Your Questions Answered (AAPM National Conference 2023)

While Instagram has its own set of SEO considerations, the goal is to create engaging and visually appealing content that resonates with your audience.

That said, there are ways to optimise your presence:

• Username/Handle: Your Instagram handle can influence your searchability, but it’s not the only thing. A username that’s relevant to your brand identity can help, but the impact is relatively small compared to other factors
• Your Instagram bio is a great place to include relevant keywords and a brief description of what you do or offer. This can improve your discoverability
• Hashtags: Using relevant and popular hashtags in your posts can significantly increase your discoverability and using them strategically can boost your visibility

As long as your articles are engaging and well written there is no such thing as “too long”. However, in our experience an SEO-focused blog should be around 800-1,000+ words depending on topic and depth.

Don’t forget that you can reuse your content over multiple social media platforms and posts and within newsletters. They can be a post-and-forget thing.

Remember that SEO efforts won’t get all your pages appearing high in results for all keywords you’re aiming for. In other words, with the average website ranking somewhere in Google’s search results for literally hundreds of terms, not all are going to appear in front of users.

We aim to rank our ads at the top of the page. It is true that some will choose the organic, if it’s high on the page, over an ad because they believe it to be more credible, but regardless the paid ad has a higher chance of appearing at the top of the page than an organic result anyway.

This is because search engines rank paid ads based on how much advertisers are willing to pay, not on keywords or relevance, even though these too form part of an ads makeup.

Depending on the service or product, paid ads are proven, have a shorter time to success, and they make you competitive with others in your industry sector plus they have targeting options that organic don’t have.

Lastly, if a competitor advertises and you choose not to, they will almost certainly always appear above your organic result and it won’t be 1 ad, in most cases it’ll be 3-4 ads before your organic result is even seen below the fold and down the page.

Note: you’ll also need a well-developed landing page to direct ad traffic to. This plays a large role in ROI and overall success.

We find monthly is ideal for newsletters, but that doesn’t mean you can’t send a few more “salesy” ones too.

Uploading them to a website can help with SEO efforts, but be sure they don’t clutter your more important pages like service and team pages.

3-5 times per week is a good starting point for many businesses.

The idea is to avoid the appearance of stagnation while keeping posts unique and the content varied.

Some good points to note (depending on platform):

• Keep inline with your branding (colours, styles, tone of voice, etc)
• Don’t post too many salesy posts, especially in row
• Keep social media “social” by posting content from your people such as events you may attend (the AAPM National Conference was perfect for that!)

We certainly do.

Some clients come to us with already-workable websites and others with something unusable they bought 15 years ago. We make the decision to revamp, or rebuild on a case by case basis.

Upgrading and/or overhauling a website means setting up your hub for advertising, analytics and scalability.

Remember, your website is one of the few things you actually own online.

Hint: You don’t actually own your social profiles.

This is similar to another question and the answer is the same: billing optimisation.

This is where, after looking at practice data, we direct marketing efforts to services that attract higher revenue and, in this case, doctors that require more bookings.

Put simply, this means filling schedules of certain doctors and/or with more profitable appointments which can often lead to more revenue without extra hours.

We can link an ad through to a specific doctor’s booking page.

No, you’ll need to link it to a personal account for administration purposes.

Note that the personal account used for managing the business page does not need to be used for personal interactions and you can limit the personal information you share.

Budgets depend on a wide range of factors, and there’s no one size fits all rule. The main thing to consider is how much you need to spend to reach your goals. Some markets may require a $6,000 per month spend, whereas smaller and less competitive markets may require $1,500 to be effective.

There are many words and phrases that Google won’t allow to be advertised. This includes prescription drugs, brand names (botox, mirena, for example).

This is known as ‘domain parking’ or ‘domain forwarding’. While it might seem like a way to boost your website’s SEO, it can have risks.

On the plus side is brand protection: Owning multiple domain names related to your brand can help protect your online brand identity and prevent competitors from using similar domains.

Some of the cons can include:

• Duplicate content: If all the domain names point to the same website without unique content or purpose, search engines may consider this duplicate content
• Low-quality content: Simply forwarding domains without adding valuable content can be viewed as low-quality or spammy
• Cost and maintenance: Purchasing and maintaining multiple domain names can be costly
• User confusion: Redirecting users from one domain to another can create confusion and a poor experience

This is an easy one to answer: billing optimisation.

This is where, after looking at practice data, we direct marketing efforts to services that attract higher revenue.

Put simply, this means filling schedules with more profitable appointments and can often lead to more revenue without the extra hours.

