September 2012: Geo-Targeting

Recent Posts

Categories

Archives

The key to practice branding

eMarketer has reported that consumers are two-thirds more likely to convert if they see you more than one place online. Obviously, your practice website should be the primary focus of your online visibility in order to ensure that consumers can easily find information about you and the procedures you offer when they search online for a doctor or dentist. But your strategy shouldn’t stop there. Being found elsewhere online increases your branding value, as well as the value of your website visibility and word-of-mouth referrals.

Most people considering an elective procedure begin by researching the procedure on Google. Prospective patients want to learn about the different treatments before deciding to proceed. Even people who have received a referral from a friend or family member want to research the options before scheduling an appointment. It makes sense – why spend time choosing a doctor if you’re not sure yet whether you want to have a procedure performed?

Many consumers begin their search with large educational websites. Establishing an affiliation with a credible educational website obviously lends credibility to you and your practice. The question is, from a branding standpoint, how do you ensure that consumers will associate you with the site’s content, especially those consumers who are not yet looking for a doctor? The answer: geo-targeting.

Geo-targeting is a technology that detects the location of a website visitor and displays local information to him or her. In 2011, Ceatus was the first company in the elective health care industry to “geo-target” its clients on all sections of its educational portals. Profiles of local doctors (Ceatus clients) are now displayed in conjunction with hundreds of consumer education articles relating to a vast array of medical and dental procedures (dental implants, presbyopia correction, body lift, etc.). Our geo-targeting strategy effectively ties Ceatus clients to these doctor-reviewed articles on each of our portals.

Following the introduction of geo-targeting on all Ceatus educational portals, leads from prospective patients soared. This unique technology establishes branding for our clients and their practices, not only with consumers who are ready to call for a consultation, but also with those in the early research phase. Our clients always appear in the content, regardless of the buying mindset of the consumer. When a consumer is ready to buy and is looking for a doctor, the doctor’s brand has already been established.

In 2012, Ceatus took geo-targeting to an unprecedented level by expanding the strategy to our before and after galleries and testimonials pages. Research shows that when learning about a procedure, consumers ask themselves one thing, primarily: How will the procedure benefit me? The most heavily-visited pages of educational websites are the before and after galleries and testimonials pages. These pages give consumers an idea of how the procedure has worked for others. Consumers visualize potential results for themselves by viewing the results of others.

With the expansion of our geo-targeting strategy to these highly visited pages, consumers who want to view before and after mommy makeover photos, or a gallery of smile makeovers, for example, are now automatically presented with before and after photos from local doctors, with the doctor closest to the patient being listed first. It’s human nature to believe that doctors listed at the top are the best; consumers naturally think, “These are the best doctors offering the procedure, and they are local.” By utilizing geo-targeting on our before and after galleries, Ceatus offers a very unique branding opportunity for doctors.

In June 2012, we added geo-targeting to the before and after galleries of Consumer Guide to Bariatric Surgery. The already-high number of email leads coming from this site increased dramatically – overnight, essentially. The graph shows the increase in visitors to our doctor-clients’ profiles after the geo-targeting technology was implemented with the before and after galleries. This graph clearly demonstrates the power of geo-targeting for the branding of our clients’ practices.

Geo-targeted Before and After Gallery Launched Here

Contact Ceatus today to learn about how your practice can be branded with local consumers searching for information about specific elective procedures.

Back to top

Ask the experts

Q My website ranked well for years, but over the past 2 to 3 months rankings have fallen substantially. What would cause such a sudden change?

A A number of different factors can affect website rankings, but over the last few months Google has been penalizing websites that have “artificial or unnatural” links directed to them. To determine if you have fallen victim to this penalty, ask your webmaster or SEO company if you recently received a message in your Google Webmaster Tools account starting with these words: “We’ve detected that some of your site’s pages may be using techniques that are outside Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.” If you received this message, then dramatic changes to your site may be needed to restore your rankings.

Events: What Is Your Google Potential?

Come by the Ceatus booth for a FREE website evaluation!

Plastic Surgery The Meeting

New Orleans
Dates: October 26-30
Booth: 1222

Ceatus Media Group will be exhibiting at Plastic Surgery The Meeting, an annual event put on by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). Taking place at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, this is the most comprehensive plastic surgery meeting in the world. Plastic Surgery The Meeting represents a full range of medical professionals, from physicians to nurses, physician assistants to technicians. Ceatus CEO David Evans, PhD, will be giving a 15-minute presentation titled “Are You Maximizing Your Internet Strategy?” Come by booth 1222 for a free evaluation of your website’s Google potential from a Ceatus Internet marketing expert!

American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO)

Chicago
Dates: November 10-13
Booth: 3102

The American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) is committed to providing the best possible eye care to patients by furthering the educational and professional interests of ophthalmologists. This year’s meeting will take place November 10-13 at McCormick Place in Chicago. Ceatus Internet marketing experts will be offering FREE website and SEO evaluations in booth 3102!

