The End of the Destination Web Site?
You know we think the world of Shel Holz, one of the leading social media and communications experts in the business. After all, we’ve had him as a keynote presenter at our Healthcare Internet Conference three years running, and have done joint engagements with him. And usually we agree with him right down the line.
All that said, when he told the conference last week that the “era of the destination Web site is over,” we found ourselves disagreeing. And I think a few in the room felt their heart skip a beat.
But if we take a deep breath and understand Shel’s key point and his astute use of words, it makes more sense. As he explains in a very recent post on his blog, the key word is “era.” Destination Web sites aren’t dead. His point is that if all you are doing is a destination Web site, you are missing a lot of opportunity, traffic and patients.
To quote Shel: “…having those sites available when they prove to the best resource for the kinds of information to which they lend themselves will remain a pillar of a company’s online presence.”
You need to be paying very close attention to social media, yet it’s hard to imagine a patient requesting an appointment with one of your doctors, pre-registering to have a baby, etc. via Facebook.
The challenge is that you need to do both well. Hopefully Shel’s statement got your attention, but it didn’t knock you off the rails!