Digital Marketing Archives - Dobies Health Marketing

Online Privacy and Security in Healthcare: What You Need to Know

November 1, 2024/in Digital Marketing/by Dobies Health Marketing

Web privacy and security are critical concerns for healthcare organizations and consumers – that’s nothing new. However, the introduction of new regulations around tracking tools and consumer targeting means that protecting sensitive data is more complex than ever. At a recent event hosted by KC Health Communicators, AJ Templin, Digital Marketing Manager, shared essential information for anyone trying to ensure their online privacy and security measures are up to date.

In a bulletin updated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this past June, regulators addressed the intersection between HIPAA rights and online tracking. The bulletin specifically targets tracking technologies – such as cookies used by websites and apps – and clarifies that healthcare organizations and their partners must abide by HIPAA rules when using these tools. This includes safeguarding protected health information (PHI) collected through tracking technology vendors like Google and Meta. Organizations must obtain explicit patient consent before sharing PHI with third parties. Failure to do so can result in severe legal penalties, as well as the loss of trust among employees, consumers and the public.

As a healthcare organization beholden to HIPAA regulations, you may be asking yourself how you can track and analyze campaign performance data, and even target key consumer segments, while remaining compliant with the latest laws around privacy and PHI.

This illustration by Freshpaint underscores the risk tracking technologies can pose.

While the bottom line is that tracking technologies do elevate your risk of data breaches, understanding how to navigate the system – or partnering with someone who does – will help ensure your marketing stays both effective and compliant.

Cookies & Consent

Cookies are bits of data sent to and from your web browser that identify you, with the goal of enhancing your user experience by serving up content based on your preferences. When you visit a website for the first time, there’s a good chance you’ll see a pop-up message telling you the site uses cookies and giving you the chance to accept or opt out via changing settings. Getting “cookie consent” – and letting people know that continuing to use the site implies consent – is an increasingly popular way to mitigate these privacy and security challenges. By offering transparency and the ability for users to opt out, organizations can better protect themselves and their site visitors from unwanted data sharing.

Analytics with Server-Side Protections

In response to heightened regulations, you need advanced server-side protection that ensures outgoing data is cryptographically hashed and/or encrypted before it is shared with external analytics platforms (such as Google Analytics). Freshpaint offers healthcare organizations the tools to control what information is being shared. At Dobies Health Marketing, an Onspire Health Marketing company, we’ve partnered with Freshpaint to layer their best-in-class protections into our most popular digital marketing solutions. Freshpaint’s Healthcare Privacy Platform helps close security gaps in digital marketing, acting as a safeguard by filtering out PHI before it reaches untrusted third-party platforms. Through our innovative partnership with Freshpaint, we’ve made this leading-edge, privacy-first platform available and affordable for healthcare organizations of all sizes.

Enhanced Video Privacy

When you embed videos on your website that are hosted on popular third-party video platforms, those platforms will collect information about your web visitors (very similar to a third-party analytics engine). When a video is about specific health conditions and/or medical specialty, a view can be “evidence” that the viewer has that particular condition or needs to see a specialist – which opens the door for HIPAA violations. To protect PHI, healthcare organizations need one or more of the following safeguards:

Server-side protection with built-in video encryption
Transition your video embeds to YouTube’s Privacy Enhanced Mode (which means no one’s data will be stored unless and until they interact with a video)
Remove embeds in favor of providing direct links to videos (which avoids having video view information shared from your website)

Additional Web Security Measures

Beyond managing tracking technologies, healthcare websites should prioritize security measures to protect all forms of PII. Encrypting your online form submissions with a tool like LuxSci Forms is a smart added measure, as is two-factor authentication (2FA) and modifying admin permissions to reduce the risk of unauthorized access.

Where to Go from Here: Developing an Action Plan

Feeling overwhelmed by what it takes to ensure compliance and avoid costly data breaches? If so, you are not alone – it’s a complex matter that must be handled correctly at every turn. We recommend partnering with our digital marketing experts for strong security and peace of mind. But if you want or need to lead your own charge, begin by thoughtfully auditing your current processes. For example:

What tools are integrated with the website and what information is being shared?
Have all applicable vendors signed a Business Associate Agreement with you that governs their use of PHI/PII?
What information is being collected on your website?
Do you have videos embedded on the website?
Do you have a map tool integrated with the website?

Once potential vulnerabilities are identified, create a detailed action plan to enhance compliance and security. It is crucial to establish clear timelines for implementation to prevent new threats and guarantee the ongoing protection of patient data.

