Medical News Today website continues to adapt to the changing online environment making full use of various traffic sources to reach the widest possible audience. So far in 2013 we have had over 32M visitors – with just over half arriving from search engines. 30% of visitors arrive at the site directly and 15% are referrals:

This represents a large increase in referral and direct traffic – matching the growth of our social media activity; Facebook referrals are up almost 250% on the same period in 2010 for example. Mobile Facebook traffic is up 15,000% on the same period in 2010.

Mobile traffic now accounts for just over 35% of all traffic on the site – our new fully mobile optimised site design will be launched in 2013 to provide an even better service to this audience.

Internet Explorer is the most popular browser, closely followed by Safari – with Chrome catching up.

Medical News Today established another new record in March 2013 – over 8 million unique visitors in March 2013 and 11,697,528 page views.

Q1 2013 has been one of Medilexicon International’s strongest quarterly performances ever and the signs are that Q2 2013 will also prove to be a record breaker.

The growth in traffic is across all countries with very strong performances in key advertising revenue regions. The United States of America continues to be the largest country with just over 53% of visits. The UK has seen a rise of 1% of share of visits Vs the same period last year. Growth in Canada has been stronger still, with a 2% increase in Vs March 2012. Australia has risen by almost 1.5% and India by 0.5%. Growth has also been strong in other EU countries – notably France, whose share of visits rose by over 0.6% to 1.05%.

Branded pharmaceutical direct advertising has also been stronger than usual for the first quarter with a number of new campaigns starting and existing campaigns continuing.

The recent eyeforpharma event in Barcelona (#e4p) raised some interesting points (and some old ones) about patients and whether pharma really does put them first.

Do pharmacos put products before patients? And how can big pharma improve the relationship? The internet has dramatically changed the relationship between doctors and patients, and it seems that pharma is still trying to catch up with the multitude of digital marketing routes and the new dynamics in healthcare relationships (plus progress continues apace, so it’s trying to catch up with a target moving ahead quickly – in different directions). That such a heavily regulated industry as pharma is seen to be slow out of the blocks is no surprise – the FDA’s guidance on apps ‘should’ be out by September 2013. The GMC has just released it’s Good Medical Practice 2013 guide – with a section on Doctors’ use of social media – and there are some guidelines out there for how best to use Twitter and Facebook. But it’s not the fully formed, all-encompassing guidelines for everything SoLoMo that some had hoped for (and will probably never arrive – to attempt such a job would take so long that the guidelines would likely be out of date by the time they were published).

There is no longer any doubt that patients use digital tools to look for (and hopefully find) heath info:

http://pewinternet.org/Commentary/2011/November/Pew-Internet-Health.aspx

http://www.emarketer.com/Article/What-Health-Info-Do-Consumers-Seek-Online/1009698

Again, no surprise here, so do HCPs.

There is some discussion around the terms used too; Are patients still patients? Or are they consumers/customers? Or just people?

However they are described – as this article says – even for empowered patients their doctor still knows best.

Where does pharma fit into this? Well it’s not doing so well at the moment reports MM&M – presentations by Ian Talmage and others highlighted some of the issues.

What’s in store in the future?

For pharmacos, rules and regulations play a part, as does the much discussed ‘big data’:

As far as health goes – putting control into the hands of consumer/customers/patients (and caregivers/family) is firmly on the agenda:

http://gigaom.com/2012/09/20/the-future-of-health-care-apps-that-make-people-care-about-health/

http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/02/best-health-apps/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrQOp2PMDTU&feature=youtu.be

Whilst the debates continue, trusted information will be published/posted/tweeted and found – by HCPs and patients – on diseases and conditions, treatments, apps and gadgets.

Medilexicon International Ltd. websites received almost 8 million unique visitors in Feb 2013 – a record for a 4 week month.

Medical News Today provided the majority of the audience – 7,036,039 unique visitors generated 10,217,353 pageviews globally – the USA being just under 54% of the audience.

Medilexicon‘s 741,340 unique visitors made 990,339 visits and generated 2,343,476 pageviews. 

Hospitals Worldwide had 134,866 unique visitors and delivered 241,576 pageviews in total.

NATIONS around the globe will come together this week to mark the sixth International Rare Disease Day – with dedicated websites for US and EU audiences.

