Every website must provide value. A medical website easily creates value by providing answers their patients health related questions. We do it every day.
To effectively market your medical practice on the Internet, your website should provide trusted, optimized medical information so it can rank high on search engine result pages (SERPS).
It all starts with providing value… and at no cost. You can’t generate traffic to your website if your website does not provide value to your visitors.
Click through ads (e.g. Adwords), social media platforms, and email blasts draw attention; however, it’s pointless to employ these tactics if your website can’t keep the attention of your visitors.
Why not try creating real value by providing credible information instead of buying them? I have found my time is much better spent creating value through content, rather than devising the next best click through ad.
Value is the key to driving traffic to your website. With time, value creates trust. For a medical practice, this is key to converting website visitors into paying patients. By building trust you are also increasing the value of your medical practice.
How do You Create Value
Our patients are desperate for information. They have lots of questions and want answers. The digital age has broadened their ability to access information, but what information is credible and relevant?
As health experts, we have the ability to create value by providing credible, relevant answers to the questions patients are asking. Rather than relying on advice from less credible sources on the Internet it is imperative that we provide information so patients can make informed decisions.
There is an easy way to do this. Everyday we use the same rehearsed speeches over and over again to educate our patients. A great way to create content is to write these canned speeches/answers down.
Taken one step further, you can also incorporate a Q & A section within your article. To do this, simply include the questions your patients typically ask and provide the answers.
For me, this content method has proved to be a great source of “value” not only for my practice, but also for my patients, prospective patients and their families. Writing down “answers” to my most frequently asked questions (e.g. How do you put the eye back in after surgery?) has been a huge resource for my “content” and provides tremendous value to my site.
If you regularly post to your website, your traffic will increase because search engines will increase your relative position on their search engine results page.
That is, you are providing timely, relevant, credible content that is aligned with the corresponding searches. This the crux of search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing.
3 Tips to Create Great Content:
•write about what you know;
•don’t give advice; and
•don’t make a diagnosis
If you do this everybody wins.
Give Away Your Knowledge, Not Your Expertise
Critics are concerned that we are discounting our profession and ourselves by “giving away” what we know. We aren’t.
Our ability to combine our knowledge and experience to make a diagnosis and to recommend a treatment plan is the value we provide to our patients.
There is an inherent difference between educating and treating. By no means would I advocate treating or diagnosing on the Internet. By providing content we increase our value not only to our patients, but also to society.
Creating valuable content raises awareness of your medical practice, increases your profile, and provides valuable information to those are searching. Start writing today and see the difference it can make for your practice and, more importantly, your patients.
How do you generate content for your medical website? Please share your ideas in the comment section below.
BTW – We never remove the eye because we don’t know how to put it back!
To Your Growth And Success!
Randy
Randall V. Wong, M.D.
Medical Website Optimization
www.MedicalMarketingEnterprises.com
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The Value of a Comment
The most valuable part of a website is the “comment.” The “comment” is the key to a blog’s success to engage a potential patient. Your goal is to create content that may generate comments.
Content is Still King
If you read enough about social media and content marketing, there is a lot of emphasis on the importance of great content. In fact, content marketing (and therefore SEO) are indeed the only way to achieve and maintain high search rankings.
The rankings get you marketing exposure. The comments (and your responses) engage the patient.
Value of the Comment
In addition to feedback, the value of a comment is to allow your readers to find each other. Readers can find others with the same problem. This ability to identify with others is crucial to developing a relationship between you and your next potential patient because this gives your reader an idea of how YOU will respond to THEM face to face.
Your articles certainly must contain relevant and fresh material, but in addition, should be compelling enough to move the reader to leave a comment (or ask a question).
Value of Responding
Your response is crucial. Your response does more than answer an isolated question. Your response creates a dialogue to be witnessed by subsequent readers.
The dialogue provides a way for the reader to learn about you, the physician. This is where you display your “bedside manner” showing bits and pieces of who you are as a person, your practice philosophy, etc.
What Can You Do?
By allowing comments to be posted on your site, you are demonstrating a willingness to engage your patients and are creating visual evidence of who you are as a person.
Social media, blogs, Internet 2.0 are all about relationships. It’s no different between patient and doctor.
Care to make a comment?
To Your Growth And Success!
Randy
Randall V. Wong, M.D.
Medical Website Optimization
www.MedicalMarketingEnterprises.com