Patient receiving SEO surgery

LASIK SEO Audit for Ophthalmologists: How to Avoid Getting SEO Duped

jordanfowler@moonandowl.comSEO

We talk to practice managers all the time who call us frustrated. Their medical practice’s website either isn’t ranking or they have an “SEO agency” helping them but they aren’t really sure what they are getting.

This LASIK Practice was Getting SEO Duped

A friend called us. He had an ophthalmology practice he knew of who weren’t sure what was really happening in terms of their SEO. This refractive surgery practice was using one of the common ophthalmology digital marketing agencies (who shall go unnamed). They were sold on the agency because they would also “handle their SEO.”

Problem is, even the fundamental elements of an SEO strategy were being executed poorly if at all. So, as a favor to our friend, we did a free mini-SEO Audit for the practice.

How You Can Learn from Their Audit

As you read through their audit grades, think if you have a confident understanding of if and how these elements are present on your own website. (And if your answer is no to any section, we’d be happy to do a free 30-minute mini-audit disclosure call with you. You don’t have to hire us. At least know what is and isn’t in place on your own site so you aren’t getting SEO duped!)

My Agency Said They are Doing Search Engine Optimization

This practice’s agency claims they are doing “ongoing SEO” on the site. Trouble is, this established LASIK practice has no idea of:

  • What is being done?
  • How well it is really working?
  • What is the revenue return on these SEO efforts?

So we did a little digging SEO-wise. We were a little shocked at how poor and misguided the SEO effort was. We honestly don’t like to see this as it gives SEO, as a whole, a bad name. Your LASIK website doesn’t have to suffer like this site was suffering.

The Mini-Audit looks at them a grade on seven key SEO areas.

See if you can confidently answer the Your LASIK site question in each section. If not, you might need a free mini-audit.

THE SEO MINI-AUDIT REPORT CARD

Brand Appearance Score

We use something called Fowler’s Four Second Rule. Within four seconds, I need to know:

  • How do you benefit me?
  • What do you do?
  • What is my aesthetic impression of your brand?

This practice had a good-looking site with a pretty well-crafted benefit statement.

However, nowhere in the header did it say what the practice does service-wise.

The end-user was left to wonder, “Do they give me great vision via glasses or how?” They’d have to dig to see this was a laser vision correction practice. Why didn’t you say that sooner in the hero image?

Their Google search result showed their practice as being an optometrist because the agency hadn’t ever tweaked the homepage title tag.

And the image that appeared on Facebook and other places if someone cut and pasted their URL (called the Open Graph) previewed a very off brand photo of the outside of the building, not smiling staff and patients.

Practice Site’s Grade = B-

Your LASIK site: For your own LASIK site, look at the three questions above. Then open your homepage and look at it for four seconds. Can you answer those questions?

Traffic and Rankings Score

How many people really come to the site via organic traffic?

This LASIK practice had only 12% of all traffic arriving via organic traffic (including branded search that contains the practice name).

That means that of the 12%, probably 9% was branded search (practice name entered as the query) vs. discovery search (LASIK city name, LASIK near me, how much does LASIK cost? type queries).

Discovery search is key because it allows potential patients who don’t know your practice or surgeon’s name to find you for the first time via organic search. If you don’t rank for branded search already, there is a huge problem.

Practice Site’s Grade = D-

Your LASIK site: How much of your website traffic comes from organic search? How much of it is branded vs. discovery search?

Site Structure Score

Google approaches your website much like a professor approaches your college research paper. The structure of your site matters, because it helps Google understand what you deem important on your site.

Avoiding Hops on Vital Pages

The URL structure on each page of your site matters. To keep with the research paper metaphor:

  • .com is like the research paper title
  • .com/folder1/ is like a Roman Numeral I. in the paper outline
  • .com/folder/folder2 is like an A.
  • .com/folder/folder2/folder three is like the i)

Google makes a lot of inferences from where a page sits in the hierarchy of your website.

We found this LASIK practice’s main LASIK page 3 hops deep.

.com/services/laser-vision-correction/lasik

Each folder is a hop. So hop 1 is to services, hop 2 is from services to laser-vision-correction, and hop 3 is the actual LASIK page.

