find this information outlined at the 4:07 mark in the video above.
Newsletters are useful for communicating longer messages or educational information to your patients or clients. You can view all scheduled newsletters as soon as you click the Scheduled & Sent tab under the Newsletters section.

To create a new newsletter you will click the Create Newsletter button. You can click to edit the elements of the newsletter you would like to change including:

• Image
• Headline
• Messaging
• Button link and messaging

In the sidebar, you can add the subject line and scheduled date to send the newsletter out to your contact list. If you schedule your newsletter for a later date, you can always come back and edit the newsletter prior to it being sent. You can also save the newsletter as a draft as well.
Read More: Launch a Successful Email Marketing Campaign With These Easy Steps

Scheduled Newsletters

Note: You will find this information outlined at the 5:40 mark in the video above.

As an iMatrix client, we provide monthly newsletters created on your behalf to engage with your clients and drive traffic to your website. The topics range from industry trends, hot topics, or informational how-to articles. These articles are truncated within the newsletter so that the reader has to click over to your website to read the full article.

You have the ability to unschedule these newsletters by clicking View & Edit. You’ll see an option that says Skip, Do Not Send under the Status section in the sidebar. Once that is selected and saved, that newsletter will not be sent to your clients.

What email marketing efforts has your practice tried?

If you have any questions about your Portal dashboard or how to utilize the tools you receive with your iMatrix services, please feel free to reach out to our client support team at 800-462-8749 x3 or https://help.imatrix.com.

The post How to Utilize the Communication Applications Available in Your iMatrix Portal Dashboard appeared first on iMatrix.

Being able to view how many people have filled out a form on your website or called your practice due to your marketing efforts is extremely helpful in identifying who you should be contacting as soon as possible. When it’s time to follow up with potential patients or clients, you can begin by focusing on those who have actively shown interest in your services through these results.

Why Lead Tracking is Important

Lead tracking is the process of pinpointing prospective patients or clients based on their actions in response to a marketing effort. Did someone fill out the contact form on your practice’s website because they were interested in your services?

If they have, Portal can give you the tools you need to track their information and increase your lead conversion rate while bringing in more patients or clients to your office.

Below is a how-to guide for viewing and tracking leads in your Portal account and how to persuade potential businesses to come to see you. Let’s begin.

Your Portal account gives you access to an overview of how many leads your site has generated for your practice. This includes both organic leads coming through form fills on your website, phone calls received using the call tracking number on your website, as well as paid leads coming through the calls your practice receives due to any paid advertising efforts.

Since these leads are tracked monthly, you can click on any month to see how well your practice is doing with lead generation.

Leads Tracking Overview

In your dashboard, you’ll find a leads overview tab in the sidebar on the left-hand side of your screen. When you first click on the Leads Overview section, you will see the total overall amount of leads that your practice has received for each month as well as call leads and form leads.

Form Leads – Leads from visitors who have found your practice by visited your practice’s website and then filled out a form to contact you. They were not persuaded to enter your site by an advertisement.

Call Leads – Leads that come in from the call tracking number set up for your website. Either from a phone number that displays on your website when found from an organic search or through the use of Google Ads.

From there, you can click on each lead type, call leads or form leads, and keep track of which leads converted into new patients or clients. You’ll be able to sort through your leads and note which are new prospective patients and which are existing patients.

Under each overview, you can see at a glance how many leads are under the following status:

• New
• Existing
• Other
• Not Audited

Once you dive in, you can begin tracking and viewing how many leads have been converted into new patients at your practice. Let’s go over how to do that!

Call Leads Tracking

If you have a call tracking number for your website, you will see leads coming in through this source. Call tracking is a great tool to use to not only track the number of calls you receive from your website but paid advertising as well. You can learn more about call tracking in this blog post here.

Please note: Call Tracking numbers are only included for certain service tiers or products. If you are interested in this feature, please feel free to contact us to learn more.

Under the Call Leads tracking section overview, you will be able to view a breakdown that dives into Call Statuses, Call Length, and the source type of the lead. In order to update the lead status, you’ll need to click on the Call Leads tab under the Leads Overview tab in the sidebar.

When you are in the Call Leads section, you will be able to listen to the call received to track the lead status. Once the call is listened to, you can then go in and update the lead information to include the following:

• If a lead converted to a booked appointment
• Caller type – New, Existing, Active Lead, Non-Active Lead, Other
• The reason for the call

The data you provide at this point will factor into the overall percentages shown on the Leads Overview tab under Call Leads. Following up on the leads received will help you determine if a specific marketing campaign was successful or if you need to pivot and change direction.

