At least 90% of Health Professional websites that I come across are static, go nowhere fast, boring brochure sites. Excuse me if you site falls into this category! Here are some reasons why Blogs and Newsfeeds work…
1. It Keeps Your Visitors Interested
You want people to have a reason to come back to your website. If your website content is static, visitors can just browse your site once and they’re done. But if you’re putting out new content all the time, they have reason to come back. And if your content is truly interesting, they’ll even subscribe to your updates via e-mail.
2. More Pages = More SEO Juice
Each blog post is a new page that search engines see, and therefore a new opportunity to get found online. Packing as much content as possible into a few pages is not an effective search engine optimization strategy.
3. Incentive to Create More Content
After companies pack their websites with useful content, they often avoid adding new content to their sites. If you don’t have a blog, adding more content means redesigning the site and complicating the layout. All good websites should have something that is updated on a regular basis.
I hope this article encourages you to provide more useful information to your site visitors on at least a weekly basis. Saying that I am remiss in my duties. As a website designer I am often guilty of neglecting my site in favor of my clients sites. Sorry! :)
Hi Jessie, you make some good points! Of course you can be a health professional like me who commits the ultimate sin: actually uses a blog because it’s free, but then doens’t post beyond the original info articles because it makes it harder to find the info you want! Blogs are tricky because articles get pushed into archives and it’s hard to have important information about the practice easily accessible. I guess a good combo might be a more static site with all the info readily available, and a blog where you can change and update regularly, with links between the two of them – do you think?
Hi Alyssa. If you use WordPress you can use Tags and Categories – this give your clients at least some sort of structure with which to find your articles. I am looking to relaunch Healthewebsites next month with what I consider the ultimate answer to this conundrum. Stay tuned! Just had a look at your site and it seems you use Blogger :( – p.s. after 2 babies (recently) I love the sound of your CD!
Great! Can’t wait to hear all about it! Thanks for your reply!