This is a marketing guide for orthopedic administrators and marketing leads. It says nothing about clinical quality.
Considering ongoing marketing support? I run orthopedic marketing agency services for practices like yours. I can discuss your priorities and possible scope. Fees, responsibilities, account access and handover terms are defined in a written proposal. Request a marketing review
Look for an agency that will name the person doing your work, show you booked consults and not just clicks, give you ownership of every account, and run a plain website check on your practice before it proposes anything. If it guarantees rankings or will not explain how it measures results, walk away.
I run an agency myself, so weigh this page accordingly. I wrote it to help you compare proposals, including mine.
Seven things to check
- Who does the work. Ask for the name of the person who will build and manage your account, not only the person selling it.
- What they measure. The number that matters is kept consults. Clicks and impressions are a step on the way.
- Ownership. Your website, your Google Business Profile, your ad accounts and your analytics should be in your name from day one, with you as owner.
- Orthopedic proof they can show. Ask for examples from orthopedic or similar practices, with what they changed. Be wary of case studies that give a percentage with no starting figure or dates.
- What they check first. A good agency looks at the basics before proposing anything: whether patients can tap to call, whether the title names your city, how an appointment request works. My seven website checks are a fair starting point for any agency.
- Terms in writing. Ask what happens if you leave, who keeps the site, and how much notice either side gives.
- Honest limits. A credible agency tells you what it cannot promise, such as a ranking position or a number of patients.
Red flags
- A guarantee of page one rankings or a patient volume.
- No named person and no one you can call.
- Reports made of impressions and traffic with no booked consults.
- Reluctance to give you account access.
- A proposal written before anyone looked at your site.
Questions to ask, including ones that test me
- Who will do my work, and what else do they work on?
- What is the first thing you would check on my website, and why?
- How will I see booked consults by source, month by month?
- If I leave, what do I keep?
- What would you tell me not to spend money on?
- Have you worked with a practice like mine? What did you change, and what did not work?
- What do you need from my front desk for this to succeed?
- What is the most likely reason this would fail?
⚡ 2-minute scorecard · instant result
Is your orthopedic practice website turning searches into booked consults?
Answer 5 quick questions. Get your score + the top fixes, free.
1. Can a new patient request an appointment from a phone in under a minute?
2. Is every phone number on your site a tap-to-call link?
3. Do your procedure pages name the surgeons who perform them and show patient reviews?
4. Does each office have its own page with hours, phone and the surgeons who work there?
5. Do you track new-patient requests from the first click to a kept consult?
In-house, freelancer or agency
| Option | Strength | Risk | Often fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| In-house | Knows your practice, quick to act | One person’s skills, turnover | Larger groups with steady work |
| Freelancer | Direct access, focused tasks | Single point of failure, limited range | A defined project |
| Agency | A range of skills in one place | You may meet a different team than the sales team | Practices that need several skills at once |
My longer comparison of in-house versus agency marketing goes further, and there is an agency RFP template if you want to run a formal process.
What my own review found
I ran seven plain checks on 21 orthopedic practice homepages on 1 November 2026. In that study, 14 never mentioned patient reviews, 10 left the city out of the page title, and 5 showed a phone number with no tap-to-call link. These are the kind of basics a good agency should find in its first hour. The full results and limits are in my homepage study.
Want a plain second opinion?
I will record a short free walkthrough of your website with the three fixes I would make first, whether or not you ever hire me. Request a free audit.