Form Leads Tracking

When you select the Form Leads tab, it will show you the first and last name, email, phone number, source of the lead, and whether or not this lead was converted. This tab is the key to identifying potential new patients or clients and using their contact information to reach out to them to convert the lead.

You will receive email notifications of any new submissions received. To update the email address these email notifications go to, click on the vertical ellipsis and select Settings. From the Settings tab, you can then update the email address on file as well as opt-in to receive the form contents emailed to your practice directly. 

Please note: For chiropractors and eye care professionals, you will need to select the Opt-In disclaimer per HIPAA requirements.
Under the Actions column, you can do the following actions:

• View the lead
• Mark as unread
• Print lead
• Archive

When you click View, you will be taken to the form of information collected when a lead has filled out the form. This will also include how to contact the lead. You can either email or call the number provided for the lead to answer any questions they have. Use this time to share more about your services and try to get the lead to book an appointment if they are the right fit for your practice.

When the call or email has been completed and you’ve heard back from the lead, update the lead information. This includes completing the following questions:

• Was an appointment scheduled?
• What is the client type?
• Adding any pertinent notes about the lead

Using Portal For Lead Conversion

Now that you know a little more about the tools available to you, start utilizing the features that your Portal account offers.

As you continue to keep track of the leads you receive from your website and marketing efforts, you’ll begin to track lead conversion and know how many leads turned into a booked appointment at your practice.

Here are a few ways to start taking advantage of Portal for lead conversion:

1. Follow up on leads –
   Remember to always follow up as soon as possible so you don’t let the opportunity pass you by to get a new patient or client!
2. Include a CTA –
   You should also be sure to include a call-to-action (CTA) on your website pages! Whether it’s “click to learn more” or “book an appointment now” there needs to be a CTA included so that they will always be directed to contact you.
3. Train your staff –
   Make sure your staff knows the importance of the leads coming in through your marketing efforts. Host training regularly to update staff on any marketing promotions or advertisements going on so they know how to field questions from prospective patients or clients.

If you have any questions about your Portal dashboard or how to utilize the tools you receive with your iMatrix services, please feel free to reach out to our client support team at 800-462-8749 x3 or https://help.imatrix.com.

How are you staying on top of leads that your practice receives?

Here are some of our other resources that can help you generate and convert leads into clients.

Convert Website and Phone Leads into Appointments
Lead Conversion Tips: How to Generate and Convert More Leads
Email Marketing Mistakes That Decrease Your Practice’s Open Rates

The post How to View and Track Leads in Your iMatrix Portal Dashboard appeared first on iMatrix.

A keyword is a word or phrase used in SEO and pay-per-click advertising (PPC) strategies to help your website or page rank higher in search engines. These words or phrases tell both search engines and web users what your page is about. When you implement keywords into titles, headings, URLs, body texts, and alt texts, you signal to Google that your web page may be relevant to a related search query.

Keywords are a word or phrase used to signal to Google that your web page is relevant to a web user’s search query for a similar subject.

Keywords are an essential part of any “marketing basics” manual. In combination with other SEO strategies, they can help you rank on Google’s first page organically, which will in turn earn you more traffic to your website. Once interested users are on your site, you can convert them into patients or clients at your practice!

How to Brainstorm Keywords for your Google Ranking

So now that you know what keywords are, you’re probably wondering, “How do I find keywords that will work for my website?”

Well, firstly, know that you don’t have to stick to only a few keyword phrases for your entire website. As we mentioned earlier, there are lots of places to insert keywords so that you can optimize each web page and piece of content on your site. That being said, not only can almost every page be keyword optimized, but it should!

Next, we’ll explain just how you can pinpoint keywords that will be effective in helping you rank on Google so that you can attract more patients to your practice.

Think Like Your Audience

Oftentimes, when professionals attempt to begin conducting keyword research, they make the mistake of using phrases other professionals in their field would use to find information rather than thinking like their clients. For example, if you are a chiropractor, your patients may not be familiar with the term sacrum or lumbar vertebrae, but they may search for a local chiropractor that can help heal lower back pain.

When optimizing your web pages, consider how your ideal patient would be searching for this information. Think about how your clientele describes their issue when they call to make an appointment or how they phrase questions when speaking to providers. You may also want to hone in on your specialties and use those to create keyword phrases.

As a local business owner, you should also include keywords that indicate the community you serve. Use these phrases on static pages on your website, such as your homepage, “About Us” page, and services page.