Partnering with the Experts

The evolving demands of web privacy and security can be challenging for busy marketers to keep track of, let alone ensure compliance at every step. As a full-service agency specializing in healthcare marketing, we understand how crucial it is to keep patient data secure. That’s why we partner with Freshpaint to provide privacy-first digital marketing. To learn more, contact us today.

Smart Media Buying in a Presidential Election Year

August 6, 2024/in Creative Advertising, Digital Marketing/by Dobies Health Marketing

Executing a successful advertising strategy – one that helps your organization maintain share of voice in a presidential election year – is no easy challenge. As political campaigns heat up over the summer into fall, it is essential to consider how political ad spending will impact, or should we say dominate, the advertising ecosystem you’re competing in.

Between 2020 and 2024, U.S. digital political ad spending has surged by more than 156 percent. Your digital spending needs to be surging at the same time. Why? Because digital programmatic media is driving the health market right now.

Consider that 77 percent of patients perform online research before booking an appointment. Google receives more than 1 billion health questions every day, totaling 7 percent of all Google searches. Video is king: In 2024, nearly 9 in 10 consumers said they want to see more videos from brands, and those consumers are 52 percent more likely to share video content than any other type of content.

It’s clear you want a strong digital presence, but digital political ad spend in the 2024 election is anticipated to reach an all-time high of $12.32 billion, which is nearly three times the 2016 spend and almost $3 billion more than 2020. While there is more Connected TV (CTV) inventory to go around this year, advertisers should be aware of how inventory will be impacted.

Even as digital political ad spending soars, Linear TV and CTV will still represent the greatest overall spend in the political arena. Most spending will be in key battleground states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. These are the states poised to see the largest share of political expenditure, which could profoundly affect local ad rates.

Spend Smarter: Understanding the Nuances

Media pricing will be affected, but don’t feel compelled to spend more or less – just aim for spending smarter. To do that, you’ll need to understand the nuances of the market and what is happening where.

Meta, for instance, is placing limits on political spending and posts to reduce the amount of political content in feeds. This presents an immediate opportunity to reach your audience with little political noise. Paid search is largely immune to political advertising. Maximize search engine marketing (SEM) to capture intent-driven traffic. Now is a good time to revisit your SEM ads to see if they will benefit from updating keywords for localized and voice search activity.

It’s not necessary to completely abandon Linear TV or CTV. Just avoid the general election run-up (Sept. 6-Nov. 5), and buy early to avoid “last in, first out” preemptive scenarios. Leverage the nimbleness of programmatic media, maximize channel integration and monitor closely to shift resources to top performers. At Dobies Health Marketing, our team has the capability to track some viewership in linear TV and can integrate CTV to complement and extend reach and frequency.

From traditional media to streaming media and every platform in between, there’s so much to consider, and terrain is shifting constantly – but help is available for smart media planning. When you partner with Dobies Health Marketing, you partner with world-class media power integrating traditional and programmatic digital media. We bring experienced media buying capabilities for increased media efficiency and performance. Our team harnesses data and predictive intelligence to deliver and execute digital marketing strategies that are custom-built for your unique challenges. Contact us to learn more today.

Win the Battle for Share of Voice and Market Share Growth

June 22, 2020/in Creative Advertising, Digital Marketing/by Julie Amor, MHA

Data-driven insights are critical for strategic decisions on hospital advertising

For hospital advertising, it takes more than creative concepts to produce long-term results. Especially now, as hospitals resume and reshape their 2020 advertising plans in the wake of monumental disruption, strategy remains a crucial part of the equation. As studies have shown, share of voice feeds market share, and market share feeds profitability.

Moving the needle in the right direction requires a smart, strategic approach to hospital advertising — and to be strategic, you need data that go beyond dollars and cents. For instance, you may know what your competitors are spending on total ad buys, but do you know what, specifically, those ads are communicating? What spaces are they claiming in your market, and which top drivers are they successfully tapping into? The answers to those questions and more illuminate your opportunities for elevated positioning.

Competitive insights are critical to defining a media position within your market and determining an appropriate budget and media mix to meet your advertising objectives. The ability to analyze detailed information about your competitors’ initiatives empowers you to make data-driven decisions about local advertising efforts – and get results.

“All things being equal, a brand whose share of voice is greater than its share of market is more likely to gain market share.”
—The Nielsen Company

When hospitals evaluate share of voice and positioning relative to competitors, many will find that their ad spend does not go as far as they expected. Increasing share of voice is essential to market share growth. According to The Nielsen Company, for every 10 points your share of voice exceeds your share of market, you can expect 0.5 percent greater market share growth, in comparison with a strategy where your share of voice and share of market are more balanced.