Conversion values can be calculated simply by knowing the value of an appointment at your clinic.

For example, the average for a standard consult in Australia is $70. We set up the conversions on your website to trigger every time a booking is made. When a booking is made, a conversion value of $70 is added to the analytics.

Over the course of the month all of these are added up, and that’s how we can see the total conversion value for the month.

Budgets depend on a wide range of factors, and there’s no one-size-fits-all rule.

The main thing to consider is how much you need to spend to reach your goals.

Some markets may require a $6,000 per month spend, whereas smaller and less competitive markets may require $1,500 to be effective.

In our experience, a medical business that is spending less than $1,500 per month has a very limited chance of success. Tiny budgets get tiny results.

First is the problem. Most doctors will already have a list of specialists they refer to, so with that in mind you need to consider when might a GP go searching.

• They’re a new GP without a network
• They’re in a rural area and unsure about specialist in more populated regions
• They’re unsatisfied with previous referrals

How would they find a specialist if they had no network? They go to something like :

• HealthPathways
• Specialist Connect
• The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP)
• The Royal Australian College of Surgeons (RACS)
• The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has a directory of its members

We’d be targeting ads to those that frequent these and similar sites where GP’s only congregate mainly using display ads in this case, to bring greater awareness to specialist services, and those in consideration phase.

We’d be planting the seed and pushing them to engage with specialist services by getting in front of their eyes.

This is a thoughtful, targeted approach that seeks to show ads where only GP’s hang out, not patients.

It may not eliminate all patient interaction but much of it and over time this can be honed to become more accurate as machine learning and artificial intelligence used in Google Ads campaigns understands more about what we are seeking to do.

This is all done in conjunction with good keyword and negative keywording that also contributes to removing patients from the equation.

Marketing in any business is never a set-and-forget, once-off job.

A more accurate question is: to what extent or to what degree would you recommend using digital marketing agencies for?

Luckily, digital marketing can be dialled up or down pretty easily and quickly, and we’re talking SEO, ads, content… and budget.

That said, keeping digital marketing ‘on the books’, even when you’re up and running is a good idea as medical staff come and go and service demand trends up and down.

Every website is unique and has a different set of requirements to set it up for success.

You should budget for at least a few thousand dollars for a business’s website to make sure you’re getting a high quality product.

You’ll want to ensure a solid base that allows advertising (should you go that route) and analytics.

Yes and yes (to a degree). We use blogs on multiple channels like social posts and newsletters, etc, and they help with SEO efforts.

An SEO-focused blog should be around 800-1,000+ words depending on topic and depth.

Blogs also position businesses as experts and authoritative, which can really influence potential customers’ choices.

While it’s rare that someone will read a blog from first to last word, people do read/skim parts to get an idea of your expertise.

Blogs can command huge traffic numbers over their multi-year lifetimes of relevance.

Every website is unique and has a different set of requirements to set it up for success.

You should budget for at least a few thousand dollars for a business’s website to make sure you’re getting a high quality product.

You’ll want to ensure a solid base that allows for advertising (should you go that route) and analytics.

This is an easy one to answer: billing optimisation.

This is where, after looking at practice data, we direct marketing efforts to services that attract higher revenue.

Put simply, this means filling schedules with more profitable appointments, which can often lead to more revenue without extra hours.

Firstly, some (certainly not all) words and phrases are forbidden or blocked by Google, meaning that you literally can’t advertise for those that Google knows infringe on guidelines.

The other answer is to hire a professional who’s familiar with healthcare advertising. Online advertising is complicated and time consuming, especially if you’re new to it, and this is where professional help really… helps.

We always recommend WordPress because it’s scalable, extendable, secure and really well supported by a huge online community.

WordPress has been around since the early 2000s and has two decades of refinement, something reflected in its usability and platform.

Other platforms, such as Wix and Squarespace are easy to use, but are very limited in terms of functionality. We often compare them to having a car that has a bonnet that won’t open.

Yes and yes (to a degree). We use blogs on multiple channels like social posts and newsletters, etc, and they help with SEO efforts.

An SEO-focused blog should be around 800-1,000+ words depending on topic and depth.

Blogs also position businesses as experts and authoritative, which can really influence potential customers’ choices.

While it’s rare that someone will read a blog from first to last word, people do read/skim parts to get an idea of your expertise.

Blogs can command huge traffic numbers over their multi-year lifetimes of relevance.

This is where Pay Per Click (PPC) online advertising really helps, as it’s somewhat immediate. You’ll need a landing page (where traffic from ads goes) and clear buttons to booking pages.

SEO is more of a mid and long-term approach, but typically attracts lower costs.