27th Aug 2008
How do I set up my practice website?
A readaer asked me about this one a few days ago. Here is how I responded:
Setting up a website is definitely a good idea; having a site is becoming more and more the preferred way to attract potential patients to your site – even higher in importance than getting a Yellow Pages ad. But the website business has gotten much more complicated in the past few years, with the addition of stuff like search engine optimization, flash special effects, and fancy widgets. I did my own website a few years ago, but I would not attempt to tackle it now.
Here is another important reason why you should hire someone to set up your practice website: Even if you have the expertise, do you really want to spend the time doing this when you could be doing other things – like talking to prospective patients or doing adjustments? Setting up a website is a huge “time sucker-upper” and I would suggest you not get sucked into that task.
You can set up a fairly simple site for not much money, with all the information a prospective patient needs – who you are, where to find you, all about chiropractic, your services, the ability to contact you by email, even new patient forms. If you want to do the “max” (and spend much more money) you can create an interactive “member” site where people can go to interact with you and have lots of information about chiropractic. It’s up to you, your purpose for your site, and how much money you want to spend.
There are many web designers out there. Here are some suggestions for getting your site done, depending on your budget and your preferences:
1. I have been working for several years with a company called VirtualImpax. The owner, Kathy Hendershot-Hurd, is a marketing guru, book author, and website setter-upper. She has helped many people set up great-looking sites with high ranking in search engines. She has a service called easychiropracticwebsites.comto help chiropractors set up simple but effective websites. You can see her main website at VirtualImpax.com and you can email her at kathy[at]virtualimpax.com.
2. I ran a search on Chiropractic Economics online to see what came up for “website design.” There were lots of vendors on the list. (http://www.chiroeco.com/buyersguide/Search/MarketingResults.php .
3. I also know that Bill Esteb over at Patient Media has a partner website service called PerfectPatients. They have lots of chiropractic content, if you’re looking for a site with more services.
When you get your site set up, send the link to me at jean@dcpracticesuccess.com – I collect chiropractic websites and I would love to see yours.
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Hi Jean
Nice blog post.
I’m Bill Esteb’s partner at Perfect Patients. In addition to what you’ve suggested, we have found that effective practice websites need to be planned around three clear objectives:
1. Attract new patients! SEO to generate traffic to your site and then great content and design to convert the visitor to a new patient.
2. Educate current patients resulting in improved patient retention and complaince. That menas the site needs interactivity (like newsletters, e-learning etc) as well as depth of content.
3. Equip patients to refer more frequently and effectively. Make it easy to refer with “email a friend” links.
Regards
Steve
I have found that blogs are producing much better results with my clients than the “traditional” website. Something to look at.
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