townsend.bunksite.com

Tag: plastic surgeon marketing

How Your Online Presence Wins and Loses Cosmetic Patients [Download Free Guide]
Download the Free Guide

Want tips, stats, and strategies about how to take charge of your practice’s online presence? Fill out the form below to download the free guide, “Attracting Patients by Proactively Managing Your Online Reputation.”

Consider this: one person wrote a negative online review for a plastic surgeon. In the next few months, the practice’s online leads and Internet referrals mysteriously plummeted by 28 percent. Coincidence? Don’t bet on it. Even if that single negative online review only contributed to the decrease, that drop in leads translated to the loss of literally hundreds of potential customers.

If you think your practice’s online presence doesn’t have the power to attract—or repel—patients, think again. For physicians in the cosmetic medicine industry—whether plastic surgery, dermatology, or even cosmetic dentistry—a practice’s online presence is a powerful tool. And if it is left uncultivated, it can be dangerous.

Search Influence details this pressing issue and its real-world implications for your cosmetic medical practice in a new guide, “Attracting Patients by Proactively Managing Your Online Reputation,” available to download for free by filling out the form below. The guide was produced with input from Richard M. Escoffery, an attorney with the law firm Elarbee, Thompson, Sapp & Wilson, LLP.

Patient Reviews … Haunting or Rewarding?

In the digital era of online marketing, even when a cosmetic surgeon is heavily recommended by a friend, coworker, or family member, 94 percent of people still take to the Internet to perform secondary online research before making a commitment, according to our free online guide. What’s even more astounding is that 72 percent of all consumers give an online review the same weight and credibility as a personal recommendation, the guide reports.

For example, here’s a general view of how customers typically find many plastic surgery practices online by using organic (or free) search methods:
1. Potential patients research the procedure they want.
2. They research the cosmetic and plastic surgeons in their area, usually looking through numerous review sites.
3. They start searching for their surgeon of interest by name, which is often termed a “branded organic search” in the online world.
Paging Dr. Google

Yes, this means patients are “googling” the cosmetic procedures you offer and your practice. How high a practice’s site ranks on search engines has a lot to do with the amount of website traffic the practice receives. And the very first search result in a Google search typically receives a third of the traffic share. Having your practice show up as a top search result for targeted keywords ranging from “breast augmentation” to “tummy tuck” takes not only cultivation, but also online marketing expertise.

In the free “Attracting Patients by Proactively Managing Your Online Reputation” guide, you’ll find more important takeaways. For example, Google and other search engines give higher ranking to such sites as Angie’s List, Yelp, RateMDs, and the like. These sites not only perch atop search engine rankings due to Google’s algorithm updates, but they also often feature regularly updated content, which, in search engine terms, is an important indication of reliability.

In other words, patient or customer review sites have all the makings of a search-engine friendly site. So, negative online comments and an uncultivated online presence can literally tank a practice’s website traffic.

Get a FREE guide & take charge of your online presence
April 15, 2015
Googleplasty: How to Reshape Your Search Results (Part 1)

As businesses grow more in touch with their online presence, it becomes more and more challenging to stand out in the search results of highly competitive markets and areas—and nowhere is this perhaps more true than in the cosmetic medicine industry.

First things first, let’s make sure we’re on the same page about the two major kinds of results that we see in desktop results for plastic surgeons. “Localized organic” search results and “maps pack” results typically appear together in what is referred to as “combined” search results. The factors that determine what appears in these two areas are not the same, as you can tell by the the difference in results and by the appearance of a site more than once between the two. Maps packs can come in a variety of forms and don’t show up for all search queries, which is also important to note.

In the screenshot below on the left for the search “plastic surgeon columbus oh,” you’ll see 10 localized organic results below a 7-count maps pack. In the screenshot on the right for “plastic surgeon albany ny,” you’ll see 10 localized organic results, but the 3-count maps pack appears below the first organic result.

Stand Out in the Maps Pack

In the maps pack itself, the most striking features are the review stars and rating display. The data in the maps pack area is pulled directly from Google Plus local listings in Google Maps. So, to make your practice stand out in the maps pack, you should claim and verify your Google Plus listing via Google My Business.

Once you’ve claimed and verified your listing, you’ll want to get reviews from your patients. It’s important to understand that one or two reviews a month over a few months is better than 15 reviews in one week. As with most online marketing strategies, natural behavior is the best behavior.

Stand Out in Localized Organic

The most obvious way to stand out in the localized organic results is to be ranking as high as possible and to AT LEAST be in the top 10 so that you’re on the first page. As the age-old SEO joke goes, “The best place to hide a dead body is on the second page of Google search results.” Hardly anyone looks past the first page, and—according to eye-tracking data—not many look past the top half of the search results page.

