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How Much Are Cancelled Appointments & No-Shows Costing Your Practice?

8/10/2017

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Patient Appointment Reminder Email and Text

​So, how much are cancelled appointments really costing you?

​In our increasingly busy world, patient no-shows and cancelled appointments are a costly reality for many practices. Cancelled appointments result in hours of valuable staff time spent trying to reschedule those appointments and fill the now open appointment slots. It’s taxing, time consuming work that costs you a ton of money, time, and patient satisfaction. We’ve seen this again and again with the practices we work with.

To calculate the financial cost of a no-show for your practice, take your average number of patients you typically see in a month, multiply that by your average no-show rate, and then multiply that number by your average cost of an appointment.

No-shows are costing your practice a ton of money. You’re not just losing money in missed appointment revenue, though. You’re also losing money in your staff’s valuable time.

So, how can you reduce no-shows and cancelled appointments?

A study by the Internet Journal of Healthcare Administration found that email reminders provided an immediate and dramatic improvement in patient no-shows. Overall nonattendance rates decreased by 36%. Email isn’t the only form of communication creating a lot of noise in healthcare, though. This research summary by Dr. Vishal Mehta states that text messaging is “now the most used communication tool on the planet, exceeding email and instant messaging” and 62% of patients prefer this method of communication. This study also found a decrease in no-show rates due to text messaging.

So, how can you take the combined power of email and text messaging and reduce your cancelled appointments and no-shows, all while saving time?

Our patient appointment reminder products were created to help you reduce no-shows and cancelled appointments. We provide you with the ability to communicate with your patients in the way that works best – text messaging and email. We automate the entire process from appointment reminders, to waitlist management, and rescheduling appointments. So, you save more time and money.

Get started with Medical Site Solutions today!
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6 Reasons Doctors Lose Patients

5/4/2017

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6 Reasons Doctors Lose Patients
Ok, so yes…Medical Site Solutions is in the business of helping doctors grow their business by creating beautiful medical websites, providing awesome patient education tools for physicians, and implementing the latest SEO and reputation management strategies (just to name a few).  But even if you ARE the best doctor within your specialty and a total genius…well…it simply doesn’t guarantee you won’t lose patients.  Especially this day in age, with social media and online reviewing sites (like Yelp, Health Grades, Rate MDs, and Vitals) becoming more prevalent than ever!  So my next questions to you as a physician are:  Have you lost a patient recently?  And if so, why?  Was it avoidable?  What could you have done differently?
A big part of our business here at Medical Site Solutions revolves around practice and physician reputation management.  We read literally thousands of online physician reviews every year and sometimes we sign on clients that have a less than stellar online reputation.  Having read a bazillion doctor reviews over the years within a wide range of specialties, we were able to create a succinct list of the most common patient issues that we see again and again from online reviews.  The list below outlines the top reasons doctors lose patients (in no particular order):

1.  Long Wait Times with No Apology
Sometimes, it’s inevitable that the office is running behind on appointments or the schedule has been too overloaded on a particular day.  However (and we can’t stress this enough), it is SO important that this isn’t a habitual occurrence within your practice.  Because let’s face it, NO patient wants to wait long.  Patients may tolerate a wait if they are happy with the level of health care you provide.  And first time patients may accept a wait if the doctor has a great reputation.  However, after a patient has waited a long time and the doctor greets the patient without acknowledging or apologizing for a long wait, you can be sure the patient will be ticked off.  Often ticked off enough to write all about in when they review your practice!

2.  Conversely, Rushing a Patient Once They Finally See The Doctor
The other issue we see again and again is rushed patient appointments.  Think about it: Your patient has been waiting over an hour to see you.  He finallyyy gets into the examination room to see you, but you’re behind and rush thru the appointment to try and get caught up.  REALLYYY bad idea!  Having a rushed appointment makes your patient feel uncared for and may ultimately lead to losing said patient.  Combine offering no apology for the long wait AND rushing the appointment and TA-DA!!  You have the perfect ingredients for a nightmare of an online review!

