Images Boost Website Effectiveness

What’s the status of images on your cosmetic surgery website? You might be surprised to know that images, along with SEO-oriented content on a regular basis, can improve visitor experience. You’ve been told for years that content is King on the web and it’s true. However, content is primarily for the search engines and should be updated regularly. Images often get short shrift but they are more important than you may think.

For example, did you know that the average person remembers 80% of what they see but only about 20% of what they read? Studies show that approximately 65% of people are visual learners. According to an MIT study, the human brain can see and understand images in as little as 13 milliseconds. You can quickly realize, therefore, that the images on your plastic surgery website are powerful marketing tools. What does this mean for your plastic surgery marketing plan?

Images Deliver Multiple Benefits

Images remove language barriers. We can no longer assume that all visitors to your cosmetic surgery website are English speakers. According to the 2017 study by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, cosmetic surgery procedures increased by 16% between 2016 and 2017 among Hispanic patients. Theoretically, if a cosmetic surgeon performs 300 cosmetic surgery procedures per year, 16% is a potential increase of 48 procedures. Obviously, this varies by geographical location: those with a higher concentration of Hispanic individuals may benefit even more. Interestingly, Hispanics overwhelmingly trend toward surgical procedures rather than skincare products or treatments such as fillers, laser skin rejuvenation and the like.

Images increase the accessibility of your website for those with lower reading comprehension skills and/or visual challenges.

According to The Literacy Project, 50% of American adults cannot read above an 8th grade level. It would be unwise to assume that your target demographic does not reflect this reality. Photos and video clips give your visitors an easy way to understand what you do and why they should come to you rather than your competitors.

High quality images reflect your cosmetic surgery practice. Yours is an aesthetic business and, hence, the images you choose must be compelling, colorful, and modern in appearance. They must tell the story of your practice to your website visitors. This applies to the structure of the site as well.

Images lead visitors to the phone. Do you have plentiful clear and persuasive before & after photos? Do they give your visitors the information they seek, such as (in the case of breast procedures) breast size before and after, patient height, weight, and bra size? These are important influencers in that these photos are not only viewed by prospective patients but by the “other buyer” as well, such as spouse or partner.

Images are important on social media as well. Every post on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media sites should include a photo to draw prospective patients.

The Balance Between Images and Content

As mentioned previously, content is primarily for the internet spiders that crawl the web seeking new and robust content that affects your ranking when someone seeks your services. You want them to find you on the first page of Google and the right content can make that happen. One of our primary services is to create SEO-based website content that influences the spiders to rank you higher than your competitors. It does little good, however, to pull in website visitors if they don’t get what they want when they arrive at your website, and what they want are visuals and plenty of them. Unfortunately, people generally aren’t reading and those that are will be prompted by excellent images to read more.