Archives for July 2011 | Medical Web Experts

Local SEO: The Tips and Tricks to Getting Local

Should you have zip codes at the footer of your page? Will this boost results?

Yes, but not too many! In order for your page to get higher ranks in Google, you will want to have added the address of your company not only to the footer of the page, but also to a separate contact page created especially for your site. Here is a list of the top 10 MUST have’s on your site so that you can boost results and rank higher in the search engines.

1) Mention up to 6 different zips/cities, but not more than that in the footer of your site.

2) Sometimes one town can have multiple zip codes but that still doesn’t mean you should avoid them in your content and meta tags. Your address in the footer and a contact page helps a great deal with your local search engine optimization attempts.

3) Right now, it’s 95% about the links pointing to your site. If you want to rank for 94062 Internal Medicine, get links from other (hopefully authoritative) sites using “94062 Internal Medicine ” as the anchor text.

4) Have your physical location on every page of your website.

5) Your local phone number needs to be on every page of your website.

6) Place your physical address at the top of your “Contact Us” page.

7) List your street, city, state and zip code in the “keyword” meta tags for all your web pages.

Wherever appropriate, include your location in your page Titles.

9) Mention the name of a shopping mall, or industrial park, or other significant place (street, avenue, etc.) that will help people find you. Mention you are “nearby historic Union Square” or other details like these to make this page a nice meaty one for the web.

10) Driving directions from all directions should also be included.

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Posted by Candice on July 29, 2011

Website Security for Medical Practices

A realistic approach to internet security for medical practices – Part 1: Website Security

Website hacking is on the rise

As websites become more complex, the potential security risks increase. 10 years ago, when most businesses had very simple sites with just a few pages, there was little hackers could do besides take your website offline or delete your website files. Nowadays, websites are based on Content Management Systems (CMS). CMS’ use a database to store everything from your last blog post to your last contact us form request. Databases store valuable data: both in that it can be valuable to others, but that your website depends on it to work.

How are medical websites hacked?

What would happen if your database was deleted and all your web pages and blog posts disappeared? What would happen if all your contact us requests were stolen, maybe containing credit card numbers or a patient’s sensitive medical information?

In my 10 years of experience in hosting medical websites, we have seen an alarming increase in attacks on websites. The three most common attacks include (in order of frequency):

1) Websites being inserted with Malware, redirecting users to another website. This makes your site unusable, is confusing to users and gets the site blacklisted in Google.
2) SPAM emails being sent through contact us forms. This will blacklist your domain and server as being a domain that sends SPAM, causing your emails to bounce. Email server downtime and/or performance degradation is also caused.
3) Complete deletion, export or corruption of databases. Without a backup, all of your data and site content is lost or stolen.

Hack “Bots”

The hacks are usually done by what is known in the industry as “bots”. Bots are like unmanned computers that look for websites then try multiple known techniques to enter into the website. Unfortunately, these bots usually find their targets through search, so the more frequent your site appears in Google rankings, the more frequently you are attacked. Therefore, as you increase your marketing budget, you also need to increase your security budget.

Website forms, information storage and HIPAA

When it comes to HIPAA, your website forms are at the highest risk. In the past year, we at Medical Web Experts have had multiple clients contacted from HIPAA governing authorities, requiring them to change the security for their contact us forms. HIPAA’s concern is that patients will use website contact us forms to send consultation-related messages to the practice and that these emails can be intercepted or stored in an unsecured database.

Best practices for medical website security:

Have your website audited for security flaws.
Implement website monitoring software, such as that by McAfee’s Site Secure system which monitors the site on a daily basis, checking for site flaws. Medical Web Experts is a McAfee Site Secure solution reseller.
Secure your contact us forms or put disclaimers instructing patients to not include sensitive medical information.
Put a CAPTCHA in your web form to prevent SPAM.
Keep your server and CMS software updates current.
Implement a daily backup system and secondary weekly/monthly backup system.

HIPAA – All bark and no bite?