3.  Disrespectful Staff
This is a biggie and one of THE MOST COMMON complaints we see over and over!!  Seriously!!  It doesn’t matter if you are the best freakin’ doctor or surgeon or medical genius on the planet if you have a rude or lazy staff running your practice!  That’s just the BOTTOM LINE.  The overall patient experience is SO important and your staff is a HUGE part of that experience.  If your staff is rude and disrespectful to patients, they will most likely not come back.  This includes everyone who has ANY patient contact among your office staff (i.e. nurses, receptionist, technicians, billing staff, PAs, etc.).  If it comes to your attention that patients are experiencing rudeness, it may be time to think about re-staffing…after all, it’s your reputation on the line!

4.  Doctors Who Allow Their Ego to Get in the Way of Patient Care
If you have a patient who seeks additional medical advice from another provider, don’t take it personally.  Better yet, be a team player and work in conjunction with any other physicians to help solve your patient’s issue.  Always remember, the first priority should be your patient’s care.  We often see reviews by patients who feel that their doctor got ticked off or had a defensive attitude towards them after finding out the patient was seeing other doctors.  A patient in pain just wants to find out as much as they can and sometimes that means talking to more than one doctor.  Try to remember that this often says nothing about your skill as a physician, but says more about your patient and the journey that they must take.

5.  Doctors Who Have a Poor Bedside Manner  
Everyone knows that doctors, like all humans, come in many different personality shapes and sizes.  Some doctors are very blunt and straightforward, others more clinical and subdued.  Some doctors are outgoing and sociable, while others are more the nerdy, scientific types.  Whoever you are as a physician, it is important to consider cultivating a good bedside manner.  TONS and tons of reviews mention the doctor’s bedside manner and mention it as a deciding factor in whether or not they choose to continue seeing said physician.  Trust us, patients DEFINITLY notice doctors who walk in the room and spend a rushed 5 minutes with them, spend most of the time looking at a computer screen, make little to no eye contact, talk condescendingly or rudely to the patient, interrupt the patient, etc.  The most important thing is to make each patient feel cared for and to truly make them feel as if you are hearing them.

6.  Outdated or Dreary Office Space
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The bottom line is this: virtually no one likes going to the doctor’s office in the first place.  So if your office space and waiting rooms are outdated, bare, unwelcoming, or cold feeling, you are sure to make your prospective patients uncomfortable and unwilling to visit twice.  We’ve mentioned it before, but we’ll say it again: it all comes down to the OVERALL patient experience, and like it or not, your office is part of that experience.  So create a welcoming, more enjoyable experience by sprucing up the patient spaces with art, having comfortable and attractive seating, having a flat screen on in the waiting room, bringing appealing light into the space, or having music play softly.  This helps make your patients feel welcomed and cared for the moment they step into your office.

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Best 2017 Ophthalmology and LASIK website designs with video backgrounds

3/23/2017

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Medical Site Solutions offers Ophthalmology and LASIK website designs with captivating video backgrounds.  Websites with video backgrounds are proven to increase call-to-actions from online visitors.
Choose from many website layouts, videos, images, and colors schemes. Our goal is to make eye care professional websites stunning in design, easy to edit, and most of all affordable.  To accomplish this goal we preload our websites with content and images specific to ophthalmology and LASIK.  Using the online editor, users can rearrange, add, edit, delete, or modify just about every component.
We offer a FREE 7 Day Trial.  Go to: medicalsitesolutions.com
Call us today at 888-993-1992 or email us info@medicalsitesolutions.com with questions or to request a trial ophthalmology or LASIK website.
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The Do’s & Don’ts of Local SEO

3/9/2017

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The Do’s for Local SEO
1. Correct Your On-Page Optimization
2.  Create Local Places Pages
3.  Claim and Correct NAP Listings and Citations
4.  Encourage Reviews


The Don’ts of Local SEO
​1.  Writing or Paying for Fake Reviews
2.  Making Your Information Copy Unnatural or Spammy
3.  Missing Relevant Categories
4.  Missing Contact Information on Your Web Site
5.  Inconsistent NAP Information Online
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7 Essential Website Elements Proven To Increase Leads 2-10X

