What is Your 'Value Added' on the Web?

To be successful on the Internet, you must have some value added. What’s yours? Your medical knowledge will gain you great Web page rankings and exposure, while your experience will continue to keep our profession sacred.

How many times have you been to a Web site that offers useful information, a free tool, or something else you value - for free? Useful Web sites have some value added. So, too, must a medical Web site. A successful site that has a great exposure and great page rankings must have tremendous value added.

Most medical Web sites contain information about your office. While there is some benefit for those that already know your office, your medical knowledge, however, is your most powerful asset to attract new patients to your office.

Your medical knowledge will rank your pages and attract new patients via the Internet. It is not our expertise nor our experience. You must distinguish your medical knowledge from your experience and expertise.

On my Web site about retinal diseases, I publish, objectively, based upon my knowledge of retinal disease. Patients flock to my site in search of answers to their retinal problems...looking for knowledge.

I give them my knowledge - and for free. It has been a successful recipe over the past 20 months. My new patients and volume are bigger than ever.

Don’t worry, I’m not selling us out, nor undermining anyone. Our true value added, that element that will keep us in practice, is our experience!

The naysayers to the Internet claim that we’ll be selling ourselves short by giving away healthcare and we’ll make ourselves obsolete. Never. We are not giving away our expertise and experience and that is the element that will forever make us unique.

Just as we can’t make a diagnosis over the telephone, we can’t make a diagnosis over the Internet. As you see patients today, take a moment to really dissect what you’re doing.

Think about giving away your knowledge. Write essays or articles about your favorite diseases and publish them on your site. By doing so, you’ll be improving the quality of health care information available on the Internet, educating your patients and ethically marketing yourself.