The Director of Public Relations at Rothman Orthopaedics, said it best: “Farotech’s strategic approach led to an increase of Rothman’s blog traffic by 856%, resulting in over 33,000 appointments valued at over $10 million in a single year.”
How did we achieve such remarkable results for ??one of the top orthopedic programs in the nation?
We’ll take you step-by-step through the art and science of our SEO strategy and how it uniquely delivers ROI as it did for Rothman––something not every agency can do effectively.
Your SEO Strategy: Gaining Rank and Taking Names
It’s no secret that SEO-based lead generation is not just important for businesses—it’s critical. It is estimated that 82% of all non-referral based leads originate from the web.
And in the B2C space, consumers lean on search engines for 92% of their product and services inquiries. So the big question is this: Does my company have an SEO strategy designed to get on the first page of Google, Yahoo and Bing?
First, let’s start with the basics. What is SEO and why is it so important?
What is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the method and system used to achieve high search results rankings in the major search engines (i.e. Google, Yahoo, and Bing).
There are several different forms of SEO that are critical to your success.
Local SEO
These results are often shown in a local map pack. To rank in local search, you have to abide by several critical ranking factors. First, it’s very important to maintain consistency in your citations (name, address, and phone number) in directories.
The second factor is reviews. And one of the largest factors is your location itself (you can’t rank in cities that aren’t close in proximity to the location in the search inquiry).
Organic SEO
This is the most common form of SEO. Winning in the organic search space is based on a whole host of factors. The most important way to break it down is by distinguishing between “on-page SEO” and “off-page SEO.”
On-page SEO is making sure that your website conforms to all of Google’s best practices. Off-page SEO deals with something called backlinks, which are links from outside websites that point to your website as an authority.
Note: Not all backlinks are equal. For example I would rather get one backlink from a high authority website (with domain authority above an 85) than from 50 websites with low domain authority.
When a user is online searching for a particular term, it’s formally/technically referred to as a “keyword.” If a website has a solid SEO strategy, keywords can enable a greater probability of content being picked up by the major search engines. These results are then offered as an option to searchers on the search engine result pages (SERPs). Using sophisticated (and always changing) algorithms, the engines determine whether your site offers content matching the criteria your potential clients are searching.
Why is SEO so important?
- Consider the fact, as reported by Forbes, that 75% of users never take the time to scroll past the first page of Google results.
- More specifically, 40% of consumers chose the very first result that appears on the results page.
- In short, SEO is a necessary and powerful tool that allows your business to achieve higher exposure online and drives traffic to your site via the search engines that your potential clients are already using.
Local Philadelphia SEO Competition is Tough …
But you could have a strategic advantage!
If you’ve tried ranking for top keywords in your industry, you’re probably well aware of how competitive the online marketing scene can be.
However, many Philadelphia businesses are still trying to use outdated, blackhat SEO methods to see quick success, and it’s costing them in the long term. That’s a problem for them, but it could be a great advantage to you if you learn how to implement a sustainable SEO strategy the right way!
According to SEO industry leader, Neil Patel, there are actually several harmful SEO practices. These, now considered relics of the past, include:
- Keyword stuffing
- Spam comments
- Unnatural link building
- Duplicate content
- Anchor text abuse
Another helpful tip offered by Patel: Always write for humans first and search engines second.
Your ability to produce quality, relevant, readable content is a critical aspect of SEO best practices. The bottom line is you need an effective SEO strategy that gets you ranked, without sacrificing the customer experience.
An ROI-Centered SEO Strategy for One of Philadelphia’s Premier Healthcare Providers
So how did we implement all of this insight into a successful strategy for Rothman Orthopaedic Institute?
The Challenge:
In 2012, Rothman Orthopaedics Institute had only 437,387 users, with only 66% coming from organic traffic. Given this, we wanted to ensure their digital presence was expanded upon and revamped to actively compete with other orthopedic websites.
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The Plan:
The digital marketing strategy we designed for Rothman focused on four main initiatives:
- Revamp the usability of the website, including user experience and web design
- Develop SEO-optimized content like blog posts (as well as engaging videos, infographics, and downloadable assets)
- Monitor the results
- Optimize based on data-driven conclusions
The Result:
From 2012 to 2017, users increased by 244% and page views increased by 206%. In the same period, the site’s traffic from organic sources increased 279%, to make up 75% of the 1,529,495 visitors in 2017. Between January 1, 2019 and June 28, 2019, traffic had increased to 1,207,268 users, which is up 19% compared to the previous year, and up 60% from the same period in 2017.
Let’s dive deeper into the data. Note: this data is just from the client’s blog alone.
As you can see, in 2018 we increased entrances (visitors that came to our client’s website through their blog) by a whopping 1,600%. This was the first notable part of the data we analyzed.
The next step was to look at whether those entrances translated into qualified traffic (those more likely to convert beyond clicks and impressions). For that, we looked at the same chart, but focused instead on pageviews.
Here, we can see how, by implementing our SEO strategy, we were able to increase page views by over 1100% —from 100k to 1.3 million!
You might be thinking “Hey, that’s great and all, but how does it affect my bottom line?”
You’re not wrong to think from an ROI perspective––after all, it’s one of the hardest things to quantify when it comes to marketing. And that’s why what we do is so unique:
Most SEO companies promise to drive traffic to your website. But they do so with little to no guarantee on quality of traffic or concern over whether that traffic will actually convert into paying customers. Take this chart from 2018 from our Rothman campaign that tells the ROI story with simple, beautiful math:
Rothman makes money from new patient intake, which is why their SEO strategy was critical to their success. In a 3 year subset, we were able to generate 2,911 conversions from their blog alone. That equated to over $873k worth of revenue.
How did we get there?
Rothman estimated the value of a first-time appointment (FTA) at $300.
So: 2,911 conversions multiplied by $300 = $873k worth of first time appointment revenue.
Again, that’s from just one blog and doesn’t include follow-up appointments or treatments arising from those patients.
Want the full story? You can read the rest here to see how we ended up providing Rothman with over $10 million in value from our approach to SEO.
It’s Time to Make Google Work for You
We tell clients all the time, online marketing and SEO certainly should follow best practices, but they also don’t work with a one-size-fits-all approach. Here at Farotech, we work with our clients directly to meet their business’ marketing goals, earning our place as one of Inc. 5000’s Fastest-Growing Companies in America.
Our business is all about making your business grow too. We do this by driving qualified leads to your website through optimizing your site for the major search engines. The goal is for your site to appear on the first page of Google, Yahoo! and Bing.
We’ve set out to help you achieve just that with our ebook for business owners like you. You can request a copy of The Ultimate Guide to SEO for Small Business and get started making improvements to your SEO strategy right away!
Start working toward best SEO practices and digital marketing services now with a free marketing assessment. This is a great first step toward optimizing your strategy for SEO. There’s no fee, no gimmicks, and no strings attached. Instead, what you will receive is ample information about your SEO system and how it can be improved with help from our award-winning digital marketing agency.
We look forward to hearing from you! Please contact us today with any questions about our SEO services.