Mobile marketing is no longer the future of medical practice. It’s here, it’s now and your cosmetic or holistic medical practice needs to go mobile or get left behind.
If your website doesn’t work on smartphone, it’s probably annoying the people you most want to attract: Social patients. According to Outbrain, more than half the world’s Internet users use mobile phones to access the Internet. That’s a lot of patients.
Google is also going to punish you for mobile mistakes.
As the Google Webmaster put it: “To improve the search experience for smartphone users and address their pain points, we plan to roll out several ranking changes in the near future that address sites that are misconfigured for smartphone users.”
So what’s a physician in cosmetic practice to do? Here are five tips for going mobile:
1) Make sure your website is responsive: We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again. You website needs to work across all devices and screen types, from smart phones to tablets.
2) Test and retest: Test your site on as many different mobile devices and operating systems as possible. Also test your videos. Doing so will make users happy, allow searchers to experience your content fully and improve your SEO.
3) Write responsive content: Write content that can be read easily across devices. Experts call it the COPE principle or “Create Once Publish Everywhere.” Keep it simple, short and smart. Test your copy on the small screen first.
4) Ditch Adobe Flash: Google will reduce your ranking if youuse videos that won’t work on smartphone devices. Content involving Adobe Flash isn’t playable on iPhones or on Android devices with version 4.1 or above. Ditch those old videos or hurt your Google ranking.
5) Design with data: Use your website’s metrics to determine how it is working for patients. These metrics will help you tweak your design for your users’ benefit.
These are five good starting points, but more is involved. If you have a website for your plastic surgery, cosmetic dermatology or cosmetic dentistry practice, read Google’s blog post and common mistakes in smartphone sites. If you care about search engine optimization and your social patients, do it now.
Better yet, call Crystal Clear DM and let us help. Our web designers and content experts can make your website responsive to the growing number of mobile users, so you can get back to caring for patients.
