Podiatrist Marketing: How to Stand Out and Attract More Patients

Foot pain may be common, but finding the right podiatrist is not always easy. Most people either ignore the pain or run to over-the-counter medications. And when it gets out of hand, they run to the Internet to find help for a podiatrist, in which case they have dozens of options.

The problem? There are dozens of podiatry options, and they all promise the same thing—relief.

That’s why you need to go beyond just having a website. You must put in the effort to make sure your practice shows up first, stands out, and earns patients’ trust before they even step foot in your office.

This guide discusses the top podiatry marketing strategies to help you grow your practice and become the go-to foot and ankle specialist in your service area. 

1. Search engine optimization (SEO)

SEO for podiatry is the process of optimizing your website to appear higher in search engine results pages (SERP), making it easier for people with foot or ankle conditions to find and choose you. It involves enhancing your website’s structure, content, and authority to ensure you stay ahead of competing practices.

If you already have a website for your practice, the first step should be performing an SEO audit with our free SEO checker to determine what’s working and what’s not. Then, when you get into optimizing your website for 

• On-site SEO: It ensures search engines can comprehend what your web pages are about. So, it focuses on improving website navigation, content quality, keyword integration, and image optimization.
• Off-page SEO: Optimizing for off-site SEO helps to build your website’s authority, trust, reputation, and credibility. The process involves encouraging and responding to reviews, promoting your website on different channels, and employing high-quality backlinking practices. 
• Technical SEO: It focuses on optimizing the backend infrastructure, code, and other technical aspects to make it easier for search engines to crawl, index, and rank your website higher. It involves improving page speed, ensuring mobile-friendliness, and integrating structured data. 

2. Local search optimization

Your prospective clients are not looking to drive hours for a podiatrist. They prefer one who’s as close to them as possible!

Local search optimization or local SEO ensures customers find you when they search for localized keywords, like “podiatrist in [City],” “podiatrist near me,” or “ankle pain doctor open now.” Local SEO helps your podiatrist practice appear above regular organic results and call, message, get directions, and book an appointment directly from the search engine results page (SERP).

Optimizing your podiatry practice for local search typically involves:

• Claiming and optimizing your Google Business Profile (GBP) helps you appear before people in your local service area and show up in the local SEO 3-pack
• Including local keywords that cite neighborhood and city names in metadata, service pages, and headings
• Ensuring your NAP (name, address, and phone) information is consistent across all local directories, your website, and social media platforms
• Earning local backlinks from referring physicians, local health blogs, and event sponsorships
• Encouraging satisfied patients to leave reviews and responding promptly to both negative and positive reviews
• Creating multiple location pages for the different clinic locations 

3. Content marketing

Content marketing is a comprehensive process that involves creating and distributing informative, educational, and engaging content that addresses real patient concerns. It’s an effective way of showing your website visitors that you’re a trustworthy source of information in the podiatry industry. 

It takes different formats, including high-value service pages that target different podiatry conditions and treatments, like diabetic foot exams or minimally invasive bunion surgery. Other times, it’s about publishing relevant blog posts that target localized and seasonal topics like “Safest footwear in the summer in [City]”

Video is another form of content marketing. You can leverage video content to showcase how you carry out procedures, demonstrate DIY treatment forms, or introduce your team. To ensure your content remains relevant and SEO-optimized for the long term, take time to track and analyze results, then make updates whenever necessary. 

4. Social media marketing

Social media marketing is a valuable tool for humanizing your brand, connecting with patients, and building lasting relationships. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are effective for sharing details about your podiatry practice to reach local patients more organically. 

There are many ways you can use social media to spread the word about your podiatry practice, including:

• Showcasing specific services you want to promote, like removal of ingrown toenails or pediatric foot care.
• Engaging patients in real-time with story replies, post comments, and direct messages.
• Posting different types of content, like videos, static posts, and story highlights.
• Using geo-targeted Facebook and Instagram ads to promote high-value services, like new patient specials and custom orthotics.
• Educating patients with informative posts on some common conditions, like “At-home treatments for ingrown toenails.”
• Sharing before-and-after treatment photos, such as bunion surgery results, but only with patient consent.

