Lasik Web Marketing

Those of you who are actively promoting your practice’s LASIK website on the web are probably aware of your Page Rank. If you have downloaded the Google Tool Bar, you can see the Page Rank of every website you visit. Page Rank (or PR) is Google’s way of telling you its perception of the relative value of a given website on a scale of 0 – 10. The more websites (especially more credible websites in related fields) that link back to your site, the more likely you will have a higher PR. Keep in mind, however, that PR is only just an estimation of the relative value of your site. Don’t live or die by it.

Typically, sites with higher PR values rank higher on searches on Google, Yahoo and MSN. While this is not always the case, it tends to be true. It is especially true with very competitive search phrases.

New sites typically start at 0 and gradually increase their PR over time. It is very unusual to see a PR of 10. Naturally, Google has a PR of 10. Few other sites ever get that high. Many good sites have PRs of 4-5 and in some cases even lower.

Over the last week or so, you may have noticed that Google updated your PR. If yours went up, keep doing what you are doing. If yours went down, don’t panic. Just keep trying to add relevant content and encourage more related sites to link back to your website. There is no shortcut here. You have to keep working it.

If you’re struggling with your PR, let us know, we can help.

Dan Goldstein
Page 1 Solutions

Who has the time or wants to give a lot of personal information through a long and tedious contact form? Not many people do. The solution? A mini-contact form!

By creating a call to action that appears on almost every page of a LASIK website, it is appealing even to the most cautious consumer and can even be extremely professional.

There are several styles or layouts one can choose for a mini-contact form, but they all have the same idea in mind. *Get the potential client to contact your LASIK practice by providing a haven for them wherein they only have to provide the most basic information possible.

This information includes:

*Name
*Phone Number
*Email Address
* Comments section

This is a great, non-threatening approach to justifying why they should submit an inquiry. Plus, by making the Name, Phone Number and Email Address fields required, all the information a practice needs to contact the person is right there.

For example, check out: the Khanna Institute of LASIK. You don’t even have to scroll down the page any. It is just right there, in plain sight. This is a wonderful example of how a practice can use a mini-contact form to draw in patients as a call to action. This contact form is even spruced up with Michele’s picture. They want people to know that they can “ask Michele a question NOW.”

Mini-contact forms can be a great asset to any practice’s website. Page 1 Solutions will help answer any questions you have about the functionality or easy installation of a mini-contact form. In essence, by providing an alternative contact means for the consumer and customizing it to fit the practice’s needs, successful leads through the web are bound to increase.

Noël Otten
Account Manager
Page 1 Solutions

The major search engines today rely on incoming links as a major part of their algorithms in determining the credibility and ranking of websites in the free search results. Accordingly, it is essential for you to develop as many incoming links as possible. Following are a few things you should do:

• Make sure all of your listings with professional societies include a link to your website.

• The same applies to all other organizations to which you belong – make sure they list your website and link to it when listing you as a member.
• Try to get an acknowledgement on the websites of the charities that you contribute to. Each charity should acknowledge your contribution and if they have a website, ask them to acknowledge your contribution and link to it.
• There are hundreds of directories on the Internet. You should try to get your website listed in as many of them as possible. Many directories are general directories with many categories of website listings. Your website might be able to be listed in the LASIK surgeon area or in the section for your city or state. There are also some directories out there that offer free listings. Make sure you are listed in these. Again, each listing should link back to your website.
• Another suggestion is reciprocal linking. This can be taken to an extreme, but a basic approach would be to exchange links with your friends – surgeons or doctors in other areas – and vendors or colleagues in your own community.

Some listings are better than others. However, with the exception of link farms, it is almost always a good idea to try to get as many links to your website as possible.

If you need help with link building, you should call a website marketing firm that specializes in LASIK websites – Page 1 Solutions fits the bill.

Dan Goldstein
Page 1 Solutions