How can you find the data you need to get the full picture and maximize your ad spend? soviews+, a subscription-based tool developed by hospital marketers, provides specialized data to hospitals and health systems that guide tactical decisions for market share growth:

As explained in the video above, soviews+ is the only interactive competitive media market profile designed exclusively for hospitals. soviews+ analyzes and packages market intelligence on top competitors in market with regard to share of voice, media spend, media mix, core messaging, creative samples and more. This one-of-a-kind tool lets hospital marketers see their full competitive landscape, paving the way to enhanced, strategic decision-making in the local market.

To schedule a brief online demonstration of soviews+, please contact me. Learn more by visiting dobies.com/soviews.

About the Author

Julie Amor, MHA, President and Chief Strategy Officer for Dobies Health Marketing, has 30 years of experience elevating healthcare brands. Share your thoughts with her by tweeting @DobiesGroup, connecting with us on LinkedIn, or by commenting on our Facebook page.

Programmatic Media Buying: The Smarter Way to Reach Your Target Audience

May 26, 2020/in Creative Advertising, Digital Marketing/by Julie Amor, MHA

As a healthcare marketer, how well do you know the online habits of your target audience? For example, are they more likely to visit websites about gardening, sporting goods or fashion? What news sites do they read, and which social media outlets get most of their attention?

Maybe you already have those answers, maybe you don’t. Either way, how will that information drive your media plan? Savvy marketers understand that today’s targeting options have evolved far beyond site-specific media buying, the traditional method of casting a wide net across a narrow field of websites where you most expect to find your targets. Now you have programmatic media in your toolkit – the smarter way to reach target audiences wherever they live, work and play online.

Choosing the Path to Better Results

Programmatic media buying (a.k.a. audience-first digital media targeting) uses real-time and historical trend data to message the right audience in the right environment at the right time. There’s a reason it dominates the world of digital advertising: With its highly sophisticated algorithms and data integration capabilities, programmatic media finds and reaches your targets wherever they are, and with pinpoint precision compared to traditional media buying.

Source: soviews+ reporting
Click to enlarge

Digital media strategies thrive on diversity. See how programmatic media buying finds your target audience wherever and whenever they are most engaged. Share on X

When it comes to programmatic media buying, look for experts who are driven to advance your advertising goals. For our clients, we partner with the HIPAA-compliant firm Goodway Group, combining their expertise in digital media with our expertise in healthcare marketing, branding and advertising. Through this partnership, we fuel advertising campaigns that drive higher engagement, stronger share of voice and greater market share.

On Track to Peak Performance

Programmatic media buying establishes the ability to drive and track lower funnel and high value activities, producing real-time performance insights that enable optimization throughout the campaign. Such insights allow you to understand how many impressions it takes to prompt a user to visit your site, and how long it takes the average user to get to your site after their first exposure to your message.

These and many other campaign performance data points are powerful but often highly detailed – another reason why it’s important to partner with experts. At our firm, we analyze and package must-have insights into simple dashboards that continuously inform multimedia online ad buying. In addition to web traffic, digital campaign results, SEM performance, organic social media campaigns and more, our reports include observations and recommendations for improving key drivers moving forward.

Source: Dobies Health Marketing
Click dashboard to enlarge

From programmatic media buying to competitive media market profiling and every level in between, harness the power of data to illuminate your path to success. To learn more about what we do in healthcare marketing, branding and advertising, visit our services or contact us.

About the Author

Julie Amor, MHA, President and Chief Strategy Officer for Dobies Health Marketing, has 30 years of experience elevating healthcare brands. Share your thoughts with her by tweeting @DobiesGroup, connecting with us on LinkedIn, or by commenting on our Facebook page.

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Healthcare Marketing & the Sandwich Generation

February 25, 2016/in Creative Advertising, Digital Marketing, Social Media/by Diane Morgan

How to Reach Consumers Who Make Healthcare Decisions for Many

The Sandwich Generation comprises Gen Xers and Boomers who are providing care and support for parents as well as children/teens.

My mom, my daughter and me on Mother’s Day 2015

Like most wives and mothers, I have a say in all healthcare decisions for my husband, my teenager, and myself – but my influence doesn’t end there. As my 80-something mother becomes increasingly reliant on loved ones to take the reins for her well-being, I now play a role in her healthcare choices as well. This makes me a member of the “Sandwich Generation,” tasked with caring for a parent as well as a dependent.

