55 Ways to Make Your Medical Website Better

On-Page Optimization

1. Place your keywords in the title tag
2. “Content is King” – update your website regularly
3. the first paragraph of each page is the most important. Summarize what is on the page. Name-drop. Use location words. Mention services and procedures.
4. Use clear call-to-action buttons and statements. Make it abundantly clear what you want someone to do after digesting your content.
5. Don’t over-clutter.
6. Give tips and useful information
7. Create individual keyword-rich pages for each condition you treat, be sure to include location based keywords and layman’s terms for conditions / symptoms – BPM
8. Space out updates of your website. Don’t update all at once. Search engines want to find new things.
9. Don’t auto-play music! Many people look up your website at work.
10. do not say “thank you for visiting our website”
11. do not underline text. Underlines are only for links.
12. do not use long blocks of text with paragraphs that have more than 3-4 sentences.
13. Do not use a splash page or intro-screen. Reduce the number of clicks to get to content.
14. Write quality content. Don’t try to force a string of keywords. Write for people first, then for search engines.
15. Post any positive patient testimonials. People trust what other customers have to say over what a company says.

Off-Page Optimization

1. Links from other websites to your website increase your Link Popularity and placement in Google
2. Make sure there is a link to your website from your hospital or medical school.
3. Vitals.com and Healthgrades.com should have your website link on them.
4. Don’t just add your home page link. When sharing, use links to inner pages.
5. Avoid using “click here” as a link… be descriptive.
6. Don’t buy links.
7. Don’t create fake news stories to generate buzz. This is called “cyber hoaxing.”
8. Go slow. Website strength isn’t gained overnight (or even several months). The age of your domain name is a factor
9. If you didn’t have a website before, “launching” your site doesn’t mean everyone sees it right away. It takes time for the search engines to cache it.
10. Write and publish articles.
11. Establish yourself as an expert on your topic by releasing good quality content
12. Participate in forums and include a link back to your website

Social Media

1. Don’t be afraid of Facebook
2. People won’t follow you on Twitter if you look like a robot.
3. Listen. Your patients want to know that you hear them when they express themselves so RESPOND socially.
4. Post content your patients would find valuable
5. Blog posts add searchable pages to your site.
6. Link your blog posts to your other social media sites
7. Harness the power of your fans/followers to do your marketing for you.
8. Let your fans/followers vote or decide on where you give charitable contributions
9. Give away something for free
10. Share tips & tricks and how-to articles or videos. E.g. how to stay healthy in the winter.
11. Ask your fans/followers questions.
12. Make your social media a part of your office culture. People will use it if there is valuable information there and they can get responses in a timely fashion
13. Ask patients to share their stories (you have to ask for good reviews)

Aesthetics/Navigation

1. Take lots of pictures/videos
2. Make your website reflect that warmth and atmosphere of your office or facility buy including lots of photos of the waiting room, exam rooms, staff, and equipment
3. Stick with the color scheme. Making text red or green to emphasize it will only make your website look trashy.
4. Organize your navigation menu logically
5. Use correct spelling
6. It should never take a patient more than 3 clicks to find what they are looking for

Videos/Media

1. All you need is an iPhone, Android or a regular digital camera to take videos.
2. You don’t have to be perfect. Imperfect videos show that you’re real.
3. Make “patient prep” videos to cut down on staff time
4. Use technology like the da Vinci robot to record video of procedures and write a couple sentence description.
5. Patient testimonial videos are great!
6. Youtube is owned by Google. Videos play a large role in how you’re found.
7. Add your website URL to the description of your videos and include the “http://” so it’s a clickable link.

Coding/HTML

1. Don’t cut and paste from Microsoft Word if you can help it. It screws up the code. If you do, use the “paste from MS Word” feature in the CMS.
2. Don’t put a link to your home page on your home page. Your patient is already there.