Google has a crackerjack team of people helping to make their products bigger and better all the time, or at least, that’s the impression we get from them. I just might have caught an embarrassing typo in Google Docs last week, but otherwise, they seem to be pretty much on the ball. That is, unless you visit their Places page, which apparently is hot to show you photos of women’s bare breasts and much more — if the place you’re looking for happens to be a cosmetic surgeon’s office.

Of course, the websites for most cosmetic surgeons feature a before and after page, but traditionally it takes some clicks to get to and obviously are not plastered all over the landing page. I’m sure some people would be impressed if they went to a doctor’s site and the first thing they saw was a pair of surgically-perfected double D’s, but most medical professionals prefer a subtler approach. And who can blame them?

Speaking of class, Google, where’s yours? SafeSearch protects what images we see (although, admittedly, even Moderate can be a bit racy at times), but surely businesses will be less than pleased to see that they are being represented by a wall of women without their tops. Not that the images themselves are shameful, mind, but that’s the type of thing that should be taking place behind several layers of clickthrough. On the other hand, surely cosmetic surgeons will feel compromised if they have to pull their before and after galleries from their websites, as potential clients will want to see what the final products of their work looks like.

It’s a little faux-pax … but nothing Google can’t remedy. Still, will they fix it? Since the images are clinical and not sexual in nature, they may have slipped through SafeSearch’s protocols. If Places automatically pulls the most viewed images, as intelligent as Google may seem, this still proves it to be a modern machine — not quite capable of thinking for itself just yet. We may have to wait a few more years until our networks can provide the same thoughtful attention to detail that humans do. Maybe we’ll be useful for a while longer after all!

We do a fair amount of Plastic Surgery SEO around here and Aimee knows better than anyone the trials of this industry.

So it’s no wonder we’re amused by a song entitled “Big Tits”

Big Tits - Not to be confused with the "Great Tit"

No doubt you’ll be humming the refrain. Do be careful to keep it to yourself

My personal favorite line is:

“self esteem goes off the charts when you enhance your private parts”

Big Tits by Gordon Lustig

This song is copyright Gordon Lustig and is referenced here by permission. Please contact Mr. Lustig should you wish to license or use his work in any form.

Admittedly, plastic surgery SEO – particularly that done for cosmetic surgery – does seem gratuitous at times. So it’s nice to take one’s mind off of “one more article about boobs” as a former writer said and enjoy a little folk tune all about big tits.

You can enjoy more of Mr. Lustig’s work at his website or on his YouTube channel.

If you’re legitimately interested in Plastic Surgery SEO you may be interested in some of our other articles:

• Internet marketing for plastic surgeons
• Facebook Advertising for plastic surgeons
• Should I Renew My Yellow Pages Ad

Plastic Surgery SEO Results

And just because my sense of humor occasionally runs too juvenile for one my age, more pictures tagged “Big Tits” on Flickr:

Rearranged letters on Veterinary Sign - Big Tits

Erotic Restaurant Private Show - Big Tits

Images courtesy of:

• Christian Roberts
• Kate Tomlinson
• Pavel Trebukov

In the last week, our SEO team has noticed a severe and dramatic drop in referrals for a few plastic surgeons from Google Image search, which historically has been a strong referrer to the before and after image galleries on the websites.

Some reactions from our team ranged from the incredulous “Can that be right??” to the flummoxed, “That is totally weird.”

After seeing the first plastic surgeons’ site data with a flat line, I asked a designer with whom we work frequently, Aimee Ellingsen, plastic surgery website design, “um … have you guys replaced or removed all of the images on client X’s website?”  Right.  As if she would completely replace every image in the image gallery … but this data is obviously a problem with images, so I went to the source.

Aimee’s team looked into it and astutely suggested it was safesearch.  Safesearch is a setting on an individual users’ Google search preferences, so what are the chance that hundreds, thousands, of people have changed their settings on the same day?  That was my first reaction.  … Then it hit me …

Oop!  The new Google Interface!  Doh!

Google Support today says:

“You can choose from among three SafeSearch settings:

• Moderate filtering excludes most explicit images from Google Images results but doesn’t filter ordinary web search results. This is your default SafeSearch setting; you’ll receive moderate filtering unless you change it.
• Strict filtering applies SafeSearch filtering to all your search results (i.e. both image search and ordinary web search).
• No filtering, as you’ve probably figured out, turns off SafeSearch filtering completely.”

