The dermatology patient journey has four steps. We will discuss these steps while demonstrating to you how PHARMED targets dermatology patients in every step of their journey through the use of dermatology ads and other marketing efforts.

​

Step 1: Dermatology Symptom Awareness

 

In the first part of their journey, dermatology patients are experiencing symptoms and are looking ONLINE for contextualization, reassurance, and diagnosis. Common early dermatological symptoms for patients may include pain and discomfort, i.e. itchiness, rashes, discoloration of the skin, and more.

Patient problem: ​Finding relevant information regarding their symptoms.​

Your Solution: Dermatological symptom awareness and an awareness of your own brand.

​

At this stage, dermatology patients may not be acquainted with your dermatology practice name or brand name. You can increase familiarity with these things amongst prospective patients by offering tangible value: Appropriate, balanced, scientific information relevant to their symptoms.

We can do this together with: 

• Content Generation for Dermatological Symptom Awareness

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• Search Engine Marketing (SEM, Google Ads)

• Social Media Marketing (SMM, Facebook Ads)

 

​

Content Generation for Symptom Awareness

Unless your presence in the digital realm, such as your dermatology practice website, have appropriate content, patients will be more inclined to book with competing practices. Content should include keywords relevant to dermatology services you offer, accompanied by detailed explanations of symptoms that you treat.

 

We can do this together with:

1. Disease Awareness Presentations

2. Medical Brochure Design

3. Keeping an up to date dermatology blog on your website.

 

 

Dermatology Awareness Presentations

 

Why disease awareness presentations?

Over 90% of patients use Google to search for symptoms and diagnosis before they start searching for a doctor.

​

You, as a dermatologist, are responsible for ensuring that your patients are educated and shielded from misinformation on the internet, making disease awareness presentations vital. Additionally, there are significant benefits for you, as disease awareness presentations will:

• Demonstrate your authority in the field

• Show patients that you genuinely care about their wellbeing and dermatological health

• Boost organic traffic to your dermatology website

• Ultimately increase your reputation and get more appointments booked.

 

What are the PHARMED disease state presentations?

PHARMED doctors and medical writers will produce for your practice a unique disease state presentation consisting of 40 slides that include content, graphs, images, and peer reviewed journal references. These presentations will be created such that they are perfectly adapted to your target audience. Sample contents of a disease state presentation include:

​

• Overview of dermatological disease

• Epidemiology and Burden of dermatological disease

• Pathophysiology

• Aetiology

• Symptoms & Signs of dermatology-related disease

• Diagnosis

• Prognosis

• Management

 

Medical Brochure Design

 

Why do I need brochures for my dermatology practice?

Working closely with designers, PHARMED medical doctors will produce for your practice a professionally illustrated brochure. This will provide you and your practice a powerful way to:

• Demonstrate your services and staff to colleagues in order to create a stable route of travel for referrals to reach new patients.

• Showcase your expertise and dermatology branding.

• Explain dermatology treatments & services to patients.

• Use call to action to get more dermatology appointments.

• Offer promotions that will draw in both existing and new patients to your practice.

 

Dermatology Blog Content

The content included on Dermatology Websites forms the basis of online visibility for dermatology practices. The best way to increase your website content without negatively impacting users' experience with the website’s navigation is through blogging. PHARMED’s signature dermatology website comes with an active dermatology blog module that allows you to produce blog entries yourself, or rather, leave it to PHARMED doctors to blog on your behalf.

 

Why do I need others to blog on my behalf?

Subscribing to the PHARMED dermatology blogging package will provide for you a medical doctor or healthcare professional who will produce original blog content for your dermatology website. Here are the benefits of this:

• Dermatology Practice Referrals: Strong blog content will lead to other medical websites and blogs linking back to you, leading more patients to your website.

• High Quality: Content will be created by medical professionals on the topics of your choosing. All content will be referenced, concise, balanced, and appropriate for your patient audience.

• Consistency: Blog updates will follow a strict schedule, without any interruptions. This is important as websites that are inactive end up getting negatively effected in the search engine rankings.

• SEO:  When blogging is done by doctors and SEO experts, it involves expert keyword research which leads to higher rankings on search engines.

• Show that you are online: An active blog shows to prospective patients an active, vibrant, and dedicated dermatology practice.

• Stand out as authority in your field: Provide useful information that visitors may not have access to otherwise, that will engage and retain patients.

