Following on from the previous article about the options for an online presences for health professionals here is some detail about hosted pages and blogs for medical professionals.
A hosted page for medical professionals
This option involves providing your content to a third party and listing it on an online directory or free listing service. The format is often prescriptive and limited.
Advantages: cheap (often free), profiles your page amongst a community of other (relevant sites).
Disadvantages: least flexible, you can't use your own domain name, you can't edit the structure of the pages.
A blog for health professionals
A blog or weblog is basically a website built around the metaphor of a diary. You write an entry in your diary daily, weekly or monthly. The most recent entry is displayed first. Usually a blog is used to start a two way conversation with an audience. The same technology however can be used to present information that is not updated frequently such as practice contact details etc.
Advantages: cheap (sometimes free), blogs are often found more easily by search engines because of their fresh content, provides a 2 way dialog
Disadvantages: is clumsy in handling large amounts of infrequently changing information
Note: some allow you to bring your own domain name (cost $15-$30/yr) so that if in the future you wish to move your content or set up a fully fledged website you can.
In the next article in the series I'll touch upon a range of web hosting options.
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