Use Google to Find Keywords

While an account with a keyword research site can be very valuable, it’s not the only way to find the best keywords for your business.
So let’s start with the basics: Google.

Google offers you an efficient way to begin your keyword research process where your ideal patient or client is likely already searching for your business. Plus, it’s free. And who doesn’t love a free resource?

Open up Google and type phrases that are relevant to your business and see what websites come up in the search. Are they good, user-friendly websites? Are the businesses or sites similar to your own?

For example, if you are a veterinarian and you type in “puppy vaccinations”, you may receive results from informational sites or humane societies. So, if your client typed in this search, they may not be finding veterinarians like you. Instead, you could type in “puppy vaccinations in San Luis Obispo” or wherever your practice is located to localize the results.
Look back at the Google results. At the bottom of the page, you should see “Searches related to [whatever it is you searched].” Read over these terms to see if you can find more possible keywords phrases.

Choose Long-tail Keywords

The term “keywords” may make it sound like these terms are always individual words, but they are actually more often keyword phrases. Think about it. How often do you type something like “pie” into Google instead of “how to make an apple pie” or “the best apple pie recipe”?

Long-tail keywords, keyword phrases that are four words or longer, perform best on Google because they generally have less competition than shorter keywords. You are also better able to appeal to your ideal audience with keywords that target your local community or particular audience.

However, when coming up with keywords, it is recommended that you start with brainstorming more generalized keywords, then create longer keyword phrases using those broad terms.

For example, let’s say your business is an optometry office. You can start your search for keywords simply by typing “optometry” into Google. From there you can see that in searches related to “optometry” are often phrases like “optometry near me”. You can then click on “optometry near me” to search through these related terms as well until you create your own long-tail keyword phrase.

Keyword Search Tools

While Google provides an excellent way to begin keyword research, there are additional tools available to help you find the best keywords for your website.
Keyword search tools and programs offer you a way to conduct detailed keyword research. These tools can help you discover how much web traffic a particular keyword phrase is receiving and how much competition there is for that term. It can also tell you how often web users are actually clicking on the websites associated with those keyword phrases.

If you have the resources to invest in this tool, we suggest you do! This will give you a better understanding of what it takes to rank for keyword phrases organically on Google while informing your SEO strategy.

How to Use Keywords

Keywords are an irreplaceable component of your overall SEO strategy. We urge you to begin implementing keywords into the indexable pages of your website that you hope will populate on Google, such as your homepage or services page. Then, you can begin to work through the rest of your website, blog posts, and other content to optimize your practice’s web presence.

However, don’t expect to see results right away. Search engine optimization is a so-called “long game”. But, when you do begin to rank higher on Google for related search terms, these results will be likely to last!

Have more questions about how you can begin using keywords in your content? Contact our team to chat with a knowledgeable Internet Consultant.

Check out these other helpful resources…

10 Marketing Terms and What They Mean
How to Implement SEO on Your Website
Writing Website Content for Beginners

The post How to Brainstorm Keywords and Improve Your Google Ranking appeared first on iMatrix.

With Patient Portal, your patients can check in on their health information all within a secure portal account accessible through your website.

In this secure portal account, patients can easily access and manage all communication about their health. Patients can request a future appointment, view upcoming scheduled appointments, and complete online forms, saving you time and resources.

4 Ways to Drive Engagement With Your Patient Portal

By allowing patients to manage some of their information without calling your practice, you have another way to engage your current patient base. Take advantage of this by utilizing each feature to nurture the relationships you have with patients.

Digital Sign Up

Easily invite patients to their personal portal via email. Utilize this opportunity by including reasons why the patient portal is a key way to keep up with their health information and have access to your office over a secure messaging platform.

When patients receive their email, it’ll include a registration link that expires to keep their information secure. By letting patients know that the link does expire, you can create a sense of urgency for them to sign up and start using their portal right away.

Appointment Dashboard

Patient recall is important for any small or medium-size medical practice. Did you know that a 5% increase in customer retention can boost a company’s profitability by 75%? Give patients access to their past and upcoming appointments.

Enhance their experience with the option to request or confirm an appointment. This added ability to book an appointment and check on it later will ensure a higher patient recall rate in addition to text messaging and email reminders.

Plus, by checking in on their appointments or requesting their next appointment, you are continuing to build engagement with your patients.

Secure Messaging

You can be confident that all your sensitive patient communications, including messages sent to your patients directly, will remain secure in Patient Portal.

This is a great way to share results with a patient who would prefer to communicate via messaging or is unavailable for phone calls. You have the added safety of a security system to ensure that your patient’s information will get to them and only them.

