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Case Study: Medical Practice Web Marketing

Wed, 09 May 2012 13:51:43 -0400

Practice Profiles

Two doctors – one focused on primary care medicine and the other on subspecialty medicine – open new private practices in the same community.

Each doctor owns and operates the practice. Both physicians worked in the area before becoming independent.

Practice Needs

Both practices needed to raise awareness of their health-care services in their community. They needed to provide information to potential patients who learned about them through a friend or another doctor, and also to attract more new patients.

Marketing Recommendations

We recommended that both doctors build a website and create practice profiles in local search directories such as Google Places.

We made these recommendations because The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 35% of American adults look on the internet for information about health-care providers before they make an appointment.

We also recommended this approach because Americans search on words such as “doctors” plus the name of a city or town more than 10 million times per month in Google alone.

Marketing Campaign Details

We built websites for the physicians that described their education, experience, the health problems they treat, the insurance they accept, and the location of their offices.

We targeted the search engine optimization of each site at four sets of keywords:

the name of the doctor
the name of the practice
the name for practitioners in the doctor’s specialty (for example, “cardiologists”)
the city and state in which the practices are located

The goal of this search engine optimization was to help web users find our sites when they searched on keywords such as the doctors’ first and last names.

Local search profiles are important because the first page of search results are frequently dominated by listings from these profiles.

Marketing Campaign Results

A search engine optimization campaign is affected by more than 20 ranking factors, the competition for the keywords, and updates to the algorithms used to generate their results.

So far, we’ve been successful with our clients. Our websites typically need six months to begin ranking well for competitive keywords.

For the first three months of 2012, our site for the primary care medical practice earned…

2,535 impressions on Google Places local search results
1,559 visits from searches on the doctor’s name
478 visits from searches on the doctor’s specialty and location
More than 65 hours of engagement with the website’s content
An average of 4 new self-referred patients per week

For the first three months of 2012, our site for the subspecialty medical practice earned…

7,444 impressions on Google Places local search results
140 visits from searches on the doctor’s name
170 visits from searches on the doctor’s specialty and location
More than 9 hours of engagement with the website’s content
An average of 1 new self-referred patient per week

One reason we recommend practices begin with a website and local search marketing is that they are largely one-time investments.

Done well, they can require little money and time to maintain, but can deliver value for years. And they form an excellent foundation for other medical practice marketing activities.

Web Marketing Step 4: Measure Results

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:45:50 -0400

The last indispensable step to web marketing success is to measure your results, so you can keep doing what makes you money and stop doing what doesn’t.

1. Use Website Analytics, Conversion Tracking, and Call Tracking

The best way to measure the results of your web marketing is to track conversions using your website analytics, the conversion measurement tools of advertising programs like Google AdWords, and services that allow you to track the source of phone calls your website generated.

A conversion is a measurable action you want visitors to your website to take. It could be buying a product, downloading a white paper, making an appointment, completing a web form, calling a toll-free phone number, or another valuable activity.

Setting up some tracking is reasonably simple. You want your analytics program to record each time a visitor sees the “thank you” or action-confirmation page of your site. (For advertising platforms like AdWords, you’ll need to place a few lines of code on the page.) Call tracking can be more complicated, but there are good companies that can help you do it.

Once tracking is in place, you can see how many website visitors took that valuable action.

Even better, you can see how these new customers came to your site and what they did on the site before they converted.

For example, if your business has a Facebook page linked to your website, you can see how many people came from Facebook to your website, and how many of those became customers.

This will help tell you how well your investment in social media is paying in terms of direct sales. It will also help you measure how much “awareness” of your business you are creating, which may be as important to you as generating revenue.

The same tracking can tell you which keywords are making money and which ones aren’t, which will allow you to better target your organic SEO and pay-per-click advertising campaigns. And it will tell you what content on your site is driving business and what content isn’t.

2. Ask “How did you hear about us?” and Measure Trends

Not every business is going to find conversation tracking sufficient to measure the effectiveness of their web marketing.

For example, many brick-and-mortar businesses get customers walking through the door because of their web marketing, but they won’t be able to tell that just from their website data.

Offering discount coupons or special offer codes tied to your website or web advertising campaigns is one good way to capture this information.

Another way is to ask customers – after you’ve taken their money and thanked them – “How did you hear about us?” and write down the answers.

This isn’t the most precise way to measure results because you aren’t likely to get an answer more specific than “on the internet” and you won’t get an answer from every customer.

But it is a decent way to measure trends and averages, which you can then correlate against web marketing activities.

For example, if a year after you launch your website, you test a pay-per-click advertising campaign, you could reasonably attribute any increase you see in the number of customers saying “on the internet” to that campaign (assuming that the number of free visits to your site held steady).

A limitation to this approach is that you can only track one web marketing technique at a time. If you launch a new paid advertising campaign, a new Facebook page, and a new blog all at once, you might not be able to tell which one is increasing your business.

On the other hand, the “How did you hear about us?” approach allows you to the big picture of your marketing.

Unless your business is purely internet-based, some combination of word-of-mouth, referrals, networking, e-mail marketing, direct mail, print and other traditional media advertising, events, speaking engagements, volunteer work, free samples, contests, public relations – and much more! – probably drive your business.

If that is the case, you’ll want to track the impact of all those activities as well.

This series has been about web marketing, and web marketing is essential to the success of businesses today. But chances are pretty good it isn’t the only marketing you’ll need to succeed!

3 Reasons Your Business Needs a Website

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:17:47 -0400

I think there are three reasons to have a website for your business, which are …

1. Websites Are Essential to Your Professional Image

Businesses need a website and a domain-name email address to look serious in 2012. Not having these is the near equivalent of not having a business card or – a generation ago – not being in the phone book.

This doesn’t require you to spend a huge chunk of money on design, development, and content. But you do need a website that looks professional and provides basic information that’s well written.

2. Websites Convince Word-of-Mouth Customers to Act

According to the latest Pew Internet and American Life Project statistics, 60% of Americans now use the internet to research products and services before they make a purchase.

That means the majority of your customers and clients are going to Google the name of your business before they take out their wallets or pick up the phone – even when they have a recommendation from someone they trust.

Your website can help convince these potential customers to choose you by answering questions they typically ask. What these questions are differ from business to business.

Retail businesses will want to describe the products they sell, prices, hours, and location. Restaurants will want to post their menus. Professional services providers like doctors, lawyers, and financial advisors will want to discuss their education and experience. And so on.

Every business will want to highlight good reviews, recommendations, results, awards, certifications, licenses, insurances, and more.

The search engine optimization for the site should be focused on the name of the business and the names of the principal people associated with the business, so that when potential customers search for you – they find you.

3. Websites Earn You New Customers and Clients

Earning new customers and clients on the internet is the golden prize of web marketing. It is also much, much harder than presenting a professional image or convincing word-of-mouth customers to act.

