Jonathan's Web Marketing Blog

Today, while browsing for websites that might make good Page 1 clients, I noticed an unfortunate phenomenon. As I clicked through pages of Google SERPS, I found far too many websites that in one way or another, did not take advantage of email.

Some of the websites made it difficult to find a way to email the practice. Others just ignored email altogether and simply had their phone number and address on their Contact pages.

Here are a few tips to making the most of email with your website:

1. Be receptive to email.
2. Make sure that your website has good calls to action.
3. Make sure that email works on your website.

Be Receptive to Email
This is WEB marketing that we're talking about afterall. People are online for a reason. They communicate well electronically. Many times this means that the visitors on your website will prefer to exchange emails with you before they will get on the phone with you. I have encountered some practices that are reluctant to communicate with potential clients via email. The excuse was that it was too much work. You simply can't afford to be obstinate in this case. Yes, keeping up with emails from prospects will be work, but work = money. You are throwing away web marketing dollars if you do not open your practice up to email communication from potential clients/patients.

Make sure that your website has good calls to action
Making email available is one thing. Making email highly accessible is another. By using calls-to-action like, "Have a Question? Email Us Here", you will greatly increase the number of emails that you get from your website. The strategy is to guide people to take the most desired action on your website (CONTACT YOU). If you don't include good email calls to action, people won't think to email you and will move along to the next website in the Google listings. They will ultimately be more likely to email someone else who thinks to prompt them to take action. You can and should use multiple calls-to-action that prompt people to call, email, and send mail by carrier pigeon if that's what it takes.

Make sure that email works on your website
All the calls-to-action in the world won't help you if your email address is broken. It sounds like common sense, but the IT realm can really bite you in the rear if you don't purposely make sure that your email is working. Some common problems:

• Bad email address
• Broken contact form
• Overprotective spam filter
• Inattentive email recipient

By making the most of email on your website, you protect your return on investment in website marketing.

Website usability expert, Steve Krug, wrote a book called Don't Make Me Think. The book discusses the common usability mistakes that people make when building their websites. The idea is that people shouldn't have to think to figure out how to use your website.

The Don't Make Me Think concept also applies to the effectiveness of your website when it comes to directing traffic. You never want people to wonder what to do next. If people visit a page of your website, read the text, and are never prompted to take the next step, they flounder. When faced with that uncertainty of what to do, their natural reaction is to start over. So they click the back button, bringing them back to the search engine results that they found and move on to the next website in the list. They will do this until they find a website that tells them what to do next (i.e. Schedule a consultation).

Your job as your website's traffic director is to point people to the next step; that is, what is the most desired action that you want them to take on every page of your website? If they're on the home page, you might point them to your practice area pages to find more indepth information. If the visitor is on an internal page of the website, then you might use a call-to-action to prompt them to contact you for more information or to schedule a consultation.

This strategic thinking about your website's traffic should happen while you're building your website, but if your website is already up and running, it's not too late. Just go page by page through your website and put yourself in the shoes of an average website visitor. What do you want them to do on this page? It's okay to point them at a couple of actions that you want them to take. People enjoy choosing from a set of options.

Be sure to insert calls-to-action in the verbiage of your website, especially at the bottom of the page. Everyone should remember the wisdom that our high school English teachers tried to impart to us about essay writing. You need a conclusion paragraph. So if the page is about breast augmentation, don't let the page end on a paragraph about FDA approval of silicone breast implants. Instead, wrap it up with a conclusion paragraph about how the doctor will help you choose which implants are right for you and that you need to contact the office to set up a free consultation. Having this conclusion paragraph will prevent people from reaching the bottom of the website without a clear direction of what to do next.

When you direct traffic effectively in your website you will see more conversions from your website visitors. If you're not sure whether or not your website effectively uses calls-to-action to direct traffic, contact me today and we can go over your website together to look for ways to improve things. I look forward to speaking with you!

This week InformationWeek published an article about video for the Web. All in all, it wasn't an article that I would recommend to any of my clients because it delved way too deep into technical details and assumed operations of a larger scale than what my average client is capable of. Still, there were some juicy quotes that I have to share.

