7 Stats That Will Change How You Write Headlines
If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound?
You’ve heard that question. And it rings true for your healthcare organization’s web content.
If no one reads your stellar content, does it even matter?
There are plenty of ways to get your healthcare organization’s content out there. Sharing on social media, having your physicians provide patients with links, emailing it to your members — the possibilities are endless.
Getting it read, on the other hand, is a different story. One of the main reasons why people don’t read articles is headlines.
Up to 80% of people read headlines they come across, but only 20% actually read the whole post.
Headlines are clearly important, so what’s the magic formula?
Well, there isn’t one. But there are proven strategies to make your headlines go from snooze fest-inducing to attention-grabbing.
1. Headlines that are completely made up fool US adults 75% of the time.
Most people believe the titles they read — even if they are fake. That means that your headlines must accurately represent both the article and your hospital’s values.
Bad example: This Post Is Awful
Good example: This Post Is Awesome
2. “Will make you” is the #1 headline phrase that will make your story go viral.
Show your audience the future and let them know exactly what they’re getting.
Bad example: How to Safely Lose Weight After Pregnancy
Good example: These Recipes Will Make You Lose Pregnancy Weight — Safely
3. Using the title to tell the audience what they will get can reel in readers.
This is great when your audience is more interested in learning about the benefits they’re going to receive — not how they will get those benefits.
Bad example: A Look at Our New Cafeteria
Good example: What You Can Buy at Our New Cafeteria
4. The average click-through rate for titles with negative superlatives outperform those with positive ones by 63%.
And titles with positive superlatives perform 29% worse than titles that don’t have any superlatives at all.
“Never” or “worst” seem more authentic to readers than “always” or “best.” Readers have started to think of positive superlatives as cheap marketing ploys, and either ignore or don’t believe them.
Bad example: The Best Ways to Treat Acne
Good example: The Worst Things You Can Do if You Have Acne
5. Just adding a colon or hyphen can increase your click-through rate by 9%.
A little mark can go a long way.
Bad example: Inside the Neurology Unit at [name] Hospital
Good example: Neurology Unit at [name] Hospital: An Inside Look
6. List features with odd numbers perform better.
People love odd numbers. Apparently, readers find odd numbers more authentic — as if the content is there because it’s actually important, not added in for fluff.
As for the number 7? Lucky number 7. And in a title, use 7. Not seven. Use the number 7 and click-through rates increase by 20%.
Bad example: 10 Exercises You Can Do at Home
Good example: 7 Exercises You Can Literally Do in Your PJs
7. Google usually displays the first 50 to 60 characters of your title.
Keep it under 60 and Google will display your titles correctly about 95% of the time — go over 60 and your titles might get truncated.
Rules are made to be broken.
As a healthcare organization, your goal shouldn’t always be to get as many clicks as possible. It should be on hooking in the right type of person and getting them to follow your call to action. It’s better to get 50 clicks and 10 patients making appointments, vs. 200 clicks and only three patients making appointments.
This means that while it’s obviously a good idea to follow expert recommendations, you should never force content to fit into “best practices.” Make your content — including titles — work for you.
For example, the word “need” in titles has been shown to decrease clicks. However, when the target audience does read the article, the word “need” actually brings conversion rates up.
You know your audience best. If you can balance industry best practices with your audience’s needs, you just might be able to create that magic formula.
How can CareContent help you create awesome titles — with killer content to match? Contact us today to set up an intro call.
Healthcare Web Content: 4 Reasons To Take A More Casual Tone
How you communicate is just as important as what you communicate—especially in healthcare.
Voice and tone are so often overlooked during the content creation process for healthcare web content, but they are key in distinguishing your brand and truly impacting your target audiences.
Maybe that’s why poor health literacy is such a huge issue in this country. Only 12% of US adults have what is considered a proficient level of health literacy, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In some areas of the country, 1 out of 2 people have a basic or below basic ability to comprehend health information, reports a study from University of North Carolina. This means that half of the population in these areas can read an appointment reminder and figure out when their next trip to the doctor is.
