Are Your Internet Marketing Efforts Paying Off?
Accurate tracking data can help you assess and improve your Web site.
BY ROBERT C. SILKEY

The Internet is now a crucial component of the ophthalmic practice marketing strategy. Because the Web site is the central element of this strategy, doctors need an accurate way of measuring the site's activity to calculate its success. To evaluate a site's effectiveness, you must track both visitors to the site and patients who actually end up coming into the practice after having visited your site. While tracking these two types of people involves two different methods, both must be used together to fully evaluate the practice Internet strategy. In this article, I'll explain how, by collecting critical statistical information and asking patients a single key question, you can optimize the value of your Web site to your practice.

Hits vs. Visitors

One Web site statistic is called "hits." But contrary to what some consultants might have you believe, the number of hits a site receives is almost irrelevant. Hits only gauge how many different elements or "images" within a site are accessed for viewing. Hits don't actually measure visitor traffic. Some sites generate a lot of hits just because they contain numerous pictures or other components.

To gain an accurate measure of site activity, a practice should make sure that its statistics package accurately tracks visits to its Web site. A visit occurs when any portion of the site is viewed. By knowing the number of visits to your site, you'll be able to discern how many different people have viewed at least some of the online content you've provided.

Who Are the Visitors?

To properly evaluate the traffic to your practice Web site, a statistics package should provide certain specific data about the visitors who access your practice information via the Internet. This data can relate to either internal traffic or external traffic. Internal traffic stats provide information on which pages within the site are generating the most visitor interest, and the amount of time visitors spend looking at each page. Internal traffic statistics also demonstrate which pages prospective patients access to enter the site and from which pages they most often exit.

The practice should first evaluate this information and then use it to update the site for maximum results. For example, if the "LASIK Patient Information" page is the site's most frequently visited page, the practice should make sure to continually revise and improve upon this page, primarily by adding new content.

The Web site's most common entry and exit pages can provide important information about the site as well. If numerous visitors enter and exit the site via the homepage, this may mean that the site initially comes across as unwelcoming and doesn't keep visitors in the site. Obviously, the objective is to bring the visitor to the inner pages of the site. If only a small number of visitors get to the inner pages, the practice may want to consider changing the design of the site. Then, your statistics package will determine whether more visitors are viewing the site's inner pages with the new design.

Tracking Visitor "Referrers"

Statistics for external traffic are equally important because they determine where each visitor was on the Internet before entering your site. The Internet terminology used to describe the site from which a visitor arrived is "referrer." A statistics package should show which locations on the Internet referred visitors and how many referrals came from each location. This data can then be used to find out, for example, how many prospective patients are referred to a Web site from an Internet directory -- such as locateadoc or lasikdocshop (which is operated by our company, Einstein Medical) -- or from a search engine. Search engine referral data isn't complete unless the statistics package also provides information as to which key words were used to find the Web site. For example, the key words "LASIK surgery" are commonly used in search engines by individuals looking for a practice that performs laser vision correction.

The statistics package should also allow longer-term referral tracking so that it's easy to ascertain if traffic for specific key words, or from a directory, is growing or shrinking over time.

Several good statistics packages are available. These are normally offered free by the Web site host. When choosing a hosting service, you should ask that your site be automatically connected to a comprehensive statistics package. The package needs to focus on visitors to the site, not just hits. Some packages are widely used and can be downloaded for free, but provide little information about internal and external traffic within the site. Choose a comprehensive statistics package.

Have You Seen My Site?

The other type of Internet patient tracking entails determining whether your site played a role in setting a new patient appointment.

In some cases, a patient e-mails the practice from the site, so there's a clear connection between the visit to the site and the visit to the practice. But in many cases, a patient visits the site and then calls the practice to schedule the appointment. A number of other, more complicated scenarios can also take place. All of these scenarios, however, necessitate that the practice ask every patient one simple but crucial question: "Have you seen our Web site?" Without asking this question, the practice will never know just how many new LASIK patients its Internet strategy is generating.

For many top-tier ophthalmology practices, word-of-mouth referrals account for the majority of new patients. Word-of-mouth referral is also one of the primary reasons cited by prospective patients when asked what led them to visit the practice Web site.

But unfortunately, in most practices these patients are asked the same old question, "How did you hear about the practice?" with no reference made to the Web site at all. By using this question, practices often lose their chance to identify those patients who viewed their Web site and then scheduled an appointment straight away. If the original awareness of the practice came from a friend, patients typically reply: "A friend referred me." In such a case, the Web site may have played a key role in getting the appointment, but the new patient is attributed solely to word-of-mouth referral.

A high-quality Web site is particularly important when a prospective patient receives more than one word-of-mouth recommendation. In these cases, the prospective patient usually visits the site of each recommended practice and then, based on the content on the site, selects one practice to call for an appointment. Similarly, people who are alerted to the practice through another marketing medium, including print or media advertising or the Yellow Pages, often visit the Web site to investigate further.

To properly track the impact of a practice's Internet strategy, all patients have to be asked the key question: "Have you seen our Web site?" Ophthalmologists who've implemented this strategy report that many patients respond "yes" to this question -- even those patients who were referred by a friend or who saw an advertisement. Asking this question identifies all patients referred to the practice, either directly or indirectly, by the Web site.

In-office and statistical tracking of Internet patients need to work hand-in-hand. If a practice's Web site statistics package shows an increased number of visitors to the site, then the number of incoming new patients who've seen the site should also increase. If these two numbers are decreasing, or if they don't change in the same direction, then specific investigation is needed to refine the Internet strategy.

"Have you seen our Web site?"

It could be one of the most important questions you'll ever ask a patient.

Robert C. Silkey is the founder and CEO of Einstein Medical.