Greater NY Dental Meeting (GNYDM)

New York
Dates: November 23-28
Booth: 4810

The Greater New York Dental Meeting (GNYDM) is the largest annual dentistry meeting in the United States. This event has attracted over 53,789 attendees from all 50 states and 132 countries. This year’s 88th annual meeting features an extraordinary and unparalleled educational program featuring some of the most highly recognized educators in the dentistry field. Speak with one of our Internet marketing experts at booth 4810 and learn how you can increase conversion and bring new patients to your door!

The Cutting Edge Aesthetic Surgery Symposium

New York
Dates: November 29, 30 & December 1

The Cutting Edge Aesthetic Surgery Symposium 2012 will take place in New York City from November 29 to December 1, 2012 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. The attendees at this symposium will include plastic surgeons, facial plastic surgeons and otolaryngologists from around the world. Ceatus Internet marketing experts will be available throughout the symposium to assess the effectiveness of your website’s call to action along with other important features that are critical to increasing your patient volume.

Back to top

 

CEATUS Case Study of the Month

Jonathan Frantz, MD

Background: Dr. Jonathan Frantz is a board-certified ophthalmologist who practices in southwest Florida. He has five locations, offers comprehensive ophthalmology services and performs a high volume of LASIK and cataract surgery. Dr. Frantz has excellent word-of-mouth referrals and his practice website ranks well for searches in the Fort Myers/Naples area. He wanted to build on this foundation by enhancing his online visibility.

Solution: In 2006, Dr. Frantz chose to list in Ceatus’ LASIK Directory on All About Vision for a number of reasons. All About Vision is a 500-page website that receives more than 1 million visitors per month and ranks for a wide range of vision correction search terms that Dr. Frantz’s practice website does not rank for. All About Vision also provides comprehensive doctor-reviewed eye care education. He felt that positioning his practice in the LASIK Directory would build more credibility for his practice and enhance his word-of-mouth and website referrals. Data shows that consumers look at more than one website when researching procedures, so Dr. Frantz wanted to be visible in multiple places online. The Ceatus Directory worked like a charm.

Results: Dr. Frantz and his staff closely monitor the leads generated from AAV and have found that the practice is receiving an extraordinary ROI. Dr. Frantz’s profile in the Ceatus LASIK Directory on All About Vision worked so well, in fact, that when Ceatus introduced their premier Cataract Surgery Directory in 2010, Dr. Frantz secured a listing immediately. He has also renewed his LASIK profile every year since 2006!

Back to top

Super Steakhouses

There is definitely no shortage of steakhouses these days. But finding a great steakhouse? That’s the hard part. Here are some of the best steakhouses at five upcoming tradeshow destinations – Las Vegas, Dallas, New York, San Diego and Chicago. But don’t take our word for it – try out these super steakhouses for yourself!

Las Vegas
CUT

Attention steak connoisseurs! Master chef Wolfgang Puck brings his critically acclaimed, award-winning Beverly Hills steakhouse to Las Vegas! CUT provides a selection of house-made sauces, including their signature Argentinean Chimichurri, to accompany their entrées and appetizers. At CUT’s bar and lounge, guests can enjoy custom cocktails and try smaller appetizers such as the Mini Kobe Sliders and Tuna Tartare Sandwich. This super-chic steakhouse is one of the most popular restaurants in the United States and has acquired high praise from a number of prestigious publications, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal. It was deemed one of the top three steakhouses in America by Bon Appétit.

Dallas (Addison)
Chamberlain’s Steak and Chop House

There’s nothing more satisfying to a meat lover than a savory prime cut of beef. Since its opening in 1993, Chamberlain’s Steak and Chop House has served some of the finest steaks and prime rib in Dallas – not to mention top-quality seafood. Featuring American Raised Kobe Beef, Spiced Seared Ahi Tuna and Honey Glazed Pork Chops, Chamberlain’s has a menu that caters to all taste buds. Rated one of “2008’s Best Restaurants” by D Magazine and named “Best in DFW” by the Dallas Morning News in June of this year, Chamberlain’s continues to impress after 16 years in business.

New York
Delmonico’s

Located in the heart of Manhattan’s financial district, Delmonico’s opened in 1837 as America’s first fine dining restaurant. Birthplace of the Delmonico Steak, Baked Alaska and Eggs Benedict, this restaurant introduced two luxuries unheard of at the time – private dining rooms and an extensive wine cellar. The interior at Delmonico’s features dark mahogany paneling, massive chandeliers, and a series of paintings depicting the restaurant’s history. Come to Delmonico’s to see why Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln and nearly two centuries worth of poets, socialites, celebrities and past presidents have all dined at this historic landmark.

San Diego
Lou & Mickey’s

Situated in the heart of the Gaslamp Quarter is Lou & Mickey’s. Known for its Prime Steaks, Chops and Combos, Lou & Mickey’s is the place to go if you want to satisfy your palate with succulent beef or seafood. Their classic American dishes can be paired with a glass of wine and delectable appetizers such as the Teriyaki Filet Mignon Tips, Jumbo Lump Crab Cake and Oysters Rockefeller. Come experience the restaurant’s Midwestern hospitality and see why Lou & Mickey’s earned the Gaslamp Association’s 2007 “Lamplighter Awards” for “Best Service in a Restaurant” and “Best Wine List.”