It’s a well-populated place, this Sandwich Generation. According to Pew Research Center, nearly half of all U.S. adults age 40-59 fit the definition. Smart healthcare marketers will seek our attention and recognize that:

We are key decision-makers as healthcare consumers, given our involvement in multi-generational healthcare needs; and
This position we occupy in our families can be stressful, so sometimes what we need most is helpful guidance from trusted sources that bring information to us in easily digestible formats, rather than waiting and hoping we’ll find it ourselves.

Gaining the Attention – and Trust – of the Sandwich Generation

From one healthcare marketer to another, here are some tactics to consider when you want to win the hearts and minds of this influential market segment (the majority of whom are Gen X):

Go digital. Not surprisingly, people in the Sandwich Generation are busy. Pew found that nearly one in three (31%) report “always feeling rushed,” compared to less than one in four adults (23%) outside the Sandwich Gen. Because we are more pressed for time, trying to reach us via traditional print channels won’t bring much return – particularly during the busy work/school week. How and where you will find us online:

Social media – target the Sandwich Generation with paid advertising on social media outlets to reach beyond your following. Facebook is Gen X’s favorite social site, and Pinterest – with its small-but-growing user base largely comprised of women (often the household’s primary decision-maker in matters of health/healthcare) – is worth consideration as you plan your social content calendar. Time your posts and ads to catch us in the evenings and on weekends when we have more time to engage and dive in. [Check out these tips for directing the conversation on social media.]
Advertise on news websites and blogs – digital display ads grab our attention when we’re catching up on news, looking up how-to’s, etc. Search and/or site retargeting tactics will keep your ads in front of us as we go about our business online.
Host your own blog – post relevant, helpful content, such as topics around parenting and managing the health, wellness, and fitness of our children (mostly tweens, teens and young adults), ourselves (42% Gen X; 33% Boomers), and our parents (age 65+).
Online videos – whether it’s pre-roll advertising (those :15 and :30 ads that play before the main video), or clips you host on YouTube and include in your blog and social shares, videos can be a great way to expand reach, and even go viral if done well. [Check out these best practices from Advertising Age on determining video length.]

Let us know where you can offer value. Be as forthcoming and accurate as possible about the costs for a given exam, test, procedure, hospital stay, etc. This will be much appreciated by the Sandwich Gen because the dual caregiving roles impose financial strain for some. When asked by Pew, only 28% of Sandwich Generation respondents described their financial situations as comfortable, compared to 41% of non-Sandwichers (and the former outnumbered the latter by nearly 2:1 in the “just meet basic expenses” category).

Speaking for my fellow Sandwichers, we do not want to cut corners when it comes to our loved ones’ well-being. But, as we save/pay for kids’ college educations and in some cases provide financial support for aging parents, we do actively look for ways to avoid spending more out-of-pocket than necessary. If you can offer greater savings/higher value, let us know about it. And, if your organization is in a position to teach us how to self-manage the health and wellness concerns of our aging parents to the fullest extent we are able, that’s value. Make it known.

Be transparent about quality, too. Value is important, but so is quality. We don’t take our role as healthcare consumers lightly, and we want to rest assured that we’re providing quality care for the people we love. If your organization is a hospital, publish your quality rankings/recognition online. If you’re a surgery center, publish your low complication and infection rates, and outcomes data. Help us make truly informed healthcare decisions for the good of our families, and you’ll be that much closer to making loyal customers out of us.

When you let the unique needs, wants, and demands of your target consumer base drive your advertising messages and tactical plan, you give your healthcare company much better odds of getting noticed. And, when your target consumers do take action and you follow through with exceptional experiences at every encounter, you gain their trust and loyalty – and they, being mostly Gen Xers, will reward you with positive online reviews, social shares and word-of-mouth referrals. Content development people like me live and breathe this notion every day. We let the needs and perspectives of our audience lay the foundation for a tactical approach that serves meaningful, on-point content and gets results.

Healthcare Marketers: Develop a Digital Content Strategy to Enhance Your Online Presence

January 29, 2015/in Digital Marketing, SEM/SEO/by Dobies Health Marketing

This week in our Healthcare Branding Series, let’s focus on the importance of digital content strategies.