2/22/2017

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Below are the critical components necessary to create a high converting website:
  1. Attention Grabber:  Bold headline statement or compelling question
With only seconds to grab the attention of an online visitor, your message MUST be compelling, clear, and make the visitor want to learn more.  Something like, “Would you like to lose 15 pounds in 15 days while still eating the foods you love?” This is an extreme example, but you get the point.
2. Authority/Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
After you’ve grabbed the visitor’s attention, it’s now very important to explain your unique selling proposition and establish your authority and/or expertise.  Why are you the authority? What makes you different? Why should a patient make an appointment with you versus your competitors?
3. Proven
Now that you’ve grabbed the visitor’s attention and established your USP, visitors want to know that other people like them have had a great experience. By adding a patient testimonial on your homepage, it validates your claim to be an authority.  Patient testimonials also make visitors feel more comfortable because it reduces the unknown fear of uncertainty.  This ultimately leads to more inquires.
4. Personability and Trust 
Visitors are more likely to book an appointment when there is a personal touch on your homepage. Simply adding your photo with a personal message or video will increase the probability of converting an online visitor to a patient.
You can build added trust by adding icons and badges such as medical societies, awards, & recognitions.
5. Call To Action (CTA)
Having an effective call to action is an essential part of any website.  A call to action provides the following:  focus to your site, a way to measure your sites success, and direction for your users.
6. Lead Capture Magnet 
For your lead magnet, you want to have a one-click downloaded document (cheat sheet or a top 10 list) that solves one problem completely.  Once they’ve given you their email and downloaded your awesome content, you then send them to a thank you page.  At this point you can start sending emails about promotions, education, and services until they finally pick up the phone and call for an appointment.
7. Contact Information and Interactive map
It is extremely important to make your contact information highly visible with one-click actions to call or email your practice. It is equally important to display your map location with directions.

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Easiest Ways to Get Patients to Choose You Over Your Competitors

2/9/2017

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​1) Get your happy patients to leave glowing 5-star reviews on google One of the biggest relevance factors Google is looking for are your business reviews. If your business is rated highly (and often), Google automatically assumes you’re relevant.

2) Ensure all references to your business online include correct NAP (Name, Address, and Phone).
This is important because every time there’s a contradictory reference to your business online, Google sees you as less relevant.
Check these listings:
  • Google
  • Yelp
  • Yahoo! Local
  • YellowPages
  • Facebook
  • City Search
  • SuperPages
  • Angie’s List
  • MerchantCircle
  • DexKnows
  • Health Grades

3) Get featured in 10 extra local business directories.
  • Specialty Specific Directories
    • Location Specific Directories

4) Make your new reviews an obvious part of your Google listing. Give potential patients EVERYTHING they need to make a decision when they first visit your website.

5) Give Potential Patients EVERYTHING They Need To Make A Decision When They First Visit Your Website.
This includes:
  • Name, address, and phone number (NAP details). Include your NAP details in the top 1/3rd of the page so people can see them.  This will increase the amount of calls your website generates.
  • Clear compelling headline offer o The more compelling the headline offer, the more likely they’ll stay on your site and become a patient.
  • Mobile optimization:  Over 70% of people that are searching for a local dietitians/nutritionist will be doing so on their mobile phone. So it makes sense that your website should look great on mobile right! If your website isn’t optimized for mobile viewers, they will quickly hit that back button and find an easier to use website. And in fact, Google knows this. If it isn’t optimized for mobile, it won’t appear AT ALL when someone searches VIA mobile. Check to see if your site looks good on mobile. If it doesn’t, you need your developer to fix this ASAP.
  • Professional design:  Does your website accurately reflect the high standards of your practice? If your website is terrible people aren’t going to spend much time on that site. They don’t trust it. It doesn’t feel good. It’s not easy to use. Your potential patients will IMMEDIATELY hit the back button.

6) Offer services that other specialists in your area have ignored.

7) Create online advertisements through social media and banner ads.

8) Offer coupons and other specials to bring in new clients.

9) Give special discounts to clients who refer new customers.

​10) Hold customer appreciation days. You’ll build stronger relationships with your clients, which can help increase referral business.