 

 

Search Engine Optimization for Dermatology Practices (SEO)

 

What is SEO?

SEO is a marketing strategy that aims to grow a website's visibility via organic (non-paid) search engine results. SEO involves both technical and creative elements that are needed to improve your dermatology practice’s online rankings, increase website traffic, and spread awareness of your practice across search engines.

SEO is essentially the process of getting visits to your website through the ‘free,’ ‘organic,’ ‘editorial’ or ‘natural’ search engine results.

 

Why is Dermatology SEO different than any other type of SEO?

Dermatology SEO, much like any SEO that pertains to the medical field, plays two major roles: Web content must be adapted for search engine crawlers, this will ensure that your website ranks high in search results. However, it must also be comprehendible and non-ambiguous to possible patients who interact with it. Misleading medical or dermatology content is not only bad practice but can also be cause for lawsuits. Therefore, we feel strongly that only healthcare marketing professionals with a degree in life sciences should be involved in medical SEO, and particularly, dermatology SEO.

 

Why is SEO important?

• Discoverability: Organic searches are most often the primary source of website traffic.

• SEO Builds Trust & Credibility: The goal of any experienced SEO professional is to create a strong basis for a beautiful website that provides a clean and effective user experience easily discoverable through online searches. This will all come from the trust and credibility of the brand and the website’s digital properties.

• It is actually do or die: If your dermatology practice is not on page 1 of the search results, you’re not winning the click. It’s no secret in the world of SEO that if you’re not showing up immediately, you’re unlikely to be reaching prospective dermatology patients through organic searches. A recent study shows that the first three organic search ranking positions result in nearly 40 percent of all click-throughs, while up to 30 percent of all results on pages 1 and 2 don’t get clicked at all.

 

Why is SEO such a complex process?

In addition to the visible content of your website, SEO has to do with the technical (non-visible) part of your website. The authority of your website compared to competing websites is also vital to consider: Usually referred as off-site SEO, this is the number of "backlinks", or, links on other websites thag lead to yours. It's comparable to the citations at the end of a journal article.

 

SEO leads to free website traffic and can help increase visits to your page by up to 50% or more. For this reason, it supplements, and often parallels, paid dermatology advertising methods. However, it is also a process that is both time consuming and extensively ongoing.

 

On-Site Search Engine Optimization

 

What is On-Site SEO and why is it important?

On-site SEO, also sometimes referred to as on-page SEO, refers to processes that aim to optimize the features and content on your dermatology website. This includes tweaking components of your website such that visitors can easily understand what is presented to them on each page, as well as quickly determine whether answers to the question posed in their original search can be answered on your website. For example, optimizing onsite-SEO includes publishing relevant content, enhancing titles, HTML tags, and images used.

 

Having good on-site SEO allows search engines to interpret your website’s content in the same ways a human visitor would, and increases the chances that your dermatology website will appear in search results when a someone makes a relevant query.

 

Improving your on-site SEO will increase traffic to your website that results from search engine searches and also raise your website up in search engine rankings.

 

Will keywords help improve my On-Site SEO?

Although keywords still matter, they are no longer the most important part of on-site SEO. Modern day search engines are able to carry out more advanced techniques. Instead of simply concluding whether a web page has the same words as a given search query, search engines can now deduce the overarching meaning of a web page through the use of keyword synonyms, and consideration of the surrounding context in which the word appears. For this reason, it is crucial to consider the relevance of your website's content and how helpful it will be with regards to the search queries you hope will lead patients to your website.

 

Web content should therefore be written with search engines and visitors in mind: Content on your website is being produced for prospective patients and should therefore be relevant and of a high quality, while at the same should be produced in a way that search engines can understand.

 

How do I ensure that my website meets the requirements for sufficient On-Site SEO?

To best ensure that your website is reaching its full potential with regards to on-site SEO it should incorporate content that is:

 

• In-depth: For search engines to sufficiently understand and analyze a website’s content, it must be detailed and elaborate. If content is lacking in depth, it will not find itself reaching its full potential in the rankings.

• User-friendly: Content should be straightforward, easy to grasp, as well as organized in a way that is aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate and read. The minimum amount of ads and external links should be included, or should be organized out of the way of core content.

• Distinguishing: Including content on your website that is not original or unique will significantly decrease its chances of ranking high on search engines

• Reliable: All information on your practice’s website should be a trustworthy source of information on the given subject area. Remember E-A-T: Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.

