Choosing the Best Medical Website Provider

You need a website. Now what? If you’re a dermatologist, plastic surgeon, or cosmetic surgeon and you want your aesthetic practice to thrive, Internet marketing is essential, not optional. To be competitive, you will at some point need the services of an Internet marketing firm for a new website design, a redesign, or optimization of an existing site. The good news: There are more than 12,000 web vendors in the US from which to choose. The bad news: With so many available, it can be daunting to narrow the field and choose precisely the right vendor for you.

When your organization selects the right web vendor, you steadily gain in search engine rankings, patient leads, and ultimately, procedures. This snowballs into referrals, testimonials, and positive online reviews from healthy, satisfied patients. Your business flourishes.

With a less-than-optimal web vendor, you can spend tens of thousands of dollars on tactics that fail to improve search engine rankings and web performance significantly. You can languish for months or years online before realizing that you are on the wrong path. The key to finding the best web partner is asking the right questions and focusing on the main objective.

Focus on the Right Stuff

Certainly, aesthetic health care practice websites must provide helpful information and educate patients. Excellent design, attention to detail, and website organization should all convey a quality of care, but the main objective of an effective website is financial performance, or in marketing and business vernacular, return on investment (ROI). In an effective marketing campaign, every marketing-related activity will directly or indirectly support ROI.

If ROI defines success online, then a web vendor’s ability to deliver and document ROI should be the cornerstone of your vendor selection criteria. A web vendor’s capabilities, experience, track record, and counsel should all be judged against how it supports ROI in an Internet marketing campaign. Developing a website can be creative and fun, but successful aesthetic practices focus on ROI primarily, and they seek out proven business partners to achieve that result.

For aesthetic practices insisting on ROI from their website, the following 10 questions—and the correct answers—will credential the most qualified vendors.

1. Does the vendor initially focus on business objectives and functionality, or on design?

We all like shiny things. Aesthetically appealing websites convey success and style, and they can inspire people, but is site design really the most important attribute for developing financial traction online?

Consider two scenarios. The first website is visually appealing. It mesmerizes with Flash animation, pretty colors, and high-quality video, but there’s no execution of search engine optimization (SEO) or conversion tactics. The second website is mediocre in appearance at best, but it’s built to be highly appealing to search engines for key search terms. When potential patients arrive at this site, conversion tools and tactics, along with an attention to detail, entice visitors to take the next step and reach out to the practice.

Which of these websites will drive more relevant patient inquiries into the practice? While the first website is attractive and appealing, a lack of optimization ensures that few visitors will ever arrive there to appreciate the design appeal. When potential patients do happen upon it, they may be intrigued. But, without personal appeals, quick contact forms, and effectively placed calls to action, the visitor won’t feel compelled to take action.

The functionally effective website will host more relevant searchers, and more of these potential patients will be persuaded to take action. With that said, there is no reason why a fully functional website can’t be all of these things: optimized for search engines, effective at conversion, attractive aesthetically, interactive, and engaging with an attention to detail. Savvy practice professionals appreciate the interplay and relative priority of all these considerations.

2. How does a vendor uncover keywords and deploy them in websites?

SEO plays a critical role in the success of nearly every website. Thus, potential web providers must know how to identify the exact words and phrases that patients use to find your services and how to weave these into the construction and content of a website. These highly searched words and phrases are called “keywords,” and they are unique based on the topic of a particular page and the aesthetic practice’s geography. The “tell” for worthy vendors is whether they know how to employ special tools to select keywords (research). They’ll also be familiar with how and where the keywords should appear “on page” and “off page” for maximum SEO performance.

SEO plays a critical role in the success of nearly every website. Thus, potential web providers must know how to identify the exact words and phrases that patients use to find your services and how to weave these into the construction and content of a website. These highly searched words and phrases are called “keywords,” and they are unique based on the topic of a particular page and the aesthetic practice’s geography. The “tell” for worthy vendors is whether they know how to employ special tools to select keywords (research). They’ll also be familiar with how and where the keywords should appear “on page” and “off page” for maximum SEO performance.

3. Does the online provider have aesthetic practice and/ or elective health care experience?

Why is this experience so important online? There are numerous reasons, but the most compelling is that it informs providers where and at what rate to invest your resources to maximize your ROI. They won’t waste your time and money on content, campaigns, or tactics with little possibility of delivering a substantive return.

As an example, providers with aesthetic practice experience will know to pursue keyword search volume in the following contextual areas: 1) branded names such as “BOTOX® Cosmetic,” 2) desired results such as “smooth skin” or “healthy complexion,” 3) related conditions such as “wrinkles,” and 4) procedural terms such as “injectable treatments.”

