Category: Industry Insights

This blog post comes at an opportune time to write about stress in the workplace.

Some, who work in an office building or somewhere similar, may think that working from home makes work less stressful.  I am here to tell you that is a myth and far from the truth.  Just because some of us, at Search Influence, work from the comfort of our own homes, does not mean that stress does not catch up with us from time to time.  I would like to discuss some stress relieving strategies, both that I do myself, and some that I have not yet tried.

– Change of venue: For some who work in an office, this may not be possible.  For those of us who work from home, this could be a way to change the flow of your day.  Sometimes it helps to have a change of scenery to get back on track.  Move from your office or desk to the kitchen table, or even outside, if it is a pretty day and if you have wireless internet.

– Smoke: I am not a smoker, and I really don’t promote this.  But, let’s be real- If you are a smoker, you probably turn to a puff or two to relieve some stress from work.

– Take a walk and get some fresh air.

– Enjoy a relaxing beverage: For some it may be coffee.  For me, it is a nice glass of chai tea, green tea or even some regular coca cola.

– Have a snack: Since I am a mother of twin toddler girls, my snacks usually consist of goldfish crackers and some Dora the Explorer strawberry yogurt.  Taking a quick break to enjoy some of your favorite snacks can help to relieve some stress.

– Listen to some soothing music: Whether you like classical, country, pop, or R&B, listening to some mellow music can calm your nerves.  Heck – you can even relieve some more stress by singing along!

– Just breathe.

– Get some natural light: If it is a pretty day outside and I am not feeling so relaxed or I feel like I need some motivation, I like to open the window drapes or open the front door (leaving the screen door shut, of course.)  It always seems to make me feel a little bit better and more motivated.

– Vent to a coworker: Your coworkers, at some point, have been extremely overwhelmed and stressed out also.  Chat with someone you feel comfortable talking to and who you feel you can trust.  They might be feeling the same way now or they might have at one point, so they can help to set you straight and maybe even give you some great advice.

– Make or clean-up your to-do list: I am a list-person.  I make lists for everything! This can help to clarify exactly what needs to be done and in what order.  If you slowly but surely start to knock things off your list, you will feel better about yourself, alleviating some stress.

I am curious to know if any of you (who work from home, or not) use any of these tactics to alleviate work stress.  What do you do that is not mentioned here?  Leave a comment and let me know!

Image credits:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/frield/95509221/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alancleaver/4331097922/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/soham_pablo/427916044/

Occasionally, we have a new plastic surgery client who does not use before and after pictures on their website.  Traditionally, plastic surgery internet marketing experts have held on to the belief that a before and after gallery is a must for driving traffic to the site and ultimately turning visitors into real patients.

Most surgeons use a gallery as patient education, and the more knowledge a patient has of a doctor, the more likely they are to schedule a consultation. For Newport Beach Plastic Surgery, Newport Beach rhinoplasty patients can see for themselves the artistic skill and experience of the surgeon.  They can see the results and what they will get out of the surgery before they even talk to the doctor.  This is a powerful tool.

An additional bonus is patients come into the office with some understanding of the surgery and the results they should expect, and the consultation is much more interactive.

Plastic surgery internet marketers can always use the gallery as additional source material to promote online.  Having a gallery doesn’t make our jobs a slam-dunk, but not having one does make our jobs more challenging to drive leads to consultations. More pages equal more opportunities to show up in the search engine results pages.

Galleries have become an important part of the pre-consultation education process.  Often the gallery pages are the most visited pages on a plastic surgeon’s website by potential patients. Without before/afters, a visitor is less likely to stick around.  So what to do if you’re a plastic surgeon without those images?

First, if a doctor is starting a new practice, he or she may not have a wealth of before and after pictures to use.  The after pictures are best taken at stages after surgery, so a great picture of a patient may not be great until the patient is fully healed.  That might not be for 6 months to a year.  That mean it takes at least a year for a plastic surgeon to build a potentially decent gallery for the website.

Then there are some plastic surgeons who want to attempt to rank in the search engines without the before and after pictures.  They prefer to share the before and after pictures within the confines of the office to hold a captive audience and to control the dissemination of those images. Many surgeons and patients oppose the use of pre and post-operative images given their potentially graphic content. From a search engine ranking perspective, if they can rank without those pages of images, then that’s what they may want to do.

We have a handful of plastic surgeons who do well without a gallery on their website.  Even without the before and after images we are still able to cover the traditional SEO bases: content optimization, Google listings, link building, etc.

In fact, we have one outstanding example who is achieving stellar rankings in his market – Donaldson Plastic Surgery – plastic surgery, Columbus, OH 4661 Sawmill Road, Suite 100, Columbus, OH 43220.

This doctor is

(1) a recently trained plastic surgeon,
(2) building a young solo practice, and
(3) prioritizes patient privacy and discretion: he has NO before and
after images on his site.

How does he

• rank on page 1 of Google results for 49 valuable search terms, and
• triple his site visits in 1 year of SEO with Search Influence?

The answer is that he is a full participant in all of his integrated marketing efforts.  He is fully engaged and works with us on a regular basis to build his presence online.

Collaboration is the key to truly maximizing a fully connected and integrated marketing effort.

It doesn’t sound like magic, but it is – it’s just talking.

And because Dr. Donaldson is the public face of the practice, and he talks to the patients, he is the front line of feedback.  And that feedback is incredibly valuable information that we as search marketers would never be privy to without talking to the doctor on a regular basis.

One thing he has recently shared with us is that NOT having before and after pictures has helped his practice.  He has seen patients in consultation who appreciate that he does not have a gallery on his website.

We can see clearly the usage and interest in before and after plastic surgery pictures on other sites and we wonder, would adding a gallery bring in more consults?

