As I reflect on the last four years, here are four final thoughts on how doctors and others in the medical industry can grow further if they expand their horizons even a little.

The Medical Internet Marketing Realm Moves Slow

If there’s one thing I’ve discovered in my time with Plastic Surgery Studios its that the medical world is slow to adopt technology and moreso its uses for marketing.  In a world where most businesses have been using social media for a number of years, most doctors are just now hopping on to sites like Facebook, Twitter, and now Google+.  As a doctor, if you are digitally savvy you have a great opportunity to get ahead of the competition because so many practices are slow to adopt the latest digital trends.  Look at what larger brands are doing or other verticals are doing and see if there is anything they are applying to their internet marketing efforts that can translate well enough to help your patients.

The Industry Works Inside a Bubble

One thing that became quickly apparent to me while working in this industry is that it is an industry of copy cats.  Everyone looks to their competitors for the answer on how to do it right.  They wait to see what other companies are doing and then they look to replicate rather than innovate.  In order to continue to move forward this niche needs more thought leaders.  It’s one of the reasons why I fell in love with Real Self’s Medi Beauty Today blog.  Tom Seery and his writers were producing content that approached cosmetic surgery internet marketing from a perspective that wasn’t commonly discussed amongst most of the blogs in the industry.  Internet marketing has evolved greatly in the wake of Google’s recent algorithm updates.  Its not about gimmicks and quick wins, its about growing your business online as though Google didn’t exist.  Do something your patients will love, don’t worry so much about what the guy down the street is doing to appease Google.

Need some inspiration on how the medical community is evolving? Here are some of the blogs I would frequent that were innovative and informative, but still relevant to the medical community:

• Real Self’s MediBeauty Today
• 33 Charts
• FEED
• Hive Strategies
• Ragan’s Healthcare Communication News

Doctors Need To Think More Like Businesses

After dealing with doctors for the last four years the one thing that stood out is how few of them recognized themselves as an actual business.  Doctors are just like any other local business.  They need to be concerned with marketing, customer service, and every other facet that comes with owning and operating a business.  While they often ignore or turn away from these things they are critical to the survival of a medical practice in today’s day and age.  When a new doctor is just a Google search away your business practices, bedside manner, staff, and overall perceived authority are crucial to earning patients and keeping them.

What Lies Ahead

As I leave Plastic Surgery Studios I will also be leaving the medical realm behind shifting my focus from working with doctors, dentists and surgeons, to helping national brands and major corporations build their online presence.  During my time with Plastic Surgery Studios I have shared as much as I could to try and help educate our clients, our staff, and the industry as a whole on where things were going outside of this little medical marketing bubble we all hide in.  Through it all I hope that you, our doctors, have been able to take away at least a tidbit or two of information and apply it to your practice to help strengthen your online presence.  My deepest appreciation goes out to all of you for your support over these last four years.  I hope you enjoyed the journey as much as I have.

The post What Four Years at Plastic Surgery Studios Taught Me About Medical Internet Marketing and What You Can Learn From It appeared first on Plastic Surgery Studios Blog.

Patients Want It

Even though the doctors in the Real Self article didn’t see eye to eye on whether or not prices should be posted online, it was clear that price would ultimately influence whether or not a patient would book a procedure with a doctor, regardless of if it was posted or not.  In our plastic surgery website study, cost was the second most sought-after piece of information patients wanted following before and after photos.  If you do a search in Google for nearly any procedure your practice offers, cost will most likely be the second, most popular search in Google’s suggested queries.  Finally, if you look at the Google trends for the top five most popular cosmetic surgery procedures worldwide (liposuction, breast augmentation, eyelid surgery, tummy tuck, and rhinoplasty), you’ll see a growing trend in users searching for cost.

As more patients look to empower themselves with the aid of the Internet, they look for more information to help make educated decisions about treatments and procedures they are considering.  But if you’re a doctor who doesn’t want to disclose prices…What can you do?

Give A Little

Even if you don’t disclose your full price list you can begin the dialogue on your website by meeting at least some of your patients’ needs by providing some of the information they may need to know as it pertains to price.

General Cost Guidelines

Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Stuart A. Linder, MD, FACS uses this technique on his website.  Recognizing that more patients were interested in cost, we worked to include information about what patients can expect to pay for when it comes to surgery.  On his breast augmentation page he explains that a surgeon’s fees, operating room fees, implant fee, and anesthesia fees will all influence cost.  Additionally on his site, he explains that silicone implants cost more than saline and that breast revision surgeries typically cost more than initial breast augmentations.  While the doctor never discloses price to his patients on his procedure page, he does give patients a better understanding of what they can expect to pay for if they decide to have surgery performed by him.

