Implementing a robust online marketing strategy is one of the best investments a medical practice can make. However, it takes a certain level of commitment and skill to be effective. Here are three bad online marketing habits that a practice should avoid in order to maintain a productive Web presence.

Idle Efforts

There’s no such thing as a finished Web presence. To continually connect with your current patients and generate new appointments, you must be committed to keeping your various marketing channels current and up-to-date.  Stagnant sites, idle Facebook pages and unmonitored directory listings will give visitors a bad impression of your practice and potentially hurt your reputation. Avoid letting all of your hard work go to waste, and make sure you are constantly monitoring, fine-tuning and adding value to your marketing platforms.

Quality, Not Quantity

Write content for your website that is compelling; craft articles for your blog that patients will actually read; and share information on Facebook that entices patients to interact and take action. When it comes to maintaining a dynamic Web presence, always focus on the quality of content you are communicating; not how much you are producing. When you take the time to make your content useful rather than haphazardly contributing irrelevant details to your various webpages, you will find that patients are more responsive and much more likely to engage.

Taking On Too Much

Managing a successful online marketing strategy for your practice takes a lot of time and dedication. From making important changes to your website and writing for your blog to monitoring reviews and updating your Facebook page, if you aren’t making time each day to carefully manage your online presence, you may fall behind.

Delegate some of the work to a staff person in your office, preferably someone with marketing experience, or partner with a professional in medical online marketing who can manage everything for you. This is often the best route as you will be able to relinquish your marketing efforts knowing they are always performing optimally while enabling you to manage the day-to-day responsibilities of your practice.

Avoiding these bad habits can make all the difference in how effectively you get your marketing message across on the Web.