We wish you a healthy and prosperous new year.
However you choose to spend this holiday season, come back refreshed and keep working on your site…
Happy New Year.
Randy
Medical Marketing Enterprises, L.L.C.
Website Optimization, SEO, Reputation Management for Medical Practices
We wish you a healthy and prosperous new year.
However you choose to spend this holiday season, come back refreshed and keep working on your site…
Happy New Year.
Randy
Time to write your first article. After purchasing your URL, hosting and installed WordPress.org, you can start writing. We recommend writing 3 “anchor articles” to start your new website.
Anchor articles are the first piece of creating content for your site . Published as a page (vs. a post), the article will be indexed on your navigation bar. Thus, these 3 pages will always be available to your visitors.
I would suggest you choose 3 areas that are strengths of your medical practice. For instance, I am a retinal specialist and my 3 anchor articles are reviews of macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and retinal detachments.
Choose 3 areas where you would like to rank highly. These areas are usually the “bread and butter” of your practice. Overtime, you’ll create links to these articles from future posts you’ll publish. Hence, with time, you’ll create a large keyword base focused on these three topic areas.
Write your articles as general overviews and NOT comprehensive, in-depth reports about your topic. Suppose you have a general ophthalmology practice. Here are some suggestions about sub-headings in the form of a question (remember, patients have questions and your website should provide answers);
In the future, you can (and should) write shorter posts (small articles on your website) about a certain aspect of the larger general “anchor” article and will create a hyperlink from your post to your anchor article. These “internal links” are part of building good, solid SEO (search engine optimization).
After you have written your 3 articles, you’ll construct shorter pieces. Each post should be at least 300 words and be focused on one topic. For instance, in the cataract example, you might consider an article on the types of implants used on in cataract surgery, or better yet, an article each about the various types of intraocular implants.
If there are five implants, write five posts. Now you’ll have five more articles indexed on your site talking about cataract surgery and related implants. Google will determine your content involves keywords involving ophthalmology, cataracts and implants.
Your site will begin to rise very shortly for these related areas.
After your have purchased your URL, hosting and installed WordPress.org, your next tasks are to start a GMail account, install Google analytics and register your site on WebMaster Tools.
All these are Google products, are free and require a Google/Gmail account.
Go to Gmail.com. There will be a link to create your new Google Account. It is free.
“Create an Account” and follow the directions. This will now give you a username and password for all of your Google products, e.g. Google Analytics and Webmasters Tools.
Installing an analytics package onto your website is one of the first things you need to do with your new site.
Analytics allows you to monitor your traffic and behavior of your visitors. Good analytics can tell you;
In short, analytics allows you to find out about your readers: what they like to read.
Remember, your goal is to rank your website high to get new patients. Valuable, highly ranked sites get there by providing information relevant to the users’ (patients’) search query.
For instance, I found that many of my followers like information on retinal detachments. I noticed this by reviewing my Google Analytics data. Articles on retinal detachments are read more often than any other topic on my site.
Thus, I know that I’ll attract more readers if I continue to write on retinal detachments.
Google also offers this free tool. Webmasters tools can do many things (see below), but this is the best way to submit your site to Google. If your site is new, you want to tell Google that you have a new site so you will be indexed. Google can not rank your site if it does not know you exist.
If you have an older site, it is may already be indexed.
With Webmasters Tools, you can;
Perhaps the most important function second to allowing Google to index your site is to verify that you have a sitemap on your webpage and that it works. A sitemap is basically a file on your site that functions as a table of contents for the search engine bots.
Search engines look for a sitemap, without a sitemap your pages may not get indexed. Without indexing, you may not rank. It’s important for your SEO rankings.
When you choose “hosting” for your medical website, use the same company from whom you bought the URL. Try to keep things simple for yourself, no need to add another variable such as an additional vendor. Usually you can buy both the URL and hosting at the same time.
There are a variety of hosting choices available for you. All you need is “shared hosting.” You need to choose a plan that is; affordable, reliable uptime, 24/7 customer support and can run WordPress.org. These are basic requirements and are provided by most hosting companies.
All other “higher” forms of hosting really differ with respect to handling traffic, security and bandwidth.