But filling out consent forms and insurance paperwork—or even understanding a pamphlet about healthcare services once they’re at the appointment—is tough.
At CareContent, we are all about increasing health literacy. And as a team of content specialists for healthcare, we advocate for patient-focused content to take a more conversational tone. Here are 4 reasons why.
1. A Casual Tone Helps Patients Understand Complex Information Better
When web content is narrated in a way that sounds like someone is talking, it helps patients understand the information better. The same goes for avoiding wonky language and acronyms. Ditto for cutting out long strings of sentences. When you break the information up and make it digestible, it becomes easier to understand.
This is part of our health literacy mission. If we want people to understand their diagnosis, their treatment, and their medical team, we have to talk at a level that they are comfortable with.
We don’t want people to have to read our client’s content with a dictionary next to them. We don’t them to have to ask the doctor, “What does that word even mean?”
For me, this mission is personal.
My son was recently diagnosed with mild autism. Even getting to that diagnosis required a lot of appointments with pediatricians, psychiatrists, psychologists, developmental and occupational therapists, social workers, and a lot of other specialists who work in early childhood development.
One of the common complaints I’ve heard from other moms in this same position is that these specialists talk to parents like they’re talking to each other. Some of them spew out acronyms and terminology like you graduated with their credentials.
This is an issue for two reasons:
- It’s a waste of everyone’s time. Why should I have to stop and ask you to explain what you just explained? If they break the information down well to begin with, this doubling back wouldn’t be needed.
- It creates more anxiety. A lot of these medical jargon-y words seem scarier and more alien than what they actually mean.
Explaining healthcare information to patients is not the time for the medical expert to display their intelligence. We already know you’re smart. When information is presented to patients in a formal, clinical, wonky voice, that creates questions instead of answering them. And that’s a problem.
2. Conversational Healthcare Web Content Is Better For Search
In addition to helping people understand the information, taking a more conversational tone can also help with search results. This is especially true with the rise of voice search using virtual assistants like Siri, Cortana, Alexa, etc.
Today, nearly 1 in 4 people with an Android device speak their search query versus typing it.
Voice searchers don’t say, “pediatric autism specialist Chicago.” Instead, they say, “Where is the nearest pediatric autism specialist?” or “I need an autism specialist for my toddler.”
To ensure that the search engine robots crawl your content and connect it with something a voice searcher might say, your content needs to match how people talk.
3. Healthcare Web Content Needs To Create Empathy
The third reason to take a more conversational tone for healthcare web content is that it creates a more personal connection with people when, as they’re reading the content, they feel as if they are talking to someone—as if they can hear the nurse or doctor’s voice as they’re reading.
This is a great tactic for organizations that are trying to personalize their providers’ voices online. Wording the information the same way they’d explain it to their patients humanizes them.
This humanization goes hand-in-hand with the fact that most people who are looking for healthcare information online are often in need of empathy. They want to know that they are not alone, that their concerns are being heard, and that they can get help.
Taking a more conversational tone goes a long way toward providing that comfort and empathy patients and caregivers need.
4. Voice And Tone Can Set Your Healthcare Web Content Apart
Refining a conversational voice and tone is one of the most underestimated ways to distinguish a brand. Lots of companies seek to distinguish their brands using fonts, colors, and logos. And while these are all elements to consider, voice is often left out.
This might seem like an inappropriate example for a healthcare setting, but, for instance, take the website Thug Kitchen [Warning: If you click this link, don’t be offended]. Thug Kitchen started as a recipe website that has grown into a vegan cooking empire with three bestselling cookbooks.
The recipes are good, but it’s their intrepid voice and tone that made them culinary stars: Their recipes are full of cuss words.
I remember looking up a recipe for homemade cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving one year, and their recipe popped up first in my search. The first line: “Put the f***ing can opener down.” I laughed the whole time as I went through this recipe.
Other companies like MailChimp and BuzzFeed have risen to become leaders in their market because of the way they say things.
These may not be healthcare brands, but those of us creating healthcare web content can borrow this principle. Using a conversational voice and tone makes your content memorable. And that, in turn, makes your organization memorable.
