Thanks for joining me on this episode of The Career Rx. Today we’ll be talking about the main benefits of having a website and the importance of a good website for your medical practice or business.
In This Episode of The Career Rx We’ll Discuss:
- Why doctors should have their own websites – not just social media accounts
- Why having your own website is better than your physician bio on your employer’s website
- How your own website helps you influence your digital footprint and online reputation from day one
- How a website helps you establish yourself as a physician thought leader and network more widely than you ever thought possible
- Why doctors should stop focusing on followers – and the metric to measure instead
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TRANSCRIPT AND SHOW NOTES (5 Key Benefits of Having a Website for Doctors)
Many of my listeners already have a website for their business. However…
- You may not be using it very regularly.
- You’re not sure what to do with your website.
- You’re thinking about giving it a makeover.
Or, you may be just starting to think about launching a website.
If you’ve been listening to The Career Rx, you’ve heard me say in multiple episodes, that there are great ways to build your brand online, even without a website.
You’ve also heard me recommend that you think about and eventually launch your own website as one of your professional assets.
I think it’s really important and there are key benefits of having a website over other platforms to establish your professional online footprint.
The importance of having a good website for your business is substantial. There are many unique advantages we’ll be discussing.
In future episodes, we’ll talk more specifically about the different elements of a website and what to think about before you launch. For now, I want you to know that you can have your own website from idea to live in about 20 minutes.
So it’s easier than you might think
Let’s dive into some of the benefits of having a website and why it is a more effective way to establish your professional presence online, as well as to engage with other people online.
5 Benefits of Having a Website for Doctors
1. Your Physician Website is a True Business Asset You Control
Why have a website when there are so many great social media platforms you can use?
Well, the main benefit of having your own website is you have complete content over your content.
Of course, you can make adjustments on other online platforms, for example, your LinkedIn page.
You can decide what you choose to write on your page. There are different sections you can curate, move around, and emphasize. But LinkedIn is LinkedIn, and you’re going to be stuck with their platform, their options, and their changes.
The same is true of a Facebook page. A professional Facebook page, unlike your personal profile, is also a very effective way to grow your online presence and establish yourself professionally.
However, again, you are subject to the various features and changes that go part and parcel with the Facebook platform. This includes the ever-changing algorithm that determines who sees your content in the feed.
The major benefit of having a website means full control over your content, compared to other platforms.
- Choose your website domain name.
- Select a website design that represents your professional brand, including the look and feel of the style (fonts) and images.
- Publish different styles of content that reflect your personality and your intention… long-form blog posts, videos, podcasts, etc.
- Include helpful resources.
You can evolve and change your content strategy over time.
If you haven’t yet launched a website and aren’t sure what you want to do professionally, perhaps you just launch a website that has some of the bare elements. You can set up a few things you want your website to do for you and call it a day. You can then begin to grow your presence and your strategy can evolve over time.
The key importance of having a website for your medical practice or business means you control the narrative through the various forms of content you publish.
Sure, you can share posts and videos on LinkedIn and Facebook or write on platforms like Medium, but owning your own website ensures you have control. This is important as fully supporting your online professional goals can only be achieved by controlling your design, website personality and core content.
2. Influence your Online Reputation and Digital Footprint
Another one of the main benefits of having a website is you can create a self-titled domain name.
This can be your strongest online asset, especially if you focus on SEO (search engine optimization) to drive more qualified traffic to your website.
When someone types your name into Google, they’ll typically find a list of results, many of which are from platforms you do not own.
Some of these results will be your place of work, a mention in the news or feature you from a conference you spoke at. It may also be your social media accounts – LinkedIn, SlideShare, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.
Those are the search results that will show up. The reason these results show up high on the first page of Google is they have high domain authority. This means that Google already recognizes these platforms as being helpful and credible ways to learn about a person.
However, as we’ve already discussed, you don’t have complete control over these online platforms.
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SEO Tip:
When you publish content to your own website (whether self-titled or not), make sure to use your name liberally throughout. It will, therefore, be clear that the website is about you and your business.
Over time your website will begin to build credibility and your domain authority will also grow.
This is when your website will start to show up higher (first page) in search results.
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The benefit of your website showing up high in search results means you are fully controlling the narrative of how people see you online.
As I’ve mentioned, you can make your website look and feel however you want.
Select and curate content that helps people understand how you can help them.
Highlight your best attributes and qualities. You may be sharing this in your CV or LinkedIn profile – but on your website, you can communicate these features in a more compelling way.
Communicate what you hope to highlight about your life… your experiences, your professional accomplishments, as well as your future goals.
From day one, if your website is about you, you will begin to build credibility and domain authority with search engines more rapidly than you could otherwise.
What you look like online (your digital footprint) is of great importance because as you know, people are going to be looking you up! So, why not add a website you control to the resources your target audience can find?
3. Increase Engagement with Your Specific Target Audience
Launching your own website is a key asset for your business and profession.
This gives you a direct way to start engaging with your audience, which is different from how you may be engaging currently with your network.
Your target audience will very likely be people in your network, but it will also be much larger.
