People have traditionally found doctors by relying upon referrals from friends or family. While encouraging your current patients to refer others to you is important, it is an unreliable method for growing your medical practice. Up until a few years ago, the only alternative was to launch an expensive advertising campaign. The problem was that Yellow Pages ads, radio spots, and mail-outs often failed to generate enough new patients to justify the cost.

Search engine marketing has completely transformed the manner in which medical professionals acquire patients and grow their practices. More than ever, consumers are venturing online to search for doctors. Below, we’ll explain how you can leverage search engine marketing to place your medical website in front of them and improve your case acquisition.

Positioning Your Practice With Search Engine Optimization

Millions of people visit Google, Yahoo!, and MSN each day to find solutions to their medical problems. Many of these people visit the search engines to look for doctors who can help them. Search engine optimization (SEO) involves using several proven techniques that work together to lift your medical website to the top positions for your most important keywords. When patients visit Google to look for a specialist in their area, they’ll find your practice’s website.

The top positions in the search engines’ organic (or natural) listings are reserved for those sites that are considered the most relevant for a given query. A ranking algorithm is used by each search engine to determine your site’s relevance. The algorithm considers dozens of criteria, including your website’s link profile and on-site copy. A well-formulated SEO campaign that caters to the algorithm will help your site rise in the organic rankings, positioning your medical practice in front of potential patients.

Pay Per Click Marketing For Cost-Effective Targeting

Like SEO, pay per click advertising plays a vital role in your overall search engine marketing campaign. While your website’s positioning within the natural listings are controlled by the organic ranking algorithms, pay per click (PPC) advertising allows you to bid for immediate exposure. A different algorithm influences your positioning. It is based upon the amount of your bid for each keyword and your PPC account’s Quality Score.

Pay per click advertising is a powerful strategy for acquiring new patients. It lets you define your budget, control the level of exposure your practice receives, and influence the amount of traffic sent to your medical website. Every component can be tracked. Each element can be tested and refined in order to continually improve your PPC campaign’s performance.

Case Acquisition Through Local Search Engine Marketing

Local search marketing has allowed medical professionals to hone their online marketing efforts and target those who live with a specific geographic area. You can integrate local search techniques within your organic and paid campaigns. On the organic side, you can have your medical practice included within a listing of local businesses that cater to a user’s given query. On the paid side, you can establish settings that limit your ads’ exposure to those who live within a given proximity to a specific map point. By narrowing the scope of your search engine marketing campaign, you can reach the patients that are more likely to visit your office.

Taking A Comprehensive Approach

A search engine marketing campaign is most effective when the individual components - SEO, PPC, and local search - dovetail seamlessly with one another. As your search engine optimization efforts slowly push your site to the top spots, your pay per click advertising delivers near-immediate traffic. The exposure is invaluable. It positions your website in front of those who are looking for your help. It allows you to educate prospective patients and attract new cases. When deployed properly, search engine marketing can dramatically grow your medical practice.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 11:27 am and is filed under Search Marketing.