Make a Website

The Internet is an efficient way to reach a lot of people at one time. People do everything from communicate with loved ones to pay the bills and shop online. This is why a legal professional trying to make a name for him or herself needs to make a website as part of their attorney marketing strategy.

Putting a little time and money into a professional web designer is important. Everything from the layout and images used on the website to the content will go towards shaping an attorney’s image. Professionals can sit down with an attorney and map out a plan and vision for the space. The best websites are easy to navigate, pleasing to the eye, and informative.

Use Social Networking Websites

Another big part of attorney marketing today is utilizing social networking sites, or social media marketing. Social media marketing is an important tool when it comes to attorney marketing. This helps a legal professional build a profile or fan page to explain services, rates, and promotions. This also allows followers or friends using Facebook, Twitter, or some other website to directly communicate with the attorney.

A lawyer who updates his profile or page at least once a week will increase his or her profile. People around the world use social networking websites for both personal and professional reasons. This is why attorneys looking to increase their profile should use such websites.

Consider Attorney SEO Techniques

The only way to really be noticed on the Internet is to rank highly in search engines like Google and Bing. After all, when people are looking for products, services, or deals, they use such engines. The higher ranked an attorney is, the more likely it is that people will click on the link, visit the attorney’s website, and invest in his or her services. This is a chance to get noticed. Attorney SEO practices are linked to the rules and practices of search engines.

By shaping the layout and content on the website, an attorney can increase their rankings. Professionals understand how to make this happen. Attorney SEO is more than repeating key words 10 times. Instead, it’s about creating interesting and informative website copy that flawlessly integrates targeted keywords, and understanding how search engines identity what is and is not relevant.

Are you ready to start standing out on the web? Whatever your online needs are, the attorney marketing experts at Thunderhead Marketing can help! Contact us today for a customized marketing package.

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Online reputation — that is, what people are saying about your medical practice on the internet — is irrefutably one of the most important aspects of any marketing strategy, yet it’s one area in which many fall short.

Why Are Patient Reviews Important?

Every day, people are taking to the web to share the experiences they had with a doctor’s office, coffee shop, day care center, plumber, etc. You name the business, there are consumers talking about it somewhere online.

According to the Pew Foundation, the majority of consumers conduct online research before making a purchase choice or using a service. Perhaps even more important to note, 2011 Nielsen Global Online Survey found that while about 76% of Internet users turn to friends and family for recommendations, about 48% indicate trusting online reviews and recommendations. That can include reviews on local listing websites as well as social media mentions (think Facebook and Twitter).

Speaking of social media — the advent of Google+ and the shift to Google+ Local pages makes it much easier for patients to write reviews and share them on their own Google+ pages. Changes in Google in the past year has lead to business reviews from Google+ Local pages displaying next to and blended within search results. This new placement strategy makes it even more important to have positive online reviews, so that when people are conducting routine research about potential new doctors in your area, your information will be prominently and positively displayed on that first page of search results.

Getting Reviews From Patients to Build Your 5 Star Online Reputation

When it comes to reputation marketing, the key is to be proactive. You can’t leave reviews to luck, just hoping that patients who enjoy your services will go to Google or Yelp and write about an amazing experience. In fact, the No. 1 mistake doctors when it comes to reviews is not ASKING for them.

Patients are more likely to go online to share a negative experience than a positive one. You are only one negative review away from a bad online reputation.  The key is to implement a Reputation Marketing Program that will put asking for and getting reviews on auto-pilot.

There are several effective methods of getting reviews from your patients that you can use for reputation marketing purposes, including:

• Counter cards – Small cards that will ideally be sitting in a prominent place at the checkout desk that asks patients for reviews and includes the links to review sites that you’d like them to visit.
• Follow up emails – Send a follow-up email to patients within a week after their visit. Thank them for choosing your practice and invite them to give you feedback on how you did. Include links to your listing on Google+ Local, Yelp, Yahoo, Healthgrades, and Facebook or other sites where you want their feedback.
• Links to review sites on your practice website – Office staff can encourage patients to visit your website and provide reviews and feedback.
• A review submission drawing promotion – Offer your patients a chance to win a monthly drawing if they leave your practice an online review.
• Newsletter – If you regularly send patients a newsletter, include in it a request for online reviews. If your newsletter is digital, include a link to review sites
• Social Media Requests – If you use social network marketing such as Twitter or Facebook, which is highly recommended as part of your medical Internet marketing strategy, you can periodically include a request for recommendations from your followers in Tweets or Facebook status updates.