The meteoric rise of the internet, social networks and mobile browsing has changed how healthcare consumers seek out information. For healthcare marketers to reach audiences with meaningful, helpful information when and where people are looking for it, it’s critical to have a content strategy. Besides providing information consumers want and need, your online content should aim to boost search engine optimization (SEO) and enhance the user experience by providing answers to questions people are asking.

The good news: online health information is in high demand. According to the Pew Research Internet Project, 72 percent of internet users say they’ve searched for medical information online. Among them, 77 percent started with a search engine as opposed to a specific website. To boost your search rankings, make sure your website provides helpful, patient-centric information, and integrate your online content across multiple channels. While practice details and information about your services are valuable, content that answers patient questions will attract higher search engine traffic. To further enhance your online presence, create pay-per-click and other digital ad campaigns that link to topic-specific (and keyword-driven) web pages, or to campaign landing pages with clear calls to action like schedule an appointment, sign up for a class or newsletter, take a tour, or attend an event.

Online videos are also very popular in the healthcare space, so they’ve become a must-have for many successful web and social content strategies. Videos are so popular and highly regarded among consumers seeking information that YouTube is the second largest online search engine. In fact, according to Google, YouTube traffic to hospital websites increases 119 percent year over year. Simply put, videos offer a great opportunity to improve SEO and expand your reach.

In short, your content should fulfill your customers’ needs. If you’re not sure what information your customers want, check back next week when we discuss how to learn about your audience by listening and engaging with them on social media.

We encourage you to check out our other topics in this series:

To discuss how we can we deliver content marketing excellence across all channels, contact us today.

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Going Viral in Healthcare Marketing

March 4, 2014/in Digital Marketing, Social Media/by Diane Morgan

5 Tips for Creating Content People Will Share

Going viral…it’s the holy grail of modern-day mass marketing. How do you breathe enough life into your content for it to touch thousands or even millions of people beyond your reach? It’s not easy, but it does become easier if you know what you’re doing before you start production. Follow these five tips to boost your marketing content into the hallowed halls of virality:

#1: Put the right emotions in play.

Researchers have identified some common denominators when studying emotions evoked in highly viral content:

The overarching message should be positive. The subject matter may provoke sadness, fear, frustration, or some other not-so-jolly feeling, but the outcome and/or call to action should be positive or uplifting.
Anticipation and surprise are highly effective. When content drives curiosity, creates a sense of astonishment or makes people uncertain about what’s coming next, it has higher potential to go viral.
Evoking admiration also works well to increase social shares.

#2: Tug on heartstrings quickly, but weave in some “normal,” less emotional moments, too.

If you want a video to go viral, be compelling from the outset…the easiest way to lose your audience is to make them wait while you set the stage. And, because you want people to watch and share, your video should take them on a little ride – the proverbial emotional roller coaster, if you will – so they’re driven to offer friends and family the same experience by sharing it.

#3: Don’t inject too much of your brand in the content.

You can put your stamp on it, but keep it minimal – company name, logo and maybe a quick line of copy at the end to tie the messenger in with the message. Go too far beyond that, and people will decline to share your content just as they would if you asked them pass out promotional flyers on the street. Emotional branding in healthcare is so much more about what you do than what you say, so keep your footprint small on viral content and save your role for where it matters most: real-life patient experiences.

#4: Consider your options with Influencers.

Who out there can help you reach – and influence – enough people to make your campaign go viral? Think local celebrities (or national celebs who grew up in your community). Think relevant thought leaders with significant social followings. Think bloggers and reporters with lots of engaged subscribers – and ask yourself who among them may take an interest in your message and reach thousands of potential “sharers” with just one click? Give it some thought…you may find you have more options with Influence Marketing than meet the eye.

#5: Make your content useful and helpful.

Whether or not it goes vital, content with practical applications helps you garner attention as an expert or helpful resource. The same researchers who identified the most effective emotions for viral content also discovered that PSA-style messages – those that serve the “public good” – have potential to go viral. This claim aligns with separate findings that suggest many people are happy to support health-related causes by sharing on social media.

What’s your favorite viral campaign and why? Leave a comment to keep this conversation going about captivating the masses in ways traditional mass marketing never could.

Healthcare Marketers: Expand Your Reach with Online Videos

May 7, 2012/in Digital Marketing, Social Media/by Diane Morgan

In our last blog post, we discussed the importance of giving patients what they want to see on your healthcare provider website. As you plan your content strategies, think about the rapidly growing reach of online videos. They’re an effective way to build your brand by engaging your audience.

Check out these related insights from a health consumer study by Google and OTX:

One in three people (32 percent) watch health videos online. That outranks the number of people watching videos about food, celebrities, beauty and fashion, sports and many other content categories.

