Doug Williams SEO Services
Increasing Traffic, Increasing Conversions
Home | SEO Blog
503.389.5650

Should You Use Patient Testimonials in Your Medical Marketing?

Doug Williams @ 7:37 am

This blog entry was posted on December 30, 2011.

One of the purposes of a physician website is to build trust and credibility. You want to attract potential patients that are searching for a doctor. Having patient testimonials on your site help provide third party validation of your good work.

Benefits: A patient’s own words expressing gratitude and appreciation for you, your practice and results they received are very convincing for potential patients. Reading testimonials helps overcome the apprehension and resistance of prospective patients. Patients that give testimonials become more loyal.

Process: Create an easy mechanism to collect testimonials. Create forms that can be completed at your reception desk. Ask patients about their opinions and experiences. Include a release where the patient that allows you to use their testimonials in the marketing of your practice. Maintain a record of these testimonials and consents.

website testimonials

HIPAA: HIPAA in general protects patient privacy. HIPAA doesn’t restrict the use of testimonials. They should be accurate and in the patient’s own words. You should avoid sharing information that may identify any of your patients with any specific treatments.

FTC: The FTC has rules on how any business may use testimonials from their customers. An endorsement or testimonial is essentially a public claim by an advertiser. The advertiser is responsible for the accuracy and to ensure it does not mislead in any way. Avoid false, misleading, or untrue statements.

Regulations: Before using testimonials on your website, you should check with your state licensing boards. Every state has different standards. According to Etna Interactive, Illinois, Kentucky, New York State, and West Virginia entirely forbid the use of patient testimonials in healthcare marketing. You should check with your attorney to see what rules or statutes may affect your practice.

If You Like this posting please +1 it!

Filed under: Internet Marketing



Websites with Personality Connect and Convert Better

Doug Williams @ 4:53 am

This blog entry was posted on December 27, 2011.

Does your website evoke emotions in your visitors… or does it persuade using facts and statistics? Every website has its own personality that makes it unique. It could be formal or playfully fun. It can say too much or be terribly blunt.

Building the right personality into your website helps you connect, convince and convert visitors into buyers. You will use your website’s personality to shape your visitor experience, build trust and likeability. Personality builds the emotional connection that causes your visitor to want to hear your message.

website personality

  1. Credibility: This is the trustworthiness of your website. This is the overall combination of design, message, and tone all working together.
  2. Design: The initial impression is formed in the first fraction of a second. This is based on color, visual layout and graphic images. Even the typography helps form the personality. Cluttered and disorganized pages drive visitors away.
  3. Clarity: Is your site’s message clear at a glance? Is it easy to navigate? Is the text and pages formatted for scanning? Does your page headline clearly announce your purpose?
  4. Tone: Does your writing use humor or fear or anger in communicating? Do you impress with your expertise? Is it lighthearted and playful? Is it filled with humor, satire and wit? How you write creates an emotional connection with your readers.
  5. Memorable: Does it inspire and excite? Is the website dull and boring? Does it help visitors solve a problem in a meaningful way?

In planning your website, decide how you want to connect with your visitor. This is part of tuning your website conversion rate. The personality you impart is creating your online brand. This should enhance, not distract from your offer.

If You Like this posting please +1 it!

Filed under: Conversion Rate Optimization



Rules Are Meant to Be Broken

Doug Williams @ 3:38 am

This blog entry was posted on December 23, 2011.

A rule as defined by Merriam-Webster is an accepted procedure, custom, or habit.

Conformance to rules means doing things the way everyone else does. If you want to be a market leader, you need to separate your company from the pack. You need to be the innovator.

If you want to be outstanding, then you need to stand out. In a world full of people doing similar things, the person with new ideas and new ways of doing will draw the interest and attention of the market.

Are Rules Meant to Be Broken? If you want to be a market leader, then the answer is a resounding YES!

Leadership is focused on outcomes, not necessarily the process to achieve it. Rules tend to focus on the process. A leader has to be creative and willing to introduce change.