The worldwide event, with the slogan “Rare Disorders without Borders”, will see many thousands of people taking part in activities designed to raise awareness of unusual diseases and conditions.

Christian Nordqvist, of Medilexicon International said the day was a fantastic way of highlighting health issues which were not often in the public eye.

“International Rare Disease Day gives people the chance to find out more about a whole host of conditions which are lesser known.

“Part of our mission with websites like Medical News Today is to inform people as much as possible, not only about the most common diseases, but also about conditions which may only affect a few hundred people globally.

“Days such as this are another great way of getting information out there – for patients and for people in the health and pharmaceutical industries.”

The day is is being co-ordinated by the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) and the European Organisation for Rare Diseases (EURORDIS), an organisation which works to promote a co-operative approach between countries when it comes to research and policy-making.

It says, “Patients and their families who feel isolated because of the rareness of their diseases should know that there are more than 6000 rare diseases affecting more than 60 million people in Europe and the US alone.

“Most of these diseases are genetic, serious, chronic and debilitating. Reaching out across borders can help them find common solutions and remind them they are not alone.”

With more than 250 new rare diseases identified each year, the need for research and for the development of new drugs has never been greater.

But the good news is that the market for drugs to treat rarer conditions is growing, thanks in part to the 1983 Orphan Drugs Act and it’s EU equivalent, which can provide significant incentives to companies willing to manufacture drugs which would otherwise not be made.

BROWSING through some of the many comments our readers leave for us every day, we started to feel just a little bit pleased with ourselves.

It’s wonderful to be told you’re doing a good job, and the number of glowing comments we receive not only puts a big smile on our faces but also spurs us on to keep delivering the best medical content on the web.

So, this week’s blog entry is going to involve a small amount of polite boasting in the form of a selection of quotes from our readers – some of them top medical experts and others some of the thousands of people who visit our sites each day looking for information and support on a huge range of conditions.

Here goes!

“The reason for this note is to thank you for your invaluable service.  If you had not published that article (on breast cancer) and I had not nagged, my darling wife of 43 years may not have been alive to see our 44th anniversary.  Thank you, for there is not much else to say.  I hope you will continue writing your articles and I will continue reading them.”

“Just a HUGE humble THANK YOU to you good folks for the EXCELLENT, WONDERFUL, HELPFUL medical/health information website you good folks provide.  It’s a gratefully appreciated, easy-to-use resource of important health information and news.” (67-year-old AIDS patient, Los Angeles)

“Thank you very much for your outstanding medical site. It is the best of its
kind on the web. You care about health and human welfare.”

“I just wanted to let you know that this is the best site for medical info I have ever used.  I use your site daily on the job and I love it.” (President of a local chapter of the American Academy of Professional Coders)

“I think your website is absolutely terrific.  I cannot even begin to pay you enough compliments.  In my many years in my fields of expertise, I have seen many sites come and go and used many different spell-check/reference programs purchased for ridiculous sums of money or embedded in software programs purchased for transcription.  Yours is, by far, the very best I have ever used.  I have been in the medical transcription field for over 30 years.”

” Just wanted to let you know how much I truly appreciate this site.  You have helped me so often that I cannot even count the number of times I have visited to look up an acronym or definition. Thanks so very much! Keep up the good work! “

“I rely daily on your site.  You and your staff deserve high praise and great credit.  It is a pleasure to use your site – a reliable information resource in a cacophony of poor or misleading information. “ (By a doctor)

“Another year goes by and Medical News Today is still the only web site that I check on a daily basis.  I dial in each morning before I leave the house.  As a vaccine specialist I have to be up to date with the latest news on viral diseases and anything relating to wider health issues.  The variety and worldwide content are great.  I love the simple design of MNT, it’s so quick to check the contents and load up what I want to read.”

“I want to send a note of thanks to your staff for this great website.  I have a severe case of Crohn’s Disease and I use the Internet to keep up with the latest medical news on my condition.   Your website was recommended to me by my GI and along with www.ccfa.org is the best medical website I have ever used.  I take articles I get on your website with me to my medical appointments to help in my treatment.  Your service has made a positive difference in my life and I appreciate it greatly!  Keep up the excellent work for all of us who suffer from serious illness.”