More than half (54 percent) of patients want information on specific conditions when they watch health videos online. Additionally, 49 percent express interest in videos featuring experts, e.g. physicians (like these videos we helped create to introduce the doctors of Lawrence Memorial Hospital’s affiliated OB-GYN practice).

Four in 10 patients (43 percent) say they used a search engine for more information on health topics featured in online videos. Many took further action as well: 21 percent signed up for a health-related newsletter, 12 percent clicked on an ad, 10-16 percent recommended a website or forwarded a video link to someone, while another 7 percent shared a video via chat or blog. When you look at it this way, it’s easy to see how online videos make a very effective ‘gateway’ touch point between your organization and the people you want to reach.

In addition to being easy and relatively inexpensive to distribute, online videos excite and resonate with people who prefer to learn by watching (roughly two-thirds of the population). For your audience, videos are more closely linked to a storytelling experience than text on a screen, which makes video a more engaging and memorable medium by its very nature. Videos also offer a great deal of flexibility when it comes to production and execution:

They can be made on any budget. If spending is an issue, consider using a flipcam in a quiet work space with an attractive backdrop and good lighting. Feature your physicians speaking naturally (albeit from a well-prepared script) to deliver a clear, concise message with minimal post-production editing.

They can be repurposed for a variety of applications. Think outside your website and YouTube – your video content could be integrated into a webinar, included in e-newsletters, featured on your facebook page, displayed on tabletops at recruitment fairs and more.

They make very compelling online ads. If your budget allows it, go beyond educational videos and into the advertising arena. Video ad spending is projected to increase by 40 percent this year alone. Public service announcement videos are also effective at building brands by reaching out to people in meaningful ways.

If you’re new to video content creation and optimization, contact us for some useful tips. Then start planning – and producing – to establish new connections using online videos.

Healthcare Websites: Giving Patients What They Want

April 26, 2012/in Digital Marketing/by Diane Morgan

So…what do you think of our new website? We hope you like it as much as we do, because if we don’t provide a helpful, informative and visually appealing experience while you’re here, then we’re just wasting space, plain and simple.

This is especially true for hospital and physician practice websites. These sites should be current, easily accessible resources for the eight in 10 internet users who seek health information online, but generally speaking, they’re not. Studies show many of today’s provider websites are mediocre at best. Why? Because these patient-facing sites don’t offer much when it comes to patient-friendly, patient-focused information.

What they do tend to offer in abundance is hospital- or practice-centric ‘About Us’ content. While it’s okay to provide an overview of the organization as a local patient care provider, that’s really not why people visit the site, especially when it comes at the expense of information patients really need, like whether their insurance will be accepted, what forms they’ll need for a first-time visit, which floor the lab is on, whether they can get a certain procedure at your facility, how to reach their specialist by phone, and so on.

Bottom line: the most successful healthcare websites put patients first. Why disappoint when you can ‘wow’ people instead? Making your site patient-friendly involves varying levels of complexity and expertise, but here are some things to consider that won’t require a complete overhaul:

Be accessible to everyone. Offer concise content at a high school reading level – no long, jargon-heavy paragraphs. Make sure it’s a mobile-friendly site, because one in five cell phone owners in the U.S. today have used their phones to look up health-related information. Offer bilingual content if English is a second language for many of your patients, and accommodate people with disabilities like visual impairments that limit web accessibility if you can. Thanks to a wide variety of plugins, extensions and widgets available for today’s most commonly used content management systems, these tasks are often not as difficult as you might think.

Make sure search engines can – and do – find you. Plugins for search engine optimization (SEO) are a dime a dozen these days. It helps to have key words and phrases in your content, but that alone is rarely enough to make you a top match in searches. Deploy SEO strategies to ensure people find you when your content answers the questions they’re asking.

Keep it fresh. Stale, outdated content engages no one. Be sure to update your site with new developments relevant to patients, like upcoming health promotions, new doctors and services, extended appointment hours and so on. And if one or more of your physicians is willing to blog in layman’s terms on key medical topics and news, we say go for it!

By the way, online videos are also a great way to provide truly engaging content that users can access and absorb with ease. But that’s a whole other blog topic – read more here.

And finally, in terms of design, here’s your new mantra: No Clutter Allowed. Apply the same levels of neatness, logic and organization to your site as you do at your facility. Remember, your website is often your first chance to make a good impression, so use it wisely. Put the needs and interests of patients first.

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