 

 

Off-site Search Engine Optimization

 

What is Off-Site SEO?

Off-page SEO essentially refers to any search engine optimization that takes place outside of your actual website’s page. Brand building, content marketing, social media management, and online reviews all play major roles in your website’s off-page SEO.

 

Why do I need Off-Site SEO for my website?

In short, sub-par off-site SEO will lead to significant struggling when it comes to your practice’s website placing in the competitive search engine rankings.

 

What are some things that can help improve my websites Off-Site SEO?

• Link Building: Link building is one of the most important tactics in building your website’s off-site SEO. Link building is getting other websites to include links to your website’s page on their's. It will help even further to increase your website's rankings if these external websites hold high authority.

• Brand Building: Building up your practice’s brand will help search engines better understand the credibility of your website and the content that it includes. A strong brand will also naturally bring with it an increase in links and mentions of your website across the web.

• Content Marketing: Marketing content outside of your own website is critical. For example, sharing a post that gets shared many times on social media platforms, publishing blog posts, or conducting surveys online.

• Events: Online events such as webinars are important. Not only are they a way to increase online recognition of your practice, but they also are a major contributor to brand building, and therefore increase off-site SEO.

• Reviews: Online reviews are crucial in forming your practice’s reputation on the web. A medical practice that receives positive reviews on third-party platforms not only reflects a strong brand, but also becomes a strong and trustworthy authority figure in the minds of prospective patients.

 

 

Search Engine Marketing (SEM, Google Ads)

 

What is SEM and how is it relevant to dermatology marketing trends in 2021?

Search engine marketing involves ways to market your practice itself, as well as the services available within in. SEM is also occasionally called paid search or pay per click (PPC). This includes paid advertising that will show up in search engine results. SEM is essential as it provides a major opportunity for advertisements for your practice to be put right in front of prospective patients who require dermatology services.

 

SEM differs from SEO in that it pertains specifically to paid marketing that is located on the web. Contrasty, SEO refers to websites ranking high in search results as a result of including content that relates to a specific questioned that is searched for.

 

How does SEM work and why is it important?

SEM is important because it reaches consumers at an ideal time: when they are actively searching online for new information. Engaging patients in the exact moment they show interest is the best way to get new patients into your practice. When patients are in the process of making online searches for a new dermatology practice is precisely when you want an ad for your practice to come up and draw them in to clicking on your website.

 

SEM works by making these sponsored ads appear at the top and side of search engine results. This is determined by ads having keywords in common with the search query.

 

The best way to create an SEM strategy for your practice is to:

• Research keywords and produce a list of the words that are most relevant to your website, practice, and services offered.

• Decide which area of the search results page you would like the ad to be displayed

• Design a text advertisement for your practice. This will be shown on the search results page

 

 

Social Media Marketing (SMM, Facebook Ads)

 

What is Social Media Marketing for dermatology practices?

SMM utilizes social media platforms to interact with potential patients, better your brand, and boost website visits. SMM consists of creating and posting original content on your practice's social media profiles, while at the same time, maintaining direct engagement with your followers. The most important platforms to think about using for SMM are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

 

How does SMM work?

There are a number of  things to take into account when thinking about SMM. Some important things to know before you begin carrying out your SMM strategy are:

 

• What you intended aims are with regards to your practice being on social media. This may be that you want to raise awareness for your practice in order to increase the number of patients benefitting from your services, or maybe, to increase engagement with patients- both prospective and current.

 

• The content that is most appropriate for your practice to produce. Deciding what sort of content will be most attractive to your target audience is a critical step in SMM. Content may include photos, videos, or may be as straightforward as sharing links to helpful websites or articles. Creating a marketing persona can significantly help to guide these decisions.

 

• The Social Media platforms make the most sense for your practice to be on. It is important to think about which of the many platforms out there will be the most useful in terms of reaching your target audience. This also may depend on the type of content you wish to publish. For example, if you aim to share informative infographics, Instagram may be more useful than Facebook.

 

Once you answer these questions and begin posting content it is important to then maintain involvement with your followers. As your practice gains a following on social media, people may begin to comment on your posts, or engage in conversations about your practice online. Making sure that this engagement is ongoing and adequate on part of your practice is necessary as it can further spread word about your practice. Online engagement with followers will also demonstrate to prospective patients that doctor-patient interactions within your practice are valued and of the highest standard.