While doing research for a course I taught at an American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) meeting, I started wondering just how effective using a blogging strategy was for website conversions. So we started measuring it against a before and after photo strategy. The results were revealing! Let’s take a look.
In our Blog vs Before & After Photo Study, we set completions in Google Analytics of contact and consultation request forms as goals. If they filled out a contact or consultation request form, that was considered the completion of a goal. The data shows, that out of all the visitors who complete a goal, 78% visit the gallery before contacting the practice.
In Table 1, more than 500 users accessed the gallery landing page. In Table 2, 27 users visited the blog landing page. This is all traffic from all sources. There was significant organic traffic moving through individual blog posts, but was it effective in converting a visitor into a hot lead?
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Take a look at the results from the table below:
- Blog brought in traffic, but only 1.5% of those visitors turned into leads that contacted the practice
- Individual before and after pages and the main landing page brought in less visitors, but a whopping 23.4% converted
These leads have already looked at the work you do and the results you offer. Before and after gallery traffic is the traffic you want on your website: qualified and engaged.
Posting before and afters is the best type of “blogging” for an aesthetic practice when using BRAG book software. BRAG book is at its basic level a hyper-focused blogging platform with enticing photos at the top of the page and well written case descriptions below. There are no technical differences between a well done BRAG book case and a well done blog post.
The same technical optimizations that apply to blogs are applied to before and after photos: individual pages, keyword-optimized titles, internal and external linking. BRAG book software automatically optimizes the image file names, schema and structured data, image title, alt tags, and make images mobile friendly. The content is then enhanced by simply summarizing the concerns and results of the case.
How do I convert more of my website visitors to leads, blogging or before and after photos? The answer is to provide content viewers crave. Potential patients want to look at before and after photos. Research done by RxPhoto found that “An overwhelming majority, 74.8%, will not consider a practice without a before and after gallery.” ~ RxPhoto
In conclusion, traffic brought in by your before and after photos is much more likely to contact you and become a patient than the traffic brought in by those who visit your blog. With the proper tools and processes in place, select your favorite case from the week, spend 10 minutes writing about it and publish. Implementing a before and after photo strategy will bring in more traffic and more leads.
Is your before and after software good enough to replace your blog? Learn more about BRAG book.
By Candace Crowe
President / Artist
Source: data from Google Analytics