One reason it’s harder is due to the way search engines work. Getting the website of “The Law Offices of Matthew Brownstone” (for fictional example) to rank well for the search phrase “law offices Matthew Brownstone” is usually not that difficult because there are not that many Matthew Brownstones in the world who are practicing attorneys.

Getting the same website to rank well for the search phrase “lawyers in Philadelphia” however is devilishly difficult because there are a lot of lawyers in Philadelphia, and all of them want to be found on the first page of the search results. (Specifically in the case of lawyers, there are many lead generation companies competing on the same search phrases, too.)

This means you will need to work harder, spend more time, and spend more money on your search engine optimization to get visitors to your site. You may well also need to buy advertising on and off the web.

Another reason it’s hard to win the golden prize of new business from the internet is that web leads are much colder than word-of-mouth leads.

When someone searches on the phrase “law offices Matthew Brownstone,” it’s pretty likely that person (1) needs a lawyer and (2) has a reason to think Matt Brownstone is a good one.

All the website needs to do in this case is make Matt look professional and competent. Then the person grabs the phone (and it’s up to Matt to close the client!).

When someone finds Matthew Brownstone’s website from a web search like “lawyers in Philadelphia” by contrast, this person doesn’t necessarily have a reason to think Matt is a good lawyer.

So the site needs to work much harder to convince that person to pick up the phone. There will need to be much more information on the website about Matt’s education, experience, areas of practice, and clients who are satisfied with his work.

Even then, fewer people on average will pick up the phone and call. So Matt will need to drive visitors to his website in volume to generate good leads.

The same is true for all kinds of businesses. This doesn’t mean that you can’t get a good return on investment from your website or use it to find new clients or customers.

It just means most of the time, it won’t easy, cheap, or fast.

Web Marketing Step 3: Turn Visitors into Customers

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:27:17 -0500

Getting lots of visitors to interact with your business website is great – unless none of them become a source of revenue. Then it’s not so great.

That’s why the 3rd indispensable step to web marketing success is to turn website visitors into clients or customers. Here are three techniques for doing this:

1. Tell visitors what to do (and make it easy)

2. Use discounts, sales, and special deals

3. Include no-risk and low-risk offers

For details on the previous steps, see our posts on how to get visitors to your website and how to keep visitors on your website.

Tell visitors what you want them to do

The first technique is the simplest. Tell visitors what you want them to do and make it easy to do it.

If you have an e-commerce site, make the “Buy Now” button easy to find for every product. Also make sure the check-out process is quick and simple to understand.

If you want people to request more information, put the words “Get more info now!” on the button. To request an estimate, “Get your free quote now!”. To sign up for a newsletter, “Subscribe today!”

If you want people to pick up the telephone, then the words “Call 000-000-0000” need to be easy to find on every page.

Be specific about the purpose of the call, too. To get people to make an appointment, follow your number with the words, “to make an appointment.” If it’s a reservation you’re after … the words you want are “to make a reservation.”

When the first consultation comes with no obligation, include that in the call to action.

Some business owners feel awkward using a strong call-to-action. Don’t be! You started your business because you believe in yourself. Let that belief show on your website.

Use discounts, sales, coupons, and special offers

The internet fundamentally changed how businesses market themselves. But the web hasn’t changed the reasons why people buy. Those are the same they’ve always been.

So don’t neglect tried-and-true sales techniques just because they were classics long before the internet took over everything.

People love sales, bargains, two-for-one deals, free shipping, cash back, reward points, coupons, gift certificates, limited-time offers, cheap financing, no money down, special terms – and much more!– just as much online as they do out in the world.

Many businesses also have the advantage of knowing how well these tactics work in the world outside of cyberspace. This is no guarantee they will also work with web customers too, but they are great places to start.

Make no-risk and low-risk options

Traditional sales offers are typically most useful to B2C companies and to businesses with straight-forward products or short sales cycles.

Sales and discounts are less helpful to professional service providers and consultants; to transactions that require complex proposals, specifications, or negotiations; and generally to B2B companies or businesses with a long sales cycle.

These kinds of companies will want their website to generate warm leads for their sales staffs, account executives, or business development personnel.

The first basic step to get these leads is to make all the ways to contact your company – including a web-based form – easy to find from every page of your website.

The second step is to include several no-risk and low-risk options that will help potential clients in the research stage of the sales cycle, and give you contact information to use as part of a customer relationship marketing campaign.

These low-risk offers could include white papers, case studies, webinars, invitations to educational sessions, subscriptions to newsletters, and more.

These techniques also build awareness of your business and create a positive image with potential clients, so when they are ready to talk, they pick up the phone and call you.

Web Marketing Step 2: Keep Visitors on Your Website

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:00:00 -0500

When we discuss marketing with clients, my business partner Liz and I like to say this about websites:

“Good design keeps web visitors from leaving in 10 seconds.”

“Good content keeps web visitors interacting for 10 minutes.”

As I discussed in my previous post, Step 1 to successful web marketing is driving visitors to your site. Step 2 is keeping them on your site. This post will discuss how to keep them.

Good design keeps website visitors from leaving

Good web design has a lot to do in 10 seconds. It must look professional and please the eye. It has to express a mood and make an emotional connection. And it needs to help tell people who you are and why they should care – fast.

This is because web users are often highly task-focused, particular when they are looking to buy goods and services. It’s also because a list of ten of your competitors is one click away from your website.

So your web design has to make people think and feel you are a good choice, in a few seconds, or they will move on to the next site.

Here are two examples. We focused the designs on the logos, in part because they help tell visitors who owns the site and what they do.

Note the colors on this law firm site are strong and cool, and the photos reinforce the focus on business. (Visit the website of this Evanston lawyer.)

By contrast, the colors for this doctor are warm and organic, which suit her emphasis on health and wellness. The lines are curved and flowing in contrast to the straight lines for the lawyer. (Visit the website of this doctor in Katy, TX.)

Design is also important to keeping visitors engaged with your site. Making sure the copy, images, video, and other elements of each page are well laid-out encourage visitors to stay.

Each page needs “focal points” or elements that the eye sees first. Focal points make your page layout clear, and avoid overwhelming visitors with twenty visual elements, all the same size, and all demanding the same attention.

Liz Swartz is our company’s chief designer. These are the principles she stresses to people when discussing their website design:

Pick one message
Pick one emotion
Keep your logo simple
Use colors to express mood
Select focal points with care
Select photographs with more care
Make navigation choices prominent
Limit copy to 250 – 300 words per page
Make sure pages load fast and are easy to index

Good content keeps web visitors interacting

Once the design has earned a visitor’s attention, it is the job of content to keep them engaged.

One easy way to create good content is to answer the questions your clients and customers commonly ask.

Remember that most website visitors – particularly for businesses – are task-focused. They are looking for information that tells them whether you are the best choice for their needs. So make sure you give it to them.

For professionals like doctors and lawyers, this information will be details about your education, experience, and areas of expertise. For restaurants, menus and wine lists. For retail stores of all types, what you sell.

