Blog vs. Website: Which is Better for Your Practice?
We sometimes get quizzical looks when we tell doctors a blog will be more beneficial to their practice than a website, usually because not many people know the difference between the two. While they do essentially the same thing – give you a presence on the web – they go about it in two very different ways. Here’s what your online presence needs, and how a blog & a website go about accomplishing this:
The major difference between a blog and a website is the ability to quickly & effortlessly update the site. With a static website, you need to contact your administrator to upload new text about your remodeled office or learn how to code in HTML in order to do it yourself.
With a dynamic blog, you can post updated content whenever you’d like through a simple interface – no webmaster required. The ease of which this can be accomplished also allows you to add more relevant content about a new piece of equipment you recently purchased, or a special offer from your practice.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The reason you have a web presence is because you ultimately want to be found by new & existing patients online. Your patients are going to look for you on a search engine like Google. Thus, you want to be sure your online presence comes up on the top of Google’s results by employing good SEO.
Websites are optimized for search primarily through a very simple addition of something called ‘metadata.’ This is generally just a couple paragraphs of information about the website that’s embedded in the site’s code and not displayed on the website itself. (If anybody tries to sell you a ‘search optimized website’ based solely on metadata, politely say “no thank you” and back away slowly!)
While blogs do include metadata as well, they also allow for you to constantly add more viewable content to the site. The ability to consistently add your own content allows you to, over time, claim keywords specific to your industry & practice (i.e. – “one days crowns anyville,” “invisible braces anytown,” etc.). This combination of current & detailed content is what search engines like Google absolutely love!
We know most doctors don’t have the time to spend all day updating your status via social media. But let’s face it, at least a few of your patients are a part of the 300 million people that are using Facebook. The reason they do is because social media sites like Facebook create an interactive experience for the user.
Websites allow for a patient, at most, to contact you via email. This is a bit underwhelming for an industry that prides itself in word-of-mouth success and the human touch. (Are you one of the many doctors still using an answering service?)
A blog allows for communication to happen right there on your site via a dialog with your patients. And, this interaction shows prospective patients just how involved you are in taking care of them. Plus, any of the new content you post to your blog can also be easily distributed via a multitude of social networks (i.e. – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) giving you word-of-mouth success on the Internet.
There’s also an aesthetic advantage that blogs have over websites – the ability to update their appearance with as little as a click of a mouse. You’ve probably seen a website that obviously hasn’t been updated since 1992, and it likely makes you question how up-to-date the rest of the practice is. The reason it hasn’t been updated is because a total redesign of a website often takes a developer months and costs $5,000 – $10,000+.
Since blogs are set up on a standardized framework, you can revise the appearance of a blog with little to no effort, and often for free by simply implementing a new theme. This will ensure your practice is always looking stylish and up-to-date on the web without it costing you several thousand dollars.
Naturally, we here at DoctorBase are a bit biased towards blogs because we see them outperform our doctors’ own websites on a daily basis. But, don’t take our word for it – check out who else is using a blog to improve their online presence…
Academy of General Dentistry
American Medical Association
The White House
NASA
Mercedes-Benz translated from German
General Electric
The New York Times
The Wall Street Journal
Harvard University
Stanford University
yousharknotpass
tangentwithtanner
gracieabrams
germansingergirl
pixelskylines
snowghoul