Patient Forms

Sometimes patient forms in the office can be a hassle for both your office staff and the patient. Streamline the process by sending your patients digital forms for new patient intake, prescription refills, and more. Let patients follow the status of forms they’ve submitted.

Consider setting up messaging that highlights what a new patient will experience during their first visit. Include information about when to arrive at the office, where to check-in, and what to expect during their first exam. Then share what steps they can do before coming into the office.

Add Patient Portal Access to Your Website Today

Interested in adding a patient portal with access to health information to your website? Give your patients direct access to manage their health 24/7 with Patient Portal.

Check out these other helpful resources…

4 Content Tips to Boost Engagement
5 Benefits of Using Social Media for Healthcare Practices
How to Turn Website Visits Into Office Visit

The post Increase Engagement with Patients Through Patient Portal appeared first on iMatrix.

This feedback carries significant weight in the mind of your potential clients, with 88% of consumers reporting that they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations!

When people search for your practice online, make sure they’re seeing positive results. Favorable online reviews have the power to increase sales, improve your website’s search engine ranking, and encourage accountability at your office. You’re probably wondering, “where do I start?” Well, you’ve come to the right place.

 1. Choose a Platform

Between search engines and social media, the majority of your clients are communicating online daily. Make sure your business is a part of the conversation by creating online profiles for your practice on social media and trusted sites to offer patients a place to review your practice.

While Yelp and Google may be the first review platforms that come to mind, there are many other sites to consider. And you don’t have to choose just one! Try a combination of review sites and social media to see better search optimization benefits from this tactic.

Once you start garnering excellent customer reviews, you can also feature client testimonials on your website to highlight some of your practice’s greatest moments.

 2. Build Your Review Profile

After you’ve picked which review websites are best for your business, you’ll need to build your profile on each platform. When creating your profile, make sure you have the following essentials:

• Correct information about your location, hours, and website so that potential clients can easily locate your practice.
• A short bio or description that illustrates your company’s purpose or mission.
• High-quality photos and/or video of your location, office, and staff so that you can create a sense of familiarity with new clients before they ever walk in the door.

Some clients may find your review profile before your website, so put your best foot forward. Once your profile is up and running, check on it regularly and update your information as necessary.

3. Get Reviews, Get Results

We know your next question. “Now that I have review profiles, how do I get clients to leave feedback?” We answer this question and more in our webinar, How to Generate Online. Business Strategy Consultant Lillie Morrison will walk you through everything you need to know to gain the stellar reputation your practice deserves.

The post How to Generate Reviews That Get Results appeared first on iMatrix.

With Pet Nexus, now available from VetMatrix and Demandforce, your clients will be able to check in on their pet health information all within a secure pet portal account accessible through your website. Interested in learning more? Read on!

1. Secure Pet Health Information at Your Clients’ Fingertips

In this secure pet portal account, pet owners can easily access and manage all communication about their pets to and from their veterinarian. Pet owners can request a future appointment, view upcoming scheduled appointments, and complete online forms requested by their veterinarian.

The Pet Nexus pet portal has the following six components, which can be accessed from the left navigation bar: Home, Pet Profile, Appointments, Messaging, Online Forms, and Account Settings.

2. View Information at a Glance

To set up their pet portal account, clients will be sent an email from the veterinary staff to log into their portal for the first time. When your clients log in to their pet portal account they will be greeted with a home page that will direct them to where they need to go.

From the Home page, pet owners can view the following at a glance:

1. Summary for each pet
2. Secure messages received
3. Forms recently submitted
4. Most recent upcoming and/or past appointments

3. Tailored Pet Profiles

With a customized experience, your clients will feel even more connected to you as their pet health provider. Within the pet portal, they’ll have the ability to view each pet individually with information pertaining to the patient.

The Pet Profile page contains the following details for each pet:

1. Pet demographics, including name, age, type, birthday, weight, and gender.
2. Details and status of the pet’s next appointment.
3. Details and status of the pet’s last appointment.
4. Recommendations with upcoming due dates and request an appointment button.
5. Recent activity and status of upcoming and past appointments.

It’s easy to switch between multiple pet profiles when a client is logged in. So taking care of a multiple pet household can be done with ease. To swap between multiple pet profiles, click the arrow next to the pet’s name at the top of the page to choose a different one.

4. Request and View Appointments

By default, the Appointments tab will display a timeline of Upcoming Appointments for all pets. Pet owners can review appointment details and status, confirm the appointment, and add it to their calendar. Click Past Appointments to switch to that view. Click All Pets on the top left in either view to filter the list for only one pet.