Are you ready for your healthcare web content to have a voice and tone makeover? Contact us to get started.
Healthcare Digital Marketing In 2018: Putting Patients First
The start of a new year is a great time to take a moment and think about what we want to see happen next—not just in our personal lives, but in our professional lives and the industries we work in and for as well.
So, what do I want to see in healthcare digital marketing in 2018?
I really want to see healthcare become hyperfocused on patient and user experience, both online and offline. I want hospitals and medical practices to stop asking, “What do our doctors want—and what’s going to make us look smart?”
The question to ask instead is, “What do the patients want?” That answer is what should guide the next steps that healthcare digital marketing takes. And I think a key part of that answer lies in expanding ways that patients and providers can communicate with one another.
Embracing Patient-Friendly Communication In Healthcare Digital Marketing
I would really love to see healthcare embrace other ways of patient-provider communication.
For instance, I want to be able to email my provider. And when I say email my provider, I don’t mean through a patient portal. Patient portals are another user ID and password I have to memorize or find to do something as basic as emailing a question to my doctor. It’s just cumbersome.
There are plenty of ways to make this possible while still following HIPAA regulations.
I would love to see healthcare figure out a way for patients to connect with providers via email or even online chat. I have toddlers whose favorite toy is my phone. This means I don’t always have access to my phone.
In order to call a provider to schedule an appointment, I first have to find my phone. That can take more time than busy working parents or young professionals have available.
And I want to be able to connect with my provider on any device. So, if I’m sitting at my computer and need to connect with them, I want to be able to easily do that through email or chat. The same goes for my phone or tablet.
Who Benefits From Expanded Patient-Provider Communication?
The benefits of expanding the ways patients and providers can communicate aren’t one-sided in the patients’ favor. If patients could email their providers, this would give providers another way to share information.
We very much live in a digital world, so keeping patients engaged online is key to keeping them engaged offline, too.”
For instance, if multiple people are asking questions via email and providers are starting to see a pattern to those questions, that could mean it’s time to create web content around this topic to send out in an e-newsletter to patients.
This probably happens a lot seasonally—for example, during flu season. This year was a particularly devastating flu season, and I’m sure a lot of people have been calling their providers asking very similar questions.
It would be great if they could send those questions via online chat and the provider could respond with, “Here’s a podcast I just did about this exact topic.”
This keeps the connection between patients and providers going—and it keeps patients engaged with the hospital or practice online.
My hope for healthcare digital marketing in 2018 is that the patient experience takes center stage.
What do you want to see happen in the world of healthcare digital marketing this year? Contact us to see how we can help turn your organization’s resolutions into realities.
Starting A Healthcare Blog: 3 Factors To Keep In Mind Before Launching
It probably seems like everyone and their mom has a blog these days. And maybe that’s true. But that doesn’t mean that all blogs are created equal. Blogging can be a powerful marketing tool for your healthcare organization—if it’s done right.
So, how can you set your company’s healthcare blog up for success? Here are 3 factors to keep in mind before you even think about publishing that first post.
1. Figure Out Your Target Audience.
As an August 2013 Forbes article explains, having a clear target audience is key to creating a winning content strategy. And, as the second point in this post (see below) will explain, a strong content strategy is critical if you want your organization’s healthcare blog to succeed.
Instead, ask yourself: Is there a specific service line that we should focus on?
For example, let’s say your organization is about to build a new diabetes clinic that will offer comprehensive, multi-speciality care and support to adult patients. Maybe your target audience is working people with Type 2 diabetes who are struggling to balance jobs, family, and taking care of their own health.
2. Start With A Strong Content Strategy.
According to Forbes, identifying your target audience allows you to do the in-depth research and planning needed to create a content strategy that will set your healthcare blog up for success.
But what on earth is a content strategy?
Orbit Media’s Andy Crestodina sums it up best when he says:
“Content strategy is about planning the creation, promotion, and measurement of content. This content attracts visitors to our website, creating meaningful interactions that meet the needs of our audience and our business.”