This was the hook for the article: "The Internet has made video accessible to everyone--Including your competition. It's time to jump in." I couldn't agree more. Don't wait until everyone else has video on their home pages to shoot your own video. Seize the opportunity to be one of the first.

And in urging the small business owners of the world to consider video, "Most of all, it takes will and the belief that video is the most effective form of communication on the Internet today. Believe it."

Denver and Las Vegas are windy places today. Denver's even seen a tornado or two. Meanwhile Las Vegas natives have been ready to don jackets as temperatures dip down to a frigid 75 degrees.

LVI is what brought me to Las Vegas yesterday. I've been teaching a web marketing course to their Core III and Core V students. After class today, I talked with a couple of practices in similar situations, but because of their markets, I had different recommendations.

Both practices have small websites that they put up as temporary solutions, but one practice is in Dallas and the other is in Alaska. For the Alaskan practice, I recommended a templated website design with custom content. Their goal is not to show up on the search engines. They just want something to refer patients to that accurately represents the practice. The Dallas practice needs a custom design and search engine marketing because they are in a highly competitive market. In Dallas, just launching a templated website would only be a temporary solution. It would never bring in a stead flow of patients, and wouldn't be competitive with the other practices in the area. The search engine marketing is absolutely necessary in competitive markets like Dallas. Be sure to do some market analysis for your practice before you make any decisions about your web marketing.

My doctor clients will be entrigued by this development in the Google universe. Google Health is a new system for sharing medical records with designated health care providers. People set up their medical records in one place, attached to a Google account, and designate who can view their records. Currently, this has very limited uses as you (the provider) have to sign up with Google as a "Partner" to have your systems integrated with Google Health. So, unless you are a Cleveland Clinic-sized practice, you're at the mercy of your current EMR company to gain access to Google Health. I would imagine that it's only a matter of time before Google creates an online interface for providers (unless it would interfere with them making money from EMR companies as partners).

For now, Google Health is another reason to make sure that all you doctors out there are registered with Google Local. There is a Find a Doctor function built right into the main Google Health interface.

In a webcast on Monday, Google opened up about some of the ins and outs of search including Universal Search.

One of the best/worst things about Universal Search is the way in which the none-text results are filtered in with the traditional search results. If you do enough Google searches, you'll have noticed that occasionally there are Google Local results at the very top and at other times they appear in the middle of the page. There are also Google Images, Video, and News results in the mix depending upon the search. And that's where the rub is: "Depending upon the search".

How how does a computer program, decide when and in what order to display the different kinds of search results that are available? Johanna Wright of Google described it in terms of a "sweet spot of relevance." That's a great way of describing the challenge that Google faces. "It's our job within search to give you what you want," she said. My feeling is that currently, Universal Search results can seem rather random at times, taking up search result space that I would have rather seen given to another traditional result rather than a video or news. By the sound of it, Google has been working on that issue and is rolling out more Universal Search results.

"You'll see a lot more in universal search this year," Wright said. This will mean a lot of new opportunities for Page 1 clients who have diversified web marketing strategies (Video for example). We'll be able to secure even more 1st-page listings.

According to recent numbers released by Hitwise, the number of people on Google (which now accounts for 68% of all search traffic on the web) who are watching video is up from last year by 46%. This means that more people are electing to watch video on the search engines. Whether they are actually looking for video or are just happening upon the video in Google's Universal Search results remains to be seen, but in either case this presents an opportunity for your practice to start building rapport with people on the Internet using video.

Having video on your website is important so that people who come to your website can get to know you and learn more about your practice, but you can make those videos work double duty for you by submitting them to YouTube, Google Video, and other websites that specialize in video. Check out Dr. Sue Wendling's website: www.DrWendling.com. Her video really makes her website pop. We also submitted all of her videos to YouTube. You can see them on Google Video here. Some people call this technique of getting your videos more exposure on the search engines "Video SEO". At Page 1 Solutions, Video SEO is part of our standard search engine optimization process. Because of the increased demand for video on the search engines, at Page 1 Solutions, we include video in all new website design projects at no additional cost.