Ensure Your Dental Marketing Tactics Are Working
If you run a dental practice, your website is likely one of your most valuable marketing assets. Not only does it establish your online presence and allow prospective patients to learn about your services, but it can also drive new patient acquisitions if optimized effectively.
To get the most out of your dental website, you need to track key metrics and use them to guide your strategy. The right key performance indicators (KPIs) will reveal how well your site is performing and where there’s room for improvement.
At Now Media Group, a full-service digital marketing agency based in San Diego, CA, our digital marketing experts can help you identify the most useful KPIs. We’ll use those metrics to enhance your website and digital marketing efforts, turning interest in your website into real-life appointments. Call (858) 333-8950 today to schedule your consultation with our representatives and get started on a path toward successful dental marketing!
What Are KPIs?
KPIs stand for Key Performance Indicators. They’re metrics used to measure the performance and success of a website, marketing campaign, or business against strategic goals and objectives.
Some examples of common KPIs are:
Website Traffic: Measures the number of visitors to your website.- Bounce Rate: Percentage of visitors that leave your site after viewing only one page. Lower bounce rates indicate better engagement.
- Conversion Rate: Percentage of visitors that complete a desired action, like filling out a contact form. Higher conversion rates are better.
- Search Engine Rankings: Tracks how your website ranks for target keywords. Higher rankings equal more organic traffic.
- Cost Per Lead/Acquisition: Calculates marketing spend versus leads/sales generated. A lower cost per lead is typically better.
- Customer Lifetime Value: Measures a customer’s revenue value over their lifetime. A higher CLV is ideal.
- Net Promoter Score: Metric based on customer satisfaction surveys. A higher NPS indicates happier customers.
KPIs help businesses assess the effectiveness of initiatives like website design, SEO, content marketing, PPC ads, email campaigns, and more. By regularly tracking the right KPIs, companies can measure progress and optimize efforts to meet business and marketing goals.
Dental Marketing KPIs
Website Traffic
One of the fundamental metrics to track is your overall website traffic—how many people are visiting your site. Without a healthy amount of traffic, all your other metrics will suffer.
Pay attention to your monthly and daily visit totals, as well as your traffic sources. This will show you how consistent your traffic is and where your visitors are coming from (e.g., organic search, social media, referrals). Ideally, you want to see steady month-over-month growth in traffic. If your traffic suddenly declines or stagnates, there may be technical issues or problems with your SEO.
New vs. Returning Visitors
Along with overall traffic, keep an eye on your percentages of new vs. returning visitors. A high proportion of new visitors means your website is continually attracting fresh audiences. However, a site with mostly returning visitors indicates you’re building relationships and loyalty.
This metric will guide decisions about your content and marketing. For instance, more content for new audiences if you have mostly return visitors, or more nurturing content if you have mostly new visitors.
Bounce Rate
Your website’s bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who enter your site and “bounce” right back out without viewing additional pages. A high bounce rate suggests your content is failing to engage audiences.
For dental websites, a bounce rate between 40 to 60 percent is average. Anything lower is excellent, while anything higher could be improved through better page optimization. Monitoring bounce rate by page and traffic source can also provide insights into problems. For example, a high bounce rate from organic traffic may indicate content gaps for certain keywords.
Pages Per Session
Along with bounce rate, the average number of pages viewed per session (or visit duration) is a key indicator of engagement. Low pages per session suggest your content doesn’t encourage visitors to explore your site. High pages per session show you’re adept at guiding visitors deeper into your content.
Try raising pages per session by linking relevant content across your site, developing strong CTAs, and creating content specifically for user personas. More engaged visitors are more likely to convert.
Conversion Rates
For dental practices, the goal is to drive new patient conversions. Thus, one of the most critical metrics to track is your website’s conversion rate. The conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors who complete a desired goal, like scheduling an appointment. To calculate it, divide your total conversions by your total visitors.
Pay attention to your conversion rates over time and across different campaigns and content types. This will reveal the strengths of your website as well as areas for improvement.