HIPAA is a highly complicated law (400 pages worth), even challenging for someone with both an IT and law background. Since its creation, there has been a lot of bark and no bite when it comes to enforcement – but this is all changing. In the past 2 years, we at Medical Web Experts have seen a significant increase in citations for HIPAA violations and medical practices being contacted with warnings from HIPAA governing organizations. Therefore, it’s important to have a plan to meet HIPAA guidelines in your practice, focusing on the highest risk issues to meet both HIPAA guidelines and to protect your business from real issues that can severely affect your business, such as data loss, lawsuits and website downtime.

About the Author

John Deutsch is the founder of Medical Web Experts and has spent the last 10 years working the healthcare IT industry, specializing in Electronic Medical Records, Network Administration and Software Development. To learn more about Medical Web Experts and their services, please visit www.medicalwebexperts.com

Read the other articles in this 3 post series:

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Posted by John Deutsch on July 28, 2011

3 Ways Patient Portal Technology Can Benefit Your Practice

Patient portals are, without a doubt, the future of medical practices. With cell phones, computers, and an increasingly mobile patient population the demand for healthcare providers and services to be online is growing.

Jumping in and investing in patient portal technology can be daunting at first but the rewards will pay off in the long run. Here are 5 ways that a patient portal can benefit your medical practice:

1. Lighten your office schedule – without sacrificing patients

One of the biggest benefits of a patient portal is the ability for patients to consult with their healthcare providers online without having to physically come into the office. This means that patients who have simple questions, need a prescription, or just are following up on lab results can schedule an online appointment during a time that it convenient for both you and the patient. This lightens the patient load at the office leaving you with more time to spend with critical patients, tend to your office tasks, and even create more space for new patients.

2. Streamline tasks that are time consuming and costly to your practice

Office overhead is a huge expense for a medical practice and making the best of your resources is essential in growing your profits. Patient portal features such as prescription requests, appointment requests, and medical record retrievals means that you have less nursing staff and other personnel spending valuable time completing these simple tasks. Furthermore, patients can reach your staff though online messaging, meaning less time spent receiving calls, waiting on the line, and making call backs.

3. Add significant revenue to your business

If your average patient comes to see your twice a year then that is only two times per year that you receive ay profit benefit from that patient. Furthermore, that profit is controlled and reduced by third-party reimbursements. Charging a low monthly membership rate to your patients for use of the patient portal is a way for you to gain significant revenue from your patients all year long. You can also charge small fees for consultations on the portal which are not only more cost-effective for patients who avoid expensive co-pays, but they give you the added revenue directly into your pocket – without outside control from insurance companies.

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Posted by RobynNazarRN on July 27, 2011

Electronic Medical Consultations on the Patient Portal

One of the top selling point features of a patient portal is the electronic medical consultation, also referred to as an eConsultation, eVisit or Virtual Visit. The electronic consultation serves as means of communication between the patient and the doctor and can done via email, phone, text message and webcam video. This is one of the biggest benefits of having a portal for both the doctor and the patient alike.

The electronic medical consultation is a great incentive for a patient to sign up for their physician’s patient portal. If the patient has a question (What are my latest lab results?) or a concern (I have this rash…), they can send their doctor an email, a text or request to be given a phone call or schedule a video chat to discuss the issue. Electronic consult requests have a quick wait time and the patient will receive a response in a timely fashion, unlike making an in-person appointment. By not having to physically go to the doctor’s office, the patient will save money (and time) by not having to get into the car and waste money on gas and by not having to rearrange their schedule or take time off work.

Doctors greatly benefit from the electronic medical consultation on an EMR patient portal as well as the patient. The doctor checks their email or text messages throughout the day and responds to the patients’ requests either right away or by the end of the day. It allows doctors to attend to more patients in one day than they normally would with just in-person visits and keep them focused on issues that can only be attended to in person, like annual physicals. Inquiries that take very little time to discuss, like lab results and approving a prescription for a Z-Pack, can be contained to electronic consults. Electronic consults are also a cash pay service that can earn the practice extra revenue. Consultations can be charged a flat rate per email or text and per minute for phone calls and video chat. It is direct and straight forward payment with no co-pay or insurance involvement and billing can be done through the portal.

