1. Have an effective paid internet marketing campaign in place and are happy
2. Have an ineffective paid internet marketing campaign in place and are unhappy
3. Haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet 

To get your pay per click campaign setup, optimized and generating new business for you, email or call us now at 1-888-855-2534.

Triage  Within this guide, we are exploring the notion of empowering your website to assist your office with patient triage.  By this, we mean that medical websites should be designed to sort out and meet the needs of patients in the same way that a medical office would.

1. Urgently sick patients who need to go to the front of the line should be able to find office hours and phone numbers directly on the homepage.
2. Patients who are feeling poorly but don’t need immediate attention might not feel like talking on the phone right then and there.  They should be able to request an appointment through the website and handle the details over the phone when the scheduling assistant calls them shortly after.
3. Parents who need to schedule a school or sports physical for their child appreciate the convenience of requesting an appointment through the website weeks in advance.

Usability  Medical practice websites should assist patients and the practice with a number of fundamental day to day processes such as providing access to printable custom driving directions, patient forms and general education.  Access to and interaction with these tools should be simple to understand and easy to use.  Here is an example along with explanations below:

	Vital navigation & information are “above the fold” and require little to no scrolling, even on a laptop.
	. Users can scroll down the homepage to learn the basic highlights without having to click deeper or can click opt to learn more. This also helps with SEO.
	. Simple navigation to the most used & most requested functions that patients look for. These links can be used to “drive” patients to portions of the site.
	. New & existing patients can schedule through the website. Once they fill out this form, three things happen automatically: 1) A copy is sent to the practice. 2) The patient receives a copy. 3)The patient is re-directed to a page with next step instructions.
.	. Provides link to high level information and downloads of all forms. Also gives a direct link to forms in the pull down for faster access.
.	. Links to high level services by demographic / age. Allows for navigation to specific services by demographic / age.
.	. Delivers custom turn by turn directions & printable map from patient’s location directly to your office on-the-fly.
	. Phone number, address & office hours are always visible and accessible. Requires no additional clicking for a new or existing patient to be able to contact the practice by phone to schedule an appointment.

.
Do you work at a medical practice? If so, fill out the form below and we will email you a printable copy of this best practice guide along with a link to the demonstration website shown in it.

8 Reasons for advertising your business on craigslist

1.) It’s Free. The magic word. It’s hard to beat free. With the exception of a few categories and cities on craigslist, business owners are able to post their ads for free. Of course there are limitations, such as the number of ads that can be posted per account within a certain timeframe (3 ads per account per day).

2.) Search engines and craigslist are friends. Craigslist gets alot of traffic from the search engines. Roughly 25% to be more accurate. See for yourself. This means that when you post an ad in craigslist, it has the potential to be listed in the Google, Yahoo! and MSN. This can also help improve your overall search engine ranking.

3.) People are looking to buy. If someone takes the time to sit in front of their computer, open their web browser, type in “mycity.craigslist.org” click on “services” or “for sale”, search through the ads, find an ad they like, then pick up the phone or click on a link, chances are they’re looking to buy. If not, they really should consider getting a hobby.

4.) It’s popular. Craigslist is the 10th most popular website in the United States. It’s popularity dwarfs it’s competitors. This means that when you advertise your business on craigslist, alot of eyeballs are going to see your ad.

5.) It’s visual. With craigslist, you can post images, custom-coded HTML and basically make your ad look like a webpage. This is powerful in that you can have multiple links in your ad or juice it up with snazzy graphics to quickly get a viewers attention.

6.) It’s easy. Ok, maybe the title of this bullet is a little misleading. Getting a system for posting ads into craigslist that works for you can be a little tricky. This is especially true if you’re planning to go beyond posting a basic ad and use HTML. In any case, once you’ve got your system in place and a little practice under your belt, the process becomes more natural and you can complete an ad in a matter of minutes.

7.) It’s measurable. Wouldn’t it be a bummer to go through all of the trouble setting up a craigslist advertising campaign and have no idea who (if anyone) is coming to your site? Luckily there are a whole slew of tools in place that can shed a little light on the results of your efforts. Google Analytics is free and can send automated reports that details your craiglist ad’s performance directly to your inbox. A neat little tool I like it Cligs.