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Top Ten Qualities of a Great Doctor: A Patient’s Perspective

2/2/2017

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Top Ten Qualities of a Great Doctor: A Patient’s Perspective
Recently, a team member here at Medical Site Solutions had an issue that needed medical assessment.  Yes, we talk to TONSSS of health care providers in the medical industry every day because, well, we’re in the business creating medical websites for doctors.  But in this case, our team member (let’s call her Jennifer for this blog’s sake) was in the position of being simply, a patient.  Jennifer came to work the next day and was all but raving about the doctor she had visited.  Her patient experience was awesome.  And it got us thinking more about doctors (as if we already don’t spend 150% of our existence thinking about them…haha) and what makes a truly great one.  There are so many doctors, physician, surgeons and health care providers out there…but what makes one better than another?  Is it their bedside manner?  Is it the building of a rapport?  Is it their experience or knowledge?  What separates the wheat from the chaff?  We decided to conduct our own little survey of patient experiences to come up with what we believe are the top ten qualities of a great doctor from the patient’s perspective.  This involved talking to several recent patients (like Jennifer) and discussing why they liked or didn’t like their doctor or experience, reading a ton of Yelp reviews for some of the top doctors in the area (and some of the lowest ranked doctors), and formulating our own conclusions based on our research.

​Here are the top 10 qualities of a great doctor that we came up with:
1)     Great Communication
  • A great doctor has excellent communication skills and an empathetic bedside manner.  This doesn’t mean that they are great at explaining medical issues and procedures.  This may be part of being a good communicator but isn’t limited to the doctor reciting his/her knowledge.  It also means they are adept at actively and carefully listening to their patients.
2)     Attentive
  • Many doctors today have a churn and burn type practice, with the primary goal of getting the patients in and getting them out.  Their goal is to see as many patients as they can cram into their schedule and trust me, the patients feel this.  Rushing appointments and making quick decision not only makes patients feel uneasy, uncared for, and part of a cattle call, it’s also bad for your online reputation.  A great doctor takes the critical time needed to build a rapport with their patients.  They take the time to ask (and answer) a few more questions, dig a little deeper into an issue, and truly care about helping their patients.
3)     Professional
  • A great doctor is highly professional.  Being a professional can means a lot of different things to different doctors.  But to patients it means being trustworthy (doctor/patient confidentiality), being highly knowledgeable, being a great communicator, skilled, kind, caring, focused, and staying calm in traumatic situations.
4)     Caring
  • This is a biggie and is the difference between being a “good” doctor versus being a “great” one.  A great doctor is truly and honestly empathetic and compassionate to their patients’ discomfort, pain or trauma.  Having the ability to be compassionate and caring means that the doctor is interested in his/her patients as human beings and not just information on a medical chart.
5)     Respectful of the Individual Patient
  • Going the extra mile and treating each patient as an individual rather than a statistic is critical to being a great doctor.  Respecting your patients means listening to your patients and taking their input seriously.  Every patient is different, has a different body, and no one issue is exactly the same as the next.  One patient might be uncomfortable with taking a certain drug (or any drugs), another may prefer a more holistic approach to treatment, and another may have a religious or ethical belief that hinders treatment.  Always be respectful of your patient as an individual and try to problem solve from their uniqueness as opposed to routine methodologies.
6)     Skilled
  • Patients want a doctor who is highly skilled and dedicated in their work.  More than being simply intelligent and book smart, a great doctor is truly talented at what they do and uses intuition and experience to implement the most effective treatments available.
7)     Confident
  • Great doctors are not only supremely confident but they inspire confidence in their patients.  Patients want to feel secure that their doctor knows exactly what he’s doing every step of the way.  Whether performing surgery, formulating a diagnosis, giving medical advice, or creating a treatment plan, patients absolutely want a doctor who is 100% confident in their practice.
8)     Thorough
  • This quality goes hand-in-hand with “attentive.”  A great doctor is thorough and takes their time to analyze their patient’s specific medical issue.
9)      Passionate
  • The greatest doctors in the world all have this one quality in common: passion.  They are passionate about medicine, their practice, and helping others.  Their passion shines thru their work and patients know they are with “the right” doctor when they find one that is truly passionate.  A doctor who loves what he does, who is dedicated and committed, and who goes miles beyond the average doctor…those are the great ones.
10)  Progressive
  • Great doctors NEVER STOP LEARNING….EVER!!!  No patient likes a closed-minded doctor set in his ways.  The medical industry changes and evolves at a very fast pace, and patients want the medical advice of doctors who are up-to-date on the latest developments, techniques, technologies, drugs, cures, and breakthroughs.
An additional aspect worth mentioning that greatly contributes to the patient experience is your OFFICE STAFF.  We’ve read again and again in Yelp reviews about patient experiences with staff, and you’d be surprised at just how important it is to have the right team in place.  Your staff is the first impression of your practice that your patients experience.  How kind or tired or rude or cheerful or helpful the office staff comes across can make or break your practice’s online reviews.  The same goes for any nurses, technicians, or assistants working in your office that have direct interaction on a daily basis with your patients.  It’s all part of the overall patient experience, and these days, with the accessibility to review sites like Health Grades, Yelp, Rate MDs and Vitals your reputation is more vulnerable than ever.  It doesn’t matter if you’re the best doctor on the planet if you have a crappy staff that isn’t creating a welcoming and caring environment.  It only takes a few bad reviews to knock a star or two off your online status.  At Medical Site Solutions, we offer medical website packages for doctors that include reputation management services.  Contact us today at (888) 993-1992 for more information on how we can help your top qualities shine in patient reviews.