Creating a great content strategy means really getting to know the wants and needs of your target audience. It requires knowing the ins and outs of search engine optimization and keyword research. The content strategy should include a content calendar full of engaging post ideas. Your organization will also need to know how to track and interpret analytics—and adjust the strategy as needed.
And no successful content strategy is complete without a solid promotion plan.
3. Produce Less, Promote More.
It goes without saying that your organization’s healthcare blog content should be top-of-the-line as far as quality is concerned. But while it would be great if standout blog content spoke for itself and attracted readers through osmosis, unfortunately, that’s not how it works.
This is where the promotion part of a successful content strategy comes in.
In fact, as an August 2016 Content Marketing Institute article makes clear, the majority of a marketing team’s efforts should go toward promoting content, not creating it.
Think about it this way: If your organization’s blog is pumping out blog posts daily, you’ll want to promote each post thoroughly. But not only is it very difficult to produce that much quality content at that rate, promoting it might actually be harmful to your company’s cause.
This is because trying to promote that many posts at a time will quickly saturate your organization’s social media feeds—and drive people away. And that’s the exact opposite of what you’re trying to achieve.
Instead, take time to create quality content, then dedicate even more time to promoting that content.
This might seem like a lot of work just to launch a healthcare blog. But a well-planned blog can help your organization meet its marketing goals. In the end, all of this up-front effort will be well worth it.
At CareContent, these three points are always on our mind when we help our clients launch new healthcare blogs. Let us help your hospital or healthcare organization create and promote standout web content. Contact us today to get started.
The Ultimate Brainstorm: Surprising Facts About Epilepsy
There’s a reason that some people call seizures “brainstorms.”
When your brain is functioning normally, millions of tiny electrical charges travel in a pattern from the nerve cells in your brain to the rest of your body. But sometimes, that pattern gets interrupted by intense bursts, or storms, of electrical energy—and that’s when you have a seizure.
People often think of seizures as someone falling to the ground and shaking. And while that’s a common type of seizure, it’s not the only kind. Seizures can cause many different types of symptoms, including:
- Nausea and dizziness
- Out-of-body experiences
- Hallucinations
- Staring spells
- Excess blinking
- Repeated movements, like playing with buttons or waving
- Muscle jerks
Epilepsy is a condition defined by two or more unprovoked seizures. It’s one of the most common neurological conditions, affected over 65 million people worldwide. But even though it’s common, it’s often misunderstood.
Here are some facts that might surprise you about seizures and epilepsy:
Hiring For Your Healthcare Marketing Team: 9 Interview Questions To Ask
I have a whole new appreciation for finding the right healthcare marketing team—people who are excellent at their jobs and wonderful to be around.
Yes, I’ve had the flip side, and it wasn’t pretty. Having the wrong person in a key role can make you hate a job that you actually love. It’s draining and wastes precious time. And if you’re prone to panic, you can kiss your peace of mind goodbye.
My current team is awesome. I like them so much that I wish we’d met in college or some other setting, so we could be real friends, rather than just friends at work.
And they are absolutely brilliant.
Nicole is such an amazing designer that I’m not sure she’s human. Jennifer and Katie are like 1000 mg painkillers. They take care of everything, and they keep me sane.
Ros and Sammi are phenomenal healthcare writers and researchers, more adept than people with twice as much experience. They are also hilarious (and probably blood relatives, but we’re still trying to figure that out).
By hiring these amazing people, I’ve learned how to hire others.
Competence And Culture
There are two ingredients that can make a candidate a good fit.
Competence
Do they have the skills to meet or exceed the job’s expectations? Of course, everyone needs training, but you don’t have time to be dragging someone up a steep learning curve. You need a team member who doesn’t just do the job after settling in, she owns it. Matta fact, she’s teaching you and her colleagues stuff that makes the whole team more competent and more efficient.
Also read: 11 Skills All Healthcare Content Creators Need
Culture
Will they fit in with the overall vibe of your team? Sororities are really good at this. The person’s way of communicating, temperament, etiquette, and problem-solving style need to be effective and empowering at the same time. You don’t want to hire a brilliant jerk.