Get Help Setting Up the Review Program For Your Office

While you can certainly manage your online reviews within your practice, this can be a time consuming task. Online reputation is important and having professionals who are constantly revitalizing the approach to reputation marketing can save you time and increase business.

When utilizing the reputation marketing services of Thunderhead Marketing, you’ll have an even  better resource to help you get online reviews for your practice. We will set up an online review program for your patients to leave reviews on key websites. This method has had tremendous impact for our clients, significantly increasing the number of reviews received each month!

Online patient reviews and reputation marketing are a vital part of a healthy medical practice. Don’t leave your online reputation to luck! Contact Thunderhead Marketing today to build your 5-star reputation across the web and get a FREE reputation report for your business.

The post Why Online Patient Reviews Are Vital For Your Practice appeared first on Attorney & Medical Professional Internet Marketing & Website Design | Thunderhead Marketing.

Simply Measured, a social media measurement company, looked at the number for 15 brand pages that adopted the new format early. Among those pages, the company found that average engagement (meaning comments, “likes,” etc.) rose 46% in the three weeks after the change, when compared with the three weeks prior to it.

However, both Simply Measured and Wildfire Interactive, a social media marketing software company, found less-than-stellar numbers when looking at brands individually. Brands with more “likes” seemed to be negatively impacted by the switch to Timeline, according to Wildfire’s data.

Brands with less than 1 million “likes,” comments grew 40% and “likes” increased 60.3%. For Brands with more than 10 million fans, however, all metrics declined more than 10%.

Neither company found the data conclusively reflected how Timeline will affect businesses’ Facebook presence in the long-term. Because most interaction between Facebook users and business pages takes place in News Feeds, rather than on the businesses’ page, the overall impact of the switch may turn out to be negligible.

Are you looking for help navigating the murky, ever-changing waters of Social Media Marketing? Find out how to make Facebook, Twitter and Google+ work for you by contacting Thunderhead Marketing today!

The post How Is Timeline Affecting Facebook Engagement? appeared first on Attorney & Medical Professional Internet Marketing & Website Design | Thunderhead Marketing.

Obviously, patients are not required to provide that information, but it is very helpful when they do, especially when they do so online. Online patient reviews are an integral part of medical Internet marketing. This feedback can speak volumes about the quality of care that will be received at your medical practice, and it will in turn strengthen the value of your practice on the web.

Why Patient Reviews Matter

Online reputation management for doctors and medical practices is becoming a must in today’s internet-oriented society, and a big part of that is know what your patients are saying about you on the web. All of the major search engines like Google and Yahoo will provide people with not only the basic information about your business, but also display reviews as well.

Positive reviews will attract more patients and increase the value of the brand, but negative reviews can be very damaging to any business, especially those within the health care field.

How to Get Your Patients to Complete Reviews

Getting patients to complete these reviews can be quite difficult in the beginning. It is recommended that staff members learn more about online reviews and they should be encouraged to mention them to all of the patients. Here are some ways to get reviews online.

Send a simple thank you note: A simple thank you note on paper or sent via email speaks volumes to patients and that will give them the opportunity to reflect upon their experiences and possibly provide useful feedback. At the end of the thank you note, add a small tag at the bottom that will allow them to access a review page.

Add review links to online correspondence: Since a lot of organizations have email lists and newsletters for their patients, it is a good idea to request reviews toward the end of the correspondence.

Make small cards or pamphlets: Small cards or pamphlets can be created to display key information about the business, but it should also provide a call to action for patients to submit their feedback online as well somewhere in the text.

Add a link to the website: The website of the business can provide a link or online form for patients to leave reviews and feedback on the contact page.

Give them a reward: Offering a small reward to patients for completing an online review can be a great way to spur them to make that extra effort. Doctors or medical practices can offer discounts, entry into a sweepstakes, or a small gift for providing an online review.

Patients should be quietly persuaded to complete online reviews through incentives and reminders on the website and in business correspondence like cards and pamphlets. Present and future patients can find these reviews online, so it is important that there is positive information about the business on the Internet.

Contact Thunderhead Marketing today to improve your medical Internet marketing strategies, improve your online reputation management and start growing your practice!