“Your site is the one that kept popping up so I read, and read, and read. I have learned more from your site than anywhere, including the doctor. So I just wanted to thank the staff for a job very well done and I look forward to all the great reading and learning in the future”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you for this site.  I don’t have to run across the building for help anymore.  Fabulous!!!” (medical professional)

“I am the Program Director for Michigan Cleft Network, a non- profit organization that serves Michigan families. I have been reading your articles in the Cleft Lip and Palate section and I love all the information you have to offer. I have shared two of your articles on our website and would love to keep sharing them.”

“Medical News Today is a wonderful source of news and information. I truly appreciate your service.”

“This is an American website which provides hourly updates of health  news from sources such as JAMA, BMJ and The Lancet. You can register with the website and customize the homepage to show news relevant to  you, or you can register for weekly emailed updates. There is a search engine, which brings up articles in chronological order and which  includes links to Wikipedia and a medical dictionary. The website processes around 170 articles a day and has 100,000 in the archive. It also provides patient information on common disorders such as cancer  and obesity. But this is probably not the best resource for patient information. There is the option of adding Medical News Today as a Facebook application so that you can receive updates this way. Using this website is a straightforward way of accessing many health news providers through one website” (From a review by The Royal College of  Obstetricians and Gynaecologists)

I think you’ll understand why we’re so pleased!

Medical News Today has 120 Twitter feeds – one for each of the disease/condition categories that we cover and a ‘featured health news’ feed and we have just reached the 100,000 twitter followers across all channels. There is also our corporate Twitter account that keeps followers up to date with the latest company news and related information.

We’re also continuing to dominate the search engine listings for ‘medical news’ – some screen shots below show our number one position of Google, Bing, Yahoo! And also on Facebook and Twitter (for ‘health news’).

In the first month of 2013 we recorded a massive 10.5 million page impressions – up over 1 million on our previous best.

“It has been a phenomenal start to the new year,” said Alastair Hazell.

“We are seeing traffic to all our sites growing at a fantastic rate.”

In January traffic to Medical News Today included visitors from 224 countries around the globe.

And of our millions of visitors, just over 54% were from the US and almost 10% from the UK.

“It’s great that we’re reaching so many countries,” said Alastair “It’s a testament to quality of our site that people around the world are turning to us for their medical news.”

The Medical News Today Facebook page also reached the milestone of 100,000 likes.

IN this space last week we trumpeted the effectiveness of the banner advert – a form of web advertising some have said is in decline.

But of course there is a whole host of options when it comes to planning a campaign (and display advertising is only one part of the mix – multichannel marketing is much talked about – e.g. here, here and here).

Here at Medilexicon International we offer a large variety of display ad options to suit our clients’ diverse needs, and our experts can help you decide which opportunities will work best for your company or product.

We understand that with technology moving at such lightning pace it can be tricky keeping up with the gigantic number of advertising possibilities out there.

But we are on hand to make the process as straightforward as possible.

So whether you know exactly what your requirements are, or need a bit of help choosing the package that’s right for you, we’ll do everything we can to make sure your campaign delivers results.

Here’s a quick guide to advertising with us:

• All campaigns are charged on a CPM (cost per Mille) basis. In other words, you pay a set amount every time your ad is viewed 1,000 times.
• We offer geographic targeting by country, so you can be certain your advertising is being seen by the right peoples.
• With over 120 different condition/disease categories we can provide excellent contextual targeting for almost every campaign, no matter how niche.
• The basic display advertising options on our sites are standard sized units – leaderboards (728px  x 90px), medium rectangles (300px  x 250px) and wide skyscrapers (160px  x 600px).  Gif or flash units are fine and these can be served (and tracked) via our in house ad server or via 3^rd party tags.
• We also accept pretty much every variation and extension of the above creative units – expandable units, rich media, video units (and pre-roll), synced units (and roadblocks) and many non-standard units (including rising star spec).
• Other opportunities, such as skins, sponsorships and content based campaigns are also accepted.
• Mobile ad units will be offered soon – when our new mobile site is released.

For more detailed information about any of these options, please see the advertising section of this website, or contact us by phone or email. We look forward to being able to help.

