So you have your good-looking medical practice website. Now, what can you do to make people come back to it over and over, for fresh information?
Remember – this is what we call “stickiness”.
A blog is a terrific tool to add to your medical practice website, to invite these return visits.
For those of you who haven’t quite figured out what a blog (short for “weblog”) is, it’s an online platform or journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption.
Blogs are defined by their format: a series of entries posted to a single page in reverse-chronological order. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or reflect the purpose of the Web site that hosts the blog. Topics sometimes include brief philosophical musings, commentary on Internet and other social issues, and links to other sites the author favors, especially those that support a point being made on a post. (emphasis mine)
Blogs allow you to:
- show the personality of you and/or your medical practice
- showcase your expertise and special interests
- be found more easily in the search engines as they are very search-engine friendly from a technological point of view
- create a back-and-forth interactivity through comments that others can make on your “posts” and that you can respond to
- give you insights into what your prospective or current patients are seeking information on, based on their comments and the popularity of your posts (there are tools such as Google Analytics to help you figure this out very easily)
In case you aren’t persuaded about the value of a blog for your medical practice website, here are some fairly recent stats:
* More than 133,000,000 blogs have been indexed by Technorati since 2002
* 77% of Internet users read blogs according to Universal McCann
* 75% of bloggers have college degrees and 40% have graduate degrees
* 70% of all respondents say that personal satisfaction is a way they measure the success of their blog
* 72% say they blog in order to share their expertise.
* 61% say they blog in order to supplement their income.
* 53% of professional bloggers are interested in attracting new clients from blogging.
* 72% of those who are self-employed and blogging are interested in attracting new clients.
* 57% say that their future plans include blogging even more (including 74% of 18-24 year olds).
* The most common rate of updating is 2-3 times per week.
* 56% say that their blog has helped their company establish a positioning as a thought leader within the industry.
* 58% say that they are better-known in their industry because of their blog
Let’s imagine you’ve decided to add a blog to your medical practice website. How do you go about it?
The most popular and reliable blogging platform seems to be the one I am using for this Physician Website Secrets Blog – WordPress. It’s free and highly customizable. Blogger is another popular free platform.
Here is an excellent article on how to start a blog, that you can adapt for your medical practice website, to help get you started.
To learn more about the 4 main kinds of websites, including Blogs, go to Physician Website Secrets. The course also contains resources and referrals to some excellent web designers and webmasters who can help you set up a blog.
And you can catch up on the earlier part of this week-long series by reading about the three other tools to increase your medical practice website’s stickiness: e-books, e-courses, and video.
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Through Doctor Web Site , patients can also find and connect to your medical practice by searching the state lists within the section aligned with your specialty. This is a powerful second source of patient referral—the first being your website’s own search engine presence—that only Medical Doctor Web Site can provide.