Making Your Site Interactive

There are many benefits to creating a plastic surgery site that is interactive for visitors. Unlike other traditional forms of marketing, marketing on the Internet allows people to get involved. Interactivity can make a site come alive, and in many instances it can increase the bond between doctor and potential patient. The following are tips to make your site more interactive:

Contact. One of the easiest and most obvious ways of creating interactivity is to provide visitors with the ability to contact you. One way to do this is to list your e-mail address as a clickable link so that visitors can send you a message. Another option is to provide a contact form on the site. Ideally, your site should have both options. Some people may be using a computer that is not their own and, thus, is not set up with their own email program, in which case the contact form will be the only way for them to contact you.

Q&A. A Q&A column is a great way for your visitors to interact with you. The potential plastic surgery patient may very well have questions or concerns, whether about a particular procedure, your qualifications and expertise, or anything else. Visitors can fill out a simple form and have their questions or concerns addressed. By keeping it in column format, these questions and answers then become available for other visitors to view, and your expertise and good advice will help to win their confidence. Another option is to do this on a more one-on-one basis, offering visitors the opportunity to have something like an ‘online consultation’ with you.

Forum. A forum is another great way to add interactivity to your site. This not only allows visitors to interact with you, it also allows them to interact with one another. Further, forums can result in valuable content, much of which is created by your visitors. In this way, your visitors actually become a part of your website.

Newsletter. Your site can include a sign-up form for those interested in receiving your practice newsletter via email. Newsletters can be created on a weekly, monthly or even bi-monthly basis, and they are a great way to involve people on a regular basis. A newsletter can include updates of new features on your site, articles related to plastic surgery and, of course, a link back to your site

Other forms of interactivity. There are several other ways to increase interactivity on your site. Quizzes and polls are one example. Quizzes should be kept fun, simple, and as short as possible. You might provide a quiz entitled ‘Are You Ready For Plastic Surgery?’ or ‘How Much Do You Know About Rhinoplasty’. Polls are great because they allow people to see what others are thinking. You might have a poll on your site that calculates how many of your visitors have considered rhinoplasty one week, breast augmentation the next, and so on. Another form of interactivity is user feedback. Feedback can help you to maintain and improve your site while also showing your visitors that you care about what they think.