Average Costs

If you’re willing to give up a little bit more cost information on your site, listing the average cost of a procedure may be the way to go.  This will give patients a ballpark idea of what the cost will be if they decide to choose you as their doctor, and help them decide if your procedure price range is within their budget. As noted in the Real Self article, this will help pre-qualify some of your patients and weed out the ones that wouldn’t be willing to pay your fees.  The average-cost approach can be combined with general cost guidelines, which can explain the particular factors that cause prices to fluctuate. This will help a patient understand why the cost of his or her desired procedure is much higher.

If You Aren’t, Someone Else Is

Ultimately whether you provide your price or not, the searching public who really wants to find it will do so one way or another.  Sites like RealSelf.com provide average costs as part of their “Worth It Ratings” and better yet each user who reviews the procedure can say where they are and how much they paid for their procedure.

Additional associations give average cost with their annual reporting. Portals like our very own iEnhance.com offer average costs on procedure pages. General health websites, such as Discovery Health and WebMD, also feature pricing information for patients looking into the matter.

The choice on whether or not you want to display procedure pricing information on your website is yours and yours alone. Still, it’s important to recognize that more patients are looking for details on cost; and if you choose not to answer their query, another surgeon eventually will.

Our best advice is give them some type of cost-related information, even if it’s just a general idea of what the procedure costs on average.  This may satisfy the prospective patient for the time-being, and hopefully encourage them to contact you.  Giving out general, yet pertinent, cost information also helps you attract traffic for queries related to cost, which is rare due to the fact that most practitioners refuse to disclose this data on their websites.

The post Should You Post Cost on Your Procedure Pages? appeared first on Plastic Surgery Studios Blog.

The report released on Tuesday titled, “Health Online 2013 ,“looked at a number of aspects related to online behavior as it relates to health care.  Some of the topics explored include how people are using the Internet to research health, the increasing trend of “online diagnosers,” the role of social interaction in healthcare, and the adoption of reviews among general consumers.

SEO and Content Is More Important
Than Ever

One of the more impressive numbers from the study stems from the growing trend of “self-diagnosers.”  Of those who have looked online for health information, 59 percent say they have gone online specifically to try to figure out what medical condition they or someone else might have.  Of those questioned 46 percent of online diagnosers said that the condition needed the attention of a doctor, and 53 percent of online diagnosers say they spoke with a medical professional regarding what they found online.

Takeaways

This, along with the statistic that 8 in 10 online health inquiries start on a search engine, create a unique opportunity for medical professionals when it comes to content. Now, knowing that more patients are looking to the Internet before they look to a doctor, doctors should be seizing this opportunity to create helpful content that can help patients to determine whether or not they should be seeking a doctor for their condition or concern in the first place. Well- optimized content can not only help a potential patient make better decisions about his or her health, but also drive prospective patients to your practice in the event that they do want to further investigate their findings.

While many feel that online diagnoses and research is dominated by specialty sites, such as WebMD and the like, it’s important to note that only 13 percent of online health seekers start their search on this type of website.

Social Medicine

While past Pew studies explored usage of specific social networks when it came to health care, this study focused on how patients were using social interaction as a means of researching their health. Interestingly enough, of the 72 percent of Internet users who said they looked online for health information within the past year, a mere 1 percent actually said they started at a social network site like Facebook.

But while the search may not start with social networks, the study uncovered that more and more people are looking to connect with people dealing with similar health matters online.  One in four Internet users have read or watched someone else’s experience about health or medical issues in the last 12 months, and 16 percent of Internet users have gone online to find others who may have shared the same health concerns in the last year.

Eight percent of Internet users say they have, in the past 12 months, posted a health-related question online or shared their own personal health experience online in some way.  Of those:

• 40 percent say they posted comments or stories about personal health experiences
• 19 percent say they posted specific health questions
• 38 percent say they posted both

In addition, 78 percent of those who posted a comment, story, or question about their health say that they did so to reach a general audience of friends or other Internet users. Eleven percent say they posted somewhere specifically to get feedback from a health professional. Four percent replied that they posted for both a general and a professional audience and 5 percent said neither of those choices fit.