Also read: The Main Reason You End Up Working Late
Here are 9 questions to ask candidates for your healthcare marketing team that get at whether they can do the job and get along with your team.
1. What do you think of when you hear the term … ?
Ask them to give the first thing that comes to mind after you say certain words or phrases, such as content marketing, teamwork, social media marketing, a specific social media channel, or your healthcare organization’s CEO’s name.
If they look confused or start stuttering while commenting on a word or phrase that you think he should be comfortable discussing, that could indicate a competence gap.
2. What’s your process for … ?
Then, fill in the blank with a few common tasks or projects that they’ll handle. A competent person will likely have a set of steps they rely on to get the job done. The candidate’s answer can also reveal their priorities and how they map out milestones.
3. Which thought leaders do you follow in the healthcare or marketing space?
Healthcare and digital marketing are always changing. You want to make sure the candidate stays up on best practices and trends in the field. If they follow reputable thought leaders, this can mean that their job is more of a craft than just a paycheck.
4. When is a time you had a conflict with a co-worker, supervisor, etc.?
It’s okay if they need a second to think before answering. You’re looking for a story here. You want them to discuss what happened and how they approached resolving the conflict. You also want to understand their definition of conflict. Do they major in minor issues, or was it a legit situation? And, most importantly, you want to get a sense of the candidate’s temperament.
5. Where do you see yourself professionally next year?
Most people’s 3- to 5-year goals are too far out to be clear, especially if you’re hiring a young person. But next year shouldn’t be so vague. This will help you gauge whether the person is even thinking about their future.
If they aren’t, that could be a sign of immaturity or a lack of initiative. If they are, does their picture match the professional path your organization can offer? If they don’t have a clear picture of where they want to be next year, then ask, “What skills would you like to be using?”
6. What’s the toughest professional decision you’ve had to make in the last 6 months?
This question can be hit or miss, depending on if they’ve had to make any tough decisions. But the fact that they are out interviewing usually means some kind of turning point has happened in their professional life.
This question gives them an opportunity to share the backstory without prying too much. Again, it also reveals how they define tough decisions and their process for problem solving.
7. When you sit down to work, what’s the first thing you do?
You’re gauging priorities and organization here. Of course, no one will admit that they spend the first hour of their workday messing around on Facebook or perusing Pinterest. But when they do get into their groove, what’s the process like?
8. What types of work environments have helped you thrive, and which have driven you crazy?
Does the environment that helps them thrive sound like yours? It might be a good fit. If the environment that drives them crazy sounds like yours, you might want to keep looking.
9. What are your thoughts on the current marketing initiatives we have online or in the market?
This question gets at whether they have researched your current marketing initiatives. If so, that’s a good sign that they’ve done their due diligence. You also want to see their style of giving feedback.
If they have criticism, do they deliver it tactfully, or are they berating your team’s work? And do they only notice the stuff they don’t like, or do they also give praise?
Of course, you won’t know if someone is truly a good fit until they start doing the job. Even then, it might take a month or longer to see their strengths and weaknesses, but a thorough vetting process can save you from having to do this all again if they don’t work out.
Choosing An OB: 5 Questions That Helped Me Decide
When you find out you’re pregnant, you suddenly have about a million decisions to make.
When do family and friends find out? Nursing or bottle feeding? How about the nursery decor? What names are in the running?
But actually, before answering any of those, one of the very first decisions to make should be choosing an OB, or obstetrician—the physician who monitors the health of both mother and baby.
Here are 5 questions that helped me make the right decision when I was having a baby.
1. What Can I Find Out From Moms I Know?
I was pretty careful with this one. Once you open that box, advice could just start pouring out of the woodwork. To ebb the flow, I asked a select group of women I knew with babies or toddlers some targeted questions about their obstetrician experiences.
What kinds of questions did they ask the doctor to see if he was a good fit? Did they interview several OBs before selecting one? Did they stick with someone they didn’t really like, or did they find matches made in heaven?
Just hearing about someone else’s experience—the good, the bad, and the ugly—can help women be proactive in their search.
Some women also ask their primary care physician for a referral list, and go from there.