A market leader is developing new business models, new strategies and new ways of doing things. Leadership requires the pursuit of innovation, a flow of fresh ideas and a culture that does not accept the status quo.

A leader understands the rules, but is constantly challenging the status quo to come up with a new and better system. If it isn’t broken, a market leader will fix it anyway.

What does it take to be an innovator? It takes a belief that there has to be a better way. It takes constant creativity. It takes observing, networking, questioning, experimenting and challenging the current rules.

The web is one of the fastest changing environments that you can find. It doesn’t matter if you are a web business owner, a web designer or web marketer, you need to be an innovator. This means constantly challenging today’s rules.

The web allows you to measure everything. Website strategy needs to focus on outcomes and innovation. The web allows you test and measure if your new idea is working. If your idea didn’t work yesterday, it may work tomorrow.

If You Like this posting please +1 it!

Filed under: Internet Marketing



Checklist to Develop Your Own Web Strategy

Doug Williams @ 5:30 am

This blog entry was posted on December 20, 2011.

Marketing Purpose

  1. What is the business purpose for your website? This could include sell products, generate leads, build your brand, reduce operating costs, etc.
  2. Who are your direct and indirect competitors? Indirect competitors may not sell what you sell, but they satisfy the need. Example: If you are a plumber, then the local home improvement store can satisfy the need for the do it yourselfer.
  3. What do your competitors do well and what do they do poorly? What they don’t do well creates opportunities for you.
  4. website strategistHow are you positioning your business? High price, high quality, high service or? This will affect the look and feel of your website.

Audience

  1. What is the demographic of the person you are trying to reach? There could be several groups.
  2. What is there role in the purchase decision? This could be the decision maker, influencer, etc.
  3. Are they B2B (slow, rational and a longer buying cycle) or B2C (fast. emotional and prone to an impulse buy).
  4. What problem or need are they seeking a solution to?
  5. What typically appeals to your target audience?

Action

  1. What is primary action for your visitor? What do you want people to do when they come to your website? Buy, request a quote, signup for your mailing list?
  2. What is your central message? Are you trying to educate? This will affect your content, your tone and your writing style.
  3. What is your selling sequence on your site? This is from when you first grab their attention to the point that you convince them to purchase or request a quote.
  4. Will you collect email addresses? Are you going to offer an incentive such as a free sample or free report?
  5. How will you build their confidence so they trust you?
  6. How will you make it visible and clear so they see your offer?

Traffic

  1. How will you attract people to your site? This could be organic SEO, pay-per-click advertising, social media or even offline methods such as radio or TV.
  2. Decide on your keyword phrases early and build them into your site.
  3. How is your competition reaching out to your target audience?
  4. Are you willing to blog regularly? Blogging reaches out with its RSS feed and attracts visitors. Each blog posting adds one more page of keyword rich content that helps with SEO.

For more on website strategy development.

Measurement

  1. How will you measure success? How will you measure the return on your investment? Some types of websites are easier to quantify than others.
  2. What will you measure? Sales? Bounce rate? Time on site?
  3. What are your specific goals you want to reach? By when?

If You Like this posting please +1 it!

Filed under: Internet Marketing



7 SEO Blogging Mistakes Every Blogger Should Avoid

Doug Williams @ 4:44 am

This blog entry was posted on December 16, 2011.

SEO Blogging is a method of writing blog posts so both the blog post and the target web page gets highly ranked for a specific keyword phrase. It is a keyword focused blogging style that requires linking using keywords as your anchor text (link text) that deep link into your website.