Takeaways

This growing trend of social need and the desire to be a part of a community of supporters also opens a door of opportunity.  As more patients look for a sense of community, doctors and hospitals can be at the forefront of community creation and provide a means for connecting patients both in their practice and on their websites.

Some examples that quickly come to mind are the DREAMERS Support Group started by Houston breast reconstruction surgeon Dr. Aldona J. Spiegel, which was designed to provide information and support to breast cancer patients who desire restoration, in order to enhance their physical and mental vitality and allow them to live a fulfilling life after surgery.  Another example is the vaginismus forum run by Dr. Peter Pacik to help patients suffering from vaginismus.  The form is used for education and support for patients suffering from this unfortunate condition.

The Slow Adoption of Doctor Reviews

Just days before the Pew study was released, the Journal of Urology released a study that suggested patients should be wary of online doctor reviews.  Dr. Bryan Vartabedian, of the Texas Children’s Hospital, spoke on the topic during “CBS This Morning.” His discussion echoed the study’s concerns stating that the polarity of positive and negative reviews combined with the low volume of doctor reviews make review sites less-than-reliable or constructive when it comes to making a decision about a health provider.

The findings from the Pew study shine some light on the topic, and perhaps the biggest issue with doctor reviews is the low adoption rate from general consumers.  When it comes to writing reviews of general interest items, 37 percent of Internet users say they have rated a product, service, or person online, and 32 percent have posted a comment or review online about a product they bought or service they received. In contrast, three to four percent of Internet users have posted a review of a treatment, hospital, or clinician.  If those numbers weren’t shocking enough, the growth from 2010 to 2012 is almost at a standstill.

The percentage of Internet users who consulted online reviews or rankings of doctors or other providers only increased by one percent, from 16 to 17 percent.  The percentage of Internet users who consulted online reviews or rankings of hospitals or medical facilities declined by one percent, from 15 to 14 percent.  The percentage of Internet users who posted a doctor review online remained at four percent and reviews of a hospital remained at three percent.

Takeaways

This trend shows that the struggle for patient reviews isn’t being felt just at the individual practice level, but in the health industry as a whole.  As more doctors push for patient reviews to help with their online reputation, local rankings, and the like, fewer patients are taking notice or even getting involved.

It’s a difficult place to be in, and I believe much of what we are facing is a result of the reputation management industry and the continued desire for health issues to remain private.

As a whole, review spam along with less-than-constructive patient reviews has left the review reading process less than desirable.  To correct this I think doctors, and reputation management professionals alike need to educate patients on how to effectively post reviews.  It’s not about posting things such as, “Dr. X is the best in the world I always love going to see him!”  It’s about patients sharing why Dr. X is the right choice, how the doctor has made a difference in their health, and what made their experience with the doctor valuable enough to review.  The sooner the medical community embraces this mentality, I believe the sooner patients will begin to trust and pay attention to online reviews.

Unfortunately, while I believe consumers seek more transparency from the healthcare industry, patients will continue to be very private about their health matters, and in many instances, such as in the cosmetic surgery field, be less inclined to talk about or rate their experience with a doctor or medical facility. I believe this to be especially true in cases where they are forced to use their full name or likeness.

Other interesting statistics to note:

• Eleven percent of Internet users say they have signed up to receive email updates or alerts about health or medical issues in the past year.
• Fifty-two percent of smartphone owners have looked up health information on their phone, compared with just six percent of other cell phone owners.  The likelihood to use such technology is amplified by relative youthfulness, having a higher level of education, living in a higher-income household, being Latino, being African American  – and owning a smartphone.

What are your thoughts on this recent study? Are you surprised by any of the findings?

The post New Pew Research Highlights the Importance of SEO, the Role of Social Media, and the Slow Public Adoption of Doctor Reviews appeared first on Plastic Surgery Studios Blog.

If you analyze the backlinks of almost any surgeon or dentist you are bound to find a handful of links to press releases in their backlink profile.  While some of the releases may be meaningful, most are announcements about redesigned websites, new practice partners, or that shiny, new device they bought for their practice.  While these aren’t bad press releases per se, they definitely aren’t going to earn you or your practice much attention from the press.

In most cases these low-level releases are created for one purpose: links.  Admittedly, even Plastic Surgery Studios has been responsible for some of these less-than-stellar PR efforts.   However a comment from Google’s Matt Cutts in a recent Google Webmaster Help thread suggests these efforts may be in vain.  Amidst the discussion about the value of links in a press release, Matt wrote:

“Note: I wouldn’t expect links from press release web sites to benefit your rankings, however.”