You can break down conversions further into micro and macro goals, such as newsletter signups, contact form fills, phone calls, and booked appointments. Your desired actions will guide which conversion metrics you focus on.
Organic Search Traffic
For many dental websites, organic search is the top source of new visitors and patients. So, it’s crucial to track how much traffic you’re getting from keywords and SEO.
Monitor your monthly organic search traffic as well as traffic from target keywords. Use Google Analytics and Google Search Console to see how you rank for keywords and which ones deliver the most visitors.
Compare search traffic to your main SEO competitors. Are they outranking you for your targets? Which keywords send them more traffic? Use this intel to guide your SEO optimization.
Backlink Profile
While not directly a website metric, monitoring your backlink profile provides useful insights into your SEO traction. Backlinks are essential for ranking well in search and are thus strongly tied to your organic search traffic. Check your domain authority and total backlinks monthly to spot trends and growth opportunities.
Use a tool like Ahrefs to identify potential new link sources. Look for competitors gaining more high-authority links and assess if you can replicate their strategies.
First-Page Rankings
Along with overall search traffic, track how many keywords your pages rank on the first page of Google. These rankings will contribute significantly to your traffic. Use a tool like SEMrush to monitor your top-ranking pages and keywords over time. Look for fluctuations and try to diagnose the reasons. For example, a page dropping in rank could signal technical SEO issues.
Pages ranking on the first page also enjoy much lower bounce rates. See which pages perform best to identify your high-converting SEO content.
Lead Response Time
Studies show that 35 to 50 percent of sales go to the first company to respond to a lead inquiry. So, for dental practices, it’s crucial to monitor and lower your lead response time. Track how long it takes your team to respond to web, social, and email leads, etc. Identify bottlenecks in your lead management process.
Tools like Dental Intel and Demandforce allow you to track inbound calls and texts, too. Faster response times improve conversion rates. Set a measurable goal to lower the average response time each quarter.
Review Volume
Patient reviews are increasingly essential for local search visibility. The more positive Google reviews you can accumulate, the better you’ll rank in local pack results.
So, regularly check your review volume on Google, Facebook, and other sites. How many new reviews are you getting each month? How does your volume compare to competitors? Low review volume presents an opportunity to proactively request patient feedback. High volumes enable social proof. Monitor sentiments and ratings, too.
Content Engagement
For dental websites, blog content and articles are essential to attracting and engaging visitors. So, you’ll want to track key content metrics. Monitor total blog traffic as well as engagement metrics for individual posts, such as visits, click-through rate, time on page, social shares, etc.
These will reveal your highest-converting articles to model future content on. Look for content gaps where new posts could rank for target keywords. Repurpose top content into multiple formats, too.
Landing Page Conversions
Specialized landing pages are highly effective at driving conversions. Make sure to track the conversion rates of any high-priority landing pages.
For example, how well do your cosmetic dentistry or dental implant pages convert visitors into leads? How about your coupons or free offer pages? Look for quick wins to improve page conversion rates, like precise CTAs or better forms. Multivariate testing can help further optimize conversions.
Marketing Campaign ROI
To determine where to allocate your marketing dollars, you need to track the return on investment (ROI) from different campaigns and channels.
Assign UTM parameters to all links and ads so you can segment your analytics. See which campaigns deliver the most phone calls, form fills, and booked appointments relative to cost. Pay particular attention to your highest-spend initiatives like SEO and PPC. Reduce or pause channels with consistently low ROI. Double down on the campaigns with the best conversions.
Track Your Campaign Metrics With Now Media Group
Optimizing your dental website for better performance requires closely monitoring metrics for traffic, engagement, conversions, and ROI. Consistently improving your website metrics enables you to continually attract more of your ideal patients. Ultimately, you want visitors coming to your site, engaging with your content, and converting into happy, loyal patients
To schedule a consultation with Now Media Group, call (858) 333-8950 today. We’ll help you create a robust digital presence that attracts new patients and maintains loyal ones.