Guide to Dermatology SEO and Digital Marketing

The dermatology field is a booming one, currently valued at about $7 billion. Those kinds of profits translate into a very large audience of prospective patients. In order to remain competitive in the market it takes more than just medical expertise.

An effective dermatology digital marketing strategy can take a dermatology practice from referral based to being able to generate patients on demand, and that’s where Brandlift can make a huge difference. We understand the intricacies of SEO and digital marketing and how to utilize various marketing tools to help your practice stand out from the competition.

One of the things that makes marketing a dermatology practice a tricky prospect is the fact that dermatologists actually serve two distinct client bases: those requiring dermatologic procedures for medical purposes and those seeking them purely for cosmetic reasons. An effective marketing plan has to reach both of these groups and draw them in to your website in order to turn those clicks into sales.

We’ve had particular success working with OC Dermatology, one of the top cosmetic dermatology practices in Southern California. Since we began handling their digital marketing in 2016, we’ve been able to grow thier practice revenue by over 100%. In one campaign for CoolSculpting they have gone from $34K to $82K per month in CoolSculptingsales and $988K in annual sales. That’s a significant difference and we can put those same strategies to work for your practice to help you see similar gains.

With that in mind, we’ve put together this updated guide to help answer your basic questions and give you some “pro tips” about effective digital marketing for your dermatology practice. We have included several “tactics” that we use for dermatology lead generation that we feel can help you market your dermatology services more effectively.

1. Integrated Marketing Strategy

Integrated marketing strategy is the process of ensuring a unified and omnipresent marketing approach. The most effective marketing plans are not just a website or SEO or just utilizing paid ads. An integrated marketing strategy delivers a consistent message that helps develop brand awareness across multiple channels and targets an audience wherever they are online.

That means implementing everything from pay per click ads to social media, display, and your website so that your prospective customers will remember your name when the time is right. This can be the key difference between initially drawing a customer’s interest and converting that interest into a sale, which is the ultimate goal of any successful marketing strategy.

2. On-site SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, is one of the most powerful forms of online marketing when done effectively. SEO means following Google’s best practices to get your website ranked in the top search results. An effective dermatologist SEO strategy starts with keyword research and understanding what relevant terms people are searching for in your area and designing your website content around these keywords. There are two basic types of SEO, “on-site’, which improves your marketing approach by optimizing the use of various elements on your own website, and “off-site”, which involves building your online presence besides your own site. Off -site SEO is a lesser used tactic by inexperience SEO’s but it influences a large part of how Google ranks websites.

Pro Tips:

1. Make sure your website loads in under 3 seconds and is secured.

2. To grow rankings make sure your website has a depth of content on each subject you want to rank for.

3. Utilize digital PR or “link building” to get your website linked from relevant articles around the web to grow your websites authority.

3. Link building

In the field of dermatology, word of mouth can mean everything. Frequently, dermatologists rely on the recommendations of satisfied customers to drive other potential customers to their practice. In the world of digital marketing that kind of “word of mouth” referral comes in the form of embedded linking.

When a clickable link is embedded in the text of one page directing users to another page or another site, it tells the viewers of that site that the linked site is worth checking out. The more quality links you are able to place in other sites, the more you can expand your potential audience which is what makes this such an effective tool in an overall digital marketing strategy.

It’s not only potential customers who put these links to use however. Search engines like Google can also use these links to discover new websites and to determine where an individual site should rank in their results. With that in mind, improving your network of links can only help to improve your digital presence and may ultimately translate to increased profits down the line. Google’s algorithm uses “backlinks” to determine just how authoritative your site is on a certain topic.

Pro Tip: If you find that your website is ranked low on page one or page 2, link building could be the secret sauce to increase your rankings.

4. PPC/Google Ads

When it comes to advertising in the highly competitive dermatology field, pay per click ads such as Google Ads can be an extremely effective marketing tool. Google Ads for dermatology can help to position your business at the top of search engine results, an advantage that cannot be emphasized enough.

Brand awareness is certainly important for any dermatology practice but it is only the first step in the digital marketing process. It is also crucial to ensure that potential customers are being directed to your website through search engines and Google Ads is one way to achieve this. Google’s #1 revenue producer is search ads and if you are not running google ads you are most likely missing out on a large percentage of market share.

As with any type of marketing avenue, though, the ultimate value of Google Ads depends on how effectively they are used. Google Ads carries a fairly high cost per click for dermatology related keywords, which translates to a high cost per lead. As such, you need to be sure that you are getting the most return on that investment.

Pro tip: To maximize your return, put your emphasis on the specific keywords that are generating the most leads and ignore lower performing keywords. With the competitiveness of the dermatology market, you have to do everything you can to make your practice stand out and to generate leads. By increasing the percentage of clicks that ultimately lead to phone calls and form fills, you’ll see dramatic results in your bottom line. fo

5. Responsive Web Design

One of the more underestimated tools in digital marketing is responsive web design. This means optimizing your website design so that it can be easily used on mobile devices. According to current statistics, more than 58% of American adults own a smartphone and almost 60% of all website traffic is from mobile devices.

With numbers like that, it’s easy to see why it is so important to ensure that mobile users can easily access and navigate your site. Even if they are directed to your site through search engine results, if users encounter a layout that is skewed, out of proportion or impossible to navigate on their phones or tablets they could still be turned away. Also, it’s important to note that sites that are mobile friendly tend to rank better overall in the search results.

You can use various tools including CSS media queries, layouts and grids to ensure that your website looks its absolute best on every type of device, which can translate to landing more paying customers.

6. Facebook + Instagram Ads

As with all advertising, the effectiveness of digital advertising relies on identifying and approaching your target audience. Facebook ads for dermatology practices are best utilized for marketing cosmetic treatments, however can be utilized for growing purely medical practices as well.

One of the best ways to do that is through paid ads on Facebook, Instagram and other social media, which tend to have a wide ranging audience that covers both genders and many age groups. Facebook in particular can be extremely effective for ensuring a good ROI if it is properly used in conjunction with other types of digital marketing tools.

When formulating your approach on Facebook it is important to keep some specific points in mind:

Identify your audience. Facebook is particularly effective for reaching the female audience aged 35-60+, but pretty much any audience can be reached via this platform.
Make sure your offer is compelling. Give people a call to action that requires them to take action now and be creative on how you are packaging your services and getting people to sign up for consultations.
Make every word/picture count. Again, most Facebook users tend to spare only a couple of seconds for any given ad, so you have a very limited amount of time to draw them in. Fortunately, the dermatology field relies very heavily on visual results so you can use that to your advantage here by making your ad stand out visually and capturing the attention of potential customers.
Don’t get hung up on “likes.” On a social media site like Facebook it’s easy to get a false sense of security when you see your number of “likes” going up, but likes don’t necessarily equate to sales and in marketing sales are what really count. For this reason, you need to keep your eye on conversions, which will give you a much more reliable way of knowing just how effective your marketing campaign really is.

In the dermatology field, a good digital marketing strategy can make all the difference. At Brandlift, we offer a free thirty minute digital marketing consultation as well as a free SEO Audit to help maximize your digital marketing strategy and improve the return on your investment. Contact us if you have any questions and we’ll help you stand out from the competition and get the results you want.