You Want New Patients not Rankings and Optimization

Let’s be honest. As a doctor, you don’t want search engine optimization (SEO). You want new patients from the internet.

In this day and age, you have two primary choices for how to get new patients from the internet. You can advertise or you can make sure that your website appears organically in as many places as possible. Within the later category, most people focus exclusively on ranking well in search engines, but you cannot ignore favorable placements on review, rating and directory websites all of which contribute to your overall online visibility.

The equation for success is:

High Online Visibility > More Website Visitors > More New Patients for the Internet


That’s why this page is about increasing your online visibility to attract new patients and not about the more narrow topic of SEO for doctors.


SEO for Doctors: Search Engine Marketshare Facts

As of the end of 2010, Google controlled about 65-70% of search traffic, the newly united Yahoo and Bing jointly controlled about 28-30%, and a handful of minor players split the remaining percentage points. That is good news for doctors because it means that you only need to manage rankings and traffic from two search sources. (Note: Do not pay for SEO services that list your practice in search engines. As you can see, only two engines matter and you will want to do these manually.)


SEO for Doctors: Search Result Selection Facts

What is a #1 organic search ranking really worth for your medical practice? Is it only slightly better than a #3 slot? Is it twice as good? Three times as good?

Numerous eye tracking and user behavior studies have tried to estimate what percent of users click on each search engine result. First, it is important to note that 97% of the clicks go to the doctors on the front page. Your SEO program must target the front page. Second, you will want to be ‘above the fold’. This term refers to the results that can be seen without scrolling – typically choices 1,2,3 and 4.

eye tracking of organic search engine result clicks

But what is the #1 slot worth to doctors like you? The studies we reviewed found that the #1 result in Google gets 37% to 56% of all the clicks for a given keyword. In the particular study shown above the numbers are:

  • # 1 rank- 56% of clicks
  • #2 rank- 13% of clicks
  • #3 rank – 9% of clicks
  • #4 rank – 4% of clicks
  • #5 rank – 5% of clicks
  • #6 to #10 – 11% of clicks

The correct conclusion is that you are much better off selecting a small number of critical keywords and working diligently for a #1 position, than you are selecting 10 keywords and ranking #6 to #10 for all of them. The top slot is highly coveted – and rightly so.

The doctor in your specialty area (chiropractic, dental, etc…)  that claims the top position in Google in your city, could receive over half of all web traffic for that keyword as a reward for excellent SEO. Unlike paid search, stellar SEO for doctors delivers fresh, free website traffic to be converted into new patients every day.


SEO for Doctors: Achieving Organic Google Ranking Changes

It is possible to achieve front page rankings for competitive keywords within a 90 day period. The 90 Day Google Ranking Improvements chart below is an excellent representation of what doctors should expect from their early SEO efforts. This chart follows 10 keyword phrases for one Washington-based chiropractor over an 85 day period. The days are on the horizontal axis (x). The Google Rank is on the vertical axis (y). Green and yellow shading indicates which results are on the front page (results 1 to 10) and second page (results 11 to 20), respectively. It is good to see the lines trend downward over time as this means the Google Rank is getting closer and closer to position #1.

This chart depicts what doctors in a medium to large city could reasonably expect from an organic ranking project, understanding that each situation is unique and that Google can change the underlying ranking algorithms at any time. This particular clinic is in a city with a population of about 120,000 and moderate SEO competition.

Things will get worse before they get better

The burgundy line in the chart tracks the main keyword targeted by this chiropractor. At the beginning of the project this website ranked in the #10 position for the main keyword – CITY chiropractor. Across the first 30 days, the ranking worsens and moves onto the second page of results. By Day 50 the practice website is solidly in the #4 position and by Day 85 it has locked up the #2 position on a consistent basis. If you work with us or any other SEO company, you should expect rankings to get worse before they get better. Do not judge until at least the 60 day mark. The roller coaster ride in between is normal.

Huge variations in rank will diminish

It is completely nonsensical for a website to rank #2 for ‘chiropractor CITY washington’ and to rank #10 for ‘CITY washington chiropractor’ since these are just reversals of the word order. Yet, this was exactly the case at the outset. Notice how the keywords in the legend are all very tightly related yet were ranking in wildly different places before we began. By Day 50 these variations were starting to go away with ranking results ranging from #3 to #9 and by Day 85 there was substantial convergence with rankings ranging from #1 to #4. Now the website appears ‘above the fold’ for all of these related keyword searches and it doesn’t matter exactly what is typed into the search box, because this doctor will always be among the top results.

PracticeLight Internet Organic Ranking Services

When you engage our expert team to raise your Google rankings, we will work with you to select 5 keywords to target in the first wave of activity. As we’ve described using the data above, it is to your advantage to work on a smaller number of high ROI keywords rather than spread your efforts thinly over many keywords.

We generally take a ranking snapshot every week for your chosen keywords as well as hundreds of others in order to monitor progress.

We guarantee front page rankings for at least four of your five selected keywords within 90 days or we will keep working for free until this goal is achieved. This eliminates nearly all the risk for you. Feel free to challenge us where others have failed. It wouldn’t be the first time that a client was told by another company that the keyword was ‘too hard’ but we were able to rank it within our guarantee time frame.

Once we tackle the first five keywords, we will select five more in batches to get you ranking for all of them on a consistent, stable basis.


How to Get Started

Contact us by email at info@practicelightinternet.com or phone (360-727-7970) for a complimentary site diagnostic and indicate that you are interested in the Organic Ranking Service. If you already know the keywords you want to target, include that in your message. If not, we will suggest which words have the potential to deliver the most traffic.


Standard Pricing

Standard pricing is a $1495 enrollment plus $250 per month. There are no contracts and you can walk away at any time. This price applies to most client in mid-sized cities. If you are in a city with a population under 50,000 you may qualify for a substantial discount.