  1. Blog is not topic focused. The blog should be narrowly focused around a central topic. This establishes relevance and also attracts a consistent readership. A blog focused on dog training will attract a readership and consistent traffic. But a blog that talks about dog training, gourmet cooking and how to run a business is unfocused and fails to attract great rankings.
  2. Blog posts are not focused on a single keyword phrase. You will want to select one primary keyword phrase that you will center your entire posting around. This posting is written about SEO blogging. Two common mistakes are either not focusing on any keywords or trying to focus on multiple keywords.
  3. Keyword phrase not used in the posting title. Use your targeted phrase in your posting title. Ideally the title would begin with the keyword phrase. The search engines give high importance to the words in a blog title. Remember that when you craft a blog title, you want to attract readers and satisfy the search engines.
  4. Keyword phrase not used in the body text. Use the keyword phrase 2-3 times in the posting including one time within the first 25 words of your text. With SEO blogging you need to work the keyword phrase into the text.
  5. Keyword not used in the link text. Use your keyword phrase one time within a hyperlink that links to your planned page within your website. Using your keyword phrase in your anchor text is a powerful SEO blogging technique, even when the blog is part of your website.
  6. Duplicate content: Each posting needs to be original, interesting content. Avoid reusing your content with rewriting and updating your post. Duplicate content will be ignored by the search engines.
  7. Dull boring content: Interesting, original content will attract lnks from other bloggers and make your posting more powerful.

If You Like this posting please +1 it!

Filed under: Blog Marketing



How to Protect Your Blog from Trackback Spam

Doug Williams @ 3:40 am

This blog entry was posted on December 13, 2011.

A trackback is an automated notification that another blog has linked to your blog posting. This feature is found on WordPress, Drupal and Moveable Type blogs. Trackbacks are an automated way to let a fellow blogger know that you are referencing their work. Trackbacks are also usually displayed in the comments section of your blog.

Unfortunately others can easily abuse this trackback feature as a way to get links from your blog to theirs. Trackback spam is a way for web spammers to create backlinks from your blog to their website. This is an unethical practice that you can guard against.

What are your options for controlling trackback spam on WordPress blogs?

Turn it Off: You can simply disable the trackbacks feature (under Settings>>Discussion). Another method is to delete wp-trackback.php from your root directory. You would have to reinstall the file if you ever want to enable trackbacks in the future

Filter Out: There are a couple good plugins that can filter out trackback spam.

  1. Akismet is a service from the creators of wordpress.com to filter out comment and trackback spam. This is free for personal use and a small charge for commercial sites.
  2. The WordPress “Simple Trackback Validation” plugin. This plugin runs a series of simple tests on incoming trackbacks including a verification that a link to your blog exists. This allows your blog to filter out trackback spam.

Keep it Out: The WordPress “Broken Link Checker” plugin allows you to monitor your blog for broken links. Trackback spam may have an initially valid link and then this is quickly removed once they have a link from your blog. This plugin allows you to easily remove broken links from your blog.

If You Like this posting please +1 it!

Filed under: Blog Marketing



How to Get Customer Reviews and Testimonials

Doug Williams @ 4:10 am

This blog entry was posted on December 9, 2011.

I encourage clients to continually add real testimonials to their website to give the social validation that they provide a quality service or product.

The willingness to post customer reviews on a website is a clear signal to buyers that this company is customer focused and will work to create a positive buying experience. The problem that most small business owners have is they don’t have the time, systems or resources to regularly add testimonials to their website.

Ways to get customer reviews

Ask for it: Encourage reviews on your website, at your retail location (if you have one), or with a follow-up email or phone call. For email and phone calls make it timely. Follow-up should be within 3 days of a transaction.

Make it easy: The more steps or answers that you require, the fewer reviews you will receive. A simple star rating (1-5) with optional comments is effective. The downside is that your website visitors want to see the comments.

Keep it real: Resist the urge to offer incentives in return for testimonials. Your best advocates will do it for free. You want your testimonials to be real and not have the appearance of being “purchased”.

Third party service: One solution is to use a third party service to contact recent customers and interview them by phone or an email a survey. Some of these firms will have you add a widget to your website and then they can add testimonials and reviews to your site.

Customer Review Services

  1. Customer Lobby
  2. Customer Rating
  3. Proven Credible
  4. Verified Credible

If You Like this posting please +1 it!

Filed under: Internet Marketing



How to Deploy a Core Story on Your Website

Doug Williams @ 4:50 am

This blog entry was posted on December 6, 2011.