8.) It works. The bottom line is craigslist works. We have had several days where more than a dozen leads were generated through craigslist for our company. In a single day! We have used this amazing site for years with steady, unwavering success. If you have a business, I highly recommend doing the same.

If you enjoyed this post, add us at twitter.com/sophic - thanks!

We have been so inspired by the Presidential Inauguration & the Starbucks Pledge5 volunteer campaign that we are offering free help to new & existing customers. From January 21 - January 31, we will install Google Analytics for your website if you volunteer for the Starbucks Pledge5 initiative.

Our resolution is to see you drive generate at least 5 new leads per day to your site, so we are calling the initiative Drive5.  Simply fill out the form below the video to get started.

Disclaimer:  Sophic is not officially affiliated with Starbucks or Google.  Google Analytics is free.  We are simply offering professional assistance at no charge.  All rights and trademarks are owned by their respective entities.

Statistics show that nearly 85% of the estimated 10 million iPhone users surf the Internet regularly with the beloved gadget.

The Demographics

comScore reports that the average iPhone user earns around $100k per year and holds a college degree.  This fits the profile for many decision makers who would visit your site to consider your business.

iPhone Website Optimization

Watch this video to see how Sophic optimized its website for iPhone users.

Website monitoring is server software that logs website & search engine traffic for key statistics.  It is also known as web analytics.  The software can monitor a wide array of actions by search engine users & website visitors.

What Can It Tell Me?

Website monitoring can provide a vast amount of key on-site data about how visitors behave on your website.  You can discover the total number of visitors, most popular pages, time spent on the site, where the visitors are coming from and more.  It can also deliver off-site data regarding the keywords your website shows up for in search engines and the keywords that are clicked on the most.

How Can It Benefit Me?

It can provide crucial information about how your advertising dollars are (or should be) spent and if visitors are reaching key goal pages such as shopping carts, newsletter signups and other business generation pages.  For example, you will be able to see: “This click cost me $2.00 and I made $800 on the sale.  My ROI for this click was 399%.” It can demonstrate where your strengths and weaknesses are so that you can make critical online marketing decisions.

Can It Help Me Manage Campaigns?

Website analytics is a must-have for tracking Pay Per Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Marketing & other online marketing campaigns.  For example, it is imperative to track how landing pages perform so that you can optimize their content for maximum return on investment.  It is prudent to install analytics if you are planning on setting up a campaign in the future because it provides a baseline for your website performance.

Conclusion

If you want more website traffic, leads and conversions, setting up analytics as part of a holistic online marketing strategy should be a top priority.

Lead By Example: Sophic Landing Page That Drives Newsletter Signups

Setting Up Goals: Measuring ROI
 

Must Know Info: Who, What, Where

We ran our business for several years on our original domain name (URL).  The problem was that it was just to lengthy.  It was tough to remember, cumbersome to spell out over the phone and would barely fit on our business cards.

The Dilemma

Through search engine optimization, we had earned a Google page rank of 5.  That is a healthy rank and drove lots of free, highly relevant traffic our way.  But, we had a chance to acquire a new, much shorter domain name.  We debated over the rank issue.  Furthermore, the new domain had a rank of zero…. completely undeveloped from an SEO perspective.

The Decision

We decided to go for it.  We were confident that we could regain our rank with the new domain. We began doing search engine optimization work at the end of November 2008.

The Progress

As of today, (8 weeks later) our new domain is at a page rank of 4.

What are they?

Premium themes are well-designed, featured-packed themes for Wordpress that give your site a much professional look that typical Wordpress themes.

Why use them?

When you install a typical Wordpress theme to your site, you can expect to spend a load of time (or money on a developer) getting your site up to speed. Premium themes usually have all of the design and features options your site will ever need. Also:

     • Great platforms for search engine optimization development
     • More customer trust with professional-looking site
     • Many built-in features that typical Wordpress blog themes don’t have 

Where can I get the best Wordpress premium themes?

     • Woo Themes
     • Thesis Theme
     • Flexx Theme

• Tips on how to drive more, relevant traffic to your web site
• How to build lasting relationship with customers through your site
• Advice on how to turn your web site into a highly effective sales tool