Experienced web providers will know that branded terms such as JUVÉDERM® are used less often than broader terms such as “collagen,” “dermal fillers,” or “injectables” in search engine queries for certain regional markets. The experienced vendor will provide extraordinary value by knowing how to refine keyword search terms to uncover additional related keywords. An experienced provider also knows that less formal descriptions such as “tummy tuck” are often searched more frequently than more clinical terms such as “abdominoplasty.”

Capable health care web vendors will also be familiar with medical marketing laws. They will help you navigate the laws and regulations specific to your area. They will counsel you to be aware and to comply with more global medical mandates such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). In medical marketing, hiring unqualified friends or family, or trading services with patients, is never a bargain if it puts a practice’s medical license or online success in jeopardy.

4. Does the practice retain ownership of the design, content, and URL?

A strong yet subtle indicator of a web provider’s longterm likelihood of delivering ROI is its transparency. When vendors are 100-percent transparent, they signal confidence and a track record for performance. They have the courage to describe the good, the bad, and the ugly of their approach before the deal is done, and they allow a client to leave freely because they know the ultimate bond with the client is documented delivery of ROI. Conversely, companies that rely on deception or technical/legal “hooks” to close the deal send a very different signal.

How are deception, transparency, and confidence related to asset ownership? Historically, less capable (and less ethical) website vendors used deceptively low initial costs, long-term contracts, and large termination penalties to cling to clients. The most egregious “hooks” include holding a URL, a design, or a client’s content hostage so departure is costly.

In reality, every web provider favors certain hosting services, website features, or web platforms that make switching ships costly, but there’s practical justification for this approach. By working in a familiar environment—just like a surgeon working in his or her own operating room—web providers can deliver more valuable features, more affordable maintenance, and higher uptime. Aesthetic practices that appreciate switching costs and understand deceptive tactics such as retaining assets will protect themselves and select more carefully.

Confident, proven vendors explain all charges up front. They charge fairly and transparently for design, content, and even keyword research, and then they make the associated digital assets readily available to clients, even when the client wants to leave. The best providers not only allow clients to leave with digital assets in hand but also genuinely assist those clients to land squarely with their next web vendor.

5. Does the vendor offer exclusivity to protect its clients?

Successful SEO comes down to ranking prominently in search engine results pages (SERPs), and this only happens when a web page demonstrates its relevance compared to other web pages. Potential patients search using specific terms such as “Botox Saint Louis” or “Breast Augmentation Miami,” so close geographical competitors are actually pursuing search engine ranking for the same exact keywords. In any search, there can be only one page ranked highest and one page ranked second highest, etc., so aesthetic practices automatically limit their potential success when they work with a website vendor that already promotes direct competitors.

Aesthetic practices should expect that after they become successful online, their local competitors will experience a decline in business. Those competitors will eventually uncover the source of their lost inquiries—a new peer website and improved search ranking. Often, this is followed by a call to the effective web provider requesting similar services. Ethical web providers demonstrate integrity and a commitment to their existing clients by declining new business requests from direct competitors. When selecting a web vendor, ask if they provide some promise of exclusivity and how it works.

6. Does the vendor have in-house clinical copywriting or direct access to clinical copywriters?

In online marketing, content is critical. We consume content and interact with websites, appreciating graphics, clicking links, and watching videos. However, aesthetic practices best convey “quality of care” when they provide sufficient, well-written, unique, and grammatically correct text-based content. Search engines, in particular, value this and rank accordingly. In essence, search engines are judging content to guesstimate whether one page answers a searcher’s question (search query) more effectively than another page.

Text-based content is so critical that a website vendor’s likelihood to deliver ROI should be judged partially on the vendor’s ability to produce well-written, optimized copy. But, attracting the attention of search engines is only part of the challenge. What good would it be to website visitors if, upon arrival, they were turned off and turned away by poorly written or poorly organized content? The best web vendors will have their own stable of proven clinical copywriters. At a minimum, qualified vendors must show consideration and a convincing plan for how to produce effective, unique copy. Copying content from other websites is not an acceptable option, as search engines recognize and penalize websites with duplicate copy.

Having practice professionals create website copy might be an option, if not for two concerns. First, practice professionals are busy. Website projects can easily be delayed by months and years when copy is homegrown, and every week that a website project is delayed is one more week that search engine ranking and new patient inquiries are delayed. Second, practice professionals may be capable of producing clinically correct copy, but they may not possess the ability to communicate in prose that simultaneously represents the voice of the practice, resonates with the audience, and triggers the search engines to find your site.

For those who question whether a website vendor is capable of producing effective, clinically accurate copy, the answer is this: Trained copywriters have been producing successful copy on behalf of medical practices for a decade across thousands of websites. Effective website copy produced by an experienced web provider can emulate a practice’s unique voice online while informing and educating. The bottom line is that great copy attracts visitors to a website and inspires them to take action.