Chicago
Gene & Georgetti

One of Chicago’s oldest and finest steakhouses, Gene & Georgetti has been around for over 67 years. The steaks are stored for 28 days in vacuumed-sealed bags before being carefully escorted into a 1,100-degree broiler. Gene & Georgetti’s steaks are renowned for their enchanting crust. The restaurant has played host to legends like Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, and Lucille Ball as well as modern day celebrities like Russell Crowe, Keanu Reeves, Vince Vaughn, and Will Ferrell. Come see why these media magnates come to Gene & Georgetti to indulge in the best wet-aged steaks in the city.

Back to top

Read about our Case Study of the Month

Product Highlight

Website Hosting and Backup

Choosing a website company with dependable hosting and backup is key to the growth of your practice

The yellow pages used to be the path to new patients. Now, your website is what attracts patients to your practice. A great website design that captures and converts visitors is invaluable to practice growth. But if your website is down, or without proper backup, it suddenly becomes useless.

Ceatus places tremendous focus on ensuring that our clients’ websites are always available for potential and current patients to visit. This focus encompasses a comprehensive agenda, including proper selection of the hosting company, website availability monitoring, frequent backups, cloud storage and website redundancy.

Website Hosting Providers

For any website development company, the first step is to select a website hosting provider. At Ceatus, only hosting providers that maximize SEO and conversion are used. Most website companies, in order to save money, simply use the same hosting provider for all of their clients. Most of their clients’ sites are stored on the same server(s). This approach can (and frequently does) create problems for a number of reasons. First, when all sites are stored in the same place, the search engines “perceive” that the sites are all owned by the same entity. When co-located sites link together, the SEO value of these links is greatly reduced. Also, Google now places SEO importance on the load-time of websites. Load times for inexpensive hosting providers are often slow, thus affecting the rankings of the sites they provide Internet service to – and potentially causing you to lose prospective patients if they have to wait too long for your site to load. Video is now an important component of educating patients and providing testimonials, but videos that load too slowly lose significant value. And finally, if a website company is so focused on its own bottom line that it stores all of its clients’ sites on one server, then it probably also stores all of the backup sites with the same company.

What does this mean to you and your practice? Without a backup and/or redundancy setup, even common problems such as power outages and network issues can take your website down for quite some time. To make matters worse, more severe problems, such as fires or earthquakes, will most likely take your website down forever.

Availability Monitoring

Our next step, once a hosting provider has been selected, is to establish availability monitoring. When your website is uploaded to the server, monitoring software is activated that constantly monitors whether your site is accessible by potential visitors. Interruptions do occur in the electronic world; however, they don’t have to be a crisis. If one of our clients’ sites goes offline, an email is immediately sent from this monitoring software to the Ceatus IT staff, no matter what the time is, day or night. This monitoring also allows Ceatus to evaluate and compare each hosting company to determine which provides our clients’ sites with the highest percentage of “up-time.” Only those hosting providers with the best up-time are used for Ceatus clients.

Programming Languages

The language used to program your website matters. Some website development companies use proprietary or outdated programming languages, such as Cold Fusion, PHP or .net. This can create a problem from a hosting standpoint, because most hosting providers do not offer hosting for the full range of website languages. The selection of hosting companies is greatly reduced when non-standard languages are used. If your website hosting company goes down, a replacement hosting provider may be difficult to acquire. The result: a big delay in getting your site back online. All Ceatus sites are constructed in HTML; and, importantly, all databases associated with the sites, such as blogs, are hosted separately from the hosting provider. The reason we choose HTML? Virtually all hosting providers have the capability to host HTML-based websites. This strategy ensures the greatest flexibility in hosting and, more importantly, ensures that potential patients have access to your website.

Website Backup

Website backup is also critical. If the server that is hosting your website crashes, then a backup copy of your website is needed to reinstall the site on a new server. If no backup is available, you have a problem. At Ceatus, multiple layers of backup are used. No other company in the industry has such an extensive backup system. A copy of each client’s website, and all files associated with the website, are stored on the primary Ceatus server in a temperature-controlled, electrically-isolated server room at a secure location. These files are also stored onsite on backup Ceatus servers. Each month, all files are downloaded to tapes and these tapes are stored offsite in a bank lockbox. Even though practice websites do not change on a daily basis, each night the websites and files are uploaded offsite to Amazon Web Services, which is the leading cloud solutions company for storing websites and data. This data is stored for 30 days, which gives each client 30 versions of his or her website – one for each of the previous 30 days. Thanks to this backup system at Ceatus, a live website is available 24/7 to upload to a new server if there is a problem with the hosting provider or your current website. Ceatus also has a backup copy of your live website, the ability to retrieve a copy of the website from each day for the previous 30 days, and the ability to retrieve a copy of the website from each of the previous 12 months.

No company can guarantee 100% up-time for your website, but with Ceatus’ hosting and backup system, our clients can rest assured that site availability will not be a factor in determining the success of their practice Internet strategy.

The next newsletter will address website redundancy, cloud storage of blogs, video serving using the Amazon CDN (content delivery network) and backup of email leads from your website.