A person visiting an e-commerce site wants to find compelling details on the products available for purchase as well as shipping costs, return policies, and other guarantees.

Brick-and-mortar businesses will want to include information about their hours, locations, types of payments accepted, parking, and driving directions.

All businesses will want to highlight client quotes, good reviews, awards, and certifications.

Good content can also be about providing information on topics which are relevant to what you do.

For example, an e-commerce site that sells kitchenware probably wants to offer cooking tips and recipes. A law firm that drafts wills could include basic estate planning advice on their website. Plants shops can provide information on how to maintain healthy gardens.

Answering these types of questions will keep visitors on your pages, increase awareness of your work, position you as an authority in your field, and create a positive feeling toward your company, all of which can lead to a new business relationship.

Keep in mind that your content can be video as well as images and text, and that video is more engaging to more people than words alone.

Humorous or entertaining content is also a good way to keep visitors on your website – but I would only use humor when it fits the personality of your business and then I would do it carefully.

A pet grooming business could have photos of its most satisfied customers. Businesses where there is a lot of personal interaction – barbershops, for instance – could include jokes that are appropriate for general consumption. A comedy club definitely wants to have videos of upcoming performers being funny. But be careful not to present anything that might make people not do business with you.

Because hiring you, doing business with you, is the whole idea. In our next post, we’ll discuss how to convert these website visitors into clients and customers.

Web Marketing Step 1: Drive Website Traffic

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:37:30 -0500

As I discussed in my overview post on web marketing success, the first step to building your business on the internet is to drive visitors to your site. There are three main methods for getting relevant website traffic:

1. Search engine optimization (frequently concentrated on local search)

2. Pay-per-click internet advertising such as Google AdWords

3. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

Each of these sources require different techniques, and not all are right for every business. Read on for basic how-to tips as well as my thoughts on how to decide if SEO, paid search advertising, and social media are right for you.

1. Search engine optimization and local search

Getting your site on the first page of the organic or “free” search results for keywords relevant to your business is an excellent way to earn traffic for your website.

The first page of free search results gets the most attention from web users, and many businesses have found organic web traffic a better source of sales or leads than paid traffic.

Further, once you rank well for a keyword, you many continue to rank well on that keyword for some time. And of course, all the clicks to your website are “free” at least when it comes to spending money out of your pocket.

A downside of search engine optimization is that it can easily take six months or more to get a good position on the search terms that you want. Another downside of SEO is that the “free” results aren’t really free, since getting on the first page often requires a substantial investment of your time.

Many factors affect how well your website ranks in the organic search results, including…

a. The quality and freshness of your content

b. Your HTML page titles, descriptions, and headers

c. How easy your site is to crawl and how quickly it loads

d. The number and quality of links to your site

e. Shares, likes, and social media engagement with your site

f. The age of your site

g. Country and location

How much work you do depends on your goals. If you simply want to be found for the name of your business (for example, “Brickell & Sons Flowers” with stores in Philadelphia, PA), then having good content, with keywords in your HTML tags, and a few links may be enough.

If you want to be found for “Philadelphia florists,” however, you will likely need to work much harder because all the flower shops in Philadelphia want to be found from those keywords.

Keep in mind that which keywords you target for search engine optimization are as important as how well you target them. So research which search terms are most valuable in your industry at the beginning of the process.

For local businesses, appearing in local search directories such as Google Places is as essential as ranking well on the right keywords. Be sure to claim and complete your profile in Google Places.

Add your business to other local web directories as well, and be careful to present your business name, location, and contact information in exactly the same format in each one. Consistent information in multiple sources will help you rank well in local search results.

2. Pay-per-click advertising like Google AdWords

Paying for relevant traffic through advertising is another way to get visitors to your website.

The great advantage of web advertising programs such as Google AdWords is that you can get your site on the first page of search results for terms important to your business in less than a day – rather than the six months to a year search engine optimization often requires.

Pay-per-click advertising platforms allow you to target your ads accurately. They also let you test messages and potential keywords for search engine optimization before you commit yourself to them.

The problem with pay-per-click advertising is, as the name says, you pay for every click.

Further, the sophistication of the platforms makes it easy for business owners new to pay-per-click advertising to spend a lot of money, very quickly, and get nothing to show for it.

If you don’t want to spend hours studying pay-per-click advertising, or you don’t want to hire a professional, I recommend following these guidelines:

a. Focus on customers who are ready to buy

Ideally, you want to target customers who have decided they need a product or service you sell, and who are looking for a business like yours on the web.

For example, if you own Brickell & Sons Flowers, you might want to target phrases like “Philadelphia florists” and “Philadelphia flower shops” and perhaps “buy flowers in Philadelphia” because people searching on these keywords are likely to make a purchase.

You might test phrases such as “Valentine’s Day flowers” because the person searching on those keywords might want to buy flowers or might simply be looking for ideas. Avoid targeting single words such as “flowers”.

In general, I think web advertising programs like AdWords are best for B2C companies or B2B companies with short sales cycles.

An accounting firm with many small business clients could advertise effectively on the web. An accounting firm with large corporate clients might find it less effective as a source of leads.

b. Target just the area in which you do business

Many times, the default setting for pay-per-click advertising is the entire United States. If you are a national company, advertise nationally. If you are a regional or local company, advertise in just your region or town.

All advertising programs should allow you to geo-target your ads. Make sure you do.

c. Turn off the “content” network

The content network shows your ads on the web pages of newspapers, magazines, and other sources of information that might be relevant to your business. (A flower shop ad might appear next to an article on roses, for example.)

Unless you are interested in name awareness or brand advertising, I would turn off the content network. Ads on content networks generally get lots of browsers but few buyers.

d. Start with a low daily budget

Most pay-per-click internet advertising programs allow you to define a maximum daily spend. Set this low and review the account each day.

You may get very few clicks in the beginning, but I think that’s better than spending thousands of dollars before realizing your advertising campaign needs to be adjusted.

Google AdWords isn’t the only pay-per-click advertising platform. Microsoft and Yahoo have a pay-per-click partnership called Microsoft adCenter. Facebook’s pay-per-click platform also allows you to target customers effectively, using its wealth of demographic information.

3. Earning web traffic through Social Media

Social media has many of the advantages and disadvantages of search engine optimization.

Like SEO, social media is often a better source of relevant visitors to your website than paid advertising. Like SEO, it doesn’t need to cost you money although it will cost you time. And like SEO, a social media campaign can take many months to begin to show results.

The most important thing to understand about social media is that it is not a traditional advertising medium, by which I mean you can’t make sales pitches and expect to succeed.

For example, a blog – like this one – is a good way to drive traffic to your website, particularly if you add it to discussions groups on LinkedIn (which I’ve also done).

But if you clicked on my link, it’s not because you thought you were going to find a sales pitch. And if you are still reading this post now, it’s not because you found one.

You’re still reading because you’ve found what I have to say useful or interesting. And because you have, you might remember my name and one day, call me.