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Posted by Melissa on July 26, 2011

Medical Website Blogging: Blogspot vs. WordPress

Keeping a blog is a great method of internet marketing for a medical website. It’s an effective way to keep patients informed on the practice’s latest news and accomplishments, as well as answer commonly asked questions. Blogging is a more modern alternative to the newsletter, which is more advantageous because it cuts down on the cost of printing and mailing that a newsletter would have. Blogs also reach a broader audience because they require no mailing lists and can be easily accessible to prospective patients. Blogging requires a bit of time and dedication, as it needs to be updated regularly with relevant information that will keep people coming back and more importantly, it will drive internet traffic to the your medical website. This, in turn, will hopefully build up the patient base.

The most commonly asked question when deciding to start a medical website blog is which blog publishing service to use. The two most popular blog services are BlogSpot (or Blogger) and WordPress.

BlogSpot

Pros: BlogSpot is that it’s totally free to use. Aside from being a free site, you can actually make money off the blog (at no charge to you) with AdSense. Web traffic statistics can also be easily viewed, letting the user track how many views the blog is getting, where they’re being referred from and which keywords are being to find the blog. BlogSpot can be easily customized and formatted to match the appearance of your main medical website.

Cons: All blogs on BlogSpot are owned by BlogSpot, you can own the domain name, but not the blog itself. BlogSpot is also known to be not great at search engine optimization (SEO), which means it might be harder to drive traffic to your blog with the use of keywords as it would with WordPress.

WordPress

Pros: WordPress has two options to choose from: a basic free service or a paid upgrade. A WordPress blog can be owned by the user if they purchase a domain name and a web hosting service. If the domain name is purchased, there are more opportunities to increase revenue through ads than BlogSpot and the blog’s meta and keywords can be controlled to increase SEO. WordPress is an open-source blog publishing platform that can be used as a content management system (CMS). More plugins like social networking for your practice, an SEO optimizer and Contact Us forms.

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Posted by John Deutsch on July 20, 2011

How Can I Help Market my Medical Practice?

Once you have developed a good website, possibly a patient portal and everything else is set up correctly, you should start asking yourself; “Ok, what’s next?”

Websites are a great tool to introduce yourself to the world, but that alone won’t get your name out there. As in every other business, you have to make an effort to bring in new clients, or in this case, patients. Doing this online means creating relevant content, keeping it up to date, and providing all possible information so patients don’t lose the interest in the practice.

So how should you start physician marketing?

One way is by creating a blog. The blog can be added to your website and have unique features, like allowing people to subscribe to the blog or sharing the info you submitted through social networks.

How do you maintain the blog?

Mostly, with interesting articles. The keyword is relevant content; serious information that can help the patient find what he or she is looking for.

Another way is through Social Networks. Today a lot of internet attention is focused on these poplar sites. Why? Because it’s viral! It’s personal and it creates direct contact with the client. It’s an easier way to connect with your patients and for them to be able to recommend you to their friends and family. It also creates a sense of trust, so essentially it works as a “trusted publicity.”

Lastly you can market your practice by using Medical Search Engine Optimization.

What’s that?

Medical SEO optimizes your website to make it search engine friendly, and makes your site appear on the top of the search engine list. For example a dermatologist in Kansas might want to appear first on the list when someone searches “Kansas Dermatologist” and Medical SEO can do just that.

These three pieces of advice will help you make of your site from being just another medical website. Make the difference, be up to date, and keep in touch with your patients. They will appreciate it, and so will do!

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Posted by Flora on July 20, 2011

Top 5 Hospital Website Designs in the Industry

If you are in the market for hospital website design and are looking for some inspiration you have come to the right place. After sorting through hundreds of websites we have narrowed it down to 5 websites that exemplify an elite-level of hospital design. Chosen not only for their aesthetics these websites also excel in ease-of-use, conveying relevant information, and incorporate a solid SEO structure for an effective hospital internet marketing campaign.

#1 Mount Sinai Medical Center Heart Institute

This elegant and professional website design created by Medical Web Experts stands out among hospital websites. Rich colors, flash intro, fast-loading pages and easy navigation makes this website ideal for attracting new patients. Furthermore, the designers incorporated a sophisticated SEO strategy built into its layout, linking, and page designs which direct high volumes of internet traffic to the website.

