The test is the easy sale, the glasses are the one you are losing
An optometry practice has two revenue lines and a website that usually serves neither well: the eye test, which should book itself, and the dispense, which is quietly leaking to online retailers. Here is where both go.
Cause 1: eye tests are booked by phone from a busy shop floor
Someone has to stop dispensing to answer. Some calls get taken; the rest ring the practice down the road.
The symptom: a number and opening hours, or one generic "appointment" type.
The change: online booking with proper appointment types — standard test, contact lens check, children's test — each with the right duration. Optix, Ocuco and Acuitas handle it from the practice management side; Jane or Cliniko work for a simpler setup. Wrong-length appointments do as much damage as missed ones.
Cause 2: the patient has the prescription and buys the glasses elsewhere
This is the expensive one. You do the test, hand over a prescription, and an online retailer takes the dispense.
The symptom: no frame or lens pages, so there is nothing to keep the patient in your funnel after the test.
The change: pages for the ranges you stock and a plain page on why a fitted pair differs — measurement, lens quality, adjustment, aftercare. You will not win on price and should not try. You win on the part that cannot be posted.
Cause 3: nobody knows whether they qualify for a funded test
Most countries have some public or insurance-funded eye test scheme with eligibility rules almost no patient knows.
The change: a plain page on the scheme where you practise, who qualifies, and how to book that appointment type. It converts a price-sensitive visitor into a booking and it ranks for a search competitors ignore.
Cause 4: clinical extras are invisible
OCT scans, dry eye clinics, myopia management for children. Higher value, and usually a bullet on a services list.
The change: a page each, priced where you can, bookable. Parents searching myopia management are searching with real intent and very little competition.
Cause 5: registration and clinical credibility are not shown
The change: profiles with registration numbers and each optometrist's areas of focus. Patients who check registers are the patients who buy the better lenses.
Fix them in this order
Booking with correct appointment types first. The frame and lens pages second — they are the margin you are currently donating. The funded-test page third, because it is one page and it ranks. Then the clinical extras.
Where this sits
Our optometry practice websites ship with typed appointment booking and dispense pages, at a fixed price. The audit version is the optometry checklist. The wider clinic view is on the clinics page.