Similar rules apply to Facebook and Twitter. For example, if you are a restaurant that bombards people with sales messages (“It’s Monday, eat at The Grille!” … “It’s Tuesday, eat at The Grille!”) those people are likely to stop following you.

On the other hand, if The Grille uses Facebook to post daily specials, announce new beers on tap, ask if customers like additions to the menu, and especially respond to questions or comments, then people will probably keep following you.

Even better, friends of your followers will see your posts too, which not only helps drive traffic to your website, but also acts as an implicit word-of-mouth recommendation.

Which Sources of Website Visits Do You Choose?

In my opinion, there is no reason to build a website for your business if you don’t do basic search engine optimization on it.

Make sure you have important keywords in your HTML page titles, descriptions, and headers; provide useful information on your website; and make sure you have at least a few good incoming links. Otherwise, people are not going to find the website even when they are searching on your business’ name.

I would also do some social media. For B2B businesses, I’d recommend having a complete LinkedIn profile and use it to connect to your professional network. For B2C businesses, I think Facebook is better.

How much more you do after these steps depends on how much more business you need. If you have a website to complete your professional image and answer typical customer questions, you probably need to do less.

If your business needs many more new customers or clients, you’ll need to do more work to drive more people to your website.

4 Indispensable Steps to Web Marketing Success

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:35:39 -0500

Effective web marketing is essential to your business. It’s also hard to do right. For web marketing to be successful, you have to …

1. Drive relevant visitors to your website

2. Engage them with design & content

3. Convert them to sales or leads, and

4. Measure results to see what works

You can’t achieve your business goals if you don’t get visitors to your website, they don’t stay, or they don’t become customers. And you can’t run your business effectively unless you know which web marketing techniques give you the best return on your investment.

In this first of a series of five posts, I will provide a brief overview of the 4 indispensable steps to web marketing success. In later posts, I will examine each step in detail.

1. Drive relevant visitors to your website

Driving relevant visitors to your website generally requires you to use a combination of (a) search engine optimization, often with an emphasis on local search, (b) social media, and (c) paid advertising strategies.

Search engine optimization and paid internet advertising help you rank well on search terms relevant to your business. These techniques are focused on the results pages of Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines with the goal of bringing people to your website.

By contrast, social media is about engaging potential customers in conversations relevant

to your company, in the hope that these conversations create connections that eventually become business relationships. Both website traffic and awareness are important goals of social media. The conversations take place on our blog, on your Facebook page, by Twitter, and through other mediums.

Complicating this step is that social media interactions are now used by search engines to rank websites. So an online business with active Facebook and Twitter accounts is likely to rank better than a similar online business without them.

Don’t forget traditional advertising techniques and old-fashioned word-of-mouth, both of which can increase visits to your website.

2. Engage visitors with design & content

Once visitors find your site, the next step is to make sure they stay. Both design and content have important roles to play in this task.

Good web design is essential to telling visitors – in a few seconds – what you do and why they should care. It expresses an emotion you want people to connect to your business. And it helps visitors stay engaged with your website by making key choices easy to see.

Good content is also essential to keeping visitors, and good content is all about answering questions.

Sometimes those questions are directly related to the decision to become a customer. For example, a visitor to a restaurant website wants to see the menus. A law firm website should describe each partner’s education and experience. A person visiting an e-commerce site wants to find compelling details on the products available for purchase.

Other times, the questions are simply relevant to what you do. An e-commerce site that sells kitchenware probably wants to offer cooking tips and recipes. A law firm that drafts wills could include basic estate planning advice on their website.

Answering these types of questions will keep visitors on your pages, increase awareness of your business, and create a positive feeling toward your company, all of which can lead to a new business relationship.

Remember that how your site is organized, how the content is written, and how quickly the pages load all affect how Google, Yahoo, and Bing rank your site in their results. So choices you make before your site goes live can significantly affect the number of visitors you get.

3. Convert web visitors into customers

Having lots of visitors who interact with lots of pages on your website is great – unless none of them become customers. Then it’s not so great.

That’s why it is important your web design make it easy to do what you want visitors to do.

For example, if you want people to call you, then your phone number should be easy to find throughout your site. If you want them to complete a web estimate form, the “Request a Quote Now” link needs to jump out. For e-commerce sites, the “buy now” or “add to shopping cart” button should be prominent on each product page.

Don’t be afraid to tell people what you want them to do. If you want them to schedule a visit, then use the words “Call 123-456-7890 to make an appointment.”

Also, don’t forget that while the internet may have revolutionized marketing, people are motivated to buy goods and services by the same things they always have been. Sales, deals, and discounts encourage people to buy. A no-obligation estimate helps you get more prospects. Making your first consultation free increases the number of calls you receive. A free report download will help you collect contact information from potential clients.

4. Measure results to see what works

Unless you are truly an online-only business, you’ll need to analyze data from several different sources to understand which parts of your marketing strategy are working best.

The most important source is the answer to the question, “How did you hear about us?”

When the answer is “on the internet” you obviously know your web marketing has earned you a new customer. Don’t overlook how the internet supports other marketing channels, however.

If you advertise in print, on the radio, or on television, watch your website visit statistics to see if they rise during the campaign. If they do, that will help tell you people are responding to your message. The same is true for direct mail, but make sure you take full advantage of tracking codes as well.

Word-of-mouth and referrals are the most important source of new customers for many businesses. Your website supports this process by providing information potential new customers want to know about you.

Look in your analytics to see how many people have found your site by searching on your name and to see how long they stay to get a sense of the impact.

There are many web analytic packages available. I generally recommend Google Analytics to small businesses because it is robust, easy to install, and free.

Don’t forget to set goal tracking in your analytic program if people can request information, download a report, or make a purchase on your website. This will allow you to better see how your marketing ties to a measurable result. Google AdWords allows you to do something similar with its “conversion tracking” feature.

One Third of Americans Research Doctors Online

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:47:22 -0500

35% of adults in the United States look for information about physicians and other health-care providers on the web according to a 2009 report published by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

This report, titled “The Social Life of Health Information,” also found that the sex, age, education, and income of the person all affected how likely they were to research doctors online.

The one third of adults seeking information …

• Were more likely to be women than men.

• Were more likely to be under 50 years old.

• Were more likely to have graduated college.

• Were more likely to have $75,000 and above in household income.

The Pew study reported similar information regarding hospitals and other medical facilities. 28% of American adults look on the web for information about these institutions.

This data from “The Social Life of Health Information” is confirmed by research out of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.

In Deloitte’s “2010 Survey of Health Care Consumers,” 25% of Americans go to the web to learn more about the quality of care provided by physicians. 12% used the internet to research provider costs.

This data is a reason internet marketing is important for doctors and other health-care providers who need more patients for their practices.

How to Get New Patients with Online Videos

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:45:53 -0500

When people are looking for a new doctor, they want to find a person who they will like and who will make them feel comfortable.