The Google PageRank algorithm that determines these rankings takes into account somewhere around 200 factors, so it’s not as simple as pinpointing one or two efforts to be made.

Now that we’ve got a better understanding of what we’re looking at in search results, we can start to understand the major factors that affect ranking in each of these sections. Stay tuned for my next blog, where we’ll talk about the top five ranking factors in the maps pack, in the localized organic results, and in competitive markets!

April 14, 2015
SEO vs. PPC: What’s The Difference Anyway?

A while back, SEO guru David McBee wrote a post in his awesome blog about how he differentiates SEO tactics from PPC strategies. In David’s mind, it can all be related to the difference between dieting and plastic surgery. SEO is a diet, and PPC is plastic surgery.

To illustrate his point, David created this awesome infographic which I think spells things out pretty well. In many ways, this categorization really gets to the root of the differences between what you would do to increase your site’s profile online using SEO tactics versus the much more immediate PPC strategies we all employ.

The SEO Diet

It is very true that SEO is like a diet for your online presence. You need to be in it for the long haul, and you really need to establish clearly defined goals before you start. In exactly the same way that a crash diet will not yield the long term results you are looking for, link baiting or deploying tons of spammy content will not help you reach your idea SEO weight.

I really like the comparison of PPC to plastic surgery because I feel like you should be putting the same kind of thought to the planning stages of a PPC campaign that you would before a procedure like a face lift or tummy tuck.

The PPC Procedure

You need to figure out exactly what you want to focus on and a lot of thought has to go into what you want to look like on the other side. Nothing is worse than not being prepared for an onslaught of traffic hitting your site on the heels of a successful PPC campaign.

What do you think of David McBee’s comparison? What would you say the SEO/PPC dichotomy resembles in your experience? Let us know in the comments! We would love to hear from you, even if you are on a juice cleanse SEO diet.

Link for infographic: http://davidmcbee.com/seo-is-a-diet-ppc-is-plastic-surgery-infographic/

January 13, 2014
Penguin 2.0 May Not Be Done Just Yet

We’ve been watching Penguin 2.0 and its effects, and as a team we have noticed some fluctuating data that suggests the algorithm has not quite settled in yet. In another blog post, I put it out there that rankings are not everything, and they are not the primary measure of success. Ranking reports have known flaws, but they can be used as a weather vane. When we look at the ranking weather for a few clients, we see some ups and downs, clearly with some effect from the most recent Penguin, but it appears that the players on Google page 1 are still moving around more than a month after the rollout.

When we look at a few examples, we see the musical chairs being played on page 1 with nobody being safe and comfortable for very long. We’re watching rankings for a plastic surgeon in New Jersey for the term “rhinoplasty New Jersey.”

Here’s a summary of his rankings hopping all over. His biggest drop was on June 18th:

The same client for “breast augmentation New Jersey” had more subtle changes, but they are meaningful.

So it looks like he got a little hit from Penguin 2.0, but may be rebounding. We have done nothing out of the ordinary for this surgeon to move his site from 10^th to 3^rd in just nine days, so we make an assumption that Penguin is still adjusting.

Another example in ranking fluctuations for “Columbus allergist” is in a doctor’s rankings seen below. His biggest decrease was on June 3^rd vs the guy above who got the hit on June 18th:

Rankings Aren’t Everything!

Rankings are not the only measure by which we watch successes and failures. Organic traffic is another layer of data, and in some organic traffic trends, we see noticeable changes around June 3^rd then again around June 18^th.

The client represented in the chart below is a cocktail bar in the South. They saw a dip in organic traffic after May 22, but they enjoyed an unexpected bump in early June (the traffic dropped off again after that early June peak, but what I want to know is what’s behind that weird little bump up earlier on?):

The next example is a traffic bump around June 18^th. This client is a completely different business on the west coast. We see a little effect from Penguin, then a weird spike:

And Then There Are Other Data Too

It gets a little fuzzier when you start looking at Bounce rates and Time on Page and these data in Analytics. Who’s to say that these increases or decreases are a direct effect from Penguin? You could argue your site is having better or worse quality traffic because of ranking and where your site now shows up vs where it showed before Penguin. You could argue lots. All I know is that 3 of the 4 clients mentioned above saw an improvement in Bounce rate after Penguin.

So … what?

I’m not convinced that Penguin 2.0 was a one time algorithm update, it did its thing on May 22^nd, and we’re experiencing the good or the bad or the indifferent. I think it’s still shaking out, and we may still see a few odd spikes or odd drops in ranking or traffic or some other data. We may have a few more weeks before websites settle into a relatively comfortable placement on page 1, and it is only then that we can claim some clear understanding of the full effect of Penguin.

