In the medical industry in particular, patient reviews of your practice are an essential part of establishing brand awareness, reputation, and the enhancement of your SEO ranking strategy. By encouraging your patients to write unbiased reviews about their experiences at your practice, you’re accomplishing a number of different things to further your business.

Benefits of Online Patient Reviews

1. Establishing brand awareness - this is a simple concept; the more your brand appears online, the more exposure people will have to your practice even if initially they’re merely recognizing your name. A portion of these individuals that are familiar with your practice will become patients themselves or refer someone else in need of your services to you.

2. Developing a reputation - in this industry, a portion of new patients come into your practice based on referrals from other satisfied clients, and that is especially true when your services are categorized as elective. Independent review sites like Yelp, RateMDs and Google Places provide additional ways for people to share their experiences and reach a greater audience than they would by word of mouth alone. Your reputation will grow positively when people can see that you have a track record of leaving clients satisfied. When prospective patients have information about your reputation conveniently at their fingertips, they’re more likely to make a decision without hesitation to come in if they like what they see.

3. Improving your search engine rankings - online directories like Google Places are great resources for people looking for medical practices in their area (like searching through the phone book but with a map to help you get there). The more positive reviews you have attached to these listings, the higher you will be ranked with these directories and in Google’s search engine results. High rankings lead to greater exposure and can draw in more business! These directories do also provide links to your website and/or your blog, so as people click from the review those rankings are being improved as well.

Getting Patients Involved in Online Reviewing

Patients that have had their expectations met are less likely to go out of their way to post a public review than those that have been disappointed or blown away by great service. Mentioning to all clients that their feedback on these domains will help you meet or maintain an exceptional level of patient satisfaction will encourage many to share their reviews!

Additional review sites to explore: Vitals.com, Healthgrades.com. To get started with online reviews in your practice, make sure your practice is listed on these directories and the ones noted above, and then encourage patients to visit!

For more information on how you can implement this internet marketing strategy or learn more about our web visibility services, contact MedNet Technologies.

Blogs are great tools for maximizing the effectiveness of your web site. They allow you to quickly and easily add content, build up the size of your site and keep postings fresh for a low cost. Blogs are what you make of them; there is not one specific way they have to be used or a schedule you need to keep up with. You just need to be clear with their capabilities and develop a strategy that fits the goals of your practice.

Below are some ways you can use a blog as a marketing vehicle for your practice. You can use some or all of these ideas to help build your own blogging strategy. Over time you will begin to discover the value of having a blog associated with your web site.

(more…)

What are Blogs?
Blogs are web logs that are updated on a regular basis by their author. They can contain information related to a specific topic. In some cases blogs are used as daily diaries about people’s personal lives, political views, or even as social commentaries. The truth of the matter is that blogs can be shaped into whatever you, the author, want them to be.

Blog’s give you an opportunity to write content that is unique to you and your practice. While some people are uncomfortable with self promotion, your blog gives you an occasion to interact with your visitors while promoting who you are and what you do.

Today blog’s are being used for all sorts of purposes. You have companies that use blogs to communicate and interact with customers and other stake holders. Newspapers incorporate blogs to their main website to offer a new channel for their writers. Individuals also created blogs to share with the world their expertise on specific topics. And so on.

How do you get people to read your blog?
(more…)

Plug ins and widgets are programming scripts that add functionality to a blog. By default, blog installations come with a set of standard widgets and plug ins. The standard settings are normally sufficient for a practice in order to create an effective blog. A few practices, however, expand the functionality of their blog by installing additional widgets and plug ins.

(more…)