There are completely free types of hosting. Two popular, and again, completely free, are;
They function and are indexed as well as any other, but there are limitations to design, functionality and SEO. It may be a good place to get your feet wet, but if you want to do this right, and still very cheaply, then start off with the recommendations below.
Instead of setting up an account on a 3rd party’s server, you have free space on the respective servers here. Simply go to these sites and sign-up.
Instead of the completely free sites, we recommend using anyone of the companies listed below and looking for shared hosting plans.
Shared hosting is the most popular and affordable form of hosting other than free. For a small business, such as medical practice, this is all you will probably ever need. It offers complete flexibility as your website grows, can accommodate more visitors than you ever hope, and has virtually no requirements for learning how to maintain your site from the IT perspective.
With your shared hosting plans, the many websites are using the same server and the resources are “shared.” At times, this may slow the download speed of your site.
Purchase an account (through our affiliate link please!) and host your site with one of the following companies.
They all offer:
At this writing, we prefer Bluehost.com for the following reasons;
For our purposes, both virtual and dedicated hosting are options that you may consider if your traffic exceeds what normal shared hosting can provide. Unless you have thousands of visitors a day occupying your bandwidth with large file transfers (both unlikely with a medical website) you probably do not need either of these levels.
Also, with virtual and dedicated hosting, you will mostly likely need to be responsible for maintaining your server. Increased cost and increased IT responsibility. Remember, we are doctors.
These are the new wave and, for now, might be a better consideration if you mature beyond the needs of shared hosting. Cloud servers offer the advantage of reliable uptime as multiple “copies” of your site are always available and, thus, your site is not affected natural disasters, equipment malfunctions, etc.
This situation also requires you to provide your own IT support. With more and more offices equipped with your own servers, this may be a viable option for you. Of course, you must provide your own IT support.
Still advertise in the Yellow Pages? Is your marketing strategy using the right medium?
Long gone are print, radio and TV. They are obsolete. The only means of advertising other than the Internet is….a billboard.
It’s your choice! You either meet the needs of your patients, or you don’t.
This long time favorite can still be found in some areas of the country, but all too often this bright yellow bag goes right from the end of our driveway to the recycling bin. There just isn’t any reason to keep 10 pounds of bound newsprint in the house. Even if it comes in color.
Still, many medical practices still pay hundreds and thousands of dollars a years to maintain the same 1/4 page ad they’ve had for years. I suppose it’s tradition. For the same money you’d spend for a quarter page ad, you could create a marketing strategy for the next few years.
BTW – Verizon just stopped publishing the “white” pages in many parts of the country offering a digital version instead.
Advertising on radio and TV is just not cost effective. It has always been expensive and impossible to track. Moreover, with MP3, iPod, YouTube, DVR, there are countless ways to avoid marketing efforts over radio and tv.
We choose to listen to our own stuff; music, podcasts, satellite and rarely listen to the radio. We are no longer forced to listen to someone else’s programming….we do our own, and commercial free.
We can watch our favorite TV programs over the Internet (Hulu, Netflix, OnDemand, Slingbox), at any time, usually free and without commercials. About the only demographic left to watch TV commercials are the sports fans, but even then, DVR let’s us skip through commercials.
Billboards still exist in most places of the country. Every once in a while, you actually do see a medical practice advertising along the highway. Billboard advertising is still a possibility…if it appeals to you.
It’s not that the Internet is the only medium left, but it’s also the best medium. It’s where our patients are flocking and spending most of their time. The Internet differs in so many way than conventional/uni-directional means of advertising and marketing.
The Internet offers more than convenience. The Internet gives your patients the chance to customize the way in which they learn and conduct research.
Patients have become pro-active. Taking responsibility for their own health. The Internet has allowed this responsibility to develop. Creating a web presence allows you to be found by those patients that are looking for you.
It is the only medium where they can contribute, share and express ideas. It is the only medium where they can participate and select the type of information that appeals to them.
The Internet lets patient become educated consumers that don’t necessarily succumb to traditional advertising. Traditional advertising is gone…obsolete.
As you plan for your marketing strategy for next year, make sure you have a web page, make sure it’s a blog and make sure to keep it up to date.
No more Yellow Pages, radio or TV….or even a billboard.
Let Medical Marketing Enterprises exceed your expectations and help you grow your medical practice.