The Digital Marketing Metrics You Should Track for Your Therapist Website
For many of your patients, your website is their first interaction with you. It’s where they learn about your qualifications, your areas of specialization, your experience, and even your approach to the therapeutic process.
In other words, it’s an important extension of your practice, making more than a few first impressions on your behalf.
In this article, we’ll explore some of the most important digital marketing metrics you should track to gauge the overall health and success of your website. We’ll define some key terms for you, give you an idea of what healthy performance looks like, and even include a few tips for improving performance.
Let’s get to it.
What Are Digital Marketing Metrics?
Digital marketing metrics are the statistics that indicate specific areas of performance for your website. These numbers are essential for marketing. They help you keep tabs on what’s working and what needs to be improved.
Digital Marketing Metrics Vs KPIs
Occasionally, you’ll hear folks talk about digital marketing metrics and KPIs (“key performance indicators”) as though the two terms are interchangeable. They are not. While some digital marketing metrics will pull double duty, also functioning as KPIs, not all of them will.
The key difference is that all KPIs are linked directly to your practice’s success. By contrast, digital marketing metrics are linked directly to your website’s success.
There’s potential for overlap, but these aren’t identical.
Why Digital Marketing Metrics Matter
You can use digital marketing metrics to set goals and targets for your website’s performance. Additionally, you can track these same metrics to determine if you’re meeting your goals. You can even use them to drill down and determine what, specifically, needs to be adjusted to improve performance.
Without metrics, it’s impossible to know if your website is succeeding or not.
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Not All Metrics Are Created Equal
Some digital marketing growth metrics look impressive but don’t affect the bottom line of your counseling business. These are sometimes called “vanity metrics.”
While vanity metrics (like how many likes your social media posts get on average) can sound impressive, there may not be a clear link to conversion.
That’s not to say that a high number of likes is bad. It’s not. But if you can’t turn those likes into new patients, what’s the point? You’re not trying to “win” Facebook. You’re trying to grow your practice!
In order to do that, you’ll need a more focused approach.
Digital Marketing Metrics to Track on Your Therapy Website
Here are the 5 metrics you should track, even if you’re brand new to digital marketing.
1. Traffic
Traffic matters for therapy websites. More traffic typically means more interest in your counseling services— if the new visitors are coming to you from the right locations for the right reasons.
Let’s look at several different forms of traffic.
Organic Traffic
Organic traffic comes from search engines. If you’re trying to improve SEO (“search engine optimization”), you’ll want this figure to increase.
Social Traffic
Social traffic comes from social media platforms. If you’re trying to drive engagement on Facebook or Twitter, this number could also be valuable.
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Direct Traffic
Direct traffic numbers tend to be low for a lot of businesses. That’s because this metric only counts people who browse directly to your website.
However, this figure is also telling. People won’t bookmark or remember your URL unless they’ve very interested in your services.
Referral traffic
Referral traffic shows traffic that comes from other sites. A high number here could mean your site received coverage from a popular psychology or medical site.
2. Average Time on Site
Average time on site is another example of a key metric. It can help you determine the quality of your traffic.
Folks who are interested in your counseling services will typically spend more time looking through your site. The industry standard for all websites is 2-4 minutes. If your visitors are spending less than a minute on your site on average, then you have an issue.
3. Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is another key metric and one that is often misunderstood. The bounce rate for a page refers to the percentage of people who come to your site but leave without browsing to another page.
In most cases, this means there wasn’t anything engaging on that page to pull the visit in. After all, they didn’t click on anything or explore at all.
But if the page they landed on includes your phone number or email address, it’s also possible they got what they needed without having to explore. In other words, bounce rate alone may not tell the whole story.
In general, an optimal bounce rate is between 26% and 40%. The average is about 50%.
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4. Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of people who perform a desired action on your site. On a counseling website, that could be filling out a contact form, calling for more information, or even making an appointment online.
A strong conversion rate indicates your SEO, paid ads and other strategies are bringing quality traffic to your website.
5. Keyword Ranking
Keyword ranking is your website’s place on a Google search for a specific keyword or search phrase. This ranking is essential for your counseling site because it indicates how easy it is for potential clients to find you online.
Most counseling practices will use keywords with a local focus so you’re competing against therapy websites in the same geographic area.
It’s worth noting, however, that keyword strategy is complex and difficult to master. If you are set on ranking for your services in your local area, you should seriously consider partnering with a digital marketing expert.
The First Step
Digital marketing metrics are critical for your website’s success. That said, they can also be intimidating.
But there’s good news. You’re taking the first step right now by learning the basics. And the next step is right in front of you.
Pick one metric (organic traffic is an easier one to start with) and start tracking it for your site. If you have no idea how to do that, consider reaching out to a digital marketing consultant to help with the process.
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