How to attract and convert more website users into leads in 2022

Would you like to double your practice revenue next year? Who wouldn’t, right?

One key to unlocking massive growth might be right under your nose. It’s your website user conversion rate. In this post, we’ll explain what it is and how you can improve it. You could focus all of your efforts this year on this one metric alone and see your volume curve skyrocketing.

So get ready, it’s time to make plans!

Track users, leads and measure your user conversion rate

The user conversion rate is the percentage of website users that take action to become leads. Actions include

  • calling you,
  • completing a self-test,
  • Initiating a web-chat conversation
  • completing a call-back form, or
  • booking an appointment.

To use the user conversion ratio to improve your website’s performance, you must first define “user” and “lead” terms. Everyone involved in marketing your practice must have the same definition for these terms. We give definitions of both below.

The ratio in action: “We’re doing great! 10% of our users become leads”, or, “Our website is underperforming – only 1% of our users become leads.”

Want to dig deeper? Let’s start with a couple of definitions.

What is a user?

According to Google Analytics,

a user is a (website) visitor who has initiated a session on your website: the moment a person lands on any page of your site, they are identified as either a new or returning user. Google Analytics differentiates between new and returning users based on visitors’ browser cookies.

A user is another term for a website visitor.

What is a lead?

We usually say a “lead” is a person that provides you with the smallest acceptable data set, such as:

  1. Name
  2. Phone number or Email address

And by doing so, they show interest in your offer (i.e. an appointment). They are a lead. Of course, some leads are more valuable than others. The more likely the lead is to convert, the more value we’ll ascribe to the lead. For example, let’s say that a customer (i.e. a patient who pays for surgery) is worth £/$3000 to you. In that case, we might define our values like this:

Lead type Lead conversion rate (example) Lead value (example)
Online booking 90% £2,700
Phone call 50% £1,500
Call me back form completion 30% £900
Self-test completion 20% £600
Webchat completion 5% £150

To arrive at these values, you need to know your lead conversion rate by lead type. We define that for our clients. Ask your agency if they can tell you yours.

Unfortunately, this is where many doctors and surgeons lose track of their numbers. They might have access to web traffic statistics (e.g. Google Analytics or your digital marketing agency) and they know their number of appointments (i.e. what’s in their calendars). But they don’t know how many leads they get, because no one is counting this number.

Counting your leads is one of the first things we advise new clients to do.

Set user and lead targets for 2022 now

Ideally, you should have a target for how many website users and leads you want to get every month in 2022. So how do you set those targets? First, you’ll need to determine how many users become leads, how many leads become first appointments, and finally, how many first appointments become patients.

Here’s a simple example of how the number of users you get and user conversion rate affects how many patients you will treat:

Let’s say you get 5000 new users a month to your website.

You might then convert 1% of your users (that’s 50 leads)

You then might convert 50% of those leads into first appointments (which is 25 first appointments).

Let’s say that 50% of those first appointments become patients (that’s 12-13 patients).

If you need more than 12-13 patients per month, then you need to change something.

Let’s say you want to double your practice revenue and treat 25 patients instead. What are your options?

You can either

  1. Increase user traffic
  2. Or increase user conversion rates.

Increase your user traffic

So, to get 25 patients, you can get 10,000 users instead of 5000 users on your website per month (assuming every other ratio that follows remains the same).

Believe it or not, attracting new patients is like dating. Let’s imagine you’re single and looking for a suitable partner. A hesitancy to “put yourself out there” isn’t likely to find you the love of your life. But, once you’ve established your target market, you need them to know you exist. Generating awareness includes everything from paying for clicks to ranking high on Google.

There are two ways to attract more user traffic to your website.

  1. First, you can earn more users (by creating content that ranks well on search engines. That is what we call SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). An excellent way to improve your SEO is by answering frequently asked questions on video and transcribing your videos. Second, if you prefer to write or have someone that can write for you, blogging is an effective way to push out relevant content that people want to read.
  2. Second, you can pay for users who click on your ads. That is what we call paid traffic or pay per click advertising. You can use various media channels to run ads. These include search engines (like Google or Bing) or social media networks (like Facebook or Instagram). You can also pay for traffic from YouTube and TikTok.

