How to get a decent website

[nexus73]

I built a basic website myself through square space. It's ok, but nothing flashy. At least gets my name online and something to link to with picture, phone, and contact info.

I'm seeing websites all over that incorporate fancier menus, links to scheduling appointments, appointment reminders. One says "powered by GoDaddy" then a link to a scheduling page "powered by therapy portal." These sites are 10x better than mine.

I probably suck at designing websites but thought square space would make something better than what I have. Do I need to pay someone to make a decent site? Does squarespace require some extra skillset to make a professional looking website?

Any advice appreciated.

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[TexasPhysician]

Few things to consider. I’ve built a few websites and paid to have them built. If you pay someone, you’ll need a reputable person/group and a detailed outline of exactly what you want. Anything less than detailed specifics, and you may be required to pay more for changes that weren’t included in the initial quote/contract. Some people require you to host the site with them for a monthly fee. This can get costly, but it will look better.

Google SEO does not see aesthetics and pictures. Google focuses on content, site speed, backlinks, age, etc. You can have a basic website that you build eventually rank very highly on Google. I’ve done it.

If your EMR allows, it is easy to add scheduling widgets, portal links, etc. to a website. Some EMR’s are much less website friendly.

 

[Sushirolls]

I paid 5k about 4 years back to have an actual website firm do it. They sat down, took my hopes/ideas, and let them have free leeway in putting things with some vetos.

I've had a few patients say they were impressed by the site and was one of several variables in calling me over other options.

The maintenance is $100/month. I shopped around a bit but kept finding the same price.

Most tweaks I can log in and do myself, but with recently moving to another state, I want to have a spring cleaning of some things and will change up various images, probably take an hour of time for website people and cost $100.

You don't have to have a website. But if you do, don't half arse it.

 

[splik]

I paid 5k about 4 years back to have an actual website firm do it. They sat down, took my hopes/ideas, and let them have free leeway in putting things with some vetos.

I've had a few patients say they were impressed by the site and was one of several variables in calling me over other options.

The maintenance is $100/month. I shopped around a bit but kept finding the same price.

Most tweaks I can log in and do myself, but with recently moving to another state, I want to have a spring cleaning of some things and will change up various images, probably take an hour of time for website people and cost $100.

You don't have to have a website. But if you do, don't half arse it.

That sounds like a lot. I used one of those website builders with a bunch of templates but a bit more limited functionality and I like how it looks does the trick with good SEO. Costs me $10 a month currently (I pay once every 2 yrs).

 

[TexasPhysician]

I paid 5k about 4 years back to have an actual website firm do it. They sat down, took my hopes/ideas, and let them have free leeway in putting things with some vetos.

I've had a few patients say they were impressed by the site and was one of several variables in calling me over other options.

The maintenance is $100/month. I shopped around a bit but kept finding the same price.

Most tweaks I can log in and do myself, but with recently moving to another state, I want to have a spring cleaning of some things and will change up various images, probably take an hour of time for website people and cost $100.

You don't have to have a website. But if you do, don't half arse it.

Template websites can be $6-25/month to host. Professional website companies often upcharge this to $100+ and may get you faster website speeds. Speed does matter. What you pay is typical. That said, a professional website costs $1000 more than a templated one per year due to this.

 

[Bartelby]

If you use Google workspace the Google sites builder is pretty good. It can definitely get you basics like drop-down menus, and the default templates are generally nice looking and easy to work with.

 

[romanticscience]

If you use Google workspace the Google sites builder is pretty good. It can definitely get you basics like drop-down menus, and the default templates are generally nice looking and easy to work with.

I use google sites. I'm always doubtful about how it fares with SEO. Have you found anyways to improve with it?

 

[Bartelby]

So far I'm not sure how my SEO is, so it's probably not great. If I Google my own name it is the first result (which is at least one good thing), but if I Google Psychiatrist in [my town] I'm not sure if my website even comes up. It is definitely not in the first few pages of results.

 

[Nudexta]

I paid $1500 to get it built. $450 per year for maintenance. It’s gettinf cheaper to do it professionally due to intense competition

 

[troutscout]

These are skills that are very learnable, especially if it’s something you somewhat enjoy. Building your own website and writing good copy is a really effective marketing strategy. Look for a 1-2 day workshop put on by a small business/entrepreneur organization in your area. Dedicate time to it. Especially if you’re in solo practice and want to keep low overhead, you don’t want to be spending a significant amount of money on something like website management or design. Learning SEO is also very high yield. I use wix and pay much less than $100/month.

