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Case study : healthcare marketing : dermatology
A four-location dermatology group was getting 34 new patients a month. Six months later, 140.
Board-certified physicians, excellent clinical outcomes, and almost no digital presence. Patients searching for dermatology in their metro were finding competitors instead. We rebuilt healthcare SEO, Google Ads and the review program in parallel. Cost per patient fell from $187 to $58 while volume more than quadrupled.
The challenge
Clinically excellent. Digitally invisible.
New patient volume had fallen 22 percent over eighteen months. The practice had four offices in one metropolitan market, a full roster of board-certified dermatologists, and a five-page website: home, about, services, locations, contact. Searches for dermatologist near me or mole removal in the practice’s own city did not return them inside the top twenty results.
The previous agency had been reporting a $23 cost per acquisition. The dashboard was counting page views as conversions. Once real appointments were tracked, the actual figure was $187 per new patient.
Week one audit summary: no condition or treatment pages, no medical content marketing of any kind, two Google Ads campaigns running broad match with zero negative keywords, and four Google Business Profiles with incomplete service tagging.
No healthcare SEO had ever been done
Five pages total. No content for any specific condition or procedure. The searches patients actually make, acne treatment, psoriasis specialist, Mohs surgery, had nothing to rank.
Ad spend was buying the wrong searches
The search terms report showed budget going to dermatology school, skin care products and free skin check. No negative keyword list existed in either campaign.
Reviews were actively costing patients
47 reviews at 3.6 stars against local competitors at 4.7 with 200 to 400 reviews. Two complaints about wait times sat unanswered on the main profile.
[ REPLACE WITH REAL CLIENT QUOTE. One or two sentences from the practice manager or lead physician about what the situation was before, or what changed. Do not publish this page with placeholder text or an invented quote. ]
(34 new patients, $187 per patient, 12 keywords)
(140 new patients, $58 per patient, 186 keywords)
What we did
Three channels, started in the same week.
Practices usually sequence these one after another and lose two quarters to it. Paid search funds the pipeline while content indexes, and reviews lift the conversion rate on both. Running them together is what compressed this to six months.
Channel 01
Healthcare SEO
Technical cleanup first: site speed, mobile rendering, XML sitemap, and Physician and MedicalClinic schema for each doctor and location. Then 18 condition and treatment pages built around the searches patients type, each medically reviewed before publishing and structured with FAQ schema so AI search results could quote them. Local SEO work covered all four Google Business Profiles: full service tagging, insurance details, office photos and a weekly posting schedule.
Channel 02
Google Ads
The account was rebuilt from zero. Campaigns split by service line rather than by location: cosmetic dermatology, medical dermatology, and surgical procedures, each bidding on the specific procedures patients search for. A 340-term negative keyword list went live in week one and cut wasted spend by 38 percent that month. Conversion tracking covered form submissions, calls over sixty seconds, and completed online bookings.
Channel 03
Reviews and Google Business Profile
An automated request went out by text after every appointment, linking straight to the correct location profile. Front desk staff were trained to prompt at checkout rather than in the exam room. The two outstanding complaints were answered within a day. Profile views went from 1,200 to 4,560 a month, which fed both the ads and the organic side.
Month 1
Fix the measurement
Real conversion tracking installed, negative keyword list built, technical SEO cleared, review workflow launched.
Months 2 to 3
Build the content
18 condition and treatment pages published. All four Google Business Profiles completed and posting weekly.
Month 4
Ads become efficient
Cost per patient from paid search drops below $60. Rating crosses 4.5 stars. Website conversion rate doubles.
Months 5 to 6
Organic takes over
Organic becomes the largest patient source at 68 a month. Blended cost per patient settles at $58.
The results
Month zero against month six.
Volume went up and cost went down at the same time, which only happens when the conversion rate moves alongside the traffic. The reviews did that part.
What made it work
The first month produced no new patients. It produced honest numbers.
The practice had been told it was acquiring patients at $23. It was paying $187. Every decision made on top of that reporting was wrong, including the decision to keep the previous agency. Nothing improves until the measurement is trustworthy, which is why conversion tracking came before content, ads or reviews.
The second thing worth taking from this: a low star rating throttles everything upstream of it. Rankings and ad spend deliver a patient to a Google Business Profile listing, and the rating decides whether they call. Fixing reviews was cheaper than either of the other two channels and it lifted the return on both.
This is the same sequence we run across healthcare marketing services engagements, combining technical SEO, content optimization and Google Ads management rather than treating them as separate projects.
About this result
Questions practices ask about this engagement.
Most of it would, and the timeline would usually be shorter. Four locations meant four Google Business Profiles, four review programs and location pages that had to avoid competing with each other in the same metro. A single-location practice removes that coordination work entirely. What does not change is the sequence: conversion tracking first, then condition and treatment pages, then reviews. A single site with fifteen strong treatment pages will outperform a four-location group with five thin ones.
By month six, organic search was producing 68 new patients a month and Google Ads was producing 48, with the remainder arriving through Google Business Profile calls and direct booking. Paid search carried the first ninety days because it delivers patients while content is still being indexed. Organic overtook it in month five and became the largest and cheapest source. Running only one of the two channels would have roughly halved the result.
Three conversion actions were tracked: appointment form submissions, phone calls lasting over sixty seconds, and completed online bookings. No remarketing lists were built on health conditions, no condition-specific audiences were created, and Enhanced Conversions used hashed data only. Every campaign could be traced to the patients it produced without any individual health information entering an advertising platform.
The practice started at 3.6 stars across 47 reviews while nearby competitors sat at 4.7 or higher with several hundred. Patients comparing dermatologists in a Google Business Profile listing see the rating before they see anything else, so a low rating suppresses clicks that rankings and ad spend have already paid for. Moving to 4.8 stars across 310 reviews lifted the conversion rate on traffic that was arriving either way, which is why cost per patient fell as volume rose.
Your turn
Find out what your practice is actually paying per patient.
Send us your website and, if you have them, Google Ads and Google Business Profile access. We will tell you what your real cost per patient is, which condition searches you are missing in your own city, and where your review profile is costing you appointments. Free, no retainer, no sales pitch, back within one business day.