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Blogs, the simplest form of social media, can improve health education and at the same time aid interested doctors in marketing their medical practice. It’s a win-win.
I started about 2.5 years ago with retinaeyedoctor.com. It started as a bit of challenge to myself, but resulted after my attorney wife, Amy, introduced me to the techniques of Internet Marketing.
Google Made “Search” Legit
I realized that thanks to Google, getting pages to appear at the top of search list was now legitimate. No more games or gimmicks. No more paying your way to the top.
Search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo, reward websites with fresh and relevant content with high rankings! While their algorithms of how they rank pages is secret, the major search engines now rank pages based on the content, that is, the quality and relevance of the articles contained on that page.
This, so-called “content marketing” allows web pages with really good information with high rankings…in this case, medical websites that publish accurate and relevant health information will enjoy top rankings.
“Above the Fold”
Top rankings for a webpage are analogous to the most important news story appearing “above the fold” in newspaper lingo.
Amy and I have founded Medical Marketing Enterprises, LLC, a medical website optimization company, . Our goals are to;
- teach medical practices how to publish great websites that get ranked by Google
- improve the quality and credibility of health info on the Internet
- establish a legitimate business
In a nutshell, we’ll teach a doctor to do what I’ve done for my own practice. By publishing great medical content…websites get ranked well.
The public gets great health information and the doctor gets marketing!
I think our timing is great. Doctors are just realizing that they must engage the Internet, as over 80% of the public turns to the Internet for health related questions.
Doctors don’t understand the importance of social media and fail to realize that engaging in social media can be as simple as starting a blog (like this one). Starting Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts can be helpful, but not necessary.
Our biggest endorsement comes this fall. The American Academy of Ophthalmology is in Orlando and we’ll be teaching several courses on just how to get started.
Wish us luck! Imagine…if more doctors would create websites like this one, the quality and credibility of health information available on the Internet would be second to none!
Randall V. Wong, M.D.
Ophthalmologist, Retina Specialist
Fairfax, Virginia