Medical Marketing Enterprises, L.L.C.

Website Optimization, SEO, Reputation Management for Medical Practices

3 Reasons to Use Video to Expand Your Following

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YouTube Video to Improve Patient EducationVideo is quickly becoming a preferred medium for the Internet.  YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.  Google is the largest.  YouTube is a search engine for video.

According to Fortunelords.com, YouTube:

  • 30,000,000 (million) visitors a day watch 5,000,000,000 (billion) videos a day
  • 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
  • 1.3 billion people use YouTube
  • Mobile YouTube viewing sessions are > 40 minutes

Video has a lot of appeal.  Let’s see why you should consider adding video to your website.

Appealing and Practical

Video requires different skills compared to the written article.  Watching and listening to a video is easier and more practical than reading an article.  Watching and listening is more easily accomplished when driving, riding a subway or etc.  It is also easier to do on a larger variety of devices, i.e. it’s far easier to consume a video on a smartphone compared to reading a blogpost.

Because video requires the use of different skills, it appeals to different types of learners – those who prefer watching and listening compared to just reading.  This allows you to expand your reach and increase your followers by exposing yourself to a different pool of viewers.

Video is Better

Video is much better for certain subjects than a typical written article.  For instance, I upload many surgical videos to my YouTube channel (then embed them on my website).  Surgery is much better appreciated visually.  Effectively writing about surgery is very difficult and pales in comparison to the visual form.

Visitors can see and hear you with video and is, therefore, much more engaging than a simple article.  Video conveys more information about you as a person.

Video Should be Cheap

You do NOT need to use professionals for your videos, in fact, I recommend using your own equipment and production tools.  You probably already have everything you need to upload a video to YouTube.

Use a smartphone or computer camera.  The most important elements of your video are;

  • The content – what do you have to say?
  • Visually engage – your followers can see you
  • Audio awareness – your visitors can hear you
  • Transparency – what kind of person are you?

Professionally produced videos take away from your transparency and make you less credible.  These are two crucial elements to gaining a visitors trust.

I will share some nice tips and tools in an upcoming post.

All the best,

Randy

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

 

Two Birds with One Click | Updating Your Digital Platforms Automatically

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Automatic Updates for your website and social media | Healthcare and Medical Internet MarketingWith one click you can update your website and your social media platforms.  Automating the process will streamline the process and make updating your entire digital presence easy…and fun!

Connect Website to Social Media

Most CMS (content management systems such as WordPress) can be automatically connected or linked to your social media accounts.  Once you publish a new article on your website, a plugin will automatically generate a link on your social media account notifying your followers of your article.

For instance, once an article is published on my retinaeyedoctor.com site, a link is automatically sent to Facebook and Twitter.  A link, not the article, is posted.

Connect Website to Email Handler

On websites with RSS (most, but especially WordPress), updates are sent to an email handler. Email handlers (email marketing, email autoresponder) take the RSS feed and generate emails to your followers, subscribers and patients with information about your new article.

So far you have automatically updated your entire following, subscribers to your website and followers on your social media platforms…with one click.

Other Time Savers

Re-purpose Your Content

Publishing the same content using audio files is a great time saver.  For instance, a video can be repurposed on a podcast.  The audio file can be easily converted to a podcast and also be transcribed for use on your website.

Editorial Calendars

These can save you time by developing a process to create articles from ideas/topics to actual publication.  It is a great way to keep track of the progress of your articles/content.

Templates and Blueprints

Developing a routine is crucial to producing content efficiently and decreasing the amount of work needed for each publication.  Whether you are writing an article, recording a video or podcast, templates and blueprints are terrific ways of keeping you organized and improving efficiency!

The more you can do to improve efficiency, reduce drudgery and make your digital efforts, the more you will enjoy your marketing project.

If you have questions or concerns, please leave a comment below!

All the best!

Randy

New Podcast!

In August 2016, Russell Faust, M.D. and I launch a new podcast on Healthcare and Medical Internet Marketing. I invite you to download on iTunes and subscribe to our blog, RussandRandy.com!

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Healthcare and Medical Internet Marketing
Healthcare’s Rx for Web and Social
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Where to find Content | Content Marketing for Healthcare and Medicine

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Content Marketing | Medical Marketing Enterprises | Healthcare and Medical Internet MarketingYour content (the articles your write, posts, videos, etc.) is the most important part of your digital marketing campaign.  It is not only vital for any one interested in healthcare and medical Internet marketing, but for everyone who uses a website as a marketing tool.