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Patient Education: Providing Accurate Education that Circumvents “Internet Research”

1/26/2017

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Patient Education: Providing Accurate Education that Circumvents “Internet Research” - Medical Site Solutions
Being in the medical website design business, we talk to A LOT of different doctors and health care providers across a wide range of specialties.  It’s actually quite fascinating on multiple levels.  You see, in addition to fulfilling a need, a big part of our job entails problem solving.  And in order to effectively help doctors solve their problems and meet their online needs, we end up asking a ton of questions and listening to the various issues they face within their specific specialty.  Interestingly enough, across the board (and regardless of medical specialty or subset specialty), we hear one common grievance again and again: patients are often diagnosing themselves and forming conclusions based on their internet research.  Most of the doctors that have voiced this frustration to us feel like they are competing with Google when it comes to their patient’s education.  And as one doctor recently said to us: “A lot of the information and ‘education’ on the internet isn’t even accurate or is outdated and just freaks my patients out.  So by the time they come in to see me for a follow-up, they’re convinced that they’re in a disease state much worse than the reality.”  And the thing is…we get it.  Most of us are probably guilty of researching a random condition or symptom at some point or reading a blog and taking it for fact.  Let’s face it: Google has the uncanny ability of making even the most normal human into a raving hypochondriac.  You can see where health care providers would get frustrated and perhaps not a little annoyed.

At Medical Site Solutions, we pride ourselves on offering our doctor and physician clients access to some of the best patient education resources available.  Our website packages can come with the inclusion of a health library specific to your medical specialty, patient education videos, and even waiting room TV videos.  You may also choose to provide your own education by writing original content.  Many health care providers choose this route because they want their patients to get descriptions of disease states and practice specific surgery (or procedure) information directly from the horse’s mouth.  You, the doctor are able to educate your patients based on YOUR practice and knowledge.  And bonus: because you are creating original and unique content when you go this route, you’re giving your website’s SEO a boost!!  A total WIN WIN if we do say so ourselves!

Unfortunately, no health care provider can definitively stop their patients for researching medical issues on the internet.  However, by providing as much of your own patient education via your medical website, you can help circumvent much of the misinformation and outdated “education” that patients are embracing these days.  Directing patients specifically to your website for patient education resources (whether it be a Health Library, online Videos, or your original content) could save you a ton of time, energy, and frustration.  Think about every time you hear this at a patient appointment: “But I read on the internet that…”  That inevitably leads to a lengthy discussion where you, the doctor, must disprove or debate already formulated conclusions formed by your patient.  This leads to longer appointment times spent with patients, patients who are convinced they know more about the situation than they actually do, and a frustrated physician who has tight schedule as it is.  And let’s face it, time is money.  The great news is we’re here to help.  Let us help you efficiently and effectively provide streamlined education to your patients.  Contact us today to find out how we can help you enhance your online patient education.