Different traffic sources will work differently for you.

Increase your user conversion rates

Another way to get 25 patients is to increase user conversion rates. For example, let’s say that instead of 1% of users converting, you could get 2% to convert. That means that instead of 50 leads, you could get 100 leads. With everything other ratio remaining the same, you’ve doubled your practice.

How can you do that? Of course, you’ll need help from

  • someone who can read and interpret Google Analytics
  • someone who can write good copy
  • a web developer who can optimise website speed
  • A marketer who understands the sales funnel and how to convert users to leads

Here are six proven methods that will convert more users into leads:

  1. You can attract convertible users. First, determine which user sources convert better and get more of those. For example, if you notice that you convert better from organic users than users you pay for, you can get a higher quality of users by increasing your SEO efforts. SEO might include adding more searched content or optimising the content you have to rank better. You can tell which users convert better by interpreting visitor conversion data in Google Analytics.
  2. You can aim to convert more new users. You only have a few seconds to grab the attention of new users. That requires compelling copywriting that drives leads to convert. Take a look at the pages on which most new users land. What message are you communicating? Is it crystal clear within 3 seconds?
  3. You can improve your site speed. Website speed can have a marked positive impact on conversion rates. So it (literally) pays to optimise our website to load in under 3 seconds or less.
  4. You can create better landing pages. If you rely on paid traffic to get users to your website, you need to develop and optimise your landing pages to receive those users. Landing pages optimisation can range from 1 to 15%. Therefore, you must focus on optimising your landing pages to match the offer in your ads and compel users to convert.
  5. You can add more video to your website – video is proven to convert at a higher rate than text content alone. And these days, it’s easy to produce video that will work for you.
  6. You can offer an entry point offer like a self-test or a guide download or a patient webinar. The purpose of your entry-point offer is to convert a user into a consumer of information – or to move the patient down-funnel through the customer journey.
  7. You can offer online booking to increase the ease and speed of users booking first appointments without even needing to call your practice.

In summary, I’ve given you two ways to double your practice revenue by focusing on your website users alone.

  1. Increase your users
  2. Increase your user conversion rate

Furthermore, we’ve provided seven proven ways to increase your user conversion rate.

The next step is for you to take at least one of these ideas TODAY and set the wheels in motion towards implementation over the next 30 days.

Need help? Give us a call.

NOTE: The best way to answer that nagging question about practice growth or marketing or patient volume in the back of your mind is to book a free 15-minute compatibility call. Get some options and go away with a clear idea of what’s possible.

About the author

Rod Solar
Founder & Scalable Business Advisor / fCMO

Rod Solar is a co-founder of LiveseySolar and a Scalable Business Advisor for its customers. Rod mentors and coaches eye surgery business CEOs/Founders and their leadership teams to triple their sales, double their profit, and achieve their “ideal exit”.

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Meet our Founders

We’re passionate about helping leaders of high-quality, growth-minded practice owners double their practice revenue

Rod Solar

Founder & Scalable Business Advisor

Rod Solar is a co-founder of LiveseySolar and a Scalable Business Advisor / fCMO for our customers. Rod mentors and coaches CEOs/Founders and their leadership teams to double their sales, triple their profits, and achieve their “ideal exit”.

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LiveseySolar completely transformed the way we were approaching this… We’ve gone from having just the dream of having a practice to having a practice up and running with people making inquiries and booking for procedures… It’s extremely pleasing. We feel lucky we connected with LiveseySolar.

— Dr Matthew Russell, MBChB, FRANZCO, specialist ophthalmic surgeon and founder of VSON and OKKO

Laura Livesey

Founder & CEO

Laura Livesey is the co-founder & CEO of LiveseySolar. She has developed powerful refractive surgery marketing systems that increase patient volumes and profits for doctors, clinics, and hospitals, since 1997.

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Rod and Laura know as much about marketing surgery to patients as I know about performing it. They are an expert in the field of laser eye surgery marketing. They know this industry inside out. I believe that they could help many companies in a variety of areas including marketing materials, sales training and marketing support for doctors.

— Prof. Dan Reinstein, MD MA FRSC DABO, founder of the London Vision Clinic, UK