Ryan DixonPage speed check
Is your website costing you patients?
Type in your clinic’s website and three numbers. Google’s own speed test checks how fast it loads on a mobile, then we work out what that means for your clinic.
Checking
Nearly there
Google is loading your website on a mobile, the way a patient would. It runs the test three times at once and we take the average, so one slow moment doesn’t skew your result.
This usually takes 10 seconds to a minute. The slower your website, the longer the wait: if your site takes 30 seconds to load, the test can’t finish any quicker than that. Please keep this page open until your results appear.
- Loading your site on a mobile
- Running it three times for a fair reading
- Working out the numbers
While you wait
Your results will show you:
- how many people are likely leaving before your website loads;
- what that could be costing you in new patients and pounds;
- what each new patient costs you in ads, now and if your site were faster.
Did you know? At 3 seconds, about 11 in 100 people leave a website before it loads. At 6 seconds, it’s about 46 in 100. (Source: Pingdom.)
We couldn’t test that site just now
Roughly how long does it take to load on your phone?
Some websites block automatic tests, or Google’s test is busy. Open your site on your phone and count the seconds until the page appears.
Or email me and I’ll run it for you.
Every figure here is an estimate (~ means roughly). The audit checks them against your real numbers.
What that’s potentially costing you
Your ad spend for each new patient
Think you already know your cost per new patient? It can look lower than it really is, for example when your ad reports take credit for people who’d have found you on Google anyway, or count a tap on “Book” as a booking. Checking it is part of the audit.
So why show you this?
Because page speed is just one example of a bigger idea. Before someone becomes your patient, they go through a few steps: they find you, they look at your website, and they book. You lose some people at every step, and small improvements at each one build on each other. Your website already does well on speed, so the gains are more likely in the other steps: how many people find you, how many of them book, and how much each patient spends with you.
Your numbers
Here’s the same idea in numbers. Start with the people who find your website, then how many stay, then how many book, then what they pay. Multiply those together and you get your income from new patients. Only one number changes between these two rows: how many stay. Look what that does to the total.
Here’s the same idea in numbers. Start with the people who find your website, then how many stay, then how many book, then what they pay. Multiply those together and you get your income from new patients. “Stay on the page” is already strong for you. The audit looks at where the other numbers could move.
If it loaded in 3 seconds
- These are estimates. The two biggest assumptions are how many people visit your site and how many of them book. The audit measures both, properly.
- Already fully booked? Then more patients may not be the goal, but the audit can still show where your marketing is wasting money. On our call, we’ll talk about how many new patients you can actually take on.
Change our assumptions
Know your real figures? Change them and the results update.
We’ve assumed about 3 in 100 visitors who stay go on to book (the conversion rate), and a target load time of 3 seconds.
How this is worked out
- Visitors a month: .
- How many stay: from Pingdom’s research on load time and visitors leaving (the table alongside). We use their figure for your load time, rounded to the nearest second, exactly as it appears in the table.
- How many book: about 3 in 100 of those who stay. Our estimate, not a measured figure for your clinic.
- Cost per new patient: your monthly ad spend ÷ new patients a month from your website, now and at 3 seconds.
- Income: new patients × your first appointment price. The “across all their visits” figure uses what a typical patient spends with you in total. Yearly figures are the monthly ones × 12.
- Load time: Google’s speed test, run three times on a simulated mobile, averaged. Readings: .
Share it with your practice manager or business partner: they’ll see the same numbers.
The bigger picture
Page speed is one piece of the puzzle. The audit looks at the bigger picture.
This page shows what speed does on its own. But your income depends on every step a patient takes: how they find you, whether they book, and whether they come back. Small fixes at each step multiply together.
Not 10% more, and not 30%: about a third more, because each step builds on the one before.
And filling empty slots is worth more than it looks. Your rent, electricity and front desk cost the same whether your diary’s 70% full or 85% full. Even if your practitioners take a share of each appointment, the rest of the fee from a filled gap is mostly profit, because those costs are already paid. Hiring another practitioner to bring in the same money usually means another room, more equipment and more admin.
On our call, we’ll look at which steps are leaking most for your clinic.