#2 Cleveland Clinic

With a stunning home page slideshow and and clean layout the Cleveland Clinic has one of the top hospital website designs around. This site has a large amount of page volume which is organized, visually appealing and easy to navigate. Furthermore, the designer incorporated strong internal linking strategy which helps drive the website’s SEO.

#3 Seattle Children’s Hospital

This sleek web design uses a mix of media and color schemes to stay true to the young clientele, without sacrificing professionalism. The scroll-over menu and slideshow news updates make the site visually appealing and provides easy-to-use navigation. Plus, blogs written by healthcare providers which appear on the home screen builds trust with the readers and draws them deeper into the website.

#4 Swedish

This major brand of hospitals welcomes you to their website with a minimalist design, flash into, and icon graphics to guide you where you need to go. Shades of black, blue, and white create clean contrast and reflect the professionalism and style of this hospital.

#5 Adena

With a crisp color scheme and large slideshow intro, this site immediately grabs a visitors attention. The home page is free from clutter and uses several menu levels which keeps the site sleek and organized. Patient navigation features such as search bars and scroll-over items help users easily make their way into the site to where they need to go.

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Posted by RobynNazarRN on July 19, 2011

Why Create a Video for your Website?

Thinking about creating a video for your website? According to a comScore report, 76 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in May 2011 for an average of 15.9 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 5.6 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month. Online videos are not going anywhere. Keep reading for a few reasons we encourage all of our medical clients to create videos.

1) A Warm Welcome: In the medical field, videos allow patients to get to know the doctors before meeting them. A custom welcome video will give a personal feel to your site, an important quality in an industry where cold and impersonal sites are all too common. When patients are researching physicians in their area, a video could very well be the key element that leads them to your practice.

2) Pack a Punch: A video allows you to deliver more essential messages in a shorter time than it would take readers to find these messages in text and read them. Even though many users will not watch the entire thing,

3) Increase User Time on Site: A video draws users in. Using multimedia is one of the best ways to increase user time on your site and thus increasing quality of visit. YouTube video wat

4) Search Engine Optimization: Videos can be an effective SEO tool. A YouTube video can be optimized for important keywords and very well rank just as high in Google searches as your own website pages for that keyword, thus driving traffic to your content and website.

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Posted by John Deutsch on July 19, 2011

How to Write a Medical SEO Friendly Blog Post

Here are 10 steps for Physicians looking to create a SEO friendly blog post.

Write the blog entry. Two to three short paragraphs is more than enough. Write about keyword related topics that are interesting for all customers and potential customers. All articles should be new and original content. Do not duplicate content on multiple blogs or articles. Write about current events that may relate to your industry. Be Objective.
Paste blog post from a notepad file – not from Word – into the “Add Post” screen to prevent unwanted code.
Title the blog and include your keywords at the front of the title rather than the end.
Create no more than 2-3 links to your website. Don’t go overboard on adding links! One per paragraph in a blog entry is plenty. Links should be dispersed amongst all pages of the website to ensure that the entire website is optimized and not just the homepage.
Links should be keywords, not just the domain name (i.e. the words Dr Hector Smith would link to www.topdoctor.com/drhectorsmithbio.php).
Add tags. Tags should be the exact same as the keyword links that were made in the above step.
Add the blog post to a category relevant to your topic. Categories should be different than the tags. Categories are more general, while a tag is very specific (e.g. Category: Cardiologist, Tag: Cardiologist in New York).Make sure the automatically-generated URL has the title in it. Avoid using numbers or abbreviations that don’t make sense.
If your blog has an SEO plugin, specify a description with your keywords as well as keyword tags.
Spread the word about your new post. Send it to your friends and colleagues and post in on your social bookmarking sites.
If you have a backlog of blog entries ready to post, do not post them all at the same time. Post them (or set them to go live) over a regular period of time – once a week would be optimal.

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Posted by Candice on July 13, 2011

Local SEO: The Tips and Tricks to Getting Local

Website Security for Medical Practices