By Chad Erickson, Vice President of Strategy, Advice Media

As we move into a new year and put 2020 behind us, you must set your medical spa up for success. It is crucial that you set up your website to attract the right clients and maximize your conversions with everything you are doing.

One in 20 Google searches is related to health care. People are concerned with what they look like—their weight, smile, skin, general appearance, etc.—and they are searching for solutions online. And you need to ask yourself, "Am I being found? Am I being found by the correct search keywords that are going to help propel my medical spa forward?"

To get your medical spa into the right position, include certain elements of success in your digital marketing efforts. When completed in this specific order, you will have a completely well-rounded digital campaign.

1. Your website: In today's world, your website is the face of your medical spa. Plain and simple, you need a great website. Your website needs to convert patients when they come to your site. You can do this with a modern and well put-together website that meets all of the standards Google has put out there from a development standpoint. In addition, it has to have strong calls to action. Ensure that your website is not too cluttered and calls out what your specialty is; this will help improve conversion.
2. Local directory management: Nine out of 10 searches are for local search—e.g., "Botox near me." There are hundreds of medical and medical spa directories out there. You need to ensure that your listings are the same across all these directories and are in a specific, concise format. Each listing needs to include your name, address and phone (NAP), and they all have to be identical. This is critical, because Google looks at your NAP as a significant indicator of how it will help your rankings. It also influences your Google My Business (GMB) page and your Google Maps results.
3. Reputation management: A few years ago, reviews were not to be trusted. However, today, more than 84% of people trust an online review as much as a personal recommendation. And, in a weird twist, if they are all positive, that makes a reader question your reviews' validity. These reviews affect whether a patient will come to your medical spa or visit your competition. You need to ensure your reviews are recent, that you have a lot of them and that you respond to them, whether they are critical of your services or not. Responding to reviews is crucial. Prospective patients will be reading your responses to see how you handle sticky situations. When someone leaves a negative review, they are really just looking for a solution. We have found that when practices quickly respond to reviews, there is an opportunity for negative reviews to turn into positive ones by simply listening to their requests and acting on them in even the smallest way. Also, ensure you are asking for reviews digitally so that you can get digital reviews to help your GMB and online listings.
4. Social media presence: If you think that social media is not the place for a medical spa, you are very wrong. Social media profiles appear in Google search results. Also, patients searching for your medical spa will look at your social media presence to see if it is a fit for them. You need to post consistently (four or five times per week) and engage with your audience. When Facebook sees that your audience is engaging with your posts, it will show your posts to more people; this is called "feeding the algorithm." Facebook suppresses posts from businesses with little engagement, so you need to make sure your medical spa is not one of them. Posting content about the medical aesthetics industry as well as information about your employees is a great mix. By the time a prospective patient comes through your doors, they should feel like they know what your practice is all about, based on your social media presence.
5. Search engine optimization (SEO): Once you are confident in all the layers above, you can focus on your SEO—the process of modifying your website and overall web presence to improve your medical spa's standing in relevant search results. A successful SEO campaign will increase traffic to your site as well as increase conversions. When you start an SEO campaign, you have to understand that you are playing a "long game." It can take months or even over a year to begin to see significant results. However, with patience and time, you will see the fruits of your labor. It's not an easy process, and we highly recommend using an expert in SEO for medical spas to conduct such a campaign.
6. Paid search and social: This is the final piece. Once you have everything else set, you will be ready to pay to play. Paid search and paid social are quick ways to get in front of your audience. Google will show your paid search ads when relevant keywords are searched. In a paid social campaign, profiles that match your target audience are targeted with your ads. Paid search and social are great ways to quickly improve your website traffic while you wait for your SEO campaign to kick in.

Think of the above steps as a pyramid. The base is your website, followed by local search, and then reputation management and social media management. From there, if you have the budget, you can add on SEO and paid marketing, but you need to have the first four levels of the pyramid secure before you can add on. Once you have each of these pieces in place, you will have a complete digital marketing strategy aimed at driving new patients and converting new customers.

Advice Media has partnered with thousands of aesthetic practices over the past 20 years, helping medical spas achieve their personal and professional success. It brings you patients through beautiful website design and digital marketing (SEO, social media, review management and paid search), allowing you to transform more lives and achieve your own definition of success.