2. My Own Health: Is It Complicated?
With serious health issues—whether it’s diabetes, a heart condition, or an issue that involves the reproductive system—experience is a must.
I had a couple of sporadic blood clotting issues in the past, so in choosing an OB, I looked for someone who also had experience treating patients with blood disorders.
3. Do I Even Want An Obstetrician?
For me, the answer was yes. Obstetricians are trained in medical schools, required to complete residencies, and must receive board certification, according to the American Pregnancy Association.
But some women might opt for the more personalized care that a midwife can provide. For women with low-risk pregnancies who want to go the more natural delivery route (think water births at a birthing center and no epidurals), a midwife is certainly a great option.
4. What About Hospital Quality And Doctor’s Office Policies?
Your doctor’s hospital is your hospital, so make sure it’s a good one. Patients at top-rated hospitals are less likely to experience complications, says HealthGrades.com.
I also inquired about the inner-workings and policies at my OB’s practice. I found out about appointment scheduling, hours (and after-hours) available, emergency options, and other factors that determined whether the practice in general was right for me.
For example, in my OB’s office, I learned that I would see one “main” obstetrician exclusively for my prenatal appointments up until week 28.
After that, the office recommended that first-time pregnant women do their own sort of rotations and meet a different OB in the practice every visit. Because you never knew who would be on call the day you gave birth, this helped patients avoid working with a relative stranger the day of delivery.
5. How Is The Physician’s Personality And Communication?
This was a big one for me. I wanted a physician with the right attitude, an overall positive outlook, and who was respectful of my time.
Choosing an OB who listens, answers questions, gets to know their patients, and supports pregnancy and birthing preferences wherever possible is vital to a great patient-doctor relationship.
12 Reasons To Consider A Content Marketing Agency For Healthcare Content
You’ll often hear of content marketing as “feeding the beast.” That describes the ongoing labor of creating content to keep a content strategy working.
Although many healthcare organizations have embraced the importance of content marketing, many are struggling to produce enough content to keep their key patient audiences engaged. Even a weekly blog can become a challenge.
So, here are your options:
- Continue to crank out content yourself—when you and your team have time.
- Hire freelancers.
- Hire more full-time employees, who will be dedicated to content.
- Contract with a web design or branding agency you’ve already worked with.
- Partner with a content marketing agency.
Shameless plug: This blog post will endorse option five, because, well, CareContent is a content marketing agency.
Here are 12 reasons why the first four options don’t stack up to partnering with a content marketing agency.
Option 1: Crank out the content yourself.
Why this doesn’t work…
If you spend most of your days creating content, you probably aren’t focusing on strategy or promotion or the other moving parts that make content marketing successful.
You’ll also have to stay on top of all the changes in search algorithms, social media, design, and content marketing trends. Content marketing has become so competitive that if you’re not going to do it well, it’s best not to do it at all.
The title of this blog is Out-By-5. That’s probably not what you’re doing if you’re creating content. Most of the time, content is added to an already long to-do list.
Option 2: Hire a freelancer.
Full disclosure: Before CareContent, I freelanced for healthcare organizations. Okay, carry on.
Why this doesn’t work…
Freelancers have limited skills. They usually won’t know how to optimize a post for search, create visual designs, or develop and execute a plan for promoting the content. And, you may still need to do significant editing. Freelancers rarely have outside editors review content before they give it to you.
Freelancers have limited time. You’ll have to budget your content marketing projects based on the availability and capacity of just one person. Unlike a content marketing agency, the freelancer is probably not allowed to delegate work among a team.
Freelancers are cumbersome. Managing a group of freelancers can be a headache—answering their emails, tracking their invoices, negotiating rates, remembering what that rate was. And if your favorites are unavailable, do you have time to recruit replacements?
Option 3: Hire full-time employees to do it.
Why this doesn’t work…
It’s not just another person. It’s a team you’ll need to hire—and everything that goes with that: salaries, plus all the benefits like health insurance, sick days, holidays. Not to mention the time you’ll spend helping that person climb the learning curve and managing their workload.