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This is one reason doctors and other health professionals should be active members of their community. The best way for potential new patients to know they will like you is ... to get to know you.

It's not possible to meet every person who might want to trust you with their health, of course.

Warm recommendations from your colleagues and patients help a great deal. And good photographs, that capture your intelligence and warmth, can also express who you are.

But probably the best way to introduce yourself to potential patients is to make a video and post it online.

Make an emotional connection with your video

A video will give people an excellent sense of your personality and give you a chance to make an emotional connection with them.

Because emotion is important, don't talk about all the experience on your CV or read a list of the twenty services your practice provides.

Instead, explain what medicine means to you. Discuss why you became a doctor. Talk about why you find caring for people fulfilling. Describe what your patients want from you.

Make a connection with people, and they'll choose you to be their doctor.

It's easy to show YouTube videos on your own medical practice website by inserting a piece of html code into the page. That's what we've done with our video on this page.

You can also load videos onto a Google Places page or a Facebook page. The more people who see your video, the more chances you have to grow your practice.

Have Search Engines Revolutionized Advertising Creative?

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 09:41:56 -0400

Whenever I read the internet (or social media or YouTube or Twitter) have revolutionized advertising, I always think, “Yes and No”.

The “No” comes from the fact that people haven’t changed. They buy goods and services now for the same reasons they always bought them. And advertising is about going to the places where people are paying attention, which more and more are the new electronic media.

The “Yes” comes from realizing these new media have new rules, and seeing they have revolutionized our relationship with advertising.

One new media is the internet, accessed through search engines, which has required a fundamental shift in a large portion of advertising creative online.

Search engines and internet advertising

Much of pre-internet advertising was based on the need to win people’s attention away from something else – like a magazine article or television show.

This advertising required eye-catching images, clever headlines, and exciting claims to win that attention. It also had to convince you that you needed what it was selling.

For an example, an ad for kitchen knives might feature (1) an attractive man or woman juggling six beautiful knives, (2) the headline “You’re cooking sharp, baby!” and (3) a sales pitch you weren’t expected to completely believe, such as “Our knives transform your look and your life.”

Advertisers don’t need to win people’s attention when they search the internet for “kitchen knives” however. They already have it, assuming their pages rank high in the search results.

Advertisers also don’t need to work as hard to convince people they need kitchen knives. You can assume a reasonable level of interest based on the action of searching itself.

In this context, traditional advertising on a landing page can get in the way of a sale, because the creative is performing functions that the internet search has already performed.

It also explains the rise of information-heavy sales copy on the internet. The copywriter’s task is now to give people the information they need to choose her client’s knives rather than the competition’s. The designer’s task is to present attractive, uncluttered views of the product.

The revolution is partial (and should be)

There are multiple exceptions to these thoughts, of course.

The home pages of many sites look like traditional advertising, and should, because home pages need to win the attention of browsers more than individual product pages found through a web search.

The internet creative of businesses focused on brand awareness looks traditional too – except in social media, which I think is more important to mass-market brands than search engines.

(The search engine’s impact on a company’s ability to control messages about its brands is another matter.)

Finally, advertising creative on the content pages of sites like Yahoo should follow traditional techniques, and do, because they need to compete for your attention just like advertising in the old media.

Should Doctors Friend Patients on Facebook?

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 13:45:30 -0400

The American Medical Association reports that nearly 90% of physicians now use at least one social media site.

Which raises an important question: Should doctors friend their patients on personal Facebook or other social media accounts?

The answer from physicians for professional reasons – and from me for marketing reasons – is “no”. Here’s why.

Doctors should decline friend requests on their personal Facebook pages

Many physicians decline friend requests from patients out of concerns about liability and privacy. The AMA reports that 33% of doctors have received friend requests from patients. Doctors have decline 75% of these requests.

Further, organizations like the British Medical Association and the Ohio State Medical Association are concerned about how friending patients on personal social media accounts could make it more difficult to maintain appropriate doctor-patient relationships. (Read this August 2011 AMA article.)

I think these arguments are strong. I will add from a marketing perspective, everything doctors do openly on the web influences their professional images, and evenly perfectly harmless personal information can dilute those images.

Ideally, doctors want their patients to remember them for their compassion and skill more than for their vacation photographs or barbeque sauce recipes.

Doctors should create a professional Facebook page (if they have time)

The AMA articles say it can be appropriate for doctors to create professional Facebook pages, and I agree.

But doctors need to be willing to commit 20 to 30 minutes every day to their professional Facebook pages to make them work. For many of our physician clients, that’s a lot of time in an already busy day.

If you don’t have that time, I don’t recommend you create a page for your practice. Ignoring patients on Facebook is much worse than not having a presence on Facebook at all.

For ideas on how to use social media to grow a health practice, see our post on “3 Ways Facebook Helps Doctors Get Patients”.

Web Marketing Increases New Patients by 100%

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 12:07:37 -0400

At 5G Health Marketing, we’ve found that web marketing is a highly effective way for doctors and other health professionals to get more new patients. But we asked ourselves recently – just how effective?

To find out, I dug into the answers our clients get to the question “How did you hear about us?” and correlated them with website analytic, web advertising, and other web marketing data.

My conclusion? Web marketing can increase the number of new patients a medical practice gets by 100%. Here’s how it breaks down:

New Patients: 50% from Word-of-Mouth

The first result isn’t a surprise because word-of-mouth has always been an excellent way to build a medical practice. Our clients typically get 50% of their new patients from personal referrals.

For example, if a health practice is getting 100 new patients a month, 50 of those new patients come from word-of-mouth.

Our clients promote word-of-mouth referrals by networking with colleagues in complementary specialties and becoming involved in community organizations. And of course, they promote referrals by offering excellent, compassionate care that makes patients remember them.

New Patients: 30% from Websites

The second result is that 30% of new patients come either directly or indirectly from the practice website. Using the 100 patient example, that means the website earns 30 of those new patients.

Many of these new patients are what we call “website-supported word-of-mouth”. That means the patient has come to the website by a search on the doctor’s name or the name of the practice.

They are visiting the website because they want to learn more about that doctor before they make an appointment. According to Pew research, 35% of adult Americans do just that.

We know these visits help earn more new patients because we’ve consistently seen website visits and new patient visits rise and fall together. We can also tell from the analytics that many of the web visits last 5 to 10 minutes or more.

In addition, a properly search engine optimized medical practice website helps people searching on a term such as “family doctor” find our clients, not their competition. These patients don’t come from word-of-mouth. They come from having a website.

New Patients: 20% from Web Advertising

The last result is that 20% of new patients come from paid web advertising – that is, 20 of the 100 new patients in the example I’ve been using.

I recommend using a pay-per-click advertising service like Google AdWords because, dollar for dollar, it offers the best return on an advertising investment. Pay-per-click advertising allows doctors to target people in their community looking for a health professional just like them.

Not all of our clients choose paid advertising. It makes the most sense for doctors who are establishing themselves in a community or who want to grow their medical practice quickly.