To request an appointment, clients will:

1. Click the Request Appointment button on the top right of any page
2. Choose up to three preferred Dates and one Time.
3. Select the Service and Pet for the appointment.
4. Add optional Comments and Questions.
5. Click Submit.

5. Message Back & Forth with Clients

Making communication a number one priority, pet owners can message back and forth with their veterinarian from the Messaging page.
Options include:

• View and respond to messages
• Compose messages
• Save drafts
• Add attachments to messages Note: Video files are not permitted.
• View sent messages
• Delete messages

Pet owners can also complete Online Forms requested by their veterinarian and review previously submitted forms. Veterinarians and staff will have the ability to display up to six forms. Within the portal, there will be a section that lists a summary of the forms the pet owner has recently submitted.

Veterinary staff will have the ability to send emails to pet owners requesting that they log in to their portal to fill out any online forms needed prior to a visit or procedure. The client will need to follow the instructions on that email to set up and access their portal. If they cannot locate the email, an invitation can be resent.

Get Started with Pet Nexus Today

Interested in adding a pet portal with access to pet health information to your website? Give your clients direct access to manage their pets’ health 24/7 with Pet Nexus. Click here to learn more.

The post Top 5 Benefits of Adding a Secure Pet Portal Account to Your Vet Website appeared first on iMatrix.

For our clients, adding images is as easy as 1-2-3!

With our user-friendly Portal platform, clients can upload the media files they need and add them to any section on their website. However, if you have limited time on your hands, any image updates can be made by simply reaching out to our client support team online or by phone.
Interested in adding images and video to your website yourself? Here’s how:

How to Upload to the Media Manager

When you log into the Portal platform, you will immediately be taken to your dashboard. On the dashboard, you will see a leads overview. On the left-hand side of the screen, you will find the navigation menu.

Under Website Management, locate a tab called “Website Editor”. Click on Website Editor and you will be directed to the Website Management page where you’ll see a blue “Edit Website” button. Click on this button to begin editing your website.

1. Click on “Media Manager”

After you’ve gone into the Website Editor, look on the left-hand side of the screen for the navigation menu. Find Media Manager and click on the photo icon.

In Media Manager, you will find your Media Library where any files that have been uploaded will be housed. Your Media Library makes it easy to store all of your media files in one location so you don’t have to search on your computer every time you need these assets. To organize and store your media files, you can create different folders based on the pages those files reside on or the content they contain.

Adjust your view with different options depending on your preference. You can see big thumbnails vs. list view in the top of the page navigation bar.

2. Organize Your Media Files

When uploading media files, you can choose which folder you want to store the image or file in by opening that folder prior to uploading. This will help you keep track of the images you are using on each page and the types of files organized in your library.

Don’t see the folder you want to use? Create one!

To create a new folder, click on the blue “Add Folder” button. When the pop-up box comes up, type in the folder name and click “Add.” Your new folder is now ready to open and store files.

3. Click on “Upload”

When you are ready to upload a file, click on the blue “Upload” button to the left of the top navigation bar. Upload the photo or video from your computer and insert it where you’d like it to go. You can also drag and drop to resize and change the photo. When adding an image in text sections, use the “Upload Media” button.

If you would like to choose a folder to upload the file to instead, double click on the folder in the Media Manager. Once the folder is open, then click on the “Upload” button on the top left-hand side.

That’s it! You are set and your photos are nice and organized right where you need them. The next time you need to use a photo or replace an image on a page, you’ll know where to go!

Uploading Videos

If you wish to house your videos on Portal, please note that video files have to be under 10kb. This works great for short, simple videos. If you have longer videos, there are other options you can utilize.

We recommend using another platform to host the video and embed the video onto your site with an embed code. You can host your videos on social media platforms like Facebook or YouTube and use their embed code or you can employ a service like Wistia that houses your videos for you.

The difference between using a social media platform and a service like Wistia is that your website will receive all of the traffic and SEO from that video. Embedding videos that are housed on social media will feed into the traffic to your social pages.

Deleting Images

If you have an image you want to remove, don’t delete it in Media Manager just yet. Go to the page your image is on and delete it from the page first, then go into Media Manager and delete the image. But once you delete an image from Media Manager, it is gone forever. It cannot be retrieved.
Don’t worry about the space images are taking up on your site. You can keep as many images in your Media Manager as you need.

Interested in learning more about optimizing your website with images?