 

[psychma]

Buy a domain name, host it somewhere like Hostgator, and build your own free WordPress site. It might take time to work with a template and build it but then you’re in control. If I can do it, so can you.

 

[clozareal]

Pay someone to do it for you. You can get a $5k tax credit on that cost (read: NOT a tax deduction, which would be less money) if you make it ADA compliant with am accessibility plugin.

The amount of the tax credit is equal to 50% of the eligible access expenditures in a year, up to a maximum expenditure of $10,250. There is no credit for the first $250 of expenditures. The maximum tax credit, therefore, is $5,000.

Here's the tax form

 

[randomdoc1]

SEO is forever fluid. The Google algorithm is always updating which means you have to always keep up with it. Way better to pay someone. Do not get locked into contracts. An entity confident in their abilities will be fine with month to month. This is an area you do not want to be thrifty on. I paid since the start $2500 a month. It opened a floodgate of referrals. More than paid for itself because we can choose the very high paying insurances and ideal clientele. When you can be choosy, you get negotiating power with the other insurances too. Be ready to do some work directly, this is the content generation part. We are the best authors and this is what earns you backlinks.

 

[forchinet121]

SEO is forever fluid. The Google algorithm is always updating which means you have to always keep up with it. Way better to pay someone. Do not get locked into contracts. An entity confident in their abilities will be fine with month to month. This is an area you do not want to be thrifty on. I paid since the start $2500 a month. It opened a floodgate of referrals. More than paid for itself because we can choose the very high paying insurances and ideal clientele. When you can be choosy, you get negotiating power with the other insurances too. Be ready to do some work directly, this is the content generation part. We are the best authors and this is what earns you backlinks.

Do you still pay 2500 a month?

 

[randomdoc1]

Do you still pay 2500 a month?

Yes I do. Still worth it. If you don't keep up literally month to month with the algorithm, the search ranking dips. Also, I invested in a chat bot. It's awesome at drawing a visitor's attention and gathering their contact info. Really enhances the referral base.

I'm trying to increase the volume of certain insurances. I love me those $360 per 30 min visits!

 

[liquidshadow22]

Yes I do. Still worth it. If you don't keep up literally month to month with the algorithm, the search ranking dips. Also, I invested in a chat bot. It's awesome at drawing a visitor's attention and gathering their contact info. Really enhances the referral base.

I'm trying to increase the volume of certain insurances. I love me those $360 per 30 min visits!

Unreal which state and which plan? Share your secret lol

 

[Stagg737]

Yes I do. Still worth it. If you don't keep up literally month to month with the algorithm, the search ranking dips. Also, I invested in a chat bot. It's awesome at drawing a visitor's attention and gathering their contact info. Really enhances the referral base.

I'm trying to increase the volume of certain insurances. I love me those $360 per 30 min visits!

I can see this being worth it if you're running a larger PP with multiple prescribers and staff. However, that's $30k/yr you're putting into a website and the vast majority of us won't be able to find places willing to pay a small or solo PP $360 per f/up. I could also see doing this for the first 6-12 months to build a new practice, but unless one is planning to expand their practice significantly then this does not seem an expense that's worth continuing long-term.

 

[randomdoc1]

I can see this being worth it if you're running a larger PP with multiple prescribers and staff. However, that's $30k/yr you're putting into a website and the vast majority of us won't be able to find places willing to pay a small or solo PP $360 per f/up. I could also see doing this for the first 6-12 months to build a new practice, but unless one is planning to expand their practice significantly then this does not seem an expense that's worth continuing long-term.

Could be. I guess it depends on how much business finesse there is. If you can get more insurances that pay say $20 more per follow up than the low balling ones, at 45 follow ups a week and 48 weeks a year, you rake in $43,200 more. So it ends up being a net yield. That's for one prescriber. This doesn't even calculate the increased negotiating power you then have with the other payers.

As far as the high fee schedule my office got, we actually don't have many prescribers. I got the $360 per follow up as 99214 and 90833 when it was only myself and one other psychiatrist. We're both part time too. Then get the SEO going on steroids and you're raking in even more than what I estimated above just for two psychiatrists. But I dunno, maybe I live in a twilight zone that is some sort of land of milk and honey for psychiatrists of a geographic area.