Banner advertising is, in fact, alive and well and performing robustly for many markets – including health and pharmaceutical. Back in 2010 Google predicted that banner advertising would become a $50Bn market.   Numerous other organisations have also predicted a similar pattern: Global display ad spend growth is forecasted to outpace paid search in a report by Zenith Optimedia. And the US alone is predicted to account for $12.7Bn of the total display ad spend in 2012. Global online ad spend is predicted to exceed print in 2015 (online exceeded print and TV in the UK some time ago – and continues to grow).

While marketers are finding new and exciting ways of getting their messages across – the stratospheric rise of social media being an obvious example – they are also finding ways of making display advertising more dynamic and current.

Influential media blogger David Tockheim was one who predicted the death of the banner ad. But he recently changed his view.

“Banners weren’t dead. They just needed to evolve,” he said. “Creative matters more than ever. And creative banners can actually be a powerful part of the storytelling experience.”

He highlights recent banner ads for British Telecom, Canon and Amstel Light as some of the most innovative advertising currently on the web.

So it’s not about turning our backs on the “boxes and rectangles” we’ve all become so familiar with over the years.

It’s about making them pack more of a punch – by making our display advertising more creative and engaging. Obvious really.

Figures from eMarketer show spending on banner ads in the US is growing very healthily each year.

In 2010 $6.23 billion was spent on online banner advertising, climbing to $7.55 billion in 2011 and to $8.68 billion in 2012.

And spending is predicted to keep rising by a significant amount each year – to $11.29 billion in 2016. Hardly a sign of a sector in decline!

Another person who agrees that banner advertising has a rosy future is Tim Waddell, director of product marketing at Adobe Advertising.

He thinks the traditional banner ad should form an integral part of a mixed approach to advertising.

“Everyone has to figure out their own mix. But display ads are very effective and have their place in the world.” (CMO.com)

His message is that increasingly sophisticated technology is allowing advertisers to target consumers in a much more effective way, leading to a new lease of life for the good old banner add.

So while everybody would agree that the world of web advertising is dynamic and constantly evolving, there is a firm belief out there that the traditional banner ad – almost as old as the internet itself – has a secure place in its future.

Figures released for 2012 show the sector continues to grow at a faster rate than any other form of advertising – with healthy growth predicted over the next several years.

And it is good news for Medilexicon International too, as money spent by the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries on digital advertising keeps rising.

This mirrors the enormous success of our websites, which together achieved more than 100 million page views in 2012. Our number one website Medical News Today attracted 57 million unique monthly visitors last year and held its position as the world’s top general health news site.

MediLexicon was visited more than 10 million times last year by 6.5 million unique monthly visitors – over 24 million page views. And our quickly expanding directory website Hospitals Worldwide can boast 2.3 million unique visits and almost 5 million page views in 2012.

In total Medilexicon International served over 400 million ad impressions on our network in 2012.
“It’s no wonder health and pharmaceutical companies are spending more on digital advertising when sites like ours continue to attract visitors in such huge numbers,” said Alastair Hazell.
“2012 was a great year for us and 2013 looks set to be even better.”

Last year in the US alone, more than $37 billion was spent on digital advertising, up $6 billion on 2011. And this figure is predicted to rise by more than $5 billion a year to an estimated $55 billion in 2016. In 2012 spending on digital advertising by healthcare and pharmaceutical companies in the US totalled $1.12 billion, up 9.3% on the year before.

This figure is expected to rise steadily over the next few years to a figure of around $1.33 billion in 2016. Taking all forms of advertising into account, the pharmaceutical industry was the fifth highest spender in the US last year with a total of $2.42 billion.

Top of the list was the automotive industry at $8 billion, with fast food restaurants, car dealerships and wireless telephone services taking the next three spots.

Within the digital advertising sector, spend on mobile and digital video advertising shot up in 2012. Figures for the first half of 2012 show a massive 95.3% increase in mobile advertising to $1.2 billion compared with the first six months of the previous year.

Digital video advertising also rose significantly, up 18.2% to £1.1 billion in the first half of 2012.
In contrast, total spending on magazine and newspaper advertising in the US is set to fall from a combined total of just over $34 billion last year to around $31 billion in 2016, according to eMarketer.com.

This week saw the release of Google’s annual Zeitgeist lists, which show the top 10 most searched for terms in a range of categories.

In its Top 10 list of “What is…?” searches, autism takes 6th place and diabetes 7th.
And Google.com puts Medical News Today an amazing first for “What is Diabetes?” and third in its results for “What is Autism?”

