Medical Marketing Enterprises, L.L.C.

Website Optimization, SEO, Reputation Management for Medical Practices

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.

We have partnered with GoDaddy to provide integrated and virtual hosting services for your website.  Basically, “Sunrise” can function as your virtual IT person acting as a go between you and your hosting provider.

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 Pages 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!

WordPress Revisited | Is Your Website Built on the Best Platform?

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Wordpress is best platform for building websitesThis post mirrors this weeks podcast on Russ and Randy where we discuss the advantages of WordPress.

For many reasons, WordPress.org is absolutely the best platform to use to build your website.

WordPress.org is the world’s most popular CMS sytem.  CMS stands for Content Management System and can be best thought of as “blogging software.”  There are other popular CMS systems such Joomla or Drupal, but WordPress is the best.

Not WordPress.com

There are two similar products names WordPress:  WordPress.org and WordPress.com.  They even share the same logo.  For the purposes of this post, I am not referring to the “.com” version and when using the term “WordPress,” I’m referring to WordPress.org.

WordPress.com is a completely free blogging system.  Suffice it to say that it has too many restrictions, can not add functionality nor can it be optimized compared to the WordPress.org version.  You also do not have control over you files (they reside on a server of which you have no control or access).

I do not recommend WordPress.com for any business.

13 Reasons to Use WordPress.org

  1. Best for SEO – this is the best platform which allows you to optimize your site and your content (articles, posts, pages, etc.).  It is also coded to be easily and efficiently crawled by the search engines.  Google loves WordPress (so I read).
  2. User Friendly – if you can use Microsoft Word, you can use and operate a WordPress.org website.  You do NOT need IT experience or even need to know how to code.  Keep in mind that this is my preferred platform – that means I have even learned how to use it!
  3. Open Source – this allows multitudes of 3rd party developers to enhance the basic product.  WordPress enjoys the largest selection of 3rd party themes, add-ons and plugins.  As it is the largest and most popular in the world, the WordPress community is always updating and improving.
  4. Most Popular Platform – as the largest and most popular system, it has millions of users.  This translates to unlimited forums and “resources” available to help you when you run into a problem.  Chances are high that many have faced the same problem as yours.
  5. Turn-key Design – WordPress themes can be installed or switched out with click.  No need for website designers.  This flexibility in design, the way your website looks, can save you literally thousands of dollars.
  6. Mobile Responsive – similar to #5, most current WordPress themes are mobile responsive – no need to waste time and money building a mobile responsive site.
  7. Server Based means that you can work on your site from any Internet connection, even your phone.
  8. “Self-Hosted” means that you need to purchase a hosting account (GoDaddy, Bluehost, Hostgator), but it also means you have complete control and ownership of your files.
  9. Free installation – any legitimate hosting company will offer installation for…free.
  10. Versatile – WordPress.org offers the most plugins which means that WordPress is more functional and versatile than any other system.  You can even do eCommerce easily!
  11. Best Blogging Software – this was built for blogging, for our purposes, this allows to easily add content.
  12. Sophistication – regardless of the what your needs are, this platform grows with you as your expertise improves.  For instance, maybe you are not ready to open up comments or blog.  You can easily do it later.
  13. Search Engine Friendly – It is also coded to be easily and efficiently crawled by the search engines.  This gives you an SEO edge.

If you have any reasons (for or against) you’d like to add, please comment below.

All the best!

Randy

Use Analytics to Increase Rankings and Website Traffic

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Use Website Analytics to Increase Your TrafficEvery website needs to have an analytics package installed.  It is an SEO requirement of all the search engines and the data gives you information to improve your content and maximize the growth of your website.

What is Analytics

The gold standard is Google Analytics.  While it is free, you must start a Google account.  The easiest way is to simply start a GMail account.

With the same login information, you then create an analytics account.  Google gives some code to insert within your website to allow tracking to begin.

If you are lost at this point, you should best talk to your IT person or web developer for help.  Don’t worry, you only have to do this once.

Analytics tracks data on all kinds of topics;

  • Website traffic – # of visitors
  • Specific browser used
  • Devices used (i.e. laptop, smart phone, desktop)
  • Internet company
  • IP address
  • Geographic location of visitor
  • Time spent on website
  • Popular topics
  • Etc.

Analytics Improves SEO

Having an analytics package installed on your website improves your overall SEO.  An analytics package is expected by the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo all expect you to have an analytics code contained on your site).  Those having one rank better than those lacking a package.

Value to Your Practice

To keep your website fresh and interesting, you’ll want to publish articles that are interesting to your readers.

For instance, when I first started my clinical website, www.retinaeyedoctor.com, I assumed that writing about the 3 most popular retinal diseases would automatically attract lots of readers.

Analytics showed I was wrong.  For instance, analytics showed me that when I wrote articles on retinal detachments, my traffic soared.

Analytics data will keep your website topics fresh, interesting and relevant to your readers needs.

Just as important, with analytics, you can determine which browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome) is the most favorite of your readers.  You can also figure out which type of device is used most often to visit your site.

If most of your readers are using Chrome on a smart phone, you will want to ensure that your website is mobile responsive and performs, as you expect, on the Chrome browser.

Not every website looks and behaves the same across all the browsers.

The more traffic you build, the better your practice can grow.

Websites Have Two Goals | What’s Your Call To Action?

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Call to ActionA “Call to Action” is an instruction, commonly on a clickable button or hyperlink, to get your reader to initiate an action.

In order to effectively grow your practice, your website has two simple goals.  These Calls to Action simply invite your readers to subscribe to your email list or call for an appointment.

In web design, Call to Action examples appear as a clickable banner, button or some type of graphic.  A CTA is integral to inbound marketing and is a common way to coax a reader to “take the next step.”

Some examples of common “Calls to Action”;

Click Here
Download
Call Now
Purchase
Free Trial
Free Consultation

In medicine, we just need two Calls to Action.  Read on.

Why Everyone Needs a Call to Action

The purpose of your website is to grow your practice.  Get your potential readers to follow through on 2 tasks and you will succeed.

Your website is to build your practice, therefore, your website’s Call to Action will be to either;

  1. Subscribe to your email list
  2. Call to make an appointment

Subscribe Now

Potential patients are likely to subscribe to your email list to receive your updates on your website.  These patient education articles will build trust…and eventually your potential patient may call and make an appointment.

Call to Action Subscription Optin

Your “Subscribe Now” opt in box should be somewhere in the upper right quadrant of your home page and “above the fold,” that is, you should be able to see it on the top half of your website when viewed on a desktop or laptop.

Call Now

Readers should be encouraged to “Call Now” to make an appointment.

The “Call Now” CTA can be a simple button on your mobile screen which can initiate a phone call.  For your laptops and desktop versions, you have a CTA with visible phone number at the end of your articles and also on your “Contact” page, etc.

For WordPress users, Call Now Button is a plugin that creates a “call” button on the smartphone versions of your website.  By simply pushing this button, your next potential patient can call and make an appointment.

In healthcare and medicine, we simply need to our readers to follow 2 Calls to Action.  Make sure your website ask them to do so.

Randy

 

 

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