Dermatology marketing that starts with your website
Seven marketing steps for dermatology practices, starting with the ones that cost the least.
Most dermatology marketing ends in the same place: your website. A patient sees an ad, a Google listing or a friend's recommendation, then looks you up before they book. If the website doesn't answer their questions, the marketing you paid for stops there.
Here are the marketing steps that work best for dermatology practices, starting with the ones that cost the least.
1. Make your website ready for new patients
Before spending on ads, make sure the website can turn a visit into a booking. That means a book button on every page, the conditions you treat in patients' own words, your doctors with their training, and the insurance you accept. Our checklist in What every dermatology website needs covers the full list.
2. Keep your Google Business Profile complete
When someone searches "dermatologist near me", Google shows a map with local practices before the regular results. Your Google Business Profile is what appears there. Keep your hours, phone number and website link current, choose dermatologist as your main category, list your services, and add real photos of your office and team.
3. Ask every happy patient for a review
Reviews help patients choose between practices, and they help your Google listing show up. Make asking part of checkout: a short text or email after the visit with a direct link to leave a review. Reply to reviews, good and bad, briefly and without sharing any health details.
4. Give each condition and treatment its own page
Patients search for specific things like "acne scar treatment" or "skin cancer check". A page for each one, written plainly, gives Google a reason to show your practice for that search. This is the slowest step to pay off and the one that keeps paying the longest.
5. Show the people behind the practice
Real photos of your doctors and team build more trust than stock photos. Short bios that say where each provider trained and what they focus on help patients pick who to see.
6. Run small, focused ads
Search ads can bring patients in quickly, but they only pay off when the page they land on is ready. Send each ad to the page that matches it: a skin check ad to your skin check page, not your home page. Start with a small budget on a few specific searches and check which ones lead to bookings.
7. Keep patient information out of your tracking
If you use tracking tools for ads, keep them off your patient portal, booking pages and forms. Our post on patient forms and HIPAA explains why.
Where to start
- Fix the website first, so every other step has somewhere to send patients
- Complete your Google Business Profile
- Start asking for reviews after every visit
- Add condition and treatment pages over time
- Add ads once the pages they point to are ready
If your website is the weak link, our dermatology website designs come with the pages patients look for. We tailor one to your practice, launch it and keep it updated.