PR With a Purpose

With that said, many would turn their backs on press releases and treat them as a dead medium for online marketing.  But what they fail to recognize is that a good, newsworthy press release can earn a practice greater visibility both online and offline, as well as backlinks from outside sources who pick up the press release.  But in order for this to happen you have to do something newsworthy that will not only benefit you, but the press and, ultimately, the reader.

Take a step back and think about the newspaper, your local nightly news, or any other media outlet you regularly consume.  Then, think about your announcement.  Would it interest you if it showed up in your newspaper or nightly newscast?  If not, then it’s probably not press release-worthy.

Your website redesign? Probably not newsworthy.  Your website redesigned with an exclusive breast implant database that would allow patients to get up-to-date information on breast implant warranties, recalls, and the like directly from implant makers? Now that might be a resource worth talking about.

Moving Forward

The search engines are forcing doctors and dentists to, as Wil Reynolds of SEER Interactive says, “Do real company sh*t.”  Links obtained easily through tactics like press releases, article directories, and the like will be harder and harder to come by.  It’s time to focus on doing things that real companies do.  Build relationships, add value, and deliver what your patient base asks for.

As with any content, your press release should serve your audience and offer value.  Charities, patient events, new offerings exclusive to your region, or any other announcements that will benefit the consumer is what you should aim to use press releases for.  You should always ask yourself: “If I were reading this about another business, would I care?”  If not, you may want to reconsider.

The post Why a Statement from Google’s Matt Cutts Means It’s Time To Get Serious About PR appeared first on Plastic Surgery Studios Blog.

The Top 10 Plastic Surgery Social Media Influencers, According to Klout: We kicked off 2012 by analyzing who Klout felt was the most influential in social media.  Will the same 10 appear in our 2013 comparison? Check back after the first of the year!

Six Unique and Inspiring Ways to Use Pinterest in the Field of Healthcare: Pinterest has been the talk of the town in 2012. In this post we analyze how some early adopters in the medical community were effectively using social media’s fastest-growing website.

Google’s Over-Optimization Penalty and What It Could Mean for Medical SEO: In the end, Google’s over-optimization penalty came in the form of Penguin on April 24th. This post was written about one week before the official update, which analyzed the facts and speculation behind what people were discussing. In the end, the only fact that was significantly premature was the impact it would have on exact match domains.  That update didn’t come until late September.

Everything You Need To Know About Facebook Timeline for Pages: Facebook Timeline was a panic point for many people earlier this year, but now it’s as if we’ve always had it. This post looks at all of the new features that came with Facebook Timeline and how they can be effectively utilized.

2012 Local Consumer Review Survey Shows Doctor Reputation Management Is Crucial:  We dissect the data from BrightLocal’s local consumer survey, and hone in on the results for doctors and dentists, uncovering just how important it is to manage your reputation online when it comes to local consumers.

What’s With All the Interest In Pinterest?: A Pinterest primer that explores what Pinterest is, why it matters, and how it could be used in your medical practice.

Local Search Optimization, Google+ Local, and the Future of Local Search: Mike Wilton’s AAFPRS Fall Meeting 2012 Presentation: If you missed my presentation from 2012’s AAFPRS Fall Meeting on local search optimization, this post gives you a recap of my presentation as well provides you access to the complete slide deck from the event.

Did Google+ Local Inadvertently Silence Doctor Reviews?:  After outcry from the medical community about a change to Google+ Local’s review policy we analyze what overall impact it may have and what doctors need to be aware of.

Seven Tips to Make Blogging Less Painful: In her very first post for Plastic Surgery Studios, Internet Marketing Specialist Emma Still outlines seven ways that doctors can make the blogging process a little bit more enjoyable while creating great content for their site.

Leveraging rel=”author” to Increase Blog Clickthrough, Visibility and Branding: In our very first post on the subject we outline how rel=”author” can be used on your blog and the benefits that come with it.  As we outlined in a recent post, rel=”author” is SEO’s latest “shiny thing” and while it generates a lot of great opportunities for your website, it’s also widely being misused.

Google Search Plus Your World: The Nail in the Rankings Coffin:  In January Google released “Search Plus Your World,” a feature that incorporates your content as well as your friends’ content from Google+ into your search results (when logged in to Google).  We outline why this was the final blow to using rankings as your core SEO performance metric.

