EP Lab Digest - February 2008 - (Page 21)

FEBRUARY 2008 EP ONLINE 21 discuss issues any regarding my workplace that might put me in conflict with the hospital leadership (I like my day job). How Often Should I Post? A blog is a dynamic entity, and as such, requires constant, though not continuous, attention. Technorati (http://technorati.com) tracks over 109.2 million blogs on the Internet. Of these, over 99 percent received no traffic in the past year, suggesting that individuals created their blog but never maintained it. While many blogs come and go, enduring blogs receive posts regularly to assure continued readership.The frequency of posts is entirely up to you. Start slowly — maybe once every other week — then try slightly more frequently or less depending on your time commitment. While some blogs reiterate news, usually the most interesting add commentary above and beyond what is reported, thereby adding value to the topic discussed. Irrespective of the approach one chooses, the key is to become consistent when posting to the blog. Should I Include Advertising? Some blogs contain advertisements (see Google Adwords at http://www.google.com/adwords or BlogAds at http://blogads.com) to generate revenue for the blogger. While these advertisements earn a few pennies for each click they receive, the ads also direct Web traffic away from your site. While some highly trafficked blogs can earn several thousand dollars per month in advertising revenue, you’ll have to decide how badly you need typical smaller advertising revenues to offset your declining Medicare reimbursements. Track your Site. Several free services such as Sitemeter or StatCounter (http://sitemeter. com or http://www.statcounter.com) track where readers of your blog came from. Their software plug-ins are easily installed and give interesting statistics about the city, state, and country of the reader, the time they spend reading, and what content they read. Using this technology, you’ll soon find what interests readers and identify others with similar interests or blogs. Create a Blogroll. One of the best ways to garner readership is to visit blogs that interest you, place a comment, and add their blog’s Web page to a blogroll in your blog’s sidebar. Readers can get a feel for your interests and click to see what others like you are saying. Often, fellow bloggers will reciprocate and add you to their blogroll, increasing your Web traffic. Also, helpful links to professional Web pages can speed your patients to content that might be helpful. Be Creative. Varying your posts with new and original content builds readership best, but adding reader polls, summaries of interesting literature, and links to fellow blogger’s insights also promotes your blog. Blogging has forced me to stay abreast of innovations and trends in medicine far better than I ever could by just reading the cardiology literature alone (I mean, there are so many journals and so little time!).Although maintaining a blog takes a significant time commitment, as I delve ever-deeper into the electronic cosmos, I have stumbled upon some remarkable insights and perspectives from my fellow blogging colleagues, many of whom are much more eloquent at prose than me. Doctors, nurses, medical students, hospital administrators, patients, businesses, and politicians have blogs out there, and each adds their own unique insights to the collective Medical Zeitgeist.As such, I think we doctors, nurses, patients, politicians, and big businesses are better for it. So go ahead, give it a try: make your own blog. If it works, drop me a line so I can add you to my blogroll! To see Dr. Fisher’s blog, please visit: http://drwes.blogspot.com http://technorati.com http://drwes.blogspot.com http://www.google.com/adwords http://blogads.com http://sitemeter.com http://www.statcounter.com http://sitemeter.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EP Lab Digest - February 2008

EP Lab Digest - February 2008 Creating the U-M Center for Arrhythmia Research: Interview with José Jalife, MD Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia Institute and St. David’s Medical Center Launch State-of-the-Art Training Center Contents Letter from the Editor Spotlight Interview: Caritas St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center 10-Minute Interview: Sue Deck, BS, RN, RCES Keeping Pace With a Blog Roundtable Discussion on Cryoablation Procedures Email Discussion Group: February 2008 Events Calendar Industry News and Products Classifieds Advertisers Index

EP Lab Digest - February 2008

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