MNT was held off the top spot only by websites dedicated solely to autism.
This means Medical News Today was the highest ranked general health news website in all Google what is…? searches for autism and diabetes in 2012.

The top five what is…? searches in 2012 were love, icloud, 3g, scientology and instagram.
The only other health term to make the list was MS, which sneaked in at 10th.

These magnificent results confirm Medical News Today’s continuing dominance of the health news market in 2012, a year which saw the site’s visitor numbers soar to over 6 million unique visitors per month.

Medical News Today ranks number one in searches for medical news on Google, MSN and Yahoo! – with more than eight million page views last month alone.

In 2012 there were 1.2 trillion Google searches, in 146 languages.

Topping the list of trending searches for the whole world were Whitney Houston, Gangnam Style and Hurricane Sandy.
On the gadget front the top three spots were taken by the iPad3, Samsung Galaxy S III and iPad Mini.

Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps and Roger Federer took gold, silver and bronze in the list of most searched for global Olympians, and top trending movies were Skyfall, Prometheus and The Hunger Games.

WE would like to wish you a very warm welcome to MediLexicon International’s new website, where we hope you’ll find everything you need to know about our company and top-ranking websites.

Here we’ll be keeping you up to date on everything that’s happening, with updates included on our Twitter, linkedin and Facebook page and weekly news posts on our blog. There’s also a wealth of information about each of our hugely successful websites – Medical News Today, MediLexicon and Hospitals Worldwide.

It’s an exciting time for MediLexicon International as our influential and respected websites continue to break new records and attract users and influence around the world. Medical News Today still ranks number one in searched for medical news on Google, MSN Yahoo! – with more than eight million page hits last month alone.

With an archive of more than 240,000 articles and up to 200 new articles every day, it is the website of choice for hundreds of thousands of healthcare professionals, industry bosses, scientists, students and patients. In fact, we recorded more than 33 million visits to the website in the last six months – a staggering figure! And with more than 70,000 subscribers receiving weekly updates, we have a loyal and knowledgeable readership turning to Medical New Today again and again for the most up-to-date, comprehensive and well written medical articles on the Internet.

Sister sites MediLexicon and Hospitals Worldwide also continue to surge ahead as market leaders in their own right. As the world’s largest database of medical and scientific abbreviations – with almost quarter of a million entries – MediLexicon attracts around one million visits every month.

And with our ambition to eventually include details of every single hospital in the world, Hospitals Worldwide is fast becoming the first port of call for anybody searching for information on hospitals and clinics in every corner of the globe.

With hospitals being added on a daily basis our database, which includes regularly updated and comprehensive contact details, is a completely free to use source of information which has been used more than 12 million times in the last six months alone.

We’re hugely proud of the unstinting quality of our websites and excited about what the future holds for MediLexicon International.

We hope you find the information on this site useful but please do not hesitate to contact us if we can help you with any queries, however small. We look forward to hearing from you!

MediLexicon International Limited is pleased to release its trading profit figures, before director’s remuneration, for the financial years 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 (April to April).

2010/11: £449,168
2011/12: £344,949

2010/11 In Detail

Although slightly down on the previous year’s profit figures, MediLexicon International succeeded in achieving good growth during challenging economic times.

The Medical News Today website received just under 40 million visits for the year 1st April, 2010 – 31st March 2011; a 33% increase on the previous year. Both MediLexicon and Hospitals Worldwide saw small traffic increases over the same period, reflecting their continued popularity.

2011/12 In Detail

The financial year 2011/12 saw a drop in trading profit. Difficult trading conditions created by external factors in early 2011 required the company to react quickly and restructure parts of the technical framework of Medical News Today to overcome these issues and return to a position of growth. This efficient work resulted in Medical News Today achieving record figures once again by the start of 2012.

Forecast for 2012/13

The financial year 2012/13 looks set to be a record one for the company, despite the difficult economic times. In the past few months our flagship website, Medical News Today, has seen visitor traffic exceeding 200,000 visits per day – 90% higher than the same period in 2010. MediLexicon.com continues to see a year-on-year increase in visitor numbers with a strong base of loyal repeat visitors.

The company continues to forge key new partnerships with healthcare professional and patient ad networks providing additional US based sales channels.