As far as which payer is paying me this much:
-I live in the midwest
-big boxes will NEVER agree to pay like that (Cigna, United, BCBS, Aetna, Humana)
-it's the local based insurances that will be more generous with what they pay. Also, as I mentioned, hospital systems for their employees self fund their own insurance and offer a different fee schedule--all of them I have seen to be quite generous. They offered those nice fee schedules off the bat when I was a solo practitioner.
-get your SEO to optimize the good payers-->$$$ (they easily pay $40-$80 more per follow up than the big boxes)

Then even as a solo provider, kick back, enjoy nice pay for a fraction of the work.

 

[Stagg737]

Could be. I guess it depends on how much business finesse there is. If you can get more insurances that pay say $20 more per follow up than the low balling ones, at 45 follow ups a week and 48 weeks a year, you rake in $43,200 more. So it ends up being a net yield. That's for one prescriber. This doesn't even calculate the increased negotiating power you then have with the other payers.

As far as the high fee schedule my office got, we actually don't have many prescribers. I got the $360 per follow up as 99214 and 90833 when it was only myself and one other psychiatrist. We're both part time too. Then get the SEO going on steroids and you're raking in even more than what I estimated above just for two psychiatrists. But I dunno, maybe I live in a twilight zone that is some sort of land of milk and honey for psychiatrists of a geographic area.

As far as which payer is paying me this much:
-I live in the midwest
-big boxes will NEVER agree to pay like that (Cigna, United, BCBS, Aetna, Humana)
-it's the local based insurances that will be more generous with what they pay. Also, as I mentioned, hospital systems for their employees self fund their own insurance and offer a different fee schedule--all of them I have seen to be quite generous. They offered those nice fee schedules off the bat when I was a solo practitioner.
-get your SEO to optimize the good payers-->$$$ (they easily pay $40-$80 more per follow up than the big boxes)

Then even as a solo provider, kick back, enjoy nice pay for a fraction of the work.

But you also have therapists and other healthcare professionals providing care, no? I guess it could be worth it depending on what the numbers look like. It also just depends on how badly you want to filter patients based on insurance and how much time you want to spend negotiating contracts later. Eta: For me, dealing with that stuff regularly isn't enjoyable when trying to also see patients, so unless I was moving to becoming more of an administrative owner I'd rather just focus on clinical stuff.

I also thought you were saying $360 for only a 99214. I'm at a large hospital system and the hospital collects $340 per 99214 from one of the larger insurers you mentioned above. When I add-on the 90833 for those patients the hospital makes over $500.

 

[TomBrook]

Buy a domain name, host it somewhere like Hostgator, and build your own free WordPress site. It might take time to work with a template and build it but then you’re in control. If I can do it, so can you.

If you are new to site building then even such simple actions can cause a lot of troubles. Usually when people try to start their own site from scratch with zero knowledge in the long run they fail. from what I observe.

SEO is forever fluid. The Google algorithm is always updating which means you have to always keep up with it. Way better to pay someone. Do not get locked into contracts. An entity confident in their abilities will be fine with month to month. This is an area you do not want to be thrifty on. I paid since the start $2500 a month.

Yeah, SEO is even more complicated than site building. I once tried to dive into this sphere but soon understood that I just didn't get so much time for that. It is interesting how AI tools will affect the Google algorithms.

 

[the5thelement]

Google search these days is trash .The advertisers and spammers have ruined it. Whenever I try to search for anything ,i get bombarded with ads by these "paid SEO specialists". You get better results from chatgpt/bing and I have also been exploring https://kagi.com/ which is a paid search engine & looks very promising.

 

[TomBrook]

Google search these days is trash .The advertisers and spammers have ruined it. Whenever I try to search for anything ,i get bombarded with ads by these "paid SEO specialists". You get better results from chatgpt/bing and I have also been exploring Keyword grouper which is a great tool from Rush Analytics.

Paid search engines will never be able to compete with google. Zero chances. Talking about chatgpt. It is really a promising technology but not in the current version because it gives too many wrong/made up answers. And I think that gpt5 and later will also be paid because they consume too much resources to generate answers to the customers' questions.

 

[clozareal]

Paid search engines will never be able to compete with google. Zero chances. Talking about chatgpt. It is really a promising technology but not in the current version because it gives too many wrong/made up answers. And I think that gpt5 and later will also be paid because they consume too much resources to generate answers to the customers' questions.

I just started using ChatGPT integratedwith Bing and it's not bad since it can look up recent data now.

 

[annoyedpsychiatrist]

I personally recommend wix.com. I used them a few years prior to help a colleague build a website for his restaurant and it turned out great. Very intuitive and easy to use. Id recommend trying the free trial of that and seeing what you think