Medical Marketing Enterprises, L.L.C.

Website Optimization, SEO, Reputation Management for Medical Practices

Juggling Multiple Social Media Accounts

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How to Easily Manage Multiple Social Media Accounts | Randall Wong | Medical MarketingKeeping your website and social media up to date can be a real time crunch.  Here are a few ways to do it easily and efficiently.

Do you know you are able to auto post directly from your website to many of your social media accounts?  There are plugins which can allow you to auto post via the RSS feed of your site.

Consider, too, a social media dashboard such as Hootsuite, a platform that keeps all your social media platforms organized and open in one window.

Auto Posting From Your Website

If you have a social media account, there is likely a WordPress plugin allowing you to auto post from your WordPress site to the social media account of your choice.

Every time you publish a new post or article from your website, it automatically posts to your social media account!  It’s an easy way to keep your website, and your social media account up to date!  You can even “customize” the post after the RSS has been received.

For example, this plugin allows you to auto post to your Facebook account or page as soon as you hit the publish button on your website!

Facebook Auto Post WordPress Plugin – AccessPress Facebook Auto Post

And here’s a similar plugin for LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Auto Publish

Hootsuite | Manage Everything in Same Window

It’s difficult to manage multiple social media accounts, but Hootsuite allows you to manage multiple accounts with same dashboard and with a single browser window!  Logging in separately to each individual account becomes obsolete.

Login to your Hootsuite account and you have instant access to ALL your social media accounts.  You can manage posting efficiently and effectively.

If nothing else, platforms such as Hootsuite reduce the drudgery of logging in separately to each and every account you maintain.   With a single login, you have access to all your accounts (and only one password to remember, too!).

Hootsuite offers some awesome upgrades, such as the ability to add polls or quizzes to your posts.   This is a great way to engage your audience.

All the best,

Randy

Google Ranks Web Page, Not Websites |

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Google Ranks Web Pages Not Websites | Healthcare and Medical Internet MarketingSearch engines rank individual web pages wherever and whenever possible.  This means each of your web pages might rank well for a particular keyword given the assumption you’ve paid attention to SEO.

Understanding that search engines rank individual web pages focused on keywords will help you avoid a common SEO blunder.

Each of your providers should have their own “About” page, and here’s why.

Keywords

Keywords are pretty tricky to understand, but for our purposes are synonymous with topic or subject.  Each or your articles must be focused around 1 (or possibly 2) keyword or topic.

The topic of your article should be the keyword for which you want to rank.

Best practices dictate that the keyword should appear in certain locations of your article:  the title, subheaders and comprise no more than 2.5% of the total words of the page.

YOAST SEO Plugin

This is the probably the best SEO plugin around.  The free version is terrific and I have been using it for years after letting go of a paid optimization service.

YOAST will walk you through the process of optimizing each of your articles so that you may maximize your opportunity for high rankings.

The About Page(s)

Each of your providers should have a separate “About” page.  Cramming all providers onto the same page gives you only one page to rank for the services your provide.

Chances are that your providers each specialize in one facet of your practice.  This should be your keyword.  For instance, as a retina specialist, my about page should be focused on the keyword “retina specialist.” (Admittedly, it’s two words, but one keyphrase.)

If all your specialists are grouped on the same page, it becomes very difficult for that one page to rank any specialty. A single webpage can realistically rank well for only one or two keywords.

By creating separate pages, you now have multiple opportunities to rank!

 

The Secret to “Writing” Effective Content Without Writing

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Alternatives to Writing Content for Your Website | Healthcare and Medical Internet MarketingAll of us hate to write.  Written text articles, however, are the best for our website search engine optimization (SEO) and rankings.

There are alternatives to producing content without the standard rigors of creating original content on a routine basis.

Writing Without Writing

PowerPoint presentations are popular amongst physicians because all of us like to talk and we have all given lectures to a town hall, rotary club or church group to market ourselves.

PowerPoint lectures are great for your SEO for two reasons;  1) PowerPoint presentations are considered “text” files for the search engines and 2) you can create narratives of the actual presentation.

Uploading the actual .ppt file and posting on your site is perfect for your SEO.  Search engines rank text files (i.e. written text articles) the best.  A PowerPoint presentation can be indexed just like your written article.

You might also consider writing down the narrative of your presentation and posting as well!