Your content is the key to getting high rankings with the search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo.  Your content is also the key to converting readers into followers and then patients.

Every healthcare and medical website needs content.

SEO Rankings and Engagement

The content (articles, post, pages on your website) will get indexed and if properly optimized will get ranked by Google.  The better, and more relevant, the higher your rankings.  The best ranking webpages are those which have been written well and have been optimized.

The same content has another purpose.  Your articles will be answering questions.  Better yet, your content should be educating and informing your readers.

This brings value to your readers.  From value, develops trust.

Value and trust are the first steps to engaging your readers to convert them to become a patient.

So website content has a dual purpose:  to achieve and maintain high Google (i.e. search engine) rankings and patient engagement.

Sources of Content

Fortunately, we, as health providers, have an endless source of content.  The answers and explanations we give routinely in response to commonly asked questions are great sources of content…they are well rehearsed and “written” exactly for our patients.

Use your explanations to serve as patient education articles, posts and pages.

Many of us also have patient education pamphlets adorning our clinic walls.  Paraphrase the articles found in the pamphlets – avoid directly copying the content.  Google frowns upon duplicate content.

You may also provide links to authoritative websites.  While this is not great for your SEO, it still does provide value to your patients.

Curate medical journals.  Analyze the articles you read in your medical journals and explain the relevance and significance to your readers.   Your opinion and analysis can provide your readers with tremendous value.

Write to Engage Your Reader

Here are a few suggestions to make your writing more engaging.

  • Write in the first person point of view (I, we, me, my)
  • Limit each article to just 1 or 2 subjects – avoid the temptation to “show-off” your vast knowledge
  • Length of articles should be 300-500 words.  Too short may not get indexed and too long will bore your reader
  • Avoid clinical jargon and fancy language, write at the level of an 8th grader
  • Write as though your perfect patient were seated directly in front of you, do not write as though you were speaking to a packed auditorium

Podcast on Healthcare and Medical Internet Marketing

Russ Faust, M.D and I just launched a podcast on Healthcare and Medical Internet Marketing. I’d love if you tried us out and gave us a review on iTunes.

Thanks for reading, following…and listening.

If you have a comment, question or concern….just leave below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!

To Your Success,

iTunes Cover Art“Randy”
Randall Wong, M.D.
Healthcare and Medical Internet Marketing
Healthcare’s Rx for Web and Social
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SEO for Healthcare & Medicine | Content, Keywords and Tags

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Keywords, tags and content | Healthcare and Medical Internet MarketingWhile SEO means search engine optimization, there’s some confusion as to exactly what gets SEO’d or “optimized.”

There are just 3 parts to “great SEO”;

  1.  The CONTENT of your website
  2.  COMPONENTS of your website
  3.  INBOUND LINKS to your site

This article will address how to properly “optimize” the content of your site.  It’s the most troublesome for most authors, yet the most important part to achieving the high rankings from the search engines.

“Content is STILL King!  Only your content will separate you from your competition.”

What Does “Optimization” Mean?

Optimization, or search engine optimization, is the process and tactics used to make your content most attractive and appealing to the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) to allow them to rank your webpage as high as possible.

As a gymnast must stick a landing, because that’s what the judges will find appealing, you must adorn your content with attributes and formats expected by the search engines.

For you to rank well, your content must be relevant to your reader and optimized for the search engines.  It must be interesting to the human and presented in a fashion to be understood by a computer.

Search engines rank and compare webpages based upon content.  The understanding of how this ranking works is the definition of search engine optimization.

Where Optimization Occurs

On every website platform exists a wordprocessor for you to write your article.  There are additional fields where you can supply additional information needed by the search engines to rank you well.

This information includes the <title tag>, meta description, snippet and keywords.  These elements are not visible to your reader, but are understood by the search engine and allows them to best index and categorize your webpage (i.e. “optimize”).

If you don’t take the time to complete these fields, the search engines will determine this information for themselves – allowing for errors, omissions and less than optimal SEO.

Remember that the content gets you the rankings you want through SEO and the starts the process of engaging your next patient!

All the best!

To your success!

“Randy”
Randall Wong, M.D.
Healthcare and Medical Internet Marketing

New Podcast on Healthcare and Medical Interenet MarketingNew podcast: Just started a new podcast with Russell Faust, M.D. on Healthcare and Medical Internet Marketing.

Thanks for following!

Randy

 

 

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