Opportunities in SEO

I took the day off yesterday to play golf with a friend visiting from Australia.

We played at my local club, Rochford Hundred Golf Club in Essex, England.

As with many clubs, income is essential. Fees, catering, and events make up the bulk of revenues—but advertising is also a stream.

Yesterday, I saw an advert on tee signage around the tees for laser eye surgery

This advert for laser eye surgery is pretty well targeted. Golfers need good vision and the average age of members I’d guess, is 50+.

Being a complete SEO nerd, I went home and took a quick look on Ahrefs. Was there an opportunity for laser eye clinics to generate traffic through an organic search?

My Guess

I thought there would be an opportunity, but it would be hyper-competitive. Why?

💀 Demand is high – 15,000 people in the UK have laser surgery every year.

💀 Procedure cost is (relatively) high at around £1,200+ per eye (in the US, the market size is $1.6bn)

💀 The market will grow – as the population ages and the procedures improve, the demand will surely grow fast.

So, with all these factors, surely a company is dominating search?

Um, not really.

A fair amount of paid ad spend is thrown at this market, but for organic search, a small new site could rank pretty quickly.

If anyone is looking for an idea for a lead generation business, this might just be the ticket.

Let’s take a quick look at the numbers….

• 29 is a mad low KD for this term
• CPC is eye-wateringly high
• Clicks per search at 1.08 is super high for a fairly broad term

I’m excited to look deeper.

As you go further the KD remains low, the CPC is high and the CPS is incredible. In short this is a huge opportunity.

Here are a few of the hubs to target:

✅   Pricing

✅   Reviews

✅   Provider searches

✅   How it works

Here are three terms I really like:

Here is a lead gen/affiliate site in the space: www.lasik-eyes.co.uk

They are doing pretty well.

So, let’s say you want to play in this space—you are either a clinic (chain of clinics) or a lead generation media business—how do you win?

Let’s first look at clinics.

#1 Get Your Local SEO Nailed 

I’m not sure how far people travel for laser eye surgery, but let’s assume they stay relatively local (the nearest big city).

If that’s the case, make sure you rank for laser eye surgery X location

#2 Authority Posts 

In the medical space, Google is trying to favour sites where authors have real-world authority. So, use your experts to create informational posts.

This will rank directly for relevant terms and give your local terms a huge boost.

Here are three ideas to get you started:

1. Is laser eye surgery safe? The latest research in 2022 reviewed.
2. What questions to ask when choosing a laser eye surgery clinic
3. Laser eye surgery (on the day): How long does it take and what is the recovery time?

And now lead generation sites

The main advantage is you can look more broadly at the sector, but the disadvantage is you may have weaker credentials. Unless you offer genuine value, Google’s algorithm will reward these sites less over time.

But, you can offer genuine value in a few ways.

💡Credible reviews

💡 Expert opinion

💡 Reviewing scientific literature

Let’s take a quick look at each.

It’s always hard to deliver reviews

😨 Customer opinions are usually subjective and not based on a range of experiences (making testimony weak).

😨 Efficacy is often hard to review and subjective judgments are largely unhelpful in medical reviews.

So, what’s the solution?

🔥 Get the basics right – Detailed locations, the size of the clinic, prices and services offered. This all needs to be the very latest information.

🔥 Social signals – Outline to readers how many followers the company has on social media accounts and review the quality of their posts.

🔥 Clinic data – It may be hard to find, but any verified data on performance would be excellent. I suspect clinics get some kind of independent review, so that’s worth exploring.

Find people that know the space and ask their opinions, you could cover:

• Risks
• Different approaches
• Future developments

You can also use this to attract links to your site.

This is going to take some time and you need to tread carefully.

But if you get it right. then it’s beneficial for readers and will enhance your authority. You just need to remember a few key points:

• Do not give an opinion
• Back up every point with a reference article
• Always be clear that you are not offering advice

Once you’ve distilled the research, break it into digestible chunks:

• Videos
• Images
• Skimmable content

So, there have it laser eye therapy is a massive SEO opportunity!

At Kalium we’re looking to launch some of our own media assets and this is definitely an opportunity. So, if you are a skilled operator then…please try a different niche 😊