August 2012: Content Is (Still) King

If you want to be found online – and convert new patients from the Internet – make sure your content is up to snuff

Among Internet gurus and aficionados, the saying “content is king” has been floating around for years. This old Internet adage still holds true today.

The content in question is, of course, the words on the pages of your website. As has always been the case, two all-important factors make content critical to the success of your Internet strategy: search engine optimization (SEO) and conversion. And the key to both is unique, informative content.

SEO: Don’t Get Caught in No Man’s Land

To achieve Internet marketing success, you must be in the good graces of Google. For any given topic, Google’s job is to provide the best resources, i.e., information. The reason Google gets so much traffic (and can sell so much advertising) is that consumers have confidence in Google’s search results. Consumers turn to Google for information because they believe that Google will offer them quality sources of information.

The best way to become one of these sources is to “optimize” your site with unique content. In other words, it cannot be the same content that appears on other websites. This may sound straightforward, but to this day there are still plenty of Internet companies selling the exact same website content to hundreds of clients! If you have been caught up in one of these scenarios, your website may not rank higher than the ninth or tenth page of search results for the search terms your practice is targeting. Assuming your goal is to attract new patients, the ninth or tenth page is no man’s land — potential patients looking online for the services you offer don’t often go past the first couple of pages.

So, how do you determine if your website content is unique? Copy two or three sentences of content from one of your procedure pages, paste it into Google’s search box, surrounded by quotation marks, and hit <enter>. If other sites with the same content as yours appear, then it’s time to have a talk with your SEO company — or maybe someone else’s.

Conversion: Educate Your Patients

The ultimate goal, of course, is to convert the people visiting your website into patients visiting your office. Unique content also plays a vital role in this process. Customized, well-written content keeps your visitors engaged; content that is generic, boring or “over-optimized” with keywords does not. Potential patients who are engaged by your content are more likely to contact you.

But how, exactly, is “engaging content” defined? Primarily, it should teach your patients something. After all, that’s why they clicked on your website. Including educational content on your website ensures that prospective patients have the information they need to understand the surgical procedures they’re interested in. It also ensures that they view you as the expert. And people who are well-informed when they arrive at your office are more likely to schedule a surgery.

Don’t worry about keeping your content fresh. Some SEO companies perpetuate a myth that your content has to be regularly updated in order to appeal to Google’s “Freshness” algorithm. In reality, Google understands that some websites, such as news sites with breaking news, need to be updated regularly, while other websites, such as consumer-targeted elective healthcare sites, do not. Content related to new procedures is certainly worth adding, but don’t waste your time or money by constantly updating every page.

The bottom line? Make sure the company you hire is focusing on the right things. They should have a team of professional writers with experience writing rich, accurate and engaging content for your specialty. A captivating website with unique, quality content will increase your patient conversion and surgical volume.

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