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The Private Practice
Spring 2013
MARKETING
By creating a first-class website
for your medical practice, you have
the ability to:
·Interactwithexistingand
future clients easily.
·Provideinformationthrough
an easy-to-use interface.
·Gainvaluablefeedbackfromclients.
·Presentapolishedbrand
for your practice.
·Exhibityourvalues,yourexpertise
and the character of your practice.
SETTING THE TONE
There are several steps to creating a
useful website that will bring more
patients to your practice. Your first
task is to recognise the fundamental
purpose of the site itself. Some sites
are used to acquire email addresses
for marketing campaigns, while
others aim to `sell' a particular service.
Generally, medical-practice sites are
used to convey how you operate as a
clinic, outline your range of services
and facilitate phone enquiries
and bookings.
One of the best ways to create a
successful website is by appealing to
your ideal clientele ­ who do you want to
attract to your practice, how old are they
and what are their primary concerns?
Use your creativity to conjure up
a strong image of your clients and
their reason for looking at your site.
By anticipating their questions, your
website can pre-emptively provide
the answers. Considering your current
and potential patients' needs will
help shape everything you do with
your website.
Once the direction of the site
is clear, it's time to start thinking
about content. Always remember
the purpose of writing content for a
websiteistodrivetraffictothesite
itself. While there are secondary
reasons for content, the primary focus
is to demonstrate your expertise as
the best option for potential clients.
There are three tried and tested
methods that will assist you in
crafting quality web content that
drives people to your site.
1. SEO copywriting
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Copywriting focuses on making the
content of a site easier for search
engines to index. In the old days,
this meant packing blog articles and
page information with keywords to
boost your rankings in search engines.
Today, search engines are too smart
for keyword packing. In fact, many of
them will downgrade your site ranking
becausetheysee`linkstuffing'as
cheating the system.
Most search engines read pages
like humans, so they understand
how many times a keyword should
reasonably appear. This means your
website copy should read naturally and
provide valuable, relevant information
that is easily found.
While most people are able to write
web copy, the job of a professional
copywriter is to determine how best to
engage with a specific audience. They
will research keywords for hours to
see which words and phrases are being
used by your particular audience. They
will then craft content that reaches
out to your targeted audience and
draws them in.
Many people might think it is
easier to write their own web content
but even if the groundwork is laid
down by the site owner, it is always
advisable to let a professional edit
the content. Even a subtle change can
make all the difference, but you must
have the knowledge of what does and
doesn't work.
2. Link building
The more links there are to your site,
the more valuable your site will be
regarded by search engines. You can
build links internally from one page to
the other on the actual site but it is far
more important to get other sites to
link back to yours. The more popular
the sites are that link back to yours,
the better for your site.
Think of it as website referrals.
If the receptionist and the CEO both
write job references for you or vouch
for you to another company, the CEO's
referral will be more valuable. Your
website works the same way. The more
trusted the source that links to your
site, the more `link juice' you receive
for boosting your site's standing with
Google and other search engines.
One of the best ways to receive
inbound links from other sites is to
write content for other websites. After
an article is posted, there will often
be a small blurb about the author
with a link back to their own website.
Again, the quality of the post and the
site itself will have a direct impact on
your own site's rankings due to that
particular link. The more popular
the post, the more people will click
through to your site. The more that
people click through, the higher
your SEO ranking.