Sports medicine
Searches by sport, season and body part, plus parents and coaches researching a child's injury.
Bone and joint practices
Marketing for Orthopedic Practices With Two Front Doors: The Patient Who Hurts and the Doctor Who Refers
A torn meniscus, a stiff shoulder, a hip that no longer lets someone sleep: people with these problems type them into a phone long before they ever meet a surgeon. At the same moment, a primary care office is deciding where to send a patient with an abnormal knee film. GetPhound builds the search presence, Google listings, advertising and website that serve both audiences, for single-specialty groups, multi-surgeon practices and sports medicine clinics. Plans begin at $495 a month, month to month, with no setup fee.
- Two audiencesPatients who search, and offices that refer
- Service lines firstKnees, shoulders, spine, hands, feet and fractures each get their own pages
- From $495Flat monthly pricing, nothing due upfront
- Surgeon by surgeonEvery physician is presented as a person, not a logo
The shape of the work
An Ortho Schedule Is Fed From Several Directions at Once
Most local businesses have one kind of customer. A bone and joint practice has at least five. There is the weekend athlete with a swollen ankle who wants to be seen today. There is the retired teacher whose knee has been getting worse for three years and who is, quietly, afraid of surgery. There is the parent of a high school quarterback. There is the primary care doctor who needs a place to send a rotator cuff question without a six-week wait. And there is the injured worker or accident patient whose care is routed through an adjuster, an employer or an attorney.
Each of those people finds you differently, worries about different things and decides on different information. A single "orthopedic services" page cannot serve all of them, and a single ad campaign certainly cannot. The first job is to map which of those streams your practice wants more of, which it can handle, and which it would rather politely route elsewhere. A practice that is booked six weeks out for hip replacement does not need more hip leads; it may need more sports injuries, more hand cases or more of the shorter, procedure-light visits that fill a cancelled surgical day.
We start from the calendar and the surgeons, not from keywords. Whose templates have room? Which procedures do the surgeons want to do more of? Which payers are you in network with? The marketing follows those answers.
Where cases come from
Eight Routes Into the Exam Room and What Decides Each One
| Route | What it sounds like | What tips the decision | Where we help |
|---|---|---|---|
| New injury, patient finds you | "knee injury what to do", "sprained ankle or broken", "orthopedic doctor open today" | Speed to an appointment and a clear statement of who can be seen without a referral | Walk-in and same-day pages, an accurate Google profile, honest hours |
| Chronic joint pain | "hip pain when walking", "bone on bone knee", "shoulder pain at night" | Trust and a plain explanation of options before surgery | Condition and treatment pages written for worried readers |
| Surgery shopper | "best knee replacement surgeon near me", "robotic knee replacement", "second opinion hip" | The surgeon, reviews, hospital and how soon | Physician pages, review habits, hospital and facility details |
| Primary care referral | A phone call or portal message from a PCP office | How easy it is to refer, and whether the patient gets in quickly | A referral page for providers, clear intake rules, a contact that answers |
| Physical therapy referral | A therapist saying "this needs a surgeon to look at it" | Relationship, feedback after the visit, speed | Therapist-facing content and shared patient education |
| Urgent care or ER handoff | "follow up with orthopedics within a few days" | Whether your office can see a fracture or post-ER patient within days | Fracture-care and follow-up pages that say what you accept |
| Workers' compensation or auto accident | "doctor for work injury", "orthopedist after car accident" | Whether you accept the claim and understand the paperwork | Plain, accurate pages on what you take and how to start |
| Parent of an athlete | "ACL tear teen", "growth plate fracture", "youth sports orthopedist" | Pediatric experience, school and team relationships | Sports pages, athletic trainer outreach, seasonal campaigns |
Your own new-patient report by referral source is the best guide to this mix. We build the plan around what your calendar actually needs.
Service lines
The Subspecialties We Build Pages and Campaigns Around
Joint replacement
High-consideration decisions with long research phases, strong surgeon comparison and insurance questions.
Spine
Often a conservative-care story first, which means pages that say clearly when surgery is and is not the next step.
Hand and upper extremity
A mix of urgent injuries and scheduled procedures, with its own search language.
Foot and ankle
Sprains and breaks that need quick triage, plus planned reconstruction.
Trauma and fracture care
Patients arriving from urgent care and the emergency department who need fast, honest access information.
Pediatric orthopedics
Parents who want to know that the office is comfortable with children.
Every one of these is a different patient with a different worry. How the work connects is covered in the full marketing guide, and the search side is detailed on the SEO page.