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When you are engaging in medical marketing, it is important to avoid some of the most common mistakes.

New Methods For A Modern Age

One of the most common medical marketing mistakes that is made is only putting an ad in the Yellow Pages. While many people still turn to the Yellow Pages when they need to get information, this is only one source to go to. In reality, many people are starting to turn to the Internet to get the information they need.

For instance, many search on Google for local businesses instead of looking in the phone book. Because of this, medical Internet marketing should be a focus for every medical practice.

When Economy Is Down, Marketing Should Be Up

Another one of the common medical marketing mistakes that businesses make is cutting down on the marketing budget during hard times. When the economy is struggling, many medical facilities feel like they should cut back on marketing expenses in an effort to save money. In reality, businesses should ramp up marketing during these times.

Mentioning special offers or discounts can go a long way towards getting people in the door. By using medical Internet marketing, practices can save money on marketing costs and still reach a large number of people in the area.

Diversify Web Strategies

Many doctor’s offices also make the mistake of focusing all their efforts on only one internet marketing medium. For instance, the practice may put all its money into pay-per-click marketing or banner ads.

In reality, medical practices should utilize a combination of medical Internet marketing strategies. By using a diversified approach to market to patients online, your practice is more likely naturally increase its online authority and see a noticeable correlation in practice growth.

Utilize The Expertise Of A Professional

One of the most prevalent medical marketing mistakes in the industry is trying to handle everything internally. Most practices should hire a marketing consultant or professional to handle this aspect for them.

Doctors are trained in medical treatment and are not always experts in marketing. By allowing a consultant to handle this part of the process for him, the doctor can spend more time focusing on his practice and medicine.

Overcoming Marketing Mistakes

Although making mistakes in marketing is a common thing, it does not mean that the mistakes cannot be overcome. For instance, developing a professional medical website design can go a long way towards promoting the business overall.

When potential patients want to find out information about a doctors office, they like to be able to get online and check out a website. They like to be able to see the hours listed and find out what services are offered.

Providing access to information can go a long way towards improving credibility in the eyes of the patient. Once a website has been developed, it can be included in all other marketing efforts to enhance the overall image of the medical practice in the perception of the patient.

If you’re ready to start improving your medical Internet marketing strategy and growing your practice, contact Thunderhead Marketing today!

The post Medical Marketing Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make appeared first on Attorney & Medical Professional Internet Marketing & Website Design | Thunderhead Marketing.

While there is conflict among many users as to whether this change is good, bad or indifferent, the one thing that is certain is that it’s mandatory. The goals of the new design are to provide easier interaction between businesses and fans, give better graphics capabilities, allow businesses to feature posts and also swap private messages with fans.

So, what are the big changes and how will they affect your social media marketing?

Add Cover Photo, Update Profile Pic: You’ll want to get started with the new graphics abilities: upload a cover photo that will showcase your brand. When users head to your page, this photo will be the dominant image they see. Your profile photo, on the other hand, will be the small image that appears next to status updates — an ideal choice for your business logo.

More About Your Business: Whereas info about your business used to be buried, now it’ll be featured at the top — so a rewrite may be in order! Focus on short and punchy, rather than long and detailed.

Post Control: With the new design, you’ll have better control over posts on your page. You can highlight one, change post dates, and “star” a post to make it larger and more prominent. Your new Activity Log let’s you do all this.

Private messages: Now you’ll be able to exchange private messages with Facebook users, taking issues and complaints off the your wall and moving them into your inbox to handle in a less public light.

If you need help navigating the new Facebook look and how to use it to improve your business, contact Thunderhead Marketing today!

The post Facebook Timeline: What To Expect For Your Business appeared first on Attorney & Medical Professional Internet Marketing & Website Design | Thunderhead Marketing.

In the past, a doctor or other medical provider could simply set up a practice and patients would start to show up. They would remain loyal and keep coming back anytime they needed medical treatment. In today’s world, this is no longer the case.

Medical facilities and doctors have to market to their patients is like any other business. Because of this, medical Internet marketing should be considered by professionals in the field.

More Information For Less Cost

One of the primary reasons that medical Internet marketing is so desirable is because it allows medical professionals to control the message that gets too their patients. For example, when a doctor takes out an ad in the Yellow Pages or some other medium, he has a limited amount of space to work with.