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Strengthen Your Medical Website’s SEO with Original Content

1/19/2017

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Every doctor wants to have a beautiful, highly effective website and online presence.  But having an effective medical website doesn’t mean having one that’s simply visually stunning.  In a perfect world your website would not only be beautifully designed and user friendly, but also extremely SEO friendly so that your website is capable of higher search rankings.  So how does original and/or recently added content specific to YOUR practice and area of expertise help with SEO?  Well, the reason is this: Google (the proverbial king of search engines) will rank your medical practice’s website higher in the search results if your website contains unique and/or recently added content.  As we stated in our last blog, Google ranking is all about relevance, authority and trust.  Google loves websites that contain pages full of high quality, rich content that is new, relevant, and original.

Here at Medical Site Solutions, we provide websites that come conveniently turn-key with specialty specific content and images.  This means that all of our websites come with the option of using our prewritten content.  We offer prewritten content for the most common services and procedures within each specialty as well as specialty specific photos.  We provide this preloaded content as a baseline or a foundation from which physicians may add-to or create their own content.  Doctors have the option to use or modify our preloaded content as they see fit.  Or they can easily create their own 100% original content using our online editor.
Here are several tips and options for increasing SEO with original content:
♦You can choose to use our already written, preloaded specialty specific content (i.e. general descriptions of the most common procedures within your specialty and relevant photos), but in doing so, make the content uniquely your own. That means, using parts of what we have and tweaking our content so that it is more specific to the services, procedures, and protocol specific to YOUR practice.  Implementing this option simply means that doctors may use our preloaded content as a baseline or foundation from which to create their own content.
♦Adding a weekly or monthly blog article (original content) on your website can dramatically increase your SEO. Each time you create a new post you are adding a new page to your website. Search engines love seeing FRESH, original content.
♦Adding original videos and/or images to your website also has an enormous effect on your SEO. Important note: make sure all videos and images added are SEO optimized to get the full benefit.
♦You can also opt to use NONE of our content, but just use the website design/layout. At Medical Site Solutions, you have the ability and option to create 100% original content on your website.  This could involve creating your own links, website headers, website categories, website page names, procedure and service descriptions, using your own photos, and the list goes on and on.  It’s may be more work for you in the beginning, but in the end, you’d have a website that has 100% original content.  And here again, our preloaded content can help by giving you a jumping off point to form your own content ideas…to get the creative juices flowing, as they say!
You could purchase a website from us and simply insert your practice name and contact information and nothing else.  You’d still have a user-friendly website, rich in content and truly stunning in design that is SEO friendly.  If you’d like to further strengthen your website SEO to attract more patients (i.e. increase traffic to your site), you should include as much original content as possible.  After all, Google tends to reward medical websites for doctors that are authoritative, original, and unique in content.  All of our website designs give our clients the capability to be as original as they’d like with their content creation.
A ton of the bigger medical website design companies (the ones that charge thousands of dollars for medical websites for doctors) like to slam the smaller guys like us by convincing doctors that buying gorgeous and affordable websites like ours is a big no-no.  They see that we are providing viable, effective, user-friendly, highly functional websites at a fraction of what they charge, and quite frankly, they don’t like the fact that they are losing business to companies like ours.  Their main argument is that by offering preloaded content, doctors may have the same content as others, thus offering little SEO success.  Original content is just one of many factors search engines use to determine page ranking.  A medical website could actually have 100% original content but rank lower than a website that has duplicate content.  In fact, Google’s Andrey Lipattsev (Search Quality Senior Strategist) has adamantly stated that Google does NOT have a duplicate content penalty.
The bottom-line is that Medical Site Solutions offers an affordable way to create an incredibly beautiful website with original content that is both SEO friendly and effective.  Contact us today at (888) 993-1992 for more information on how we can help you create a unique and gorgeous new website for your medical practice!