That screams to Google, “This page isn’t important,” even though it’s the most important page on the site revenue-wise.

This page should sit at:

.com/lasik-cityname (one hop from homepage)

Instead of sitting in its current position as mere i) in the site outline when it should be a top level roman numeral I.

Sitting at top-level tells the bot that this page is important and also increases the chances the bot more frequently crawls the page since it’s closer to the surface. Supporting pages can be placed under the .com/lasik/ page.

Avoiding The Dreaded Silo Bleeding

We have a full article on siloing. We see this done incorrectly often. A healthcare practice’s website will have all their blog article posts under /blog/ instead of categorized under /lasik/ or /caratact/ or /visian-icl/ as the primary way of approach.

Sure enough, this site had the dreaded /blog/ issue with no siloing or proper linking of articles up to their respective pillar pages.

Practice Site’s Grade = C-

Your LASIK site: Where do your money-making pages sit in your site hierarchy? Do some pages need to be moved higher and some lower? Does your blog follow strict siloing conventions using categories as the main point of access?

Entity Tuned Content

The current #1 ranking factor for Google we are seeing is this:

Does the page contain the topics (named entities) Google expects to see on a page in relation to the given topic of a page?

Note, this is not about keyword density or really even keywords for that matter. When Google shifted to Natural Language Processing using Artificial Intelligence, SEO shifted from keywords to topics.

For LASIK, it expects to see topics (named entities) like:

  • photorefractive keratectomy
  • dry eye syndrome
  • refractive errors
  • high myopia
  • nearsightedness (myopia)
  • phakic intraocular lens
  • myopic
  • hyperopia
  • farsightedness,
  • refractive surgery
  • lenses,
  • eye surgeons,
  • and several more.

The LASIK pillar page on this site was missing most of these terms when we ran it through our software. Notice that both top-ranking positions outscored them on the inclusion of NLP words. If they become a client, we’ll topic tune the content of the page using our easy-to-implement tuning templates that real-time tracks improvements as a writer edits the page.

Practice Site’s Grade = D

Your LASIK site: How sure are you that each of your website’s pages contains the most relevant named entity topics for that page (not just keywords)?

Schema Code on your Refractive Surgery Website

Schema is code that sits in the header of your website. The search bot sees it. Visitors don’t. It instructs the bot on how to interpret words on a page and defines what the practice is.

Typically, the organization schema is placed on the homepage.

Local business schema is placed on the contact or our location page.

Here was the audited practice’s Organization schema.

Here is a more robust Moon & Owl client’s org schema.

Person schema on the bio page also credentials your surgeons and medical staff.

The audit practice had no schema on any sub-page or article. No about schema, no mention schema, no FAQ schema, etc. There are great improvements that can be made that will yield positive results.

Practice Sites Grade = D+

Your LASIK site: How robust is your site’s org schema? Does each article contain full schema with FAQ , about, mentions, abstracts, and other elements? Check this by dropping the URL into https://validator.schema.org/ to see what Google sees.

Backlinks to the Ophthalmology Site

Backlinks still matter. They tell Google how authoritative a site appears to be. The more backlinks from authoritative sites your LASIK site gets, the more authority your site will be. These aren’t spam links, but valuable links that send a signal to Google of your Opthalmology practices expertise, authority and trust.

We tend to look at the number of domains referring to a site, not the raw number of backlinks.

Audited LASIK Site

Top Ranking LASIK Site in Market

Practice Website’s Grade = C+

Your LASIK site:: How many domains point to your site versus your competitor’s site? How strong is the authority of each domain/page pointing to your site?

GMB / GBP for Maps Ranking for Your LASIK Practice

Ranking in the organic map back for LASIK, LASIK near me, LASIK + City Name and other terms is crucial.

We like to see tuned content in the about section and services section. Regular posting into the GMB also allows you to place entity words right into the belly of Google.

There are several other proprietary strategies we use to help a practice rank.

This client had no tuned info or service content. They were low in the quantity of reviews present, and were not engaged in any ongoing GMB posting or adding photos.

As a result, they failed to show up in the Map Pack rankings.