By comparison, with a website, the medical facility can put as much information as is necessary. This makes it possible to include information about services offered, insurance plans accepted, hours, and other items. Medical facilities can market themselves and tell patients why they should be interested in what they have to offer.

Set Your Website Up For Maximum Performance

Creating a medical website is also advantageous because it can provide new customers for less than the cost of traditional marketing methods. If a medical website design is correct, it has the potential to bring in regular traffic from the search engines like Google and Yahoo.

Setting up your website to maximize traffic and grow your practices is best achieved by utilizing the services of a medical Internet marketing company that understands search engine optimization, social networking or pay-per-click marketing.

Add To Your Practice’s Professional Image

Another benefit of setting up a medical website is that it adds to the professional image of the business. In today’s high-tech world, most consumers expect businesses to have a website of some kind. If they don’t, they may start to form a negative impression of the business.

When a medical professional builds a website to promote his business, it helps foster the image that he is an expert and should be taken seriously.

Market Your Practice 24/7

Using medical Internet marketing can also be beneficial because it markets a medical practice 24 hours per day and makes it so that the company is represented even when the office is closed. In this industry, people get sick or injured at all hours of the day and night.

If a facility is closed when someone wants to get information about it, the website can still be accessed. This will help get the potential patient’s questions answered in a timely manner. Having a website is essentially like extending the facility’s hours to a certain extent.

Although patient’s may not be able to get treated after hours, they can at least find out everything they need to know about the business so that they can make an appointment as soon as possible. Some websites even make it possible for patients to request appointments online.

When running a medical practice, it is imperative to meet people where they are. Providing information about your practice and its doctors online is a logical step that is necessary in order to be competitive today.

Contact Thunderhead Marketing today to build or improve medical Internet marketing strategies, build your website right and start growing your practice!

The post Why Is A Website Important For Your Medical Practice? appeared first on Attorney & Medical Professional Internet Marketing & Website Design | Thunderhead Marketing.

Google+ already has infiltrated the social media marketing scene, but just how will Google+ Pages impact internet marketing companies, SERPs and SEO campaigns? The answer is not certain at this point, but here are some things we can expect.

Take THAT, Facebook and Twitter!

Google+ Pages are, like personal Google+ accounts, more like social media accounts than local listings. There are some key difference for business pages, though. You can add your business page in one of five categories:

• Local Business or Place
• Product or Brand
• Company, Institution or Organization
• Arts, Entertainment or Sports
• Other

However, you aren’t limited to ONLY one of these categories. You can have a local business Google+ Page, brand page and company page targeting the different aspects of your business.

Of course, businesses can have Twitter accounts, Facebook accounts and LinkedIn accounts, and strong campaigns in these social media outlets have shown correlation to boosts in search rankings. But it would be a pretty safe bet to expect social media use within Google’s family will be more significant when it comes to indexing than outside sources.

Oh, and then there’s this: Direct Connect. Although it’s a feature that is still being worked out and thus may not work for every Google+ Page, when it is available for everyone, it has promise to be a big deal. Basically if you add a + in front of whatever business or brand your searching for in Google, you will immediately be whisked away to their Google+ Page.

Differences Between Places And Pages

For SEO specialists, things may get hectic for a while. Currently, Google+ Pages and Google Places listings must be managed separately. They are two different entities, with Places providing more basic information about businesses, and Google+ Pages allowing businesses and brands to build relationships and directly engage with their consumers.

• Pages have the +1 button, but can’t +1 other pages (or stuff on the Web).
• Pages can’t play games
• Pages don’t receive notifications via email, text, or in the Google bar.
• Pages can’t hangout on a smartphone or other mobile device.

Pages are also a separate entity from Google profiles, which are just for people. Pages are similar but with some key differences:

If you’re interested in social media marketing for your business or Search Engine Optimization help, contact Thunderhead Marketing today for custom-fit online marketing solutions.

The post How Will Google+ Pages For Businesses Mesh With Google Places? appeared first on Attorney & Medical Professional Internet Marketing & Website Design | Thunderhead Marketing.

Whether your practice is just getting started on the web or you’ve had a web presence for years, there are a variety of online LASIK marketing strategies that help you connect with these patients.

