Misconception: Websites Cost Too Much

I am amazed when ophthalmologists grumble at the going price for developing a website to represent his/her practice on the worldwide Internet and generate quality clients in the context of other competitively designed and positioned LASIK websites. Let's put the cost of a website in perspective: What did you pay for a practice brochure? How much did it cost your practice to place an ad in the Yellow Pages last year? What did you invest to record an "on hold" answering machine message? And what do you pay your practice’s employees to answer the phone and provide driving directions to your office? And how effectively are these investments working for you when your office is closed?

Yet how much would you invest in something that could perform all of these tasks 24 hours a day and 7 days a week? On top of that, it would showcase your expertise and accomplishments, send you additional clients, and allow you to update information at any time you choose. All this without interrupting your ability to create a credibility-building first impression to people who are demonstrating sincere desire to find an eye specialist’s help to pursue their interest in better sight? Your practice’s website could pay for itself in a day, in a month, or in a year, but be assured that the cost of a good website is nothing when you compare it to the results it will eventually generate.

Jessica Espinoza
Page 1 Solutions

Blogging about blogs

Blogs seem to be all the rage these days. The Iraq war is sometimes called the first “blog war” since so many soldiers are chronicling their stories on Blogs. It has changed political landscapes as well, forcing Trent Lott to step down as majority leader in 2002 and put pressure on Dan Rather to resign after “Rathergate”. Blogs and bloggers (people who write blogs) have provided nearly instant commentary on everything from celebrity gossip to political commentary. I read a baseball blog almost daily.

You’re reading a blog right now.

These things seemed to have popped out of nowhere. To make matters more confusing, the word “Blog” is thrown around so freely when not many people truly understand what it is and how it is created.

It is, however, a rather simple process. Blogs are simply online interfaces that let you type in what you want, when you hit submit, it makes a webpage for you. In the simplest of terms, it is a text-editing program, like word, that makes a web page.

What’s great about a blog is that after it’s all set up, all you have to do is add content. The blog takes care of itself.

To sweeten the deal, blogs work amazingly well with LASIK search engine optimization. A regularly updated LASIK website blog (at least one or two submissions each week) can enhance your LASIK practice’s website rankings astronomically. We have seen client blogs outdraw the main website with search terms as broad as LASIK Surgery and general eye care, on Google no less.

From a marketing perspective, if a potential client sees that you are personally and actively updating your own website, they might be a little more open to getting in touch with you in return.

So join the blog universe, it’s all the rage these days.

Paid Listings Versus Natural Listings

The question about what is more effective, paid listings or natural listings, is one that arises consistently. Although ROI is influenced in many different ways and can be very difficult to distinguish between each, there are some studies that do shed some light on the subject.

In a study conducted by iProspect (surveyed search engine marketers that did both SEO and paid listing advertisements), they found that more of these marketers got a better ROI from natural SEO than from paid search engine advertising. Although it was not unanimous, (over a 3 to 1 margin) marketers generated a higher ROI from SEO than from paid search advertisements.

Of the survey responses, 35% indicated a higher return on SEO, 11% indicated a higher ROI on paid search advertisements and 9% got similar returns from each. This also indicates that a large percentage of search engine marketers that outsource their search engine marketing don't, or can't determine whether they get a higher return from either natural SEO or paid listings.

Although this study tries to differentiate and quantify the value of each, the fact of the matter is that ALL the survey responses were completed by web marketers that implement BOTH paid and natural search engine campaigns. This information should not be viewed as an either/or question. As with most marketing campaigns that implement multiple strategies, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Bill Fukui
Page 1 Solutions

Patience Is a Virtue

One of the things everyone needs to know from the outset of any search engine optimization campaign is this: establishing a dominant Internet presence for your website takes time. There's no avoiding it. Getting your website to the first page of top search engine results should be the fundamental objective of any LASIK practice that wants to fully leverage the Internet to generate new LASIK patients, but you simply cannot expect instant, first-page, listings. Run away from any SEO firm that tells you otherwise! No wonder that a solid SEO company will typically require a six to twelve-month contractual commitment.

You may have heard the saying, "A watched pot never boils." In reality, a watched pot requires the same amount of time to boil as an unwatched pot, but a watched pot seems to take longer because you are staring at it. Once you hire a solid, reputable SEO company, there is no getting around the time it will take for your website to leapfrog your competitors on the top search engines. It is important to monitor your positioning on a monthly basis (and any good SEO firm knows that you expect results), but you must allow the time it takes for the process to work. A truly excellent SEO company will share the risk of investment by guaranteeing a contractual number of first-page results as a basis for any SEO billing.

After you have done your research and chosen a good SEO company, expect success, but only with time. Let the process work for you and good things will come... just you wait and see.

Jessica Espinoza
Page 1 Solutions