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