Advertise your site

One of the worst misconceptions floating around out there follows the old line, "If you build it, they will come." Hate to say it, hate to tell you, but that is just not true. As of December, 2002, we believe there are over one billion websites. We expect that number to continue to grow. Consequently, just because you built it means absolutely nothing. There are now so many entries in the databases the search engines use that even with the best of efforts, if you don't pay for high placement, you will probably find yourself struggling to get good placement in the major search engines. What's a person to do?

The answer is simple. Never miss an opportunity to advertise your website. Remember that the website is to serve, at least in part, as a great big business card, telling potential as well as existing customers (/patients/clients/whatever you call them) all about your business and trying to answer their most common questions. So what do people do wrong? Let's start with the basics:

• Put your website on all your business cards--they will go there to learn more about you if they are interested.
• Put email addresses on all your business cards--let people see the website twice in a row if they look at the business card.
• Put your website on all your stationery--let them know you have a website--even your vendors need to be know about it. You never know who will be thinking of using you or your competetors and you want every opportunity to let them know about you, to sell yourself.
• Your red-pages ad is one of the best places to expose your website--buy a smaller red-pages ad and rely on the website to fill in far more information than you could ever afford to put in the phone book.
• If you run any radio, TV, newspaper, or magazine ads...you guessed it...put your website in the ad. Again, if they are interested in your services, people will go to the website to learn more.
• Take every opportunity to get your website out there. Talk it up. If you are in a business networking club, always mention your site and ask the other members to tell people to look at it. You never know.

We never cease to be amazed that people don't take these simple steps, but, hey, that's what we're telling you about them for.

Offer website "coupons."

Retailers have known for years the power of the "coupon." If you don't believe it, look in your Sunday newspaper. If you are a service provider, use the coupon concept. People love to get a bargain--any bargain. So offer them $25.00 (or some appropriate amount) off if they tell you they saw the coupon on your website. It gets customers who are really interested in your products or services to check your website. That keeps you in their minds. Since they love a bargain, even if they don't really know what the price should be, there's a good chance they'll come to you just to get the discount.

Please notice that this same method works for other media as well. Know what else it does? It lets you know whether your investment is paying off--whether your website or your ad is getting you any customers. If you get no bites, that is, nobody asks for the discount, you know it is not working and you need to revamp something, seek better search-engine placement, or something.

Professional People

Never miss an opportunity to tell your patients (or customers or clients or whatever you call them) to look at something on your website to refresh their memories or to get more information. Why? Because they will tell their friends, neighbors, family members, clergy, etc. about it. They will, in fact take these people to your website and show them the information there. What does this mean for you? Word-of-mouth advertising--the best there is! So, here are a couple of examples:

At Dr. M.'s office, when a patient calls and makes an initial appointment, the staff is instructed to ask, "Do you have access to the web?" If the new patient answers affirmatively, the office staff then says, "Well, we'll have some forms for you to fill out when you first get here. It will speed up your office visit if you want to download them from our website and have them filled out ahead of time." Of course, some patients won't want to do this. But many will. What is accomplished? First, you will get more and better information because they patient is doing the work in the comfort of their own home and at comparative leisure. Second, you will have speeded up the office visit for the patient because now they won't have to fill in those pesky forms while they sit in your waiting room. Third, you will have exposed the patient to your website where they can get lots of other information without bothering to call your office staff. Fourth, the patient will, sooner or later, refer a friend or relative to your website. You're a winner all the way round.

Here's another scenario:

Dr. J., a surgeon, finishes his work on Mrs. Dee. He gives Mrs. Dee post-op instructions. You know,

• A little redness, sorenss, swelling, etc., is normal during the first 24 hours.
• Change the dressing after 24 hours and each day thereafter. Use some poly... If you see puss, etc., etc.

Then, Dr. J. hands the patient a form with these instructions on it. Near the bottom of the form, it tells Mrs. Dee, "For more information, see www.......com" When Mrs. Dee goes to the website, she will see essentially the same instructions. There will be only a little additional explanatory text there. Still, Mrs. Dee has now been exposed to the website. When one of her friends says, "I've been having the same problem," Mrs. Dee will probably say something like, "Dr. J. has a website. Why don't you look at it. It has all kinds of good information relating to this problem--it's www.......com." Now Mrs. Dee's friend will not only know about you, but will have lots of information, your office hours, location, a feeling of confidence in you and your staff, etc.

Yet another scenario:

Mr. K. is an accountant. Someone tells him they need a tax form and asks where could they get it. Now Mr. K. could say somthing like, "Call my office tomorrow and I'll give you the number for the State Income Tax offices. They'll mail you one. Or, I might have one in the office. Remind me to look and see if I do and if I do, I can mail it to you or you can come by for it." What does this do? It sets Mr. K. up for a non-profitable phone call, takes his time, and that's about it. Mr. K should say, "I don't know if I have one of those forms or not, but you can hit my website at www.....com and click on the link for tax forms. You can get one pretty quickly that way and it will be the latest, most up-to-date form. Mr. K. just saved himself some time, made the client feel good about the results they'll get, and got them to look at the website where they will see that Mr. K. also does personal taxes, financial planning, etc. Even if they don't want those services for themselves, when someone asks about them, they will likely remember Mr. K. If they had not gone to the website, they may never have associated Mr. K. with those services at all.