These articles should help!
The Power of Images in Video
7 Ways to Improve Your Website’s User Experience
How to Tell a Story Through Content Marketing

The post How to Upload Files to the Media Manager appeared first on iMatrix.

Secure a spot on the first page of search engine results over and over again.
Not only can you earn a top spot on the first page of Google, but you can stack the odds in your favor by appearing more than once. Boost your credibility and bury the competition by showing up on the first page of Google multiple times.

Learn the secrets to scoring more than one spot on the first page of Google in our recorded webinar, How to Appear Multiple Times on Google’s First Page.

How to Appear Multiple Times on Google’s First Page

Since an increase in search equals increased opportunity to book appointments, you want to rank on Google’s first page more than once. Why limit yourself to only one touchpoint with a potential client? But how do you do that?

The first thing to look at is what appears on Google’s first page of search.

Anatomy of Google’s First Page

To break it down, there are 3 main sections of Google’s first page of search results.

#1. Pay Per Click advertising at the top

#2. Google Maps in the middle

#3. Organic search results fall below maps

Search engine marketing, or pay-per-click advertising (PPC), is at the top and is utilized primarily for paid ad space. That’s where you’ll see the green AD right before the URL in the search results. This is where it’s at when you want fast results.

Next up is the Google Maps section. Not only will potential clients find information on how to connect with your business, but this is also where they will be able to read any reviews your company has on your Google My Business page. This section is all about your practice’s reputation.

And right below that is the organic results section. Now while the other two sections get a majority of the clicks (we’ll talk about that in just a second), this section is where it’s at for longevity. You’ve used all of the right keywords, your site is optimized and mobile responsive, and the search bots love you.

From a numbers perspective, 40% of people click on the PPC ads section, 25% of people click on the Google Maps section, and the rest click on the organic search results. But how do you utilize each of these sections to your advantage? Let’s get to that…

Using PPC to Secure the Top 3 Spots

Using pay per click advertising is very effective and results can be seen almost immediately. Not only can results be quick, but a practice can also target the population within a certain geographical location to optimize their results to show their ads to only those in that specific area.

In addition to specifically targeting a location for your ads, you can also do a few things on your website to ensure that once your ad is clicked, you can convert that lead into a booked appointment.

Customized Landing Pages
Utilizing an effective landing page for each ad that you’re running will help you convert more visitors into clients.
Make sure that you include the following on your landing pages:

• Reviews/Testimonials
• Call to Action
• Service Specific content

We go more in-depth on how to create effective PPC landing pages in this post here.

Call Tracking
To fully track the success of your PPC campaigns, you should be using call tracking. Call tracking can help determine where a lead came from when someone calls into your practice to set that first appointment instead of using your website to book.

Not familiar with call tracking? You can learn more in this post here.
Now let’s jump into organic search results.

Using Organic Optimization to Populate Multiple Results

While PPC is a quick and effective way of getting on Google’s first page, organic search results have a longer lifespan. And not only can you show up once in organic search, you can show up multiple times depending on the content you have on your website.

To do this, it’s important to have specific metadata and page descriptions for each page on your website that highlight the specific services you offer. You will also want to target specific keywords related to your practice and the services you offer.

To target your audience better, you need to get to know who they are. If you specialize in a specific technique or service, learn what those patients are looking for in a provider. You can then target your keywords and content based on that knowledge.

Dive further into SEO in this blog post here.

Appeal to More Searchers with a Mobile-First Approach

52% of all online traffic is generated on a mobile device. It’s not enough to have a mobile-friendly version of your full site, your website needs to be mobile-responsive so that it can be seen fully on all devices.
And this isn’t just for the user experience on your site. Google actually ranks mobile-responsive pages higher than those who are not.

When you have a mobile-responsive site, it doesn’t end there. You will need to continually make sure that any new videos, photos, and pages are optimized for mobile-responsiveness and that those pages are easy to navigate. 

Put a Plan Into Action

Now that you have all of this information in front of you, what are you going to do about it? The first thing we’d suggest is to find out what parts of this strategy you can do yourself, and what you may need to hire out.

If you don’t know what you can take on, give us a call and we can help come up with a great strategy for your practice.

Once you’ve tackled PPC and SEO, start looking at reputation management.

We have a few articles to help get you started:
Client Retention Strategies That Work
How to Encourage Clients to Leave Feedback and Strengthen Your Online Reputation
Take Control Of Your Online Reviews with Review Management Tools
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The post [Video] How to Appear Multiple Times on Google’s First Page appeared first on iMatrix.

What is PPC?

