Internet competition for current and potential patients is starting to intensify. Many medical professionals are turning to the information superhighway as means to market themselves and their practices and to provide valuable educational materials to their patients. Following are steps to help you take advantage of this effective mass communications tool and establish an online presence.
Step One: Collect and Organize Content
The first step is to collect and organize your content. Your site should contain an overview of your practice and a list of the physicians and nurses you have on staff. Create pages for each physician in your practice and include such information as the physician’s name, educational background, special clinical interests, hospital or academic appointments, professional memberships, research activities, and any other pertinent information. List your practice’s address and contact phone numbers.
Provide directions to your office and links to online maps such as Yahoo Maps (www.maps.yahoo.com). For practices in multiple locations, post an “interactive map,” which allows users to enlarge selected areas of the map for more detail. Your site should also include information on your finance and billing policies.
Use your Web site to state your medical practice philosophies on medical and patient care, as well as customer service. Describe the services that you offer, neurological disorders you treat and the health plans with which you participate. In addition, provide your patients with information on a range of neurological disorders by establishing a link on your site to the Public Pages of 
®(www.neurosurgery.org).
Step Two: Register the Name of Your Site
When establishing your Web site, make it easy to find. Select a name and create a Web address or URL (uniform resource locator) that communicates a message about you and the services you provide. Your practice name or its initials are often best; however, keep in mind that many names have already been taken. To find out if your name is available, visit Register.com
If your site will be part a hospital or a university site, contact your network administrator and they will review URL and hosting options with you.
Step Three: Build Your Web Site
Find a Web design and development company to build your site, or create one yourself. To locate a Web developer, look in your community yellow pages under Internet services or search the Web for potential vendors. Once you find a Web developer, design your site to be user-friendly, interactive and attractive. Organize it so that navigation is easy. Establish clearly defined bookmarks and hyperlinks and make the graphics interesting, but easy to read. Update your site regularly, and keep in mind that changes can be made at a nominal cost using programs that eliminate the need to learn HTML, such as FrontPage® by Microsoft® and PageMill® by Adobe®.
If time does not permit you to create your own personal Web site, you may wish to take advantage of a special service provided on N://OC®. The service enables you to develop an extensive practice profile that includes such information as your name, your educational background, the location of your practice and more. The profile is linked to the “Find a Neurosurgeon” section of the Public Pages and the one-time set-up fee is only $500.
Step Four: Choose an Internet Service Provider
You have several options when choosing an Internet service provider (ISP). Key factors in determining what type of ISP to use include cost, services offered, customer and technical support and quality of access. Web sites such as HostSearch, and FINDaHOST may be useful when selecting an ISP.
If you have outsourced the creation of your site, your developer may host the site for you. Either way, visit the Web sites of several hosting companies and compare features, setup costs and monthly fees. Most hosting services will charge $25-$30 per month for hosting your site.
Step Five: Announce Your Site on the Web and in Your Community
In order to improve your visibility on the Web, make sure that you’re registered with all of the major search engines. Also, link your site to all of the medical and health care directories and search engines on the Web, including the Physician Referral Network (www.physicianfind.com), and Physician’s Practice (www.physicianpractice.com).
In addition, send electronic press releases to Internet agencies and to local newspapers. Link your site (with permission) with other useful sites such as your local, state and regional medical societies and specialty medical associations. Also, consider providing links on your site to medical libraries, hospitals and neurosurgery-related Web sites, such as Medscape, National Institutes of Health and N:OC® .
Step Six: Update, Update, Update
Once your site is established, be certain to update it often. Notify visitors of a new physician, seminars and conferences at which you will be presenting, the departure of a retiring physician, the addition of new services or coverage, the opening of a new facility, your participation in a new health plan or the merger with or acquisition of another practice. Also, if your office is offering free health screenings or innovative leading-edge medical services, such as radiosurgery, post this information on your site. If your site becomes stale and your news becomes old, repeat visits will decrease.