Managing your online marketing budgets: SEO, Google AdWords, Yelp, reputation management website profile boosting? What's a doctor to do?

I have been hearing more and more questions over the past few weeks about the balance between marketing through traditional means, SEO, Google AdWords, Yelp and other paid ads/profile boosts on reputation websites

It's a difficult question and really depends on how much money you want to put into your overall marketing plan. For the vast majority of medical/healthcare practices, SEO and paid Yelp advertising is not going to make a large impact to your practice for the amount of money that you're going to spend.

I had the opportunity to review the SEO analysis that was performed for one of my current clients. This client is a physician working in the NW suburbs of Chicago. He sees about 10-15 patients a day and is really looking to increase his patient base. He was paying an SEO company $500 per month for his campaign. 

When we looked at the overall results of the campaign over the past 6 months, we saw that he was averaging 30-40 new visits to his website per month. So that calculated out to about $15/new visitor. In my opinion, THAT'S EXPENSIVE!!!!

A preliminary test on Google AdWords yielded an estimate for PPC (Pay Per Click) of about $1.50. This means that for approximately $50/month, he could have had the same amount of traffic driven to his website as through his $500/month SEO initaitve. Alternatively, he could take the $500/month and have over 330 visitors to his site! Needless to say, we implemented a test $50/month AdWord Campaign and tracked using Google Analytics and found that there has not been any significant dropoff in site traffic compared to when he was using an SEO company. As such, I highly recommend a simple AdWords campaign before spending significant money on a SEO campaign. It's my opinion that SEO campaigns are generally much more successful for bigger practices with 20+ doctors that are cross-specialty and have significantly more marketing dollars available. For smaller practices, a simply managed AdWords campaign can be as effective for 1/10th the cost.

Further, Physician Reputation websites are becoming more and more valuable. Rather than using SEO, I would suggest profile boosting on reputation sites such as HealthGrades or Vitals. The cost is significantly cheaper and I have seen additional pull-through on new clients from the sites. You also get the benefit of an third party company that's good at SEO to push your practice for you on their site.

Finally, I want to reiterate the growing value of Google+. Implementing content via blogs, posts, and discussion on Google+ is IMHO the cheapest and best way to gain access to the Google Search Engine. Google is in the process of implementing new measures that will really cut down on the value of SEO companies and the keyword stuffing and backlinking techniques that they are currently using. Google is focusing more and more on NEW content. For the majority of you, this is a challenge that cuts into your free time. In that sense, I think it's a trade-off. What is more important to you, $500/month or 30 minutes of your time twice a month. If you have the hour per month, I think that you can get equivalent value. 

There are lots of options. Each practice is different. Don't let anyone tell you that their single solution is the right fit for yours. Ask questions and be informed about what you are getting!

If you need help making the right decisions, HCP Buzz can help by provide concierge marketing support for Health Care Professional. Call us today at 312-725-4574 and find out how we can assist your practice maximize its potential online!

www.hcpbuzz.com

Google hides keywords and encrypts searches - What does this mean for Doctors, Dentists, Chiropractors, Podiatrists and other Health Care Professionals?

Health Care Professionals (HCPs) have been long sold on the virtues of SEO and keywords. I know many doctors and dentists that spend hundreds of dollars every month in hopes of marketing to prospective patients looking for specific services in their area. SEO professionals would provide Google Analytics to show how many people were coming to their practice websites and create ROI data that sometimes met ROI expectations.

Limitations on the information coming out of Google has been creeping for some time now. Approximately 15% of keyword searches were encrypted in 2012. In August 2013, that number has climbed to 50%. Many expects now predict that all keyword searches will be encrypted by early 2014 [Econsultancy, Aug 2012]

As these encrypted searches have been implemented, SEO specialists are looking for backdoor answers, hacks, and other out of the box solutions to gain information for their customers. Google's new initiatives have severely restricted the ability of businesses to learn what keywords will lead to the most return.

The "new" Google is truly working to prevent SEO Gurus from "gaming" the search algorithm. As a result, it is now even more important for HCPs to be focused on alternative means of reaching their potential customer base. Social media and reputation management sites provide an excellent opportunity for HCPs to engage their user base with information. This fits in nicely with Google's new methodology of creating content rather than regurgitating the web in various forms. In the past few months we have seen posts for our clients making page one of Google searches for what we believe to be critical search keywords. The value proposition for this is significant in comparison to the amount of money these clients were spending on SEO to achieve the same results.

To this end, it is critical that HPCs critically evaluate the continued value of their SEO marketing plans. Without the ability to properly track the results, a proper strategy should include a shifting of some marketing budget to social media and reputation management.

IF your practice is interested in learning how HCP Buzz can provide a cost effective solution to improving your practice's online presence through social media and reputation management, give us a call at 312-725-4574 or email us at support@hcpbuzz.com.

 www.hcpbuzz.com