Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but these days people search online for just about everything — including their oral surgeons.
Don’t cry. There are three good reasons why:
- it helps locate and learn about doctors in a particular area if none have been referred,
- it builds confidence by shedding professional and personal light on the medical practice being seen,
- it provides useful, proactive guidance in the form of preparatory suggestions, to-do lists, and timely content.
If a person can’t easily learn about you online then right-or-wrong, it casts doubt on your practice.
First the Website
Your website is the alpha and omega of your online presence. Like every other professional site, it must be:
- Visible (found easily in a Google search)
- Engaging (useful, interesting, well-written content)
- Appealing (easy to navigate and understand)
Visibility is at the top of the heap for a good reason – it translates into “findability.” People must be able to find you easily. More than likely they’ll be using a search engine to do so.
Google Page Rank
Google is master of the search engine universe. Making your website easily findable on Google has a lot to do with the page rank you’re assigned (by Google’s search algorithm of course). Page rank is the holy grail of search. The higher the page rank, the closer you land to the the top of a Google results page. The closer you are to the top, the easier you are to find.
Several factors affect page rank. Authority and importance are the two biggies. In Google’s world, authority and importance are reflected through social media sharing, especially with Facebook, Google+, and Twitter. It turns out out that there’s a high correlation between social sharing and Google page rank, particularly when the shares are in Google+ and Facebook.
Surgeons and Social Media
The thinking in medical circles has been social media is unnecessary for surgeons because they typically connect with patients maybe once or twice.
Not true anymore. Here’s why:
- Expectations: This is an online world. If you don’t do even a modicum of social media, you appear stodgy, out of date, “dinosaured.”
- Visibility: In the case of oral surgeons, social media isn’t so much about nurturing ongoing relationships but rather about being easily found and referenced.
- Authority: A sharp website conveys authority and professionalism. Digital presence is as important as brick and mortar presence.
The website always comes first. However, if your website is OK, then it’s time to engage social media. Pick one platform and spend a few months getting it set up, scheduled, and populated. It’s much better to be active on one channel than intermittent on several.
In April I’ll talk about how to approach each social media platform from the perspective of Oral Surgery.