Medicine and the Internet

If you are in the medical industry you better be online.

AP ltd.com has been working with the medical industry for more than 25 years now and the trend towards the Internet is unmistakable. Now if you are a doctor, medical group or association and not online in a big way your business will suffer.


Just a few years ago it was enough to have a static web site providing basic information. Today you need an interactive site, to advertise online and to expand your public relations program onto the Internet.


We have been working with the Illinois Bone & Joint Institute (IBJI) for four years now and we have watched their site traffic increase a thousand fold. IBJI is an orthopaedic group of over 80 orthopaedic physicians. One of the heaviest trafficked areas on the site is the physicians section where we have a photo, bio and CV on each physician. We've found that site visitors are coming to the site to find a doctor and then to check them out before they make an appointment.

As the developer of their site it is our job to make it as easy as possible for site visitors to find the information they need. The issue is that not everyone is looking for the same thing. One visitor may want a physician near them, another a woman or, as on one of our sites Ravenswood Physician Associates, a physician that speaks a certain language. With that many variables, you need a very sophisticated database for site visitors to search.


The most sophisticated site won't serve you well, though, unless people can find it. The medical community in general has become more aggressive in advertising. Today you see traditional advertising on billboards and newspapers, but more and more you are see in advertising online. If you look at the online version of most newspapers you'll see banner advertising from the local hospital. Cost Per Click (CPC) advertising especially localized is also big. I just set up a CPC program for a IPA and the bid for the term "doctor chicago" was excessive.


Public Relations has also found its way onto the Internet. The days of sending a release out by mail disappeared years ago being replaced by email, but tat was only the beginning of the move. Today there are online news services which are crucial to getting your release onto the search engines. There are RSS feeds to get your news into the hands of those who are interested in your industry news, sites where you can place your article and blogs that target just about every topic imaginable.