Archive for November, 2009

5 Ways to Use Twitter to Market your Medical Practice Online

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

Part of successfully harnessing the Internet to market your medical practice online means learning about the new ways prospective patients are using to locate medical services.

Twitter has become a popular tool for marketing online – many large companies like Dell and Best Buy are using it to successfully reach prospective customers. While it isn’t a wholesale solution, Twitter can be a quick and easy way to develop an online following and build your brand.

Below are five ways you can successfully utilize Twitter for online medical marketing.

1. Research prospective customers/patients

Perhaps before embarking on cold calling or other more traditional marketing activities, use Twitter and other social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn to research what your prospective clients are saying. Understanding their needs will go a long way and put you ahead of the game.

2. Stay in tune with industry news

Twitter can also be valuable in learning about what’s going on in medicine. More and more industries, research institutions and practices are using Twitter to update their activities in real time. Find out about results from a recent research study or new ways you can help patients with their ailments.

3. Find the best time to call or contact someone

Calling everyday at 9:00 can get pretty mundane and annoying for a prospective customer. While you may not reach who you’re looking for, the chances of talking someone goes up if you can get an idea of when they’re in the office and not out on vacation, sick or in a meeting.

4. Get honest feedback on your services and pitch

If you’ve been developing unique site content or after you see a patient, logon to Twitter and see what they’re saying to their friends about it. This is especially useful since you will more likely see unvarnished critique of where your site and services are strong and where they can be improved.

5. Stay in touch with prospects as they move around

Another useful function of Twitter is its portability – you can easily maintain contact with patients and other prospects as they move jobs, insurance companies or other medical specialists. Being there will reassure patients they’re being taken care of – they will remember this when talking to their friends.

Learn more about harnessing Twitter to successfully market yourself and your services online. Read this informative post from HubSpot and checkout their webinar as well, Twitter for Marketing and PR.

Posted in Medical Online Marketing | No Comments »

Easily Conduct a Complete Medical SEO Audit in an Hour

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

A site audit is a pretty fundamental task that every medical online marketer and SEO professional has to conduct – but sometimes, one needs to be done in a flash.

When evaluating a site or beginning an online medical marketing project, you need to be able to quickly asses the site’s standing in the search engines. You can get more in-depth later but an initial assessment needs to be done quickly.

It isn’t as bad as it sounds…it doesn’t take long at all to understand what a medical website has and what it lacks in terms of medical SEO.

Using Google Webmaster Tools and Web analytics package for the site, you need to determine:

  • When the site had its last major redesign
  • How many indexed pages it has
  • User-friendliness (not a medical SEO concern but important for site visitors and thus, the search engines)
  • Locate any duplicate and template content
  • How title and H1 tags are used
  • ….and much more

Take a look at this interesting Search Engine Watch article – The 60 Minute SEO Site Audit – to learn how to quickly assess where your site stands and what needs to change for it to dominate in the search engines.

Posted in Medical SEO technology | No Comments »