Well, I was feeling pretty bad about it until I was able to find a rationalization. The website I put together for my Dad's ophthalmology practice was created using a WordPress theme. In my opinion, WordPress themes were still amateur looking two or three years ago, but today they rival websites designed by professionals. The alternative was to have a website built from scratch or maybe on a platform like Expression Engine. In fact, at Aidan Taylor we built a ton of those types of websites, and our clients paid $20,000 to $40,000 on average. Also, we paid our developers and designers to get it done. It wasn't something I could just do on my own.
The bottom line: up until recently, it was just too expensive for most physicians, where the ROI of a website was unknown.
Now for a quick SEO tip using my Dad's practice as an example. Like I said, he's an eye surgeon. The majority of his surgery involves cataracts (when your natural lens gets cloudy leaving you with reduced or complete loss of vision). My Dad is also located in Joplin, Missouri. So, the best keywords for my Dad's practice include "Joplin", "Cataract", "Cataracts", and "Surgery". Since this is a brand new website without an existing domain, my Dad had the luxury of securing a domain name (web address) that contained these keywords: JoplinCataractSurgery.com. Notice how it has several keyword phrases "Joplin Cataract", "Joplin Cataracts", "Cataract Surgery", and "Joplin Cataract Surgery".
This is like my old standby example: if you search Google for "credit cards", the number one natural result is "creditcards.com", followed by Visa, Mastercard, and the rest of them. The reason CreditCards.com wins is largely the fact that the exact search query is contained in the domain. I do want to point out that a large majority of my colleagues at SEOmoz believe that exact keyword match domains will decrease in effectiveness going forward.
Now, new people are more likely to find my Dad because of SEO performance - and this domain is really going to help. However, to those who already know him, his practice is called "Dixon Eye Center". So, we just forwarded the domain DixonEyeCenter.com to JoplinCataractSurgery.com.
Dad - I should have got it done sooner!
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