5. Email marketing

Email marketing is a cost-effective and high-value strategy for staying in touch with current and potential patients. Leveraging email marketing gives you direct access to existing and potential patients to build long-term relationships.

Use email marketing to stay connected with previous patients by sending them follow-ups or confirming appointments. It’s also a great way to promote seasonal services like winter foot care tips during Diabetes Awareness Month or encourage word-of-mouth referrals. 

You should consider creating a monthly email newsletter to discuss featured conditions, patient education tips, or links to your latest blog posts. Take advantage of automated email campaigns for redundant campaigns, like a welcome email series of post-treatment check-in emails with care tips.               

6. Pay-per-click advertising

Are you experiencing a slump? Did you recently launch a website for your podiatry practice? A PPC campaign may just be what you need to overcome the slow season and attract more clients.

With well-planned PPC campaigns, you can immediately appear on page one of Google and target people actively searching for foot and ankle care. Successful PPC campaigns depend on choosing the right high-intent keywords and writing compelling ad copy.

You must also direct patients to a dedicated service page and optimize landing pages with clear headlines, descriptions of the specific condition or service, testimonials, and contact information. Add call extensions to make it easier for patients to reach you.

7. Online reputation management

Patients heavily rely on reviews when choosing a doctor, and in the digital age, these reviews include not only word-of-mouth referrals from their peers but also online reviews. In fact, 77% of patients check out online reviews when looking for a new doctor.

Online reputational management involves collecting reviews by asking happy patients for reviews. Contrary to popular belief, patients don’t just leave reviews by chance. You must remind them to do it in subtle ways, like signage on your front desk or sending automated review requests. 

Monitoring and responding to feedback from sources across the web, including website testimonials, Google reviews, social media mentions, and comments, helps build trust with new patients and improves your ranking, especially for “near me” searches. 

Make a healthy habit of responding to all reviews, including the negative ones! For the bad ones that may be painting you in a bad light, we recommend HIPAA-compliant replies that don’t reveal patient details and read politely and professionally. 

Why invest in digital marketing for podiatrists?

You want to invest in digital marketing for podiatrists for a few reasons, including:

Podiatry marketing develops your brand

An effective digital marketing strategy can help increase awareness of your podiatry practice.

SEO is a huge benefit for your brand as a whole because it allows you to be seen in search engines, which is where your potential patients are looking.

With the use of social media marketing, your content is shared with not only your friends and followers, but to their friends and followers as well, which helps to circulate word of your brand and your practice

Word of your practice is also spread when your patients mention your practice in a comment, or recommend you online.

Podiatry marketing develops relationships

When you market online, you have the opportunity to create relationships with your patients.

For example, if a patient comments on a blog post, you can reply to them directly and answer any questions they have. Take a similar approach on social media to ensure that your followers know that patients are your number one priority.

Doing so can help to create a strong patient/doctor relationship before they even set foot in your office.

Podiatry marketing helps patients find information

80% of Internet users have searched for a health-related topic online. That equates to about 93 million Americans.

Today, the Internet is where most people conduct their searches for both information about their healthcare issues and the providers that can help treat them. This means that if you want to reach new patients, you have to be easy to find online.

Attract more patients with podiatry marketing services

If you want to reap the benefits of an Internet marketing campaign, WebFX can help. We understand that running a podiatry clinic is demanding, and finding time to set up and manage online marketing campaigns will only stress you more. 

You can save time and avoid overwhelming yourself and your team with marketing by partnering with us. We have an in-house team of 500 digital marketing professionals to create custom digital marketing strategies, and we have all the resources necessary to drive traffic to your website and patients to your location.

Contact us today for more information and a free quote for using podiatry marketing to grow your practice!