Writing great web copy doesn’t need to feel like pulling teeth.

Incorporate the following five steps into your writing sessions, and you’ll be well on your way to trimming the fat off your copy while giving your audience the meat they’re looking for.

1. Get the Headline Right – In a nutshell, your headline needs to look like it’s exactly what your readers have been looking for the moment they read it. Certain elements like numbered lists, percentages and questions have been proven to create more clickable headlines than others. Avoid cutsey or clever headlines that are more likely to confuse than entice your readers.
2. What’s in It for Me? – When you visit a dentist’s website, are you interested in reading about the team behind the practice or how they’re going to fix your teeth? Keep we-we language on your site to a bare minimum, and let your potential clients know what’s in it for them.
3. Trim it Down – Your typical web user has an ever-dwindling short attention span with 6th to 8th grade reading level to match. They’re not dull-witted: they’re struggling from the same information overload we all are. Trim down your copy so that it conveys the necessary information, mental images and call to action, nothing more.
4. Add Some Sizzle – Learn the difference between active and passive voice, and stick to the former as often as you can. Start replacing descriptive adjectives and adverbs with imperative verbs, and you’ll create more engaging copy.
5. Use a Scannable Format – Pages packed with five or six thick paragraphs of text and not much else are too imposing for most casuals readers. Break up your copy with subheadings, images and bulleted or numbered lists so visitors can find the tips, info and direction they need in easily digestible chunks.

Suggested Exercise:

Find a good candidate for editing amongst your existing medical practice marketing copy like an old blog post or your About Us page. If you’ve got a lot to choose from, look for a piece that you’ve always felt uncomfortable about. Put this content through the ringer using the five steps we discussed and see if you can create something that really pops.

One of the most important elements is the connection between SEO and the online buying cycle. It’s a mistake to think that all internet searches are conducted by the same kind of user, and that they all have the same likelihood of clicking on an ad or buying a product. Thankfully, most of your traffic belongs to one of three categories: interested, researching, or buying. A good site targets all three types of users, but treats them differently.

Stages of the Online Buying Cycle: Interest

Take a close look at your keyword list and try to identify those that indicate a general interest in the subject. These keywords tend to be fairly broad. They tend to be either academic or entertainment seeking. These are the users looking for “latest news” and “funny clips.” They have no immediate interest in buying something, and shouldn’t be treated as though they do.

Why target these readers at all? Several reasons. Users who find your content interesting or entertaining are more likely to subscribe to your site, share it on their social networks, link to it, leave comments, and become a loyal visitor.

Let’s face it, nobody buys something from an eCommerce site and immediately jumps on Facebook to let everybody know what a great deal they got on a “Custom heavy-duty, large spring Mfg for industrial & OEM applications.” Users who are farther along in the buying cycle are the least likely to promote your material.

While the users with an interest in your subject matter may be the least likely to offer direct product, they are the most likely to offer social and SEO benefit.

Stages of the Online Buying Cycle: Research

These users are looking for something to buy, but don’t yet know what they’re looking for. They won’t yet be susceptible to anything very marketing oriented, but they will be interested in reviews and other neutral articles about products they are interested in buying. These users are a good source to target for advertising revenue. You could, for example, compare two products neutrally, and provide an affiliate link to both of them within the content of the review.

Stages of the Online Buying Cycle: Buying

This searcher is typing things like “buy” or “order” into the search box, or they’re searching for something very specific. Odds are this user wants to buy something right away. In this case, you’ll likely achieve the best results if you don’t waste any time getting in their way. The very first thing on these landing pages should be a product description sitting next to an image of the product with an easy to spot “buy now” button in an obnoxious color that can’t be ignored.

Do not waste any time trying to convince this visitor that they want this product. Their search query has already let you know it’s exactly what they’re looking for.

1. Think like your patients. Consider what words and phrases they would use to search. Also, ask friends to tell you which words they would instinctively use to go about conducting a search for a new doctor.
2. Determine your keyword competitive landscape. Use a keyword research tool to find out (a) how many patients are using the keywords you identified and (b) how many other websites are competing with you by optimizing those keywords. There are many keyword research tools available, but a good starting tool is Google AdWords (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) because it is easy to use and free.
3. Use the research tool metrics to refine your list and isolate your most powerful keywords. This research can also inform fresh medical practice marketing ideas by delivering data on how patients search for doctors.
4. Optimize the selected keywords throughout your website in content, headings and title tags. As a rule, use each keyword less than five times per page, because overuse can have a negative effect on search engine rankings.

Thorough keyword research will ensure prospective patients reach your website as well as provide you with new medical practice marketing ideas by exposing how your patients formulate their searches for, and therefore conceptualize, healthcare information.

Who is using social media for medical practice marketing?

More than twenty percent of medical practices nationwide are already using social media for practice building. Twenty four percent of Americans who are active on the Internet report engaging in some form of social media regarding health concerns at least once per month. Eighty percent of Americans look at websites and search engines to find information on health topics.

Patients use Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to learn about and contact medical providers in various disciplines. In other words, social media is a popular source of information gathering for health consumers nationwide. With that in mind, the opportunities for health providers of all kinds to engage in referral marketing through social media are profound.

Social media personalizes your medical practice marketing campaign

Social media is seen to personalize medical practice marketing, creating true emotional connections between provider and patients. The provider is the expert in this relationship, but patients become active participants, too, with the opportunity to become better informed patients at the same time. Social media functions essentially on word of mouth, and this powerful communication medium can lead to effective referral building.