With a website, you can target people you don’t know. This audience is bigger than your own institution, your town, or country. The main advantage of having your own website means you can engage with this large and growing audience in a direct way.
Focus on Building Your Websites Email Subscribers:
Even if you don’t know exactly what you intend to do with your website, beginning to grow an email list of engaged readers is one of the best ways to leverage this professional asset.
I strongly recommend when you’re just starting out, that you set up an incentive for people to opt-in to your email list. Think about giving them something of value that they find interesting, whether that be a newsletter, podcast, video series, or an ebook. Then they’ll opt-in to hear from you on a regular basis.
Starting an email list is critical, even if you’re just starting out. Even if you’re unsure of what you may want to do, eventually, building this email list is a tremendous asset – and you do it directly from your personal website, much more powerful than social media.
4. Curate Professional Achievements and Highlights with Personality
One of the other fantastic benefits of having a website is flexibility.
You can use any type of medium or combination of mediums on your website, and it doesn’t have to be timeline driven, like a social media feed. You can put all of the professional activities that you want to highlight in a way that’s more digestible and curated.
For example, if you’re a speaker, you can dedicate an entire page that talks about your speaking opportunities.
Showcase the speaking engagements you have recently delivered as well as upcoming engagements. Instead of a line on a CV, you can go deeper and include a small summary, photos from the event, and slide examples.
This demonstrates your professional activities and lets your personality shine through. You can do this easily on a personal website.
Demonstrate Your Social Proof
Use your website as a place to showcase your accolades – the depth and breadth of how your work is impacting other people’s lives. Some great examples:
- Awards
- Letters of appreciation
- Social media mentions
- Testimonials
You can bring these wins to life in a visually appealing way to impress future partners, clients, and bosses.
This helps people understand the value of your work when they’re thinking about you as a partner, collaborator, or someone they wish to hire. They’ll already have a good feeling of how you engage, interact, and how people feel about working with you.
Side Note: I think people get falsely focused on their number of followers and they view that as some type of metric of your professional impact.
In some cases, this may be true, but in many cases, it’s not.
What you have (publically) on your website is not really metric-driven. It is more image, video feedback, and text-driven – where you can paint a picture of how you work and how people enjoy working with you.
Having a website is about the quality of information. How the quality of information connects with the person who is reading your content.
5. Help Others Find and Contact You
The final benefit of having a website is it’s very easy for people to find you.
On a social media platform, many people have similar names. It can, therefore, be challenging to find people. However, with a website, you can set up a great ‘About Me’ page. Describe yourself with some good quality photos with some language about yourself that’s easily interpreted.
This can help people find you and be sure that they’ve found you!
Equally as important, include a way to contact you through an email form or phone number.
Since connecting you doesn’t go through a 3rd party, you don’t have to remember to check your LinkedIn messages or Facebook instant messenger, etc. Simply allow people through a form to email you directly and you don’t have to give away your email address to do that (if that’s important to you). Although you can also just as easily give your email address on your website.
While it’s very simple, having an easy way for people to find you and contact you is an extremely under-appreciated value of having your own website. (Here’s an example of my ‘contact’ page).
There are just so many people in the world today! So, it’s really important that someone can find you in the easiest most direct way possible and that can be accomplished best by having a website.
Let’s Recap: Why Should You Have a Website?
There are massive benefits of having a website for your medical practice or business.
- You’ll have a professional business asset with full control over your online content.
- A website can maximize your personal brand exposure where you can build your credibility and online authority through search engines.
- It gives you a direct way to engage with your target audience and build an engaging email list so you can control communications, rather than relying on ever-changing social algorithms.
- Uniquely showcase your career highlights, your personality, and professional activities with design and content flexibility that a personal website offers.
- Improve your online ‘findability’ – making it easier for people to get in touch with you.
If you’ve been thinking about launching your own website, but you’ve been holding back because you are confused, overwhelmed, or don’t know how to get started, be sure to email me at marjorie@marjoriestieglermd.com and send me your question.
I’ll be sure to add your question to my planning for the next couple of episodes where we’ll talk about what your website can and should do for you and how to accomplish it easily without a bunch of overwhelm so you get yourself out there and begin to establish your professional footprint in a way you haven’t been doing yet.
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An Opportunity For You To Appear on The Career Rx!
Here’s something exciting…
In a future episode, we’re going to be doing a series of professional branding makeovers where I’ll be looking at people’s websites and offering some tips and tricks as well as highlighting what people are doing really well already.
I have some volunteers already in mind, but if you would like to possibly be featured on one of these upcoming episodes for professional branding, please leave me a review and include your website in that review so I can find you and potentially feature you in a future episode.
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Thanks for joining me on this episode of The Career Rx!
Please be sure to subscribe and leave me a review on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast or whatever podcast player you’re using to listen today. Also, be sure to send me your questions so I can answer them and give you a shout out on a future episode.
Bye for now,
Marjorie
Benefits of Having a Website (for Doctors) – Related Reading:
- Everything You Need to Know Before Starting a Website
- Using Social Media the Right Way for Your Business (4-Part Checklist)
- How to Make a Career Change for Doctors