PPC is a mode of internet advertising in which you bid on certain keywords that relate to your area of business. When an online user types in a search query relating to your keywords, you have an opportunity for your paid ad to show in the results. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad and everything is regulated via the daily or monthly budget you set.
So how do you create a pay-per-click advertising campaign that attracts your ideal patients?

Don’t forget about negative keywords.

First, you will want to take a look at negative keywords. While that may sound intense, it simply means the words you don’t want to come up during searches, such as “free” or “cheap.” You will also want to update your keyword list by researching which keywords you can include that will give you the highest click-through rate. The click-through-rate is essentially a ratio of users who actually click on your links versus the total people who view your page. The higher the click-through-rate, the better probability someone who sees your ad will convert into a paying patient.

Solidify a PPC budget strategy

Finally, you should tweak your budget strategy. Think about possibly bidding higher for exact matches on keyword searches, and decreasing bids for things that are a little bit broader. From there, you can adjust between those two extremes as needed.

Create compelling messaging

When it comes to your ad itself, obviously it needs to have a compelling message. Focus on the benefits your services offer, rather than just listing the features. You want to entice people to your business so give them a great reason to! While you may be tempted to lead users to your homepage after they click on your ad, a better way to see a high ROI is to create conversion-heavy landing pages.
A landing page’s main purpose is to turn online users into patients and clients. If you decide to use your homepage instead of a landing page, it is likely users will get frustrated and lose interest. Make that turnaround time from online user to client quicker by creating a landing page for each ad that goes directly to what they are talking about. Consistent messaging makes all the difference. Check out this video to learn more on using PPC to grow your practice.
 

What makes up a successful PPC campaign?

The efficiency and effectiveness of your keyword choices in the Google Ads bidding system not only depends on your experience and how much time you want to spend managing it, but also how many others are also bidding on your chosen keywords.
For instance, when setting up a Google Ads account, you have the option to perform automated bidding, which takes a majority of the work off your hands. It is the easiest option, but it is not the most efficient. It does not maximize your return-of-investment (ROI), because Google’s goal is different than your own. It wants you to spend as much money as possible, while instead, you should be trying to maximize your ROI.

On the other hand, if you decide to choose the live or managed option, you will need to constantly keep track of your campaigns since the results they bring in are always changing. The live option is beneficial because of the depth of control it allows and the opportunity it gives you to find the most valuable visitors to target. However, it is difficult to set up and requires an in-depth knowledge of how Google Ads works, which makes it challenging for a beginner.

On top of managing your campaign, you also need to keep track of your quality score. The quality score is an estimate of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages. When your campaign has a high score, you will receive lower prices and better ad positions.
The higher the quality score, the less expensive the keywords are going to cost you, so you want to make sure that you’re tracking that very efficiently and improve your quality score as much as possible. It is important to note that quality score changes every time someone completes a search. It can be difficult to manage.
Keeping this in mind, you may want to consider having it professionally managed, as managers have the experience necessary to improve quality score, as well as work around nuances that most self-run campaigns are not able to get on their own.
Finally, be aware that if you set up a campaign that runs well and attracts more new clicks to your ads and less to your competitors, it may cause your competitors to change their actions to become more competitive.
It is common to find that people set up accounts that run well at first, and the reason they run really well at first is because nothing has changed. Once your practice has jumped into the game and your competitors start to lose traffic, they will have to change their strategy. In order to run an effective Google Ads campaign, it is necessary to always adjust your strategy to find what has the best conversions.

Let’s start creating ads!

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a rewarding, yet overwhelming tactic if not managed properly. This powerful tool, when done correctly, can provide a high ROI, but can understandably be overwhelming if you’re tackling it alone.
With iMatrix digital marketing services, you can utilize the power of paid advertising and be confident in our team’s ability to gain the ROI you’re looking for from those ads.

Want to learn more about paid advertising?

Utilize these resources:
The Difference Between Paid and Organic Web Marketing
Retargeting: What Is It?
How to Make the Most Out of Your Google Ads Account
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The post Creating PPC Ads to Attract Your Ideal Patients appeared first on iMatrix.

PPC stands for pay-per-click advertising, a highly effective form of advertising that enables you to target ideal clients when they’re searching for businesses like yours.

The most popular type of PPC advertising occurs on search engines such as Google, Youtube, and Bing, but can also occur on other types of sites, like Amazon or LinkedIn. Google reigns as the most popular platform for advertisers, covering about 37.2% of the digital advertising market.

We know you’ve probably seen PPC ads topping Google’s search engine results pages, but it’s just as likely that you hardly noticed they were ads! These advertisements are intended to provide users with the information, product, or service they are looking for in their search query and don’t appear much different than organic results.