I don’t know what the Google Support said before they launched the new Interface, but what we used to see and now can’t see (unless we change our settings) suggests that it’s a new default implemented with the new interface.

With Moderate filtering:

Without Moderate filtering:

It appears that Google is slowly rolling out the new interface because not all surgeons’ data is showing this dramatic response, but when it does happen, at least we will know what is going on.

Most surgeons use a gallery as patient education, and the more knowledge a patient has of a doctor, the more likely they are to schedule a consultation. For Newport Beach Plastic Surgery, Newport Beach rhinoplasty patients can see for themselves the artistic skill and experience of the surgeon.  They can see the results and what they will get out of the surgery before they even talk to the doctor.  This is a powerful tool.

Newport Beach Rhinoplasty

An additional bonus is patients come into the office with some understanding of the surgery and the results they should expect, and the consultation is much more interactive.

Plastic surgery internet marketers can always use the gallery as additional source material to promote online.  Having a gallery doesn’t make our jobs a slam-dunk, but not having one does make our jobs more challenging to drive leads to consultations. More pages equal more opportunities to show up in the search engine results pages.

Galleries have become an important part of the pre-consultation education process.  Often the gallery pages are the most visited pages on a plastic surgeon’s website by potential patients. Without before/afters, a visitor is less likely to stick around.  So what to do if you’re a plastic surgeon without those images?

First, if a doctor is starting a new practice, he or she may not have a wealth of before and after pictures to use.  The after pictures are best taken at stages after surgery, so a great picture of a patient may not be great until the patient is fully healed.  That might not be for 6 months to a year.  That mean it takes at least a year for a plastic surgeon to build a potentially decent gallery for the website.

Then there are some plastic surgeons who want to attempt to rank in the search engines without the before and after pictures.  They prefer to share the before and after pictures within the confines of the office to hold a captive audience and to control the dissemination of those images. Many surgeons and patients oppose the use of pre and post-operative images given their potentially graphic content. From a search engine ranking perspective, if they can rank without those pages of images, then that’s what they may want to do.

We have a handful of plastic surgeons who do well without a gallery on their website.  Even without the before and after images we are still able to cover the traditional SEO bases: content optimization, Google listings, link building, etc.

In fact, we have one outstanding example who is achieving stellar rankings in his market – Donaldson Plastic Surgery – plastic surgery, Columbus, OH 4661 Sawmill Road, Suite 100, Columbus, OH 43220.

Columbus, Ohio Plastic Surgeon Dr. Jeffrey Donaldson

This doctor is

(1) a recently trained plastic surgeon,
(2) building a young solo practice, and
(3) prioritizes patient privacy and discretion: he has NO before and
after images on his site.

How does he

• rank on page 1 of Google results for 49 valuable search terms, and
• triple his site visits in 1 year of SEO with Search Influence?

The answer is that he is a full participant in all of his integrated marketing efforts.  He is fully engaged and works with us on a regular basis to build his presence online.

Collaboration is the key to truly maximizing a fully connected and integrated marketing effort.

It doesn’t sound like magic, but it is – it’s just talking.

And because Dr. Donaldson is the public face of the practice, and he talks to the patients, he is the front line of feedback.  And that feedback is incredibly valuable information that we as search marketers would never be privy to without talking to the doctor on a regular basis.

Tummy Tuck Columbus, Ohio

One thing he has recently shared with us is that NOT having before and after pictures has helped his practice.  He has seen patients in consultation who appreciate that he does not have a gallery on his website.

We can see clearly the usage and interest in before and after plastic surgery pictures on other sites and we wonder, would adding a gallery bring in more consults?

I don’t know, but right now, no-gallery is workin’ for him so the jury’s out.

What do you think? Would you make that first appointment without seeing some proof? OR are you one of those for whom it’s worth it not have your pictures out there?

Paul Parker M.D. - New Jersey Plastic Surgeon

As with any business we have some customers who just go along – who are happy to get our monthly reports, see their return on investment analysis and make the occasional comment or request. While we try, we can’t get all of our plastic surgeon clients on the phone monthly or even quarterly and ultimately, when it’s their business and their paycheck they are the ones who have a vested interest in their marketing effectiveness.

