What Makes a Good Medical Practice Website?

Content is King

Content is everything with a medical practice website.

Your clients and potential clients want to be able to access content in your specialty and get to know you. Learning how to reach out to local medical consumers can provide a satisfying channel of communication.

Most medical practice websites have specialties that practice within. These specialties often can provide content to local consumers of health care that answer many common questions concerning diagnostic procedures, treatment options and backgrounds of the caregivers. In addition, the practice can and should orient the content to the local population since a vast majority of potential clients will come from the local population pool.

How do Consumers Use Medical Content?

47% of those who sought health information for themselves during their last online search say the material affected their decisions about treatments and care. Half of these health seekers say the information influenced the way they eat and exercise. 36% of those who sought health information for someone else during their last online search say the material affected their decisions on behalf of that loved one (from PEWS The Internet’s powerful influence on "health seekers").

How Can Medical Practices Attract Consumers?

In the case of medical practices, site visits are split between referrals to the website by the members of the practice (usually over the phone). The added content helps existing and potential clients assess treatment options and come with a basic set of knowledge when they arrive for an appointment. According to the PEWS study cited above, almost 10% of health information seekers online attempt to locate a caregiver through content channels. These content channels are accessed frequently through internet searches on Google or other competing search portals. Considering that almost half of all adults in the US use the Internet for health related (including mental health) research, a medical practice would do well to develop specialty content and market it locally on the search engines.

Types of Content to Attract Visitors

Types of content that attract visitors include commentary on recently published studies. These studies are written for medical professionals and are often hard for the layman to comprehend. Practices can publish a series of reviews on recent literature in their specialties.  Consumers will find these reviews on Internet searches.  The content can be targeted further to local consumers (relative to the location of the medical practice) by using local and regional keyword delimiters. As an example, a medical practice specializing in pediatrics can write reviews on recent studies concerning the care of children.  The meta information for this content on the website can have key words like "Raleigh-Durham" and "Obesity in Children" or something similar depending on your area of expertise and geographic region.