For details on how search engines and websites work to help grow a medical practice, read our blog post on how to get new patients with web marketing.

How to Design a Medical Website That Works

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 10:10:15 -0400

Good web design enhances the image of doctors and other health professionals on the internet. It also affects whether a patient decides to stay on your site or leave it.

Here are 6 simple principles for how to design a medical website. They will also help you get the best site for your medical, dental, or surgical practice when you work with a web designer.

Pick 1 Message and 1 Emotion

Health care is a complex profession, but advertising is about simple ideas. So choose one message that defines who you are, what you do, and what emotion your patients should feel when they think of you.

For example …

Are you a primary-care physician who offers warm personal care?
Or a highly skilled surgeon who patients can trust to get outstanding results?
Or a cosmetic dentist who helps people feel good by making them look better?

Find the message and emotion that fits you, then use it to guide your website design.

Keep the Logo Simple

Your logo should be bold and uncomplicated. It should express an essence of who you are, but not tell your entire story. It should have one image, if it has an image, and should have as few words as possible. Finally, it should express the emotion you chose.

This logo we recently designed is a good example:

Good medical practice logo design is especially important if you plan to use it in many places. A logo that looks good on a large computer screen may be hard to see when it’s viewed on a smartphone or a business card. Keeping it simple keeps it readable.

Choose Web Page Focal Points with Care

A web page with 20 design elements all the same size will confuse visitors because they won’t know where to look first. When web visitors are confused by a page, they leave it.

Choose three design elements you want visitors to see and the order in which you want visitors to see them.

For example, on this design, we wanted visitors to see the logo first, the photograph of the Dr. Hart second, and the phone number third. Dr. Hart earns 25 new patients a week with the help of her website.

Choose Photographs with Even More Care

Designing a health practice website around photographs can be effective if the photographs are good.

A good photo of yourself can create a positive emotional connection with patients visiting your website. You want a professional photographer to take this photograph.

Using photographs or images that illustrate the health care you provide can also be effective. Work with a designer who has a good eye to choose these photos. Images that show real people in real-life situations are far more persuasive than stock-art photographs of models in white coats.

Use Colors to Express Emotion

Color is an excellent way to express emotions in a manner that is subtle but highly effective. So choose colors for your website that express the emotion you selected at the beginning of the design process.

For example…

A primary care physician could choose from a palette of warm natural colors to suggest the warmth of the patient-physician relationship.
A surgeon might select slightly cooler colors to suggest skill and technical precision, particular if she uses highly sophisticated techniques.
A dentist will almost certainly want to use clean colors in his web design with an emphasis on white.

If you also like the colors that fit the emotion of your medical website – great! – but don’t let your personal favorites drive your choices.

Limit Copy to 250 to 300 Words per Page

The words on the page are part of the website design as well. So don’t overwhelm patients with dense paragraphs of text that scroll on and on.

Research has shown that 250 to 300 words per web page is the ideal length for human readers. When you have a large amount of complicated information to communicate, break down the topics into sections that can fit onto a series of single pages.

How to Get Patients: The Essentials of Web Marketing for Doctors and Dentists

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 15:44:42 -0400

When it comes to finding new patients for your medical or dental practice – nothing’s changed and everything’s changed.

Referrals were the best way to grow your practice before the internet, and they are still the best way today. That’s what hasn’t changed.

What has changed is what patients do before they make an appointment. They now research you on the internet. And the information they find influences their decision to call you or not.

Case Study of Medical Practice Web Marketing

For example, consider our client, Dr. Cathy Hart, a family physician in The Woodlands, Texas. Many patients look up Dr. Hart on the web before they make an appointment.

When they search for her name in Google, this is what they see:

They find her website listed at the top of the search results page and click the link. The information potential patients find about her education, experience, and more influences their decision to choose her.

Try this for yourself. Go to Google and search on “Cathy Hart”.

Dr. Hart’s medical website averages 900 visitors a month. Of these, roughly 500 find her from searches on Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Beyond Referrals in Web Marketing

Not every patient goes on the web to research a specific doctor or dentist. Many patients begin their search for a health professional on the internet. If you don’t have a website for your medical or dental practice, these patients can’t find you.

In the communities surrounding Dr. Hart’s office, there are 7,000 Google searches a month on terms like “woodlands doctors”.

We capture some of these searches with the same organic or “free” search engine optimization techniques we use to make her website rank highly for her name.

Other searches we capture using Google’s AdWords pay-per-click advertising program. Google displays text ads for Dr. Hart when patients near her office search on phrases relevant to her practice.

Here’s one of Dr. Hart’s Google AdWords text advertisements.

Cathy Hart averages 225 visitors to her website a month from AdWords. Nearly 80% of these visitors are new and they interact with the website for 2 minutes and 40 seconds on average.

The Results: 25 to 30 New Patients a Week

The result for Dr. Hart is a steady flow of new patients into her practice. From the website analytics, we can tell web marketing supports her referrals. Hundreds of new visitors who searched on Dr. Hart’s name spend 15 to 20 hours on the website each month.

The same analytics tell us that visitors from searches like “woodlands doctors” also spend hours on the site. And we know these visitors become patients. When Dr. Hart asks people on their first visit “How did you find me?” one-third of them reply, “On the internet.”

This is one reason we believe internet marketing for doctors and other health professionals is a good investment.

9 Ways Doctors Can Market Their Medical Practices More Effectively

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:25:17 -0400

If you are starting a new medical practice, hiring new doctors, adding new services, opening new office locations, or want more new patients, you’ll want to market yourself. Here are nine ways (plus two more!) to do it.

1. Earn Referrals and Recommendations

When people need a doctor, they ask their current doctors for recommendations. So taking the time to develop relationships with doctors in specialties complementary to yours is a good idea.

How do you do this? Consider regularly attending a local civic club like Rotary to expand your network. Start a LinkedIn Group for physicians in your community and actively invite other doctors to join and give them a reason to interact with the group. Research individual doctors on the web and call to introduce yourself. Be friendly, proactive, low-key, and confident. And keep at it. It takes time.

Friends also ask friends they trust for recommendations. How do you earn recommendations from your patients? Engage with them as people and provide outstanding care. And remember that every member of you staff -- clinical and administrative -- plays a role in making patients feel welcome and important.

2. Build a Website for Your Practice

Today’s patients want to research doctors and health professionals on the internet before they make an appointment – even when you’ve been recommended to them. The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 35% of American adults look on the internet for information about physicians.

A website helps patients find information they want, such as your board certifications and clinical experience, the conditions you treat, and the medical insurances you accept. We've found the practice directions page is viewed frequently, too, even in the age of Google Maps and GPS.

A website can also help patients find you without a recommendation. Every month across the United States, people perform more than 10 million searches for doctors, surgeons, and other health-care providers in specific locations. Emphasizing your specialty and your town, city, or state on your site can help them find your practice.