Full-timers tend to get stuck in meetings. Once they’re in your organization, how much time will they actually be able to sit, head down, to focus on creating content? Most healthcare marketing managers and coordinators have so many meetings that they can’t focus on content until after 5.
If you hire someone to write the content, it’s unlikely that the person will also be able to optimize the content for search, add visual design, self-edit, keep up with best practices in content marketing, etc.
Option 4: Let your agency of record do it.
Why this doesn’t work …
It might not be their primary skillset. You originally hired them for branding, web design, or advertising. Those capabilities do not usually translate to content marketing.
They might try to subcontract with a content marketing agency and mark up the price. That means their content services will come at a higher cost than if you’d partnered with the content marketing agency directly.
Even if they create content, they may be missing other elements. For example, if some of your content was best formatted as an infographic, a patient guide, a podcast or a quiz could they do that? Or would they be limited to one type of content?
Here’s the bottom line: Content comes first. It shouldn’t just be riding shotgun. It should be the driver of every website, social media channel, and digital campaign. It’s time for healthcare organizations to add a new partner to their vendor speed dial: A content marketing agency.
5 Reasons Why Your Healthcare Website Needs Effective Landing Pages
The moment a visitor arrives at your healthcare organization’s website, you’ve got her full attention—but you could lose it very quickly if you don’t provide what she’s looking for. Plus, she’s probably doing several other tasks while perusing your site. You don’t have much time, and you only get one first impression.
Unfortunately, when most healthcare organizations are revamping their websites, they focus on the homepage.
Instead, the focus should be on landing pages. Your homepage should only be a map to take the visitor to a strong landing page.
Here are the 5 reasons your healthcare website needs effective landing pages:
1. To Answer The Patients’ Questions
Press releases. Awards announcements. Letters from the CEO. These are just some of the ways that hospitals squander landing pages to talk about themselves instead of helping the patient.
When someone lands on your healthcare organization’s site from a Google search, she’s looking for something. She may be searching for information about her own condition, her child’s disease, or her spouse’s upcoming procedure.
The page where she lands should be all about the patient. Not your hospital. Your content should inform, instruct, and encourage your reader.
2. To Combat Sketchy Health Info
Clarifying bogus health info builds your hospital’s credibility. If you don’t do it, someone else will.
Approach your landing page as your way to fight all of the misinformation floating on the web. Each time your landing page answers the question effectively, that is one less time another page with sketchy information has a chance.
Alternatively, each time your landing page—for whatever reason—doesn’t do the job, you are decreasing the chances of that person ever returning to your site.
3. To Get Into The Details
Just as your homepage provides general information, an effective landing page gets specific. A patient is looking for in-depth information regarding their condition and how you can help them with it.
Unfortunately, many hospitals slap up health library content on their landing pages, instead of taking the time to explain a condition or procedure to the patient in their own words. That’s also a missed opportunity to highlight your healthcare organization’s unique approach.
Narrate through everything you would want to know if you were in your patient’s position. If you can’t put yourself in the patient’s position, interview one to get more insight.
Also read: 7 Steps To Test Your Healthcare Blog or Microsite
An effective landing page will leave your reader feeling empowered and informed enough to make the right choices.
4. To Get Engagement
While the reader may walk away feeling educated, you can bet that this reader will have more questions down the road. The design of your landing page has to direct them to your CTA—call to action.
Assuming your content is just what the reader was looking for, ask for something in return—like visiting a related blog post, signing up for your e-newsletter, or downloading your patient guide on the topic.
5. To Be Found In Search Engines
Search engines love landing pages. “Landing pages are kind of like cars—make sure they’re tuned-up properly, and you’ll likely get better performance and savings out of them down the road,” according to the Google Webmaster blog.
Search optimization means designing and coding your page so that people can find it through a Google search.
Remember that Google also wants people to continue using its search engine, so they need to be satisfied. Google designed its search algorithm with this in mind. Prominently featured sites will be those that have strong landing pages that provide what people are searching for.
6 Clinicians To Include in Healthcare Marketing Content (Besides Doctors)
Here are 4 other healthcare providers—aside from busy, unresponsive physicians—who love your patients and deserve a little love from marketing.
