In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, let’s discuss how your practice can appear more attractive to potential… admirers. There is a simple answer to the question, “How do I make my practice more appealing to referring physicians and new patients?” Improve your online media reputation. The best way to position yourself to new individuals is by creating a positive online persona and managing your web-utation. Many might say that the return on investment would be minimal in comparrison to what goes into the process, however if a radiologist is referred to by one patient or physician a week by capturing them on their website, it is worth it. Now, say your friend sets you up with a blind date for Valentine’s Day, what’s your first thought? That’s right. You go online to check them out, the same way a patient or referring physician checks your practice out before committing to a relationship with you. If you are not appealing online and have no way to showcase your positive features, then you just lost that lead. Probably the date too. Let’s explore the importance of your web-utation:
Why is it so important to mange my reputation online?
The perception that referring physicians have of your practice comes from a number of things. Whether it was a past experience with poor turn-around time on a day you were short staffed or a face that a patient made in reaction to your name, the contributing factors that form their opinion of you, are uncontrollable. Your online reputation is manageable, something you can organize in a system of uncontrollable determinants.
So, what does your website say about your practice?
Whether you have a website or not, your web presence, or lack there of is saying everything about your practice. You could draw a parallel between your perception in the market to your presence online; either your non-existent, sub-par or advanced. Your website doesn’t have to be Google or the newest, hottest thing online, as long as it is findable, clean and informative, you will be in a good place.
What goes into creating a “findable” website?
There are a number of steps to take in order to have your website optimized so that Google and other search engines will find it and rank it for visitors. These steps are referred to as SEO (Search Engine Optimization). It is important to have your website optimized with the appropriate keywords, which are the terms visitors would come to your website to learn more about. For instance, if you sell puppies, you want to make sure the terms; puppy, puppies, dogs, dogs for sale in Tampa, are used throughout your website.