3. Optimize Your Site for Search Engines

Building a website for your practice doesn’t help you if people don’t see it. So when you are creating your site, keep basic search engine optimization principles in mind.

Make sure you have useful content that search engines can read (videos and words in pictures are hard to index). Create descriptive Page Titles and Page Descriptions for your site. Use keywords in the web addresses you choose for each page.

You should also develop separate pages for the biographies of each doctor or provider in your practice. Search engines like web pages to be focused on one topic, such as the name of one doctor. Dedicating a separate page to yourself makes it more likely patients will find that page when they search on your name.

Social media is having a bigger and bigger influence on search engine results. HIPAA and doctor-patient relationship ethics make social media sites, like Facebook, complicated tools for health-care providers, however. We recommend doctors move slowly, focus on health education, and keep their personal lives separate from any practice-related social media pages.

4. Sign Up for the Local Search Services

Many health-care practices – particularly those in the primary-care specialties – get most of their patients from their local communities. So showing up in major local search engines is extremely important.

You’ll want to create pages for your practice in Google Places, Yahoo! Local, and Bing Local. These services are free and often allow you to include a link to your website (which can help with your search engine optimization) and details about your services. Making sure you are in the local online Yellow Pages is worthwhile, too.

Local listings are a good idea even if you are a regionally or nationally recognized specialist.

5. Create Profiles on Review Sites

Some of the websites on which patients post reviews of their doctors are specifically devoted to health-care, such as vitals.com and healthgrades.com. Other sites, like Angie’s List and Yelp, feature reviews of many kinds of businesses including health practices.

Right now, review sites are important but their impact is limited. The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 15% of American adults read reviews of doctors posted online.

The influence and visibility of these sites is growing rapidly, however, and their reviews are often ranked highly in search results for your name. So make sure the information about you in these sites is correct, especially if you don't have a website of your own.

Many sites will also help you respond effectively to a person who has posted a negative review.

6. Buy Pay-Per-Click Web Advertising

Web advertising programs like Google AdWords and paid ads on Facebook can help you build your practice quickly. It can take months to raise the visibility of your practice in search engine results. Google AdWords can put you on the first page in less than a day.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising offers the best results in primary-care specialties such as pediatrics or dentistry. If you are the first person people call when they have a health problem, advertising programs like AdWords probably make very good sense for you.

Medical and surgical sub-specialists should think about Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising before making the investment. If most of your new patients come from the referrals of other physicians, then PPC advertising is less likely to be effective. If you also get self-referred patients, then I would think about AdWords and Facebook paid advertising.

7. Print Brochures for Your Practice

Having practice brochures on your front desk is a good way to encourage patient-to-patient referrals and raise awareness of your services. If you offer health education programs to the public, take the brochures with you. Ask local real estate agents to include them in their welcome packets for new home-owners. The more people see your brochure, the more likely you are to earn a new patient.

8. Send Out Direct Mail

Direct mail can help you market your health practice successfully. However, you typically need to send several 1,000 pieces of direct mail to find 100 people who might be interested in your health services. Direct mail also has high fixed costs from printing, mailing list rental, and postage which you have to pay each time.

As a result, direct mail makes the most financial sense for large group practices and physicians whose care is expensive – although it can work for every health-care provider.

The right design, the right messaging, and the right mail list are all important to your success, so plan campaigns carefully. Introductory offers, such as a free exam or no co-pay on a first office visit, can increase response to your direct mail.

In general, I think you shouldn't spend money on direct mail before you've spent money on a website. Almost all of the costs of website development are one-time costs and most website visitors will be interested in you. Neither of those is true for direct mail.

9. Buy Newspaper & Magazine Ads

Print advertising is like direct mail. You need 1,000s of people to see your ad to find 100 people who will read it. Print advertising can also be expensive, since ads need to run several times to make an impact.

Both direct mail and space advertising can be good choices for reaching people who are not internet users. The Pew Internet study found that people 65 years and older are significantly less likely to look on the web for information about doctors.

The same study also found that households with incomes below $30,000 are significantly less likely to look for health professionals online.

9+1. Create good signs for your practice

If your office is in a location that gets a lot of foot traffic -- for example, right off the sidewalk -- have signs that tell people you are there. If your practice is located in a large office building, make sure there are signs in the lobby and ask if you can get something more than a line on the board listing the tenants. Medical offices in shopping malls will want signs as big as the one for the coffee shop next door, and in all the same places.

All other things being equal, people prefer to visit a health-care provider who is close to them. If they know you're there, they may choose you.

9+2. Send a health-education newsletter to your patients

Patients recommend doctors more often when those doctors are in the "top of their mind". A newsletter that has useful health and wellness tips is a good way to keep you in your patients' minds between visits. It also gives your patients something they might share with their family and friends, which will spread your name in the community.

Internet Reviews of Doctors: What Patients Are Saying About You Online

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 13:41:15 -0400

20% of all internet users look at ratings and reviews of doctors on the web according to the “Social Life of Health Information” from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

So good online reviews are important to building your medical practice. And they are becoming more important as search engines like Google display more reviews and star-rankings on their results pages.

So what makes you a “good doctor” according to today’s patients?

Clinical expertise and the ability to solve health problems are important. But excellent interpersonal skills and first-rate customer service are more important still.

Again and again in online reviews people post, they talk about how they “like” and “trust” and “feel comfortable with” their physician. They describe how their doctor “listens” to them and “takes the time to answer their questions.”

Patients talk about how “friendly” the staff is and how “clean” and “comfortable” they find the office. They talk about how their doctor calls them back when they telephone. And they talk about how long they had to wait.

Doctor rating websites also think interpersonal skills and customer service are what your patients care about most.

Two of the largest doctor review sites are vitals.com and healthgrades.com. These two sites ask users to rate doctors on a range of characteristics, and most of them are related to personal communication or customer service.

Here are the rating topics on vitals.com (on a scale of 1 to 5 stars):

Ease in getting an appointment
Waiting time during a visit
Courtesy and professionalism of office staff
Accuracy in diagnosing a problem
Bedside manner (caring)
Spending enough time with me
Following up as needed after my visit
How long was your wait at the office? 00 minutes

Here are the rating topics on healthgrades.com (on a scale of 1 to 5 stars):

Recommend to a Friend
Level of Trust
Helps Patients Understand Their Condition
Listens and Answers Questions
Time Spent with Patient
Scheduling Appointments
Office Environment
Office Friendliness
Wait Time 00 minutes

You shouldn’t encourage or solicit reviews from your patients, although you can add “Follow us on…” elements to your website with links to sites that contains reviews of your practice.

You also can’t control what people say about you on the internet. Some review sites allow you to register your medical practice with them and will help you communicate with a person who has posted a negative comment. Remember that most people don’t expect doctors, or anyone, to do their job perfectly all the time. They do want to be heard, however. Responding to a complaint constructively is often enough to make an unhappy patient happy again.

