For Your Professional Practice

(Online Marketing For The Rest of Us!)

Marketing Buzzzwords or Marketing Hype?

• Internet Marketing
• Web Marketing
• Online Marketing
• Search Engine Marketing

You've heard them all and you think they aren't for you. Not so!

As Anita Jupp, an expert on dental practice management describes, the best online promotional tool available to you is a web site about your practice. It's like having an interactive brochure that is visible world-wide 24/7.

Visibility + Credibility = Profitability

A web site is an inexpensive investment in building your practice. Hosting packages are available for about $20.00 a month and up. You can get hosting for less than $10.00 a month. Check carefully free domain and hosting offers - remember you are a professional, and get something that is reasonably priced and well-established. Make sure that they provide all the services you need, and especially the ability to provide access to the raw web logs (more about that later.) I use Netnation Canada and find them to be reliable. How much do your brochures and business cards cost? How often do you have to change them? Having a web site is indeed a low cost marketing solution.

Improve Your Marketing Skills

Start with a simple one-page web site. Don't choose a domain name that could change (what happens to Vancouver Whatever when you move your practice to Toronto?) Pick a domain name that is specific to you and is permanent, such as Doctor-Your-Name.com or similar. Find someone who will help you to register the domain, arrange for web site hosting, and create your first page for you. For an example of a simple effective layout see Virginnia Sevilla's web site. Although I manage the site, I can't take credit for the design - it uses a template and style sheet provided by Dreamweaver. You can search for and download suitable templates and style sheets from the internet, or have your designer do it for you.

Do include information about the location of your practice, as well as when you are available, and how you can be contacted. Don't include your email address - it will be picked up by spambots - but do include a business phone number. And if you work from home, give a cell phone number, and a postal service address (such as Mail Boxes Etc.) instead of your personal details. These are all ways of improving your marketing skills.

Learn How To Manage and Maintain Your Web Site Yourself

The next step is for you to learn how to manage and maintain your web site yourself. It's a great way to spend a rainy day! What tools do you need? Begin by visiting Pandia Search Central. It has a good site design, and lots of excellent information. Web Site 101 has tutorials and help for those new to web site development, and Google has extensive instructions for webmasters on how to get your site listed in Google. To understand how you can use your web site for marketing and wealth creation, read Multiple Streams of Internet Income by Robert. C. Allen. This book is good for beginners.

Search Engine Optimzation (SEO)

There are many articles about how to optimize your web site for Google and other search engines. You can get a good idea of the important search engine ranking factors in this recent article from SEOMOZ.ORG. Although you may see claims by services that offer instant high ranking, the truth is that high rankings are obtained, not by paying big bucks for instant success, but as a result of consistent effort.

Great Web Sites Have Great Content

There is no magic about building a great web site. It takes persistence and dedication. A web site is like a garden - you have to plant seeds and cultivate them before you harvest the results. Plan to add pages and content to your site regularly. Over the course of one or two years continue to develop your site, and also keep yourself familiar with current trends. There is a definite method for doing this. Word Tracker or the Keyword Discovery Keyword Research Tool can help you to find the right keywords. Make sure your content and page are high quality, and follow your rankings on the search engines. It is also important to know who is visiting your web site, and to be able to analyze your web logs. StatCounter is one way to do this for free.

Public Relations - Low Cost, High Visibility

Public Relations, News Releases, Press Releases and the like used to be the domain of media experts and fax machines. Now they are all available to you through the Internet. PRWeb provides you with all the training and resources you need to produce your own press releases for free. And for a modest fee they will give editing assistance and even submit your announcement to the search engine indexes. This is one of the most affordable and accessible ways to increase your visibility.

My final recommendation is that you buy a copy of Google: The Missing Manual by Sarah Milstein and Rael Dornfest. Why? Because the more you know about how to find what you need using the internet, the better off you are. I came across this book recently, and even although I've years of experience with the internet, The Missing Manual showed me lots of new ways to harvest useful knowledge.

Enjoy the Adventure!

Doctor I. Johnson
Author, Speaker, Consultant
for more about Ian, click here