1. Get Your Name In Online Directories

There are dozens of online directories that people turn to when looking for services in their area. The big ones for online LASIK marketing include:

• Google Places
• Yahoo Local
• Bing
• Yelp
• Citysearch
• Healthgrades

All these listings are free and can greatly increase the chances of a patient being able to find your website, phone number and address. If your practice is already listed, claim it and fill in every bit of information you are able to. If it isn’t, add it! It’s particularly important to maintain the same, consistent information throughout all of these sites when doing Local Search Marketing.

2. Start Blogging!

A key development in LASIK online marketing in the past few years is blogging. You can easily start and maintain a blog for free. The most popular blogging platform, WordPress, can be incorporated into an existing website or used on its own.

Blogs are a way to offer people what they are looking for most on the Internet — information. It’s a way to generate interest in your LASIK practice, draw traffic to your website and move up in Google search rankings.

3) Start A Review Program

When potential patients starts a search for a LASIK surgeon in their area, a big factor in making a decision can be what previous patients have said on review websites.

If you don’t know what reviews you’ve been getting on the web, it’s time to find out. Most people more likely to get online to give a bad review than a good one, so it’s time to start prompting patients to get out there and give you that positive feedback! Offer incentives to those who give reviews — coupons, enter a drawing for a prize, etc.

4) Utilize social media

Social media websites aren’t just for kids; they have become a serious tool for growing and marketing business. Any successful LASIK online marketing strategy should include becoming part of the major social media networks, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

These networks can do several things for LASIK surgeons.

• Make it easy for patients to share positive feedback.
• Get your name spread to more people through friends or followers.
• Quickly and easily share information, such as promotions, coupons, etc., with a large and eager audience.

5) Diversify Your Marketing Strategy

Most important of anything you do on the web is this — don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

All of the above tools are great for helping people find providers for the services they need, but these strategies work best in concert with each other. They should combine for an overall LASIK online marketing strategy for the best return on your investment.

To learn more about a personalized online LASIK marketing strategy for your practice, contact us today or check out or LASIK marketing results.

The post 5 Tips For LASIK Marketing On The Web appeared first on Attorney & Medical Professional Internet Marketing & Website Design | Thunderhead Marketing.

Tone is a literary term referring to the writer’s attitude toward his or her subject and the intended audience of the work. A tone can be formal, informal, serious, funny, etc.

Before deciding a tone, here are a couple of questions to ask yourself:

• Who is doing the blogging – one person or multiple people?
• What is the subject and how does that impact what tone you should take?

Who’s blogging?

For a business blog, the regularity of posting is important.  Not everyone has the time to devote to posting several blogs a week, so you might decide that a few people will each write one blog a week to divide up the work. Or perhaps you’ll be writing on multiple subjects, and the various experts in those subjects at your business will each write regularly about their area of expertise.

In this case, you want to decide whether each blogger will decide his or her own tone or whether all bloggers should aim for an overall tone.

Tone and subject

The subject of your blog should absolutely influence the tone. In a blog about advances in cancer treatment, for example, you would want to adopt a more formal tone.  A blog about online marketing, such as I’m writing now, leaves room for a more informal tone.

Establishing the distance between blogger and reader will help project the tone of your blog. More distance denotes a more formal tone — avoid personal topics, focus on company business, services, products, events, etc.

Building a bond

For most businesses, a blog can be a place to reach out, to establish a closer bond with readers and become an actual person, not just a faceless business or an anonymous web address.

To build a closer bond, talk about people in the business. Use words like “I” or “we,” and use a more informal, conversational style of writing. Casual is OK, but while writing, always keep in mind that you represent a business and balance is appropriate.

A comments feature on your blog also creates relationship between the blogger and readers. It tells your readers that you care about their input. It makes the blog a conversation between those who are interested and you, the expert.

Adding buttons for readers to click to the business’s Twitter, Facebook or other social media pages can also help in this.

Being an authority figure

One more thing to consider as you decide on the tone of your blog: how to establish yourself as an authority on whatever subject you are writing about.

• Qualifications – It’s not unseemly to mention your qualifications to help readers understand why they should listen to your thoughts on a subject.
• Be professional, but not pompous – Use professional terms related to your business, but explain things that might not be apparent to your readers. Don’t assume they know everything you do; if they did, they wouldn’t need to read your blog.

If you need help determining the right tone for your business blog and creating content that conveys that voice, contact us today.

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