Would you rather have 10 visitors to your site or 1,000 visitors to your site?
Careful, this is a trick question!
At first glance it would seem that the higher figure would be the most desirable. But that’s not necessarily so.
In the old days (just a few years ago!) it would be common amongst website owners to ask, “How many hits are you getting?” In this context, “hits” were the number of server requests to display website pages. It was a crude measurement of website traffic. The more hits, the more visitors. These days, website analytics software provides far greater reporting.
But you don’t want visitors. You want new patients!
When the dust settles what you’re actually interested in is “conversion.” That is, how many visitors actually become new patients.
If you get 1,000 visitors, but it only produces two new patients because upon visiting your site they discovered your practice was located too far away, what’s the point? On the other hand, if only 10 visitors arrive at your site, but four become new patients, the higher conversion is far more desirable.
In fact, having a lot of visitors coming to your site and then leaving (called a “bounce”) can work against your search engine ranking! (Our SEO Department knows how to avoid this common problem.)
Remember, just because your practice is on the World Wide Web, it doesn’t mean you should expect patients to arrive from all across the world! Chiropractic, like all personal service businesses, is a local search.