Then there are the practices, in plastic surgery, marketing like crazy and very involved both in the process and the outcomes. The doctors who spend their weekends and evenings documenting procedures, researching the industry and engaging with prospective patients online using their web sites as a tool for plastic surgery marketing and eduction.

One such doctor is Paul Parker. Dr. Parker has spent countless hours writing and working with artists and designers to assure the information he presents is spot-on what his patients want.

Parker Center for Plastic Surgery, New Jersey – Breast Augmentation
122 East Ridgewood Avenue
Paramus, NJ‎ 07652 - (201) 967-1212

Recently Dr. Parker, working with our favorite plastic surgery website designer Aimee Ellingsen of Cake Websites & More, spent a lot of time revamping his breast lift pages.

Now, I’ll tell you. After 3 + years of working with plastic surgeons I know way too much about plastic surgery.

This stuff is amazing! Dr. Parker, through words and illustrations makes the considerations and the procedure of breast lift imminently approachable.

There’s a lot to plastic surgery marketing, but the foundation is a doctor who cares enough to educate patients on complicated topics.

Many plastic surgery procedures are easy enough to conceptually understand. But after 3 + years working with these guys I really never understood all the considerations of Breast Lift. A Breast Lift is a much more complicated decision process. How much breast material is there, how much sag, where are the nipples relative to the breast as a whole? I mean it’s crazy.

Anatomy of Breast Ptosis Image from Parker Center for Plastic Surgery

So the point is, Dr. Parker and Aimee Ellingsen‘s team created this GREAT content. Perfectly explanatory works which help one understand not only what kind of intervention is needed depending on the condition of the breast, but what the options are and what the surgical process looks like.

Breast Lift Options Picture from Parker Center for Plastic Surgery New Jersey

And now, I get it! I, as a lay person, now fully understand the problem, the solution and, if I were a prospective patient, would be able to begin the process of understanding my need for plastic surgery.

As is often the case, content really is King. Dr. Parker intending to be informative and educate patients wound up creating great content, which is the foundation of great plastic surgery marketing.

–

Related Posts:

• Plastic Surgery Internet Marketing – Less Scary than You Think
• Benchmarks for Plastic Surgery Marketing Online December 2009

We work with a number of plastic surgeons and have the opportunity to really get a sense for their zeitgeist. Right now many of them are feeling a pinch – our review had, to this point, been anecdotal rather than analytical. Suffice it to say we knew there was a problem but didn’t know if it was a lack of traffic, or a lack of conversion (window shopping but no buying).

One of our clients has been prompting me for some time to start providing benchmarks within his category (where we have some depth) as a yardstick against which we could measure his success. And then, in conversation with another client this evening, the topic came up again as we were discussing a former client who is really suffering.

For our benchmark we decided to look only at Google organic ranking and to compare a very specific date range, specifically a comparison of December 2009 versus May 2009. This date range seemed appropriate given the seeming decline in traffic and business, and given December is an historically low month compared to May.

Throwing out the high and the low in our sample, we found that the average decline in the studied group was 16.4% May to December. This is not a surprising number given the seasonality of the profession but it at least gave us a benchmark.

And in all, it doesn’t explain the massive decline in the client who left and in some of our continuing clients.

Below are screenshots from Google Analytics of the comparison:

Clearly we’re only looking at one metric, but there are clear correlations between the right kind of traffic and revenue.

View the whole set of screenshots at flickr.

My thanks to Dr. Paul Parker a Plastic Surgeon specializing in breast augmentation. New Jersey patients should visit his site http://www.parkercenter.net/.

Thanks also to Dr. Roy Kim a Plastic Surgeon specializing in surgeries of the face and body including breast augmentation and tummy tuck. San Francisco patients should visit his site http://www.drkim.com/.

And the moral of the story is: If you’re a plastic surgeon and your traffic is up December over May, good on ya. Give those monkeys a banana.

If you’re down, don’t sweat it. +/- a few percentage points beyond the mean is no big deal.

If you’re down 40% or more, look out. It may be time to reevaluate the model. If you’re down 40% or more and your web people aren’t scrambling then definitely change course.