The core story uses market data to engage prospects and show that your company is the logical one to do business with. Core Story is a product of Empire Research Group. This is a great example of education based marketing.

The idea is to educate buyers about their own niche using market research data and market trends. The product is delivered as a polished PowerPoint presentation that is ready to use as a webinar. Once you have a core story built, how should you deploy it on your website?

  1. Messaging: Use the core story to position and differentiate your company. Educate web visitors on hidden trends and problems in making purchases in your market. Show how you are part of the solution. Weave market data into your marketing message.
  2. Animated Header: Put together an animation sequence based on the core story and place it in an animated header on the home page.
  3. Tagline: Use the core story to create a new tagline. This is the short text under your logo. This should be a slogan or a positioning statement.
  4. Video: Create 2-4 minute videos that inform and educate. When presented by your CEO it puts a friendly face on the company.
  5. Webinar: Put on live webinars and allow sign-ups on your website. As an alternative, have a recorded version of your webinar that visitors can sign-up for and then watch at their convenience.
  6. Report: Create a free report that can be used as a sign-up incentive for building your email list. Make the title of your report compelling so that buyers of your products / services are intrigued.
  7. Drip Marketing Campaign: This is an email campaign where pre-written emails are delivered at regular intervals. Use the core story content to write educational emails to people that sign-up to your email list.
  8. Articles: Write and publish articles that will position you as a leader in your market. Always include a link back to your website in your byline at the end of the article.
  9. Whitepapers: Include downloadable white papers on your website that are created based on core story data.
  10. Blog: Add a blog to your website and use the core story content as the basis for many posts.
  11. YouTube: Host your videos on YouTube and create your own YouTube channel. Use keyword driven tags on each video and show your website URL in the video. You will drive traffic from YouTube to your website.
  12. Social Media: Spice up your Facebook page and create compelling tweets using core story content.

Disclosure: I am the president of the website division for Business Breakthroughs International and my team regularly is asked to deploy core stories onto websites. These are the techniques that we use.

If You Like this posting please +1 it!

Filed under: Internet Marketing



How to Build the Ultimate Optometrist Website

Doug Williams @ 4:48 am

This blog entry was posted on December 2, 2011.

Health information continues to be one of the most researched topics on the web. According to a Pew Internet Project, 80% of all Internet users have searched online regarding health topics such as a specific disease or treatment. This translates to 59% of all adults.

The purpose of an optometry website is to attract new patients, retain existing ones and to increase the frequency of office visits. People will come to an Optometrist website looking for information and someone they can trust. They will judge the practice by the look of the website. What are they looking for?

  1. Design: Build trust and credibility with a professional website design. Use trust building images such as a friendly doctor in a consultation coat or a doctor performing a vision exam.
  2. Easy to Read: People seeking an optometrist have weaker eyes. Make your website easy to read with larger fonts with black text on white pages.
  3. Content: Include the key information people come searching for such as office hours, directions and services offered. Your About-Us page is there to build trust and credibility. Include short bios on your staff.
  4. FAQs: Include frequently asked questions along with your answers. This helps people decide to use your services when they discover you online.
  5. Video: Use video to inform and educate. It is a powerful influencer that helps you communicate your message and build trust with your website visitor. Create a “meet the doctor” video that is warm and personal.
  6. Action: A major reason for having a website is to attract new patients. Make it easy for people to schedule an eye exam online. Make this prominent and highly visible on your home page. This also makes it easy for returning patients to book an eye exam.
  7. New Patient Forms: Include printable new patient forms so they can complete them before coming to your office.
  8. Email: Have a newsletter signup on your home page. Write a periodic newsletter and send it out via email. Use your newsletter as a reminder to refer friends and family.
  9. Coupons: Include special offers available only on your website. Create printable coupons such as 50% off their first eye exam so they book an appointment and become a patient.
  10. Search: Optimize your website to attract local people interested in your services. The top three search terms are optometrist, eye doctor and eye doctor followed by the city name. This brings in people searching for a local optometrist.

If You Like this posting please +1 it!

Filed under: Website Design