3 Ways Facebook Helps Doctors Build Their Practices

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:56:52 -0400

Facebook has roughly 100 million users in the United States. This means many of your current – and potential – patients have Facebook accounts.

Here are 3 ways Facebook can help you connect with these men and women, and build your medical or surgical practice.

1. Provide useful health information on your Facebook page

The people mostly likely to “like” your Facebook page are your current patients. So use your Facebook page to maintain your relationship with them by offering regular, useful health information.

For example, primary care practitioners can post simple but important health tips such as “Summer’s here! Remember to protect your skin from the sun.” Specialists can comment on new medical studies from their field and tell their patients what they really mean to them. Both can link to health information that is important and timely.

This information will help your patients stay healthy. It will also raise their awareness of your practice and strengthen their sense of you as a doctor they like and trust.

This makes it more likely your patients will continue to see you. It also makes it more likely that your patients will think of you when their friends need a doctor like you, which brings us to…

2. Use your Facebook page to encourage friend-to-friend referrals

Referrals are still the best way to grow a health practice. The average Facebook user has 130 friends and spends four and a half hours per month on the site.

If you’ve built a strong Facebook relationship with your current patients, you are one click away from a patient recommending you to one of their Facebook friends.

To make this easier, be sure that you have your name, address, phone number, office hours, and a link to your website under the Info tab of your Facebook page.

You can also periodically post updates that state you are happy to accept new patients, but don’t ask for referrals directly. Facebook is a conversation among friends. It works best when you keep it that way.

3. Use your Facebook page to raise your profile as an “expert”

Finally, you can use Facebook to build your reputation as an expert in a specific disease, condition, or procedure.

For example, if you are a family doctor who is interested in diabetes, you could focus your Facebook posts on health information useful to people with diabetes. As a result, the posts would help you develop the reputation of being a primary care physician who is particularly good at helping diabetic men and women manage their overall health.

Similarly, if you are an orthopedic surgeon who gets consistently excellent results from hip replacement surgery, you might decide to post on issues surrounding hip replacements. Over time, this will help you become known as the surgeon to see for hip surgery in your community.

To make Facebook as an effective tool for building your practice, you have to post several times a week, to respond to all patient posts, and to doing this for as long as you have a Facebook page.

Solo practitioners and small group practices may find Facebook takes more time than they have. Large group practices, who can divide the work among many care providers, will find it easier.

How to Search Engine Optimize the Name of Your Medical Practice

Fri, 20 May 2011 14:48:14 -0400

The internet is an important resource for patients looking for doctors and other healthcare professionals. So how you name your practice can have a big impact on whether or not patients find you.

To search-engine optimize the name of your health practice, I recommend combining two of the following three elements: (1) your location, (2) your medical or surgical specialty, and (3) your name.

I particularly recommend including your location in your name if you are a primary-care physician, since these practices get most of their patients from the local community.

For example, if you are opening a new family medicine practicing in the Bella Vista neighborhood of Philadelphia, calling the practice “Bella Vista Family Medicine” makes sense.

Calling the practice “Family Doctors of Bella Vista” makes even more sense – from the stand-point of search engine optimization – because most people looking for a family doctor will search on the words “family doctor” not “family medicine.”

Also think about using your name in the name of your practice if you are established in your community.

Say your name is “Sarah Garcia” and you’ve spent several years working as a family doctor for a large health system. If you are opening a new private practice in the same community, calling your practice “Sarah Garcia Family Medicine” will help new and established patients find your new offices more easily.

Medical and surgical specialists should think about the same questions when choosing a name for their practices

If you are a heart doctor who draws most of your patients from your surrounding communities, then calling yourself “Bella Vista Cardiology” makes sense. To search engine optimize the practice name more, call it “Cardiologists of Bella Vista”.

Using your name and specialty in the name of your practice is a good idea if, again, you are already established in your community or if you a subspecialist with a regional reputation.

Keep in mind it’s possible to combine all three elements in your practice name. Sarah Garcia could make the official name of her practice “Sarah Garcia Family Medicine of Bella Vista,” for example, which is great for search engine optimization, but is a mouthful to say when her staff answers the telephone. A name Google likes can be hard on human beings, sometimes.

blog

Case Study: Medical Practice Web Marketing

Practice Profiles

Practice Needs

Marketing Recommendations

Marketing Campaign Details

Marketing Campaign Results

Web Marketing Step 4: Measure Results

1. Use Website Analytics, Conversion Tracking, and Call Tracking

2. Ask “How did you hear about us?” and Measure Trends

3 Reasons Your Business Needs a Website

1. Websites Are Essential to Your Professional Image

2. Websites Convince Word-of-Mouth Customers to Act

3. Websites Earn You New Customers and Clients

Web Marketing Step 3: Turn Visitors into Customers

Tell visitors what you want them to do

Use discounts, sales, coupons, and special offers

Make no-risk and low-risk options

Web Marketing Step 2: Keep Visitors on Your Website

Good design keeps website visitors from leaving

Good content keeps web visitors interacting

Remember that most website visitors – particularly for businesses – are task-focused. They are looking for information that tells them whether you are the best choice for their needs. So make sure you give it to them.

For example, an e-commerce site that sells kitchenware probably wants to offer cooking tips and recipes. A law firm that drafts wills could include basic estate planning advice on their website. Plants shops can provide information on how to maintain healthy gardens.

Web Marketing Step 1: Drive Website Traffic

1. Search engine optimization and local search

2. Pay-per-click advertising like Google AdWords

3. Earning web traffic through Social Media

Which Sources of Website Visits Do You Choose?

4 Indispensable Steps to Web Marketing Success

1. Drive relevant visitors to your website

2. Engage visitors with design & content

3. Convert web visitors into customers

4. Measure results to see what works

One Third of Americans Research Doctors Online

How to Get New Patients with Online Videos

Make an emotional connection with your video

Read more about video on the AMA website

Have Search Engines Revolutionized Advertising Creative?

Search engines and internet advertising

The revolution is partial (and should be)

Should Doctors Friend Patients on Facebook?

Doctors should decline friend requests on their personal Facebook pages

Doctors should create a professional Facebook page (if they have time)

Web Marketing Increases New Patients by 100%

New Patients: 50% from Word-of-Mouth

New Patients: 30% from Websites

New Patients: 20% from Web Advertising

How to Design a Medical Website That Works

Pick 1 Message and 1 Emotion

Keep the Logo Simple

Choose Web Page Focal Points with Care

Choose Photographs with Even More Care

Use Colors to Express Emotion

Limit Copy to 250 to 300 Words per Page

How to Get Patients: The Essentials of Web Marketing for Doctors and Dentists

Case Study of Medical Practice Web Marketing

Beyond Referrals in Web Marketing

The Results: 25 to 30 New Patients a Week

9 Ways Doctors Can Market Their Medical Practices More Effectively

Internet Reviews of Doctors: What Patients Are Saying About You Online

3 Ways Facebook Helps Doctors Build Their Practices

How to Search Engine Optimize the Name of Your Medical Practice