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Google’s Top Ranking Factors: How Google Ranks Your Medical Website in 2017

1/12/2017

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Have you ever wondered why some websites rank higher than others on a search results page?  Or why some websites show up on page one versus page two of the results?  Have you ever noticed that sometimes a small business with relevant information can rank higher than the Wikipedia page with the same related content?  In this blog, we’ll take a look at Google’s top ranking factors and how you can help YOUR medical practice obtain a higher ranking than your competitors.
If you read our last SEO blog (Search Engine Optimization: An Introduction) you may recall the various definitions we mentioned for Search Engine Optimization.  But just as a refresher, SEO is defined by one source as a “methodology of strategies, techniques and tactics used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine” (Webopedia).  A search engine, for instance, like Google.  The former CEO of Google once reported that Google uses over 200 ranking factors to determine which sites rank higher in the search engine. That’s right…OVER 200!!!  Here’s the thing: the process of SEO and search engine ranking within Google revolves around three main principles:  Relevance, Authority, and Trust.
Google employs complex mathematical algorithms that rely on over 200 clues or signals to determine the relevancy of a website.  These determine how your medical website will rank in online searches.  Yes, these algorithms are complex, but the great news is, as long as you remember those three principals stated above (i.e. relevance, authority, and trust), you can help your medical practice push its way to the proverbial front of the classroom in search results. 

These three principals are the focus and core of Google’s algorithms and can be used to your advantage in obtaining higher rankings:
  1. Relevance: Google looks at the content on your site to determine relevancy. The search engine likes to see a website that contains valuable, content rich information.  It’s important to think like a patient when considering relevance, and not like a doctor.  What will your patients type into the search box?  What information will they try to obtain?  Google will only return results relevant or valuable to the searcher’s query, and then will rank those results according to the popularity of the website providing this information.  Relevancy and popularity are gained by providing content rich pages built for your patients (and not for the search engines), building links from relevant sites, and other various SEO techniques that can be read about here.
  2. Authority: Authority refers to your medical practice’s online strength within your market or field. What it basically boils down to: a numbers game.  For instance, if your practice has 900 backlinks and 900 social media followers while your main competitors have 100 backlinks and 100 social media followers…well….you’re probably going to rank higher than Dr. Competitor on the other side of town.
  3. Trust: Google’s focus and mission is to keep untrustworthy, crappy quality websites OUT of the search results. In fact, the “trust” principal has been the central motivator behind some extremely crucial Google changes and updates over the past several years.  Your practice’s medical website should contain high-quality content and backlinks (i.e. inbound links from other reputable websites that point back to your website) in order to be considered a trustworthy source by Google.
Ok, and now we get to the fun part people!!  With those three guiding principles in mind, let’s get down to the meat and potatoes of this bad boy.  So what ARE Google’s top ranking factors?  While Google never reveals its algorithm details or exact ranking factors, SEO industry leaders (with lots of study and testing) have been able extract some of the strongest factors that can influence higher search rankings. 
These include:
  • Relevant Keywords on the Page
              ◊  A keyword is a word or group of words that you would like your site to rank for in Google.
  • Keyword in Internal Links
              ◊  These are the keywords within the internal links on your website. Internal links are used for navigation within your medical website…they go from one                             page on a domain to another page on the same domain.
  • User Signals
              ◊  These can be viewed on Google Analytics and include signals such as bounce-rate, time on the website, click thru rate, etc.
  • Domain Visibility
              ◊  This refers to how strong the domain is in terms of authority and links.
  • Search Volume of Domain Name
  • Total Number of Backlinks and Referring Domains
  • Google Plus and Facebook Activity

The bottom line is this:  If Dr. Competitor on the other side of town has more of the above factors featured on his website than you do, his website is more likely to rank higher than yours.  We will be discussing each of these above ranking factors in depth within future blogs, so stay tuned!  Also, Medical Site Solutions offers various tiers of SEO packages for ALL our medical website designs.  Contact us today for more information on how we can help your medical practice achieve your online goals for 2017!

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