Practice Site’s Grade = D

Your LASIK site: Has anyone ever entity tuned your about info and services info in your GMB profile? Are they using a clear entity strategy for ongoing posting and adding photos? Are you obtaining the most reviews possible?

Results Tracking

When we spoke with the practice manager, we asked, “How many surgeries are you doing a month that found you via organic search?”

They didn’t have the data from their current SEO agency to provide an answer.

This is a cardinal sin in reporting for any SEO agency.

There should be a clear understanding of how the fees invested into organic SEO return in practice revenue.

Conversion goals were not set up that would tell them this info and the current agency wasn’t reporting it 1) because they didn’t think to or 2) they were embarrassed to share the results (relying on ranking obscure terms instead).

Practice Site’s Grade = F

Your LASIK site:: Can you answer the questions, “How much revenue did our practice earn from organic traffic in relation to the amount we spent this month on SEO (ROES)? Can I directly tie any organic traffic growth to the content or strategies my SEO agency is transparently disclosing to me?:

Overcome Your SEO Frustration. Gain Knowledge. Sleep in Peace.

As a LASIK and refractive practice manager or surgeon, you have a ton of important roles and responsibilities on your plate. SEO is probably way down the list of things you think about daily. But 80% of patients will do a search before becoming a LASIK patient. If you don’t rank organically, you are losing prospective patients-especially younger patients who are digital natives.

You shouldn’t have to think about your SEO strategy and you shouldn’t be paying for inferior SEO services. At a minimum, you should have the knowledge of how well your current SEO agency is performing its duties and how well they are getting you measurable results in terms of revenue.

Many marketing agency owners decide to throw in minimal SEO efforts with a novice SEO so they can add a bit more to your monthly retainer. SEO is what Moon and Owl DOES EVERY DAY–DAY IN DAY OUT!

Get a FREE SEO Audit + 30 Minute How Is Your Site Doing SEO Wise Call

Just complete the form below for your ophthalmology site. We’ll do a quick look and schedule a 30-minute Zoom feedback call.

    YOUR SEO STATUS (REQUIRED)

    Refractive Surgery Client Results

    Our LASIK clients get results. Here are one practice’s results as an example. Everything is red is their result.

    They are in a top 20 media market and top 20 US metropolitan population.

    For LASIK + City Name they have organic #1 and #2 position, Map Pack, and FAQ Snippet

    Lasik + City Name Top Results

    For LASIK cost they own the #1 organic results and own the Knowledge Graph.

    For LASIK surgeon and LASIK Surgery #1 Organic and #1 Map Pack.

    We ensure LASIK Surgery Practices sites are:

    • increasing their patient count and revenue through organic search.
    • growing internet traffic leads from a qualified, target market.
    • getting more organic traffic (discovery and branded).
    • ranking for the most important top-level topical queries.
    • ranking for the most important top-level transactional queries.
    • using named entity optimized (topics) in their content marketing to aide Google’s Natural Language Processing (NLP).
    • keyword optimized.
    • using multiple strategies to shield against SE algorithm changes.
    • local search engine optimized.
    • ppc optimized for a complete SEM presence.
    • balanced with apaid media mix as part of an holistic internet marketing strategy.
    • messaging their target audiences with a chief benefit to the end-user branding statement that shows radical empathy.
    • in the map pack serps.
    • crawled by Google frequently to index fresh content.
    • publishing topical centric tune content on a steady cadence.
    • strengthening their off page SEO brand entity authority with the Entity Cataylzer™.
    • gaining their rightful place in the knowledge graph.
    • sure their technical SEO is sound (no duplicate titles, pages, all images tagged, etc.)
    • correctly interlinked to pass PageRank to the proper places on the site.
    • clearly seeing their ranking progress in the search.
    • can tie increased revenue

    Organic search optimization should be a key part of any medical practice’s online marketing efforts and LASIK marketing strategies. Search engines love our clients. We let you focus on your specialty, laser eye surgery, while we focus on ours, search engine optimization.

    You’ll be able to get SEO worries off your plate as Moon and Owl Marketing is the only LASIK SEO company using first-principle entity thinking and extensive testing to deliver LASIK practices measurable SEO confidence.