Measuring the Social Media Metrics That Matter To Your Practice:  “Likes” and followers seem to be the two metrics every doctor obsesses over, but are they the right metrics to focus on?  In this post, we explore more actionable metrics that can help you further plan your social media efforts.

While 2012 has been filled with rapid changes, I predict that the pace will slow a bit in 2013.  I predict that most of the changes we see will come from the local and mobile space, and less from the organic search space.  This is mostly due to the fact that Google’s implementation of Penguin and Panda have reset the stage for what businesses need to do to show up in the search results.  They have to be useful and helpful; it’s getting harder and harder to scrape by in search with spammy SEO practices. Now businesses are going to have to focus harder on online marketing as a whole, with SEO just being one facet of all that they do.

Again, Plastic Surgery Studios was able to stay ahead of the game in 2012. Even with the additional updates from Panda and Penguin we saw our clients mostly go unscathed.  In 2013 we will continue to do our part and strive to stay ahead of the curve. It is our goal improve the medical marketing landscape by providing insight on forward-thinking strategies and techniques through our newsletter and blog.  If you haven’t already be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and get updates from our blog each time we post.

We hope  you’ve enjoyed our content over the last year, and we look forward to engaging with all of you more in the year to come.  If you have any questions or if there’s a topic you’d like us to cover more of in 2013, please let us know in the comments below.

The post A Year In Review: Our Top Posts of 2012 appeared first on Plastic Surgery Studios Blog.

The Local Pack

Though Google Places has been replaced with Google+ Local, it still appears from time to time in Google properties.  One place in particular is when displaying local search results in the classic local pack format.  The local pack, as you may remember, used to be Google’s way of integrating local search results into it’s organic search results.  These would be a stand-alone pack of local results that were displayed from Google Places completely independent of the organic search results.  Though rare, these listings still appear in Google’s search results and will appear with the text “Places for your query.”  The number of results may vary, but they will always feature the text “Places for…” above the results, such as in the example below.

This is the only identifier you will ever need to know in order to differentiate between blended and non-blended search results.  If your localized results say “Places for…” above them then you are dealing with non-blended search results that are simply displaying the ranking websites from Google+ Local (formerly Places), which have no organic tie-in.

Blended Results

Google’s blended results are the most common results seen in local search spaces today.  With the release of Venice and the need for more reliable local results you will almost always see a blended search result when Google feels the query has local intent.  Blended search results benefit from Google’s traditional search algorithm, as well as their local algorithm creating the hybrid result you now see in most local search spaces.  Below is a typical local result.  You will notice that it looks very similar to the local pack, however it does not feature the text “Places for…” above the results.

Many doctors feel that when they appear in the search results like those featured above they are not ranking organically.  It is important to realize that with the merger of Google+ Local and organic search, this is an organic listing and a ranking position.  The only time you should be concerned that you show up in localized results and nowhere else on the page is when the local pack is concerned.  In this case it would mean you are only ranking in Google+ Local and not in the organic search results.  With that said, let’s not forget…it’s not about rankings.

The post Will It Blend? Identifying Google’s Blended Local Search Results Versus the Local Pack appeared first on Plastic Surgery Studios Blog.

rel=”author” is not new.  In fact it was in existence even before Google’s June of 2011 announcement about it’s integration into the search results.  We first discussed how rel=”author” can help your blog back in February, but it seems that the rest of the medical internet marketing community has finally jumped on the wagon and decided to start pushing it more aggressively.  However, a lot of confusion (i.e., what it does, where to implement it) has developed with this sudden surge in interest. With that said I want to take a moment to try and tackle it from the perspective my team and I share.

Authorship ≠ Rankings

I have heard a lot of talk from companies/individuals about this subject, correlating a sudden spike in rankings with newly implemented authorship markup.  Understand that the use of authorship markup is still very much in its infancy.  As Google’s Othar Hansson pointed out in Google Webmaster Help video last year, “We want to get information on credibility of authors from all kinds of sources and eventually use that in ranking.  We’re only experimenting with that now. Who knows where it will go.”  This statement was mirrored in an interview with Google’s Sagar Kamdar earlier this year in his interview on Search Engine Journal, “We use over 200 signals to determine search ranking, and although authorship is not currently one of those signals, we hope to experiment with using information about authorship as a signal in ranking in the future.”  So to say that this is currently generating a significant boost in rankings is questionable.  As with anything, Google would need signals to identify you as an authority on the content, and simply implementing rel=”author” does not make you an authority.