And because Penguin 2.0 is still reconfiguring, it may not be time for drastic action. If your site is experiencing some definite ups and downs, then yes, you should look at your backlinks quality, the anchor text quality, internal links, etc. All of this stuff is covered in many other blog posts. You should have been long ago working on authoritative backlinks and building up your social cred. But it’s not time to throw up your hands, and just Disavow everything. It’s not time to scrap your website and start with a brand new domain and design. Take some time to digest what’s going on before bulldozing ahead.

What I would really like to know is if anyone else noticed definite odd fluctuations around June 3^rd and June 18^th. Or if you noticed unusual changes at anytime after May 22^nd. Leave a comment, and let us know.

June 28, 2013
Plastic Surgery SEO – The Lighter Side: “Big Tits”
A friend and colleague forwarded me this wonderful little ditty. She does some of the best plastic surgery websites at the helm of her design and development company, and she knows what appeals to the viewer.

We do a fair amount of Plastic Surgery SEO around here and she knows better than anyone the trials of this industry.

So it’s no wonder we’re amused by a song entitled “Big Tits.”

Big Tits – Not to be confused with the "Great Tit"

No doubt you’ll be humming the refrain. Do be careful to keep it to yourself 🙂

My personal favorite line is:

“self esteem goes off the charts when you enhance your private parts”

Big Tits by Gordon Lustig

This song is copyright Gordon Lustig and is referenced here by permission. Please contact Mr. Lustig should you wish to license or use his work in any form.

Admittedly, plastic surgery SEO – particularly that done for cosmetic surgery – does seem gratuitous at times. So it’s nice to take one’s mind off of “one more article about boobs” as a former writer said and enjoy a little folk tune all about big tits.

You can enjoy more of Mr. Lustig’s work at his website or on his YouTube channel.

If you’re legitimately interested in Plastic Surgery SEO, you may be interested in some of our other articles:
Plastic Surgery SEO Results

And just because my sense of humor occasionally runs too juvenile for one my age, more pictures tagged “Big Tits” on Flickr:

Rearranged letters on Veterinary Sign – Big Tits

Erotic Restaurant Private Show – Big Tits

Images courtesy of:
August 23, 2010
For Plastic Surgery Marketing, Content Really is King
As anyone who knows me, or one of our team, or even who has read this blog a few times knows, we do a fair amount of work in online Plastic Surgery Marketing.

Paul Parker M.D. – New Jersey Plastic Surgeon

As with any business we have some customers who just go along – who are happy to get our monthly reports, see their return on investment analysis and make the occasional comment or request. While we try, we can’t get all of our plastic surgeon clients on the phone monthly or even quarterly and ultimately, when it’s their business and their paycheck they are the ones who have a vested interest in their marketing effectiveness.

Then there are the practices, in plastic surgery, marketing like crazy and very involved both in the process and the outcomes. The doctors who spend their weekends and evenings documenting procedures, researching the industry and engaging with prospective patients online using their web sites as a tool for plastic surgery marketing and eduction.

One such doctor is Paul Parker. Dr. Parker has spent countless hours writing and working with artists and designers to assure the information he presents is spot-on what his patients want.

Parker Center for Plastic Surgery, New Jersey – Breast Augmentation
122 East Ridgewood Avenue
Paramus, NJ‎ 07652 – (201) 967-1212

Recently Dr. Parker, working with our favorite plastic surgery website designer Aimee Ellingsen of Cake Websites & More, spent a lot of time revamping his breast lift pages.

Now, I’ll tell you. After 3 + years of working with plastic surgeons I know way too much about plastic surgery.

This stuff is amazing! Dr. Parker, through words and illustrations makes the considerations and the procedure of breast lift imminently approachable.

There’s a lot to plastic surgery marketing, but the foundation is a doctor who cares enough to educate patients on complicated topics.

Many plastic surgery procedures are easy enough to conceptually understand. But after 3 + years working with these guys I really never understood all the considerations of Breast Lift. A Breast Lift is a much more complicated decision process. How much breast material is there, how much sag, where are the nipples relative to the breast as a whole? I mean it’s crazy.

Anatomy of Breast Ptosis Image from Parker Center for Plastic Surgery

So the point is, Dr. Parker and Aimee Ellingsen‘s team created this GREAT content. Perfectly explanatory works which help one understand not only what kind of intervention is needed depending on the condition of the breast, but what the options are and what the surgical process looks like.

Breast Lift Options Picture from Parker Center for Plastic Surgery New Jersey

And now, I get it! I, as a lay person, now fully understand the problem, the solution and, if I were a prospective patient, would be able to begin the process of understanding my need for plastic surgery.

As is often the case, content really is King. Dr. Parker intending to be informative and educate patients wound up creating great content, which is the foundation of great plastic surgery marketing.

–

Related Posts:
- Plastic Surgery Internet Marketing – Less Scary than You Think
- Benchmarks for Plastic Surgery Marketing Online December 2009
February 10, 2010