Americans spent $16 billion on minimally-invasive procedures and cosmetic plastic surgery in 2016, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). That number is set to grow exponentially in the next decade. While it’s clear the audience for aesthetic services is big, what may be less clear is how to get their attention.
For medical aesthetic practices, a website is an absolute must. But it’s not enough on its own. Given the explosion of information online and the competition in this market, a digital marketing strategy, including tactics to improve your search engine rankings, is imperative if you want a healthy share of this audience for your medical aesthetic practice.
Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and others use algorithms to rate websites. These algorithms rely on a variety of factors to determine a website’s ranking. Some of these include relevance, popularity, trustworthiness and quality.
The process of improving your website’s organic, or unpaid, search results is known as search engine optimization or SEO. This can include using keywords, offering fresh, useful content on a regular basis, and making sure your site is mobile-friendly, loads quickly and is easy to use.
Effective SEO can deliver good search rankings, but it doesn’t happen overnight. Search engines must have time to discover and rate your website against all the others. Done right, this takes time and effort (and often done through paid help) to increase your organic search rankings.
With organic search, there is no guarantee that your website will rank among the top listings despite your efforts to boost its performance.
Paid search, often referred to as search engine marketing (or SEM), is an alternative to organic rankings and does what it says, i.e., advertisers pay to improve their website’s search rankings. Paid search positions your website within the top of the search rankings alongside other websites that are also paying.
Paid search results resemble organic search results, except for a small label which indicates otherwise. Many consumers are unaware that there is a difference between the two.
Fortunately, businesses of any size can use paid search, allowing them to compete online with much bigger businesses. Paid search costs the advertiser a predetermined amount every time a potential customer clicks on their website.
Whereas organic search results take time to develop, paid search gives you an immediate return, i.e., ranking your website within the top listings of a search. Google Ads is the most well-known paid search platform, as Google is by far the most popular search engine, so this can be a good place to start if you are interested in exploring paid search.
As with any marketing tactic, organic and paid search should be part of a comprehensive and integrated marketing plan. For additional marketing strategy support for your business, reach out to the aesthetic medical marketing experts at Reach Beyond Marketing: 203-315-5055.