I believe Google is currently in the phase of collecting and understanding signals that could be used to identify the authority of the author, which is currently being referred to as “Author Rank.”  You’ll notice that most content being published about Author Rank is speculation.  This is due to the fact that aside from some related patents from a few years back, there isn’t a lot of data from Google on what Author Rank will be, or how it will be calculated.  Until that is sorted out, I do not imagine we will see any significant ranking benefits from rel=”author” and even then it will simply become another of the 200+ factors Google looks at to rank content.

Authorship Isn’t For All of Your Content

I’ll start by saying that this is an opinion.  However it is an opinion that is currently shared by a number of people in the Internet marketing realm as we saw in the responses referenced in my post on rich snippet abuse.  rel=”author”, in my opinion, should not be placed on every page of your website.  When Google announced the use of authorship in the search results back in June of 2011 they referred to websites that would benefit from rel=”author” as sites with “authored content.”  In their examples they used names such as The New York Times, CNET, Entertainment Weekly, and the like. These are websites that are traditionally compiled of news articles and blog-type content, content that in my opinion is traditionally “authored.”

This is why we stand behind the idea that while you may be the author of your About Page, Homepage, or procedure page, these pages probably weren’t the sort of content Google intended for this sort of markup.  It’s a grey area for now, and because of that we gladly implement rel=”author” on blog or article content, but shy away from sitewide implementation.

The Known Benefits of rel=”author”

Because we are sticklers about how rel=”author” is used many feel that we are against it, or simply don’t want to use it.  I can assure you that this is a fallacy, and in fact we implemented it on our own blog early on.  When all is said and done, rel=”author” definitely has its benefits whether you stand behind our perspective or the perspective that it’s a free-for-all for any content.  Implementing rel=”author” can:

• Make your website eligible for authorship rich snippets in the search results, which feature your photo, name, a link to your Google+ profile, and a link to more posts by you
• Prepare your website for whatever uses Google has for authorship markup in the future
• Help search engines better understand your relationship to content that appears online
• Potentially increase click-through rates to your website when your authorship information appears in the search results
• Generate additional content suggestions when a user hits the back button from your website and returns to the search results

These are the knowns.  So to say it is generating any benefits other than those listed above is purely speculation.

What’s your take on rel=”author”? Is it free to use on any piece of content you’ve ever created (even that boilerplate home page copy) or should it be reserved for article-like content found on blogs and news sites?

The post Real Talk About Rel Author: Our Thoughts on rel=”author” Uses & Benefits appeared first on Plastic Surgery Studios Blog.

Link Quality > Link Quantity

One of the most common stories I hear behind multiple websites is the idea that the slew of additional backlinks from the additional sites will power the main website and improve its SEO efforts.  In theory, this makes sense, if you are putting forth a strong and unique SEO effort into all of the other websites the way you would your main site.  The problem is, most doctors are not and alas they have a fleet of websites with no authority, no backlinks, and typically shallow content solely in place to drive visitors to another website.  An even bigger problem could arise if the search engines felt that this fleet of sites is some sort of small link farm, which could ultimately not only hurt those sites, but your main website.  For the same amount of time and money it takes to create even the most shallow content and a fleet of new websites you could create quality content and generate stronger more authoritative links to your main website.

Keyword-Rich Domain = Rankings

It used to be that a strong keyword-rich domain was all you needed to show up for your desired query.  For instance, if you wanted to show up for “Your Town Plastic Surgery” you just had to buy yourtownplasticsurgery.com and you’d make a pretty fast leap to the top of the search results without a lot of authority behind the site simply because your domain name was so specific to the query.  Over time that lost some of its value and ultimately earlier this year Google released an update to its algorithm to target lower quality websites that were ranking based on their domain name alone.  In its wake, many websites with keyword-rich domains, but no substance, saw a decrease in rankings forcing them to rethink their strategy.  As mentioned above, most specialty and micro sites we come across have keyword-rich domains, yet very shallow or duplicate content.  Again, because the site is of poor quality and has had little effort put into it, it ultimately offers no additional value to your online presence.

Minor weather report: small upcoming Google algo change will reduce low-quality “exact-match” domains in search results.

— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) September 28, 2012

1, 2, 3 Search Results…

More websites equal more positions in the search results…right?  In theory, yes.  If your main website is authoritative enough and your other website has enough clout to rank, you could earn the number one and number two spots in the search results. The problem with this, however, is that ultimately you confuse your potential patients.  If they find your main website and then your specialty site, how do they know whichsite is really yours?  Or if they find your specialty site first and it’s less user-friendly, or they trust it less than your main site, they may be turned off by it and move on to another doctor.
Interestingly enough, while writing this post I discovered that Google’s John Mueller recently gave a webmaster similar advice in a thread in Google’s Webmaster Help Forums.

He wrote:

“I’d recommend focusing on a single website, instead of this collection of sites that you have now. In particular, I’d make sure that your single website is of the highest quality possible, that it contains unique (not rewritten / spun / reprocessed) content, content that’s relevant to the users of your site and compelling to them. Don’t keep this collection of low-quality sites, it’s really much better overall to focus on making a single fantastic site instead.”

This is similar to a statement he made in late November about localized websites built to rank for different areas.

Mueller also says: “Focusing on a single website makes it much easier for our algorithms to understand your site, the services you’re providing, and the regions that you service. Splitting that into separate sites for each location that you ship to not only makes it harder for our algorithms, but also for users (imagine if the post office did that).”

With all that said, yes, in the past Plastic Surgery Studios was a culprit in these practices.  However I stopped the company from offering these sites shortly after taking over as Internet Marketing Manager.  Doctors who have merged their websites have seen positive results, thanks to proper redirection of the sites and migration of content.  By investing in a single Web presence you can ensure your efforts are focused, targeted, and ultimately not diluting your overall Web presence and link equity.  Why spread your efforts across multiple websites when you can earn the same number of links, social mentions, and visibility on a single website with the same or less effort?

The post 10 Websites Later and Still No Results – Here’s Why! appeared first on Plastic Surgery Studios Blog.

Seasonality

Whether you’re a plastic surgeon or a family physician you are bound to see seasonal trends in your website traffic.  When it comes to your website traffic it’s important to look at year-over-year trends and understand exactly why you’re seeing dips in traffic. It may not be that something bad has happened, it may just be an impact of seasonal trends.

Holidays

One seasonal factor that impacts websites time and again is holidays.  Physician websites can see a significant decrease in traffic due to holidays.  With Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year’s around the corner you are bound to see dips in your website traffic. Though the winter holidays tend to generate the biggest decline, any holiday, from Easter to Memorial Day, can create a dip in website traffic because people are out celebrating with family and not bound to a computer screen.

Major Events or Disasters

By now we’ve all seen the devastation caused by hurricane Sandy on the east coast.  This monstrous storm has left many on the east coast without shelter, power, or Internet for the last couple of weeks.  Significant events like this can have a major impact on your website traffic, especially if you are in or near the epicenter of what’s taking place.  Below is an example of just how severe such an event can impact website traffic from an actual New York doctor.

The same could be said for other events, such as Election Day.  Though we’re still analyzing the data, one would assume that many doctor websites saw fewer visits on November 6th due to much of the public heading to the polls and closely watching the 2012 election results.

When reviewing your analytics data be mindful of what’s going on in your neck of the woods, as well as the entire country.  Major events and disasters happening offline can have a significant impact on what’s happening with your website online.

Ultimately, analytics data is best used when it’s fully analyzed.  Don’t just assume a drop in traffic is the result of poor website performance.  You have to take in a number of factors both offline and online to better understand the overall picture.  Is it an overall drop, or just a drop from search traffic?  Did it happen over the course of a day, or is this an ongoing trend?  Without proper analysis, you risk overreacting to something that may not actually be hurting you.

The post Two Factors That Can Impact Your Website Traffic You Probably Never Think Of appeared first on Plastic Surgery Studios Blog.

Transparency

Oftentimes Internet marketing companies claim to have a magic formula to earn rankings, traffic, and exposure for your website.  The fact of the matter is, Internet marketing should include insight from you and your practice.  At no point should an Internet marketing company keep you in the dark about what they are doing.

What To Consider:

Speak with an Internet marketing company in detail before you sign on the dotted line and get a solid understanding of what it is they are going to offer you.  Some questions to start with:

• What is your process for helping me achieve my goals? Do they run baselines? Do they perform an overall site audit? Do they analyze content?
• How do you build links to my website?  If they are unable to share this information, it’s possible they are involved in some sort of link scheme that may hurt your website.  Link acquisition can come from outreach, PR, and content development if done naturally and ethically.
• Will I have access to analytics and reporting? If they refuse to give you insight into the performance of your program, this too may be a sign that something fishy is going on.