If you’re unsure of how these ads appear on Google, do a quick, general search on the search engine. Try typing in “chiropractor in Boise” or “veterinarian near me” and notice results that feature a little green box labeled “Ad” by the URL.

Now that you have an idea about what PPC ads look like on search engine results pages, let’s dive a little deeper into this topic. Next up, we answer your most commonly asked questions about pay-per-click advertising.

What is PPC?

As we mentioned earlier, PPC is shorthand for pay-per-click advertising. We will primarily be discussing paid search ads and paid social media ads, though there are also other forms of PPC, like retargeting and display ads.

Paid search ads refer to our above example. These ads appear at the top of SERPs (search engine results pages) of search engines. Paid ads on social media usually appear as you scroll through your feed rather than at the top of your homepage.

Each time one of your ads are clicked, you pay a fee to the advertising host. Hence the name, pay-per-click advertising.

How does PPC work?

Okay, buckle in, this one can get a little complicated.
PPC enables businesses to bid on advertising placements through a host site, like Google or Facebook. These ads populate when a user enters a relevant keyword into the search query.

However, just because you have bid on a particular keyword doesn’t mean that your ad will populate every time that phrase is entered into the search bar. And you can’t necessarily just pay more for that top spot (though pricing is a big factor).

When you bid on a keyword, search engines will add your site to a pool of advertisements to pull from when applicable searches are made.
Whether or not your site populates for relevant keywords depends on a variety of conditions that are decided by both the host and your set parameters.

For Google Ads in particular, the platform assigns each advertiser an Ad Rank through a new algorithm. This number is determined by the CPC bid (the amount an advertiser is willing to spend on an ad), the Quality Score, and ad extensions.

The Quality Score is comprised of some of the same elements that are used to determine your organic search engine ranking. This includes the click-through-rate of your ad, it’s relevance to the user, and the quality of the landing page.

Also, remember, your ad won’t come up on every single search for that keyword. If you set your location to only show your ads to people within a 35-mile radius from your office, then those are the people that will see your ad when they search for applicable keywords.

How much does PPC cost?

Remember that CPC bid we mentioned? Well, that isn’t necessarily the amount you will be paying for each click. The CPC bid is the MAXIMUM you’re willing to pay for that click, not the amount you will pay.

How much you pay is completely dependent on the competitiveness of the keyword or phrase you are bidding on. Typically, that CPC bid is between $1 and $3, so imagine you will be paying either within this median or less.
Also, this is only charged to you when someone clicks on your ad. This is why you want to be very strategic when creating the specifications on your PPC ads so that they only target your ideal audience.

Facebook ads cost an average of $0.27 for CPC (cost-per-click) and $7.19 for CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions). You may pay less than average or significantly more. Paid social ads are very similar to search ads in that the real cost breakdown is dependent on your strategy and goal.

Which platform should I use for PPC ads?

Every business is different. Some companies benefit from retargeting ads while others see a great ROI from advertising on Instagram.
For your industry, we highly suggest Google Ads. Let’s go over the top four reasons why we think this method is best for your practice.

1. First of all, we know we don’t have to tell you that Google is the most popular search engine in the world. I mean, who doesn’t use Google?! Google sees 160 billion searches a month.
2. Google Ads offer a superior return-on-investment, or ROI.
3. Local searches tend to be made on Google, especially those completed on a mobile device. In fact, 46% of local searches are made on Google.
4. This platform allows you to set preferences so that you are reaching a limited demographic, aka your ideal clients.  

How do I use PPC?

Pay-per-click advertising is an animal all its own. It’s no wonder companies will hire specialists, or a team of specialist, just to handle its paid advertising endeavors.

We recommend that you start off your PPC campaigns slowly. You don’t want to put too much money into one campaign just to find out you were bidding on the wrong keywords!

On that note, we also encourage you to do your research, like you are right now! Use keyword research programs, such as Moz or SEM Rush, to determine which phrases would benefit your PPC ads most. To learn more about keyword research, check out this article.

If you need hands-on assistance and a team of professionals that understand your business to help you implement your PPC plan, give us a call, we know a guy (or girl) or two. 

Looking to expand your paid advertising knowledge further?

Check out these helpful resources:
5 Ways to Target Your Ideal Clients with Local Marketing
The Difference Between Paid and Organic Web Marketing
Creating an Effective PPC Landing Page

The post How Does Pay-Per-Click Work? appeared first on iMatrix.