Personal recommendations carry with them the bond that can only come from relationships built on trust. These recommendations are inherently trusted, and therefore promptly relied upon. This is an effective means of generating referrals, and leads to immediately well established relations between provider and patient.

Ensuring your social marketing campaign generates referrals

At the same time, a social media campaign or effort must be evaluated on a return on investment basis as would any other marketing effort. First of all, marketing a medical practice through social media requires a significant investment of time, whether by staff or provider him or herself. Marketing a medical practice through social marketing can also be slow to produce any significant return. Developing followers takes time. Also, a provider’s reputation as developed through social marketing must be carefully managed.

Negative comments are quickly multiplied in the social realm, and any positive effects can be quickly muted. It is also worth testing the effects of the campaign to insure effectiveness and return on cost. Callers and new patients should always be asked for the source of their contact with the practice. Most social marketing websites provide little or no tracking information, so this will have to be collected actively.

Despite the difficulty of starting and operating a social marketing campaign for medical providers, the effectiveness of these campaigns is proven. They are worth the effort. Many consultants specialize in social marketing for medical providers, and one may be worth using or at least meeting with. When all is said and done with social marketing, its advantages far outweigh its costs and difficulties.

If you’re like most medical professionals, you probably didn’t enter your profession because you were naturally drawn to the glamour and excitement of medical practice marketing. The fact of the matter remains, however, that getting the word out about what separates your services from the competition is a crucial component of building your practice.

That’s why we created the Power Practice Network. We believe that marketing a medical practice effectively doesn’t have to be a chore so long as you are promoting a message that you believe in and offer a range of services designed to improved your client’s lives.

Our Marketing Jump Start program makes effective medical practice marketing simply by breaking down the process into a series of actionable templates that start with the design of a solid marketing foundation. By working through modules and activities devoted to key components like generating referrals and local search marketing, we provided you with the information, advice and resources you need to create brand authenticity and establish yourself as a thought leader within your professional niche.

The dreaded social media time suck has given comedy writers more fodder than a wet, hot, American sex scandal and wasted more time than Monday morning meetings. Let’s talk about how you can get what you want out of social media and practice marketing without draining your resources.

1. Commit to a Set Social Media Marketing Schedule: In some ways, social media marketing can turn into a time drain for the same reason email has created a reputation for tying up resources in so many resources. You know the score. Email box gets checked like an OCD patient’s stove top until you break the habit of bringing it up with every second habit. Multiply that across three or four bustling social media platforms, and you’ve got yourself a problem. Draw a line in the sand for your social media marketing campaign by setting a schedule to only update your accounts on certain days and times.
2. Pre-schedule Your Practice Marketing Updates with Third Party Apps: Third party apps like HootSuite, Seesmic and Tweetdeck all have features that allow you set scheduled posts to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for days or even weeks in advance. The learning curve on these apps is really very short, and using a single app for all of your social media marketing campaigns. I prefer to use Tweetdeck, partly just out of habit, but many professionals find that the additional features offered by HootSuite are a better fit for their needs.
3. Focus on Practice Marketing Campaigns that are Actually Effective: As obvious as it might sound to simply drop accounts that are obviously not delivering results, the truth of the matter is that we are creatures of habit and often slow to cut the cord. If you are obviously not getting any traction with a particular account or platform after 30 days, it’s time to either rework your approach or just move onto greener pastures.

With a little bit of focus and self control, it’s easy to keep all of your accounts updated and active without disappearing into a social media black hole. At any rate, please note that PracticeMarketing.org is a proud member of the Power Practice network. For a limited time, we’re allowing a free subscription the networks Success Tools program, which provides practice marketing professionals with a wide variety of short, timely articles and instruments to help you build your business. Take a moment to sign up now in the field provided above.

Blogs are a form of practice marketing that will benefit you immensely as a private practice professional. It is your skill, knowledge, expertise, and competence that will determine the success and failure of your practice. Blogs are a very important way of differentiating yourself from fellow professionals who offer similar services in the same locality.

Practice marketing through blogs is one method of letting the world know about your unique talents and the benefits of opting for your service. You can use text, videos, and graphics to inform fellow bloggers about your service, personal accomplishments, accolades from organizations of repute and any awards that you have won.

Blogging, unlike traditional writing, requires special skills to ensure that you connect with fellow bloggers and lay people. It would be in your best interest to hire the services of a professional blogger who can take care of the blog design and other technical aspects that will ensure good visibility.

Developing a personal blog with the right content and design will garner attention and increase traffic. Your reputation as a skilled professional will spread far and wide. Your blog will be accorded priority ranking in the local search engine listings giving you maximum benefit.

If you are a lawyer working in a particular city make a survey of the types of cases that come up before courts for settlement or trial in that city. Make a study of other lawyers and law firms who offer similar services. Try to find out the needs of the local population and the areas where other lawyers are found wanting.

You can then design a blog that caters to the needs of the local populace and also answer all the common doubts and misgivings that people might have. Blogs are interactive and this gives you a valuable opportunity to have a direct interface with the consumer.

You can put up a list of useful links that provide more information about the service that you provide. As traffic to your blog increases other websites might make use of your blog or put up back links that will further add to your popularity.

In today’s fiercely competitive world it is extremely important that services are customized to give an enriching experience to the customer. Blogs help you achieve that purpose with relatively less expenditure and greater precision.

Developing a blog with useful informative content will enable you to build a formidable reputation within a short span of time. Doctors, auditors, dentists and other private practice professionals should increasingly use blogs as a practice marketing tool to increase visibility, build a reputable brand image, and augment revenues.