One-Trick Ponies

We recently started working with a doctor who came to us on the tail end of an existing program with an SEO company that had been managing their efforts for a couple of years. As we transitioned the client and integrated them into our services the client was still in contact with the previous company during the transition due to some difficulties we were having with account access.  After speaking to the owner of the company the client was informed that the company was dropping out of the business because their SEO techniques were no longer working thanks to Google’s Panda and Penguin algorithm updates.  The problem with companies that only do “SEO” is that they are only focused on rankings and backlinks, often ignoring the bigger picture when it comes to the needs of search engines and consumers.

What To Consider:

SEO is a foundation to build upon for all of your online marketing efforts.  If you are only looking at the search engines for traffic and are ignoring all other online channels you risk living and dying at the hand of the search engines.  You want to be as visible as possible and not rely solely on just one online channel for your efforts. When choosing an Internet marketing company find out if they are familiar with, or offer, services that can help you with the following:

• Local Search
• Social Media
• Content Marketing

These elements will not only help your SEO, but will help create safety nets in the event something does happen to your search engine presence, after all even a site doing things right can be unintentionally penalized.

Hundreds, Thousands…MILLIONS OF LINKS!!

If you’re familiar with SEO, you know that backlinks are definitely part of the overall equation when it comes to showing up in the search results for certain queries.  However with Google’s Penguin update the game changed a bit in that Google was cracking down even further on unnatural link schemes.  If an Internet marketing company promises you X number of links per month, run…run like the wind!  The only way a company can guarantee link acquisition numbers is if they control the sites they are posting them on or they are doing a mass distribution via directories, blog comments, forum spam, or the like.

Large automated link schemes can give you some short-term gains, and if you wind up on top you’ll be loving life. But here’s the catch: If Google’s algorithm catches you, the time spent trying to get back to the top can be devastating to your business.

What To Consider:

The search engines are looking at more and more signals to establish the value and quality of a website when it comes to rankings.  While links are still very important there are means of obtaining them through content marketing and other outreach efforts that can help you grow your online presence.  As with anything in Internet marketing, its key to focus on quality not quantity.  Three high-quality, relevant links can hold the same weight, if not more, than 1,000 spammy links.

Guarantees and Rankings

First of all, rankings are no longer the core metric you should be looking at for your SEO efforts.  Putting all your effort into that one term that you think is the most important to your practice won’t bring you half the benefits of having an extensive catalog of terms driving traffic to your website.  Second, no one can guarantee rankings.

What To Consider:

As I pointed out when I wrote about choosing an SEO a few years ago, Google specifically points out that no one can guarantee search engine placement and if an Internet marketing company offers you a guarantee in ranking, this should be a red flag.

Rankings are influenced by so many factors these days thanks to personalization, that what I see, versus what you see, versus what your best friend down the street sees can be drastically different.  Because of this they are a) an unreliable metric, and b) hard to effectively track.

While it’s definitely valuable to have some insight to how your site performs from a ranking standpoint, if top rankings is the only thing your SEO team is preaching, you may want to start asking questions about traffic, referrals, and conversions.  If rankings are the focal point, oftentimes link schemes and webspam are the only means of adding value to your website and more often than not these will not drive additional quality traffic to your website.

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At Plastic Surgery Studios we focus on the long-term goals of your practice and work to help educate you on the trends that are going to help grow your practice both online and offline.  We want your practice to stand the test of time online and in the search engines.  Our methods are not tailored for short term gains at the cost of long term benefit.

Oftentimes our doctors will get pitches from outside SEO companies claiming to get them better results for one or two hot ticket keywords, or promise them rankings for every term under the sun.  But what these companies fail to realize is that we are looking at the bigger picture for our doctors and recognize that SEO is just the foundation of a strong Internet marketing effort.  We take into consideration traditional marketing and PR, recognizing that the industry as a whole is moving in this direction and that the sooner our clients adopt these practices the longer they’ll stay on top.

Our goal is to help you achieve your goals by becoming an extension of your medical practice.  If you’d like to know how Plastic Surgery Studios can help your medical practice, please contact us for information on some of our various Internet marketing services.

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