Video

Video is also a nice alternative to writing.  Video by itself does not have the same impact on your SEO as a published article, but publishing the narrative of the video is an excellent alternative for your SEO.

This is a great model as you are able to post on two different types of platforms (video/audio and text).

Podcast

I produce a weekly podcast with my co-host Russell Faust, M.D.  Our website, RussandRandy.com, a website on Healthcare and Medical Internet Marketing, was created to run parallel to our podcast.

After each podcast episode, we post an article to our website featuring the same topic as the episode.  It’s an easy option to creating original content on a weekly basis.

All the best!

Randy

 

Web Hosting | Choosing Your Level of Service

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Web Hosting | Medical Marketing Enterprises | Bethesda MDWeb hosting plans differ in the level of service provided to maintain the servers needed to keep you website up and running and secure.  There are various levels of security, IT support and monitoring each company (such as GoDaddy, Bluehost, Rackspace, Synthesis) will provide.

With respect to services provided, here is a list of various types of hosting you can obtain:

  • Free
  • Shared/Self-Hosted
  • Managed
  • Dedicated

Free Hosting

This is absolutely free, but not recommended.

Free hosting (Wix, SquareSpace, Blogger, WordPress.com) provides hosting of your website and maintenance of their servers.  While attractive, you have no control over your files, have limited ability to rank your website (SEO) and are limited as to the functions you can install on your site.

Shared or Self-Hosting

This is probably the most common package and is what I actually use for most of our customers.  It requires a limited of technical know-how, but does not require actual IT experience.  You do not need to understand coding.

Every service you need such as monitoring, backup, malware protection, anti-virus scanning is available à la carte.  This obviously adds to the cheap monthly fee.

Any website problems you detect will be assisted by customer support, requiring your precious time on the phone.

Managed Hosting

Managed hosting provides all the services you will need to;

  • Monitor your website
  • Scan for malware
  • IT Support
  • Virus protection
  • Maintain Storage
  • Database management
  • Backup

For a slightly higher monthly fee, this may be the best value.  In essence, all the worrying is taken out of your hands, thus allowing you to spend your time growing and developing your website.

Dedicated Hosting

For most of us, this is too much.  Unless you are in a position to purchase or lease your own servers and provide IT support, this is an impractical hosting solution.

The 3 Most Important Page of Your Website Should be Converting New Patients

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3 Most Important Pages of Your WebsiteThis week, my podcast partner (Russell Faust, M.D.) and I talk about the 3 most important pages of your website.  The Home, About and Contact page are fundamental in turning a casual reader into your next patient.  It’s the first step in patient engagement.

How good are your 3 pages?

This post mirrors this week’s podcast on Russ and Randy where we discuss The 3 Most Important Page of Your Website.

The Home Page

In real estate, realtors want your front door to be representative and inviting.  So true is your home page.  The Home page must quickly convey your essential message about the goods and services that you provide.

The average person landing on a site decides in fewer than 3 seconds whether or not to click away or in Internet terms, “bounce” to another site.

A great home page should use a combination of graphics, images and text to quickly convey your main message and should do so “above the fold,” that is, your reader should not have to scroll down the page to realize your main message.

As a doctor, I know the temptation is to “wow” your reader with all your expertise, knowledge and experience, but this can really clutter a Home page and blur your message.  Try to be concise.

The About Page

If your reader (your next patient) likes what is on your Home page, the next logical step is to find out more about you and your practice.  The About page is your opportunity to describe who you are as a physician, as a person and perhaps your practice philosophy.  Great questions to answer here are;

  • What attracted you to medicine?
  • What you love about your practice?
  • What do you like to do when not a doctor?
  • What are the goals of your practice?

You may also choose to introduce some of the key staff members who are likely to spend time with your next patient at their appointment.  This is a great opportunity to start a relationship between your potential next patient and your staff – nothing bonds faster than seeing a “familiar” face when a new patient arrives in a new office.

The About page is not to be limited to just “you,” in fact, the About page should be “About the Practice.”

The Contact Page

“Contact Us” gives your next patient the opportunity to schedule an appointment.  The Home page attracts attention, the About page informs about the practice and the Contact page is the call to action (CTA).

It is common to list a phone, fax, address and email.  Do not list an email if you do not use email or no one checks the office email regularly.  Just list the contact information with which you are comfortable.

The Home, About and Contact page, if used successfully should enable you to convert casual readers into your next patient!

 

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