I don’t know, but right now, no-gallery is workin’ for him so the jury’s out.

What do you think? Would you make that first appointment without seeing some proof? OR are you one of those for whom it’s worth it not have your pictures out there?

Plastic Surgery Internet References Benchmark for December Shows Overall Decline of Less Than 17% from Spring – The Busiest Season of The Year

We work with a number of plastic surgeons and have the opportunity to really get a sense for their zeitgeist. Right now many of them are feeling a pinch – our review had, to this point, been anecdotal rather than analytical. Suffice it to say we knew there was a problem but didn’t know if it was a lack of traffic, or a lack of conversion (window shopping but no buying).

One of our clients has been prompting me for some time to start providing benchmarks within his category (where we have some depth) as a yardstick against which we could measure his success. And then, in conversation with another client this evening, the topic came up again as we were discussing a former client who is really suffering.

For our benchmark we decided to look only at Google organic ranking and to compare a very specific date range, specifically a comparison of December 2009 versus May 2009. This date range seemed appropriate given the seeming decline in traffic and business, and given December is an historically low month compared to May.

Throwing out the high and the low in our sample, we found that the average decline in the studied group was 16.4% May to December. This is not a surprising number given the seasonality of the profession but it at least gave us a benchmark.

And in all, it doesn’t explain the massive decline in the client who left and in some of our continuing clients.

Below are screenshots from Google Analytics of the comparison:

Clearly we’re only looking at one metric, but there are clear correlations between the right kind of traffic and revenue.

View the whole set of screenshots at flickr.

My thanks to Dr. Paul Parker a Plastic Surgeon specializing in breast augmentation. New Jersey patients should visit his site http://www.parkercenter.net/.

Thanks also to Dr. Roy Kim a Plastic Surgeon specializing in surgeries of the face and body including breast augmentation and tummy tuck. San Francisco patients should visit his site http://www.drkim.com/.

And the moral of the story is: If you’re a plastic surgeon and your traffic is up December over May, good on ya. Give those monkeys a banana.

If you’re down, don’t sweat it. +/- a few percentage points beyond the mean is no big deal.

If you’re down 40% or more, look out. It may be time to reevaluate the model. If you’re down 40% or more and your web people aren’t scrambling then definitely change course.

Everyday we get emails about online, marketing webinars. “How to increase your ROI on the web”, “Why you need to supplement your campaign with PPC”, “Why do trains no longer have cabooses”.  It’s endless!

As a website promotion company we get requests for all manner of online marketing services and I was given a task of creating and broadcasting a marketing webinar for one of my clients.

My first thought was, “Oh cool- a webinar. This should be interesting.” My second thought was, “holy crap, I have never done this before.

Webinars are like – LIVE. Where do I start? I knew this gig would get me into trouble. My mind was racing in every direction and I was off to create my first webinar, with the help of my trusty team.

Here are a few items that I learned along the way (that I wish I had known before). They may be obvious to some, and even if that’s the case I encourage you to continue reading. Maybe there is a glimpse of something that may help you in the future.

1. Create a Topic: Webinars are very “in the moment,” so make sure your topic is relevant to “now.” Make sure you can speak intelligently on the topic – your audience is expecting an expert in the broadcast.
2. Develop a Webinar Wish list:
   Do you want to:
   • Show a PowerPoint
   • Have Live Video
   • Poll Participants
   • Have an Interactive Q & A
   • Stream existing video

The list could be endless, but remember this is a “WISH LIST” so list everything you want your webinar to do – EVERYTHING.

1. Research Marketing Webinar Platforms: There are numerous webinar platforms. Price points vary from free (for up to so many users), to affordable, to very expensive. Some require a download onto the computer, while others are streamed through the web. Some provide live video, some don’t, etc., etc.How to decide? Go back to the wish list and get to testing. Which platform achieves all (or the majority) of the objectives on your wish list? If you find this platform and it’s in your budget – sign up and thank your lucky stars! If you are having trouble achieving your wish list, decide which areas you are willing to budge on and what is necessary?

   This step requires testing, testing and more testing. Eventually you will hash out the best program to achieve your main objectives and fit your budget.Also, don’t forget the awesome information resource of the web. Check out blogs and articles on webinars. They can provide useful, honest feedback about other peoples experiences with the different platforms.

2. Create an Outline: Begin organizing the webinar. The process is completely relevant to your topic and your speaker.  Is your webinar interactive? If so, where do these portions go in the agenda? Will you have one Q&A or two? Where will the online polls be located and how many are needed? How and who is introducing the speaker?The outline should stay active as it can change throughout the entire process depending on testing outcomes, which platform you use, how many people sign up for your webinar, etc.
3. PROMOTION: This is HUGE! A webinar is not really effective unless you have an audience – otherwise you would be talking to yourself (not cool). There are many ways to promote offline (fliers, radio, word of mouth), but being a huge proponent of the web, here are a few ways to promote online Remember that some of these (i.e. Twitter/Facebook) will need a previous following to be effective.
   • Press Release
   • Twitter
   • Facebook Fan Page
   • Personal Website
   • Personal Blog
4. TEST: Test and test and test until you can’t test anymore. A live webinar is a one shot deal. You get one shot to make it or break it. You want to have everything down pat before the big moment where you are broadcasted across the World Wide Web. Think about it – you could have 3 viewers or 3,000, but the webinar reputation could go from 0 stars to 5 in an instant with just a little positive feedback online. You want to NAIL it.

Like I mentioned above, those are just some preliminary things that I learned while preparing for my first webinar. Oh, another piece of advice – watch as many other webinars as possible. This will give you ideas on how to make yours more successful. My parting words- Good Luck!

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Web cam image courtesy of Flickr user: rafael_mizrahi
Bush experiment image courtesy of: Reprise Media blog