7. Does the vendor monitor and measure ROI, and is it basing proposed solutions on ROI?

When clients evaluate various web tactics and web vendors, too often they set budgets and make decisions based solely on a desired “I” in ROI without a thorough appreciation of the potential “R” and how it is generated. After all, if a particular web vendor can launch a site for a lower initial price, isn’t that always the best financial choice? The answer is, “No, not necessarily, not likely.” Aesthetic practices should consider the expected lifespan of the website. If a more costly website vendor shows evidence of producing many times the return of the less costly alternative, that’s a better investment. For a practice to make this selection with confidence, however, a vendor must demonstrate its focus on ROI-based solutions, and it must possess means to monitor and measure the site’s financial performance.

Most website vendors speak about analytics and metrics, assuring prospective clients that there will be some way to review performance data, but the website vendors most likely to deliver ROI will possess knowledge and a methodology for counting individual patient inquiries and tracking those inquiries to revenue. Having ROI data provides value to practices on the following two fronts: 1) It gives confidence to continue infusing funds for marketing, and 2) It provides a roadmap to the tactics that are paying off and an exit indicator to initiatives that are unfruitful.

To go into detail regarding how ROI can be monitored and measured down to the dollar is beyond the scope of this discussion. It’s sufficient for practice professionals to ask the question and to lean toward those web vendors who speak and act in terms of ROI and demonstrate sound tools and methodologies to gather real data.

8. Does the vendor account for site mapping during the proposal process?

When contractors build a house, they use blueprints to plan the project, estimate materials, and complete construction on time and within budget. Similarly in website projects, qualified vendors use a site map to plan, estimate, design, and construct the website. They document features, number of pages, the title, and context of every page, and their sequence relative to each other.

The best site maps also assign responsibility. Is the client providing content for a particular page, or is the vendor? Thorough site maps document all of these considerations so that the project can be executed on time and on budget.

Not every website vendor addresses site mapping as a free service during the proposal process, but at a minimum, qualified vendors will raise it as a concern and convey how and when it will be dealt with. Sometimes this is offered for a nominal fee. The least proficient providers will ignore site mapping completely, opting to “wing it” instead. Ask every vendor up front about site mapping, and request to see samples to gauge the vendor’s thoroughness and readiness.

9. Does the vendor use account managers?

Every market situation is different. The practice personality, the menu of services, risk aversion, and the evolution of a website will all be unique for a specific aesthetic practice, so one can’t expect a cookie-cutter approach to maximize ROI. Experienced vendors understand this and develop a discipline around project management and web marketing processes. They assign an account manager (AM) as the primary contact overseeing a client’s individual needs.

The value of AMs becomes especially pronounced with full-service web vendors. They employ numerous specialties, such as copywriting, engineering, design, site development, and client marketing. Aesthetic practices that are maximizing ROI online depend on every one of these skills, so a familiar advocate inside the organization is particularly valuable.

The best AMs can multitask while engaging effectively with clients and internal departments. They communicate clear status updates during all project and promotional phases, and they have experience in medical marketing, search marketing, website tactics, and project management. Clients’ projects and promotional tactics are almost always completed remotely, so AMs play a vital role as liaison and customer advocate.

In particular, AMs provide exceptional value when they are in tune with their clients. Skilled AMs know which marketing tactics are working and which are not, often saving or earning aesthetic practices significant money.

10. Does the vendor convey technical and business concepts effectively?

This is more of a gut-check question for clients to ask of themselves, but it’s a powerful indicator of the potential financial impact that a vendor may deliver. As noted, website providers with confidence, expertise, and a successful track record share knowledge freely, so practice professionals should take note of their instincts when interviewing vendors. For instance, ask if the vendor does the following: 1) Educate without pressure to buy? 2) Disclose how they deliver and document ROI for practices? and 3) Share how they earn money for themselves?

Vendors who will be more successful, more professional, and more pleasant to partner with will be adept at communicating complex concepts clearly and effectively without leaving clients bewildered or belittled. Excellent vendors practice transparency in every interaction, and those that deliver ROI speak fluently about online medical marketing so that practices feel more empowered, knowledgeable, and confident after every exchange.

Online Bonus:Get important tips on due diligence at PracticalDermatology.com.

Reap the Rewards

Asking informed questions and performing due diligence narrows the field of quality website vendors dramatically and gives aesthetic practices confidence in their decision. Perhaps more important, however, is that vetting providers to this level of rigor fosters a partnership between vendor and client, so the website earns even more patient impressions and ROI. Finally, remember that financially successful online promotion is a marathon, not a sprint, so take the time to get it right and reap the rewards of an office full of eager new potential patients.

The article has been adapted with permission from a piece originally published by the authors in Bariatric Times (2012; 9(7): 22–5).

Brent Cavender is currently employed at Etna Interactive, Inc., San Luis Obispo, a medical web marketing company.

Kim Goin was employed at Allergan, Inc. when she contributed to the article.