The walk-in question
Same-Day Injury Care Is a Marketing Product of Its Own
A growing number of practices run a walk-in or same-day injury clinic: a set of hours, often with on-site X-ray and casting, for fresh sprains, suspected fractures and sudden joint pain. It is a different offer from a scheduled surgical consultation, and it should be marketed as one. The person searching for it is in pain, may be holding an ice pack in a parking lot, and wants answers to three things: are you open now, can you see me without a referral, and will you take my insurance.
That means a dedicated page, a Google Business Profile that shows the right hours for the clinic and not just the office, honest wording about what happens when the schedule is full and clear guidance about when a problem belongs in an emergency department instead. Many walk-in clinics are also candidates for a short, tightly scoped Google Ads campaign that runs only when staff are present. The Google Ads page explains how.
If you do not run a walk-in clinic, the same logic applies to any fast-access offer: next-day appointments for acute injuries, a nurse line, a fracture follow-up slot. Say it plainly and keep it true.
What we do
Six Pieces of One Plan
Search
Content that answers how people actually phrase a problem. Search optimization.
Google Maps
Practice and practitioner profiles, categories, photos and reviews. Maps and local search.
Google Ads
Campaigns for injuries, procedures and walk-in hours, built around health-ad rules. Google Ads.
Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram)
Sports season outreach, event promotion and recall, kept clear of sensitive targeting. Meta Ads.
Website
Service-line pages, surgeon profiles and a provider referral path. Web design.
AI search
Clear, consistent facts about your surgeons, locations and services. AI search.
Behind them sit patient education content, citations and local links, paid channel planning and inquiry handling.
Rules of the road
Health Advertising Has Limits That Plumbers Never Hear About
Google and Meta both restrict how health advertisers can target and measure. In general, the platforms limit personalized advertising built on sensitive health conditions, which affects remarketing to people who visited a page about a specific condition, and Meta restricts the tracking events health advertisers can send. These policies change, and the wording matters, so we read the current policy text before building anything and we plan campaigns that do not depend on tactics a platform may take away.
Privacy law is the second layer. A booking form, a call recording, a chat widget and an analytics tag can each collect information tied to a patient, and the federal guidance on tracking technologies has moved around in recent years, including a 2024 court decision that set aside part of it. We do not advise on what the law requires of your practice. We set up forms, call tracking and tags conservatively, keep tracking off logged-in pages, ask vendors about business associate agreements and suggest your counsel review the final setup.
Finally, advertising language is regulated by state boards and, for physicians, by professional standards. We do not write outcome promises, superiority claims or "pain-free" language. Check your own board's rules; none of this is legal advice.
Getting started
The First Sixty Days
Days 1 to 10: learn the practice
We talk with the administrator and a surgeon about templates, payers, subspecialties and the cases you want, and agree how calls and forms will be tracked without exposing patient details.
Days 11 to 25: audit and repair
We check your Google profiles, directory data, service pages, surgeon bios and any live ads, and fix wrong hours, duplicate listings and thin pages.
Days 26 to 45: publish the first pages
Service-line and surgeon pages go live, a referral page for providers is added if you want one, and any ads launch small.
Days 46 to 60: measure and plan
You get a plain report on calls, booked consults and referral inquiries, and we plan the next quarter around the seasons coming up.
Pricing
Flat Monthly Plans, No Contract
Everything is billed monthly with no setup fee and no term. Ad budgets are paid straight to Google or Meta, and a standalone website is quoted after a short call.
Questions
What Administrators and Surgeons Ask First
What does marketing an ortho group cost with you?
Starting points are $495 a month for RankGuarantee™ landing pages, $895 a month for managed ads on one platform, and $1,495 a month for the Organic Growth search bundle. Gold and Platinum add a managed website. Ad spend goes to the platform. See the marketing guide for how practices combine them.
Can you promise more joint replacements or sports cases?
No. Nobody can promise a patient count, a ranking or a date. What we can do is build the foundation, track which calls become booked consults and report it monthly, so you decide based on your own numbers.
We get most patients from referrals. Is search worth it?
Often yes, because referral sources check you online before they send someone, and many patients look up the doctor they were told to see. A strong profile and surgeon pages protect referrals, and search adds a second stream your relationships cannot reach. The lead generation page explains how to measure both.
Do you work with hospital-employed surgeons?
Yes, though the hospital may control the website, brand and listings. In that case we focus on what you can influence, such as practitioner profiles, reviews, content and outreach, and coordinate with your system's marketing team rather than around them.
Can we advertise walk-in injury hours?
Yes, if the hours are real and staffed. We build the page, the Google profile details and a small ad campaign that runs only when the clinic is open. See the Google Ads page.
Should we try ads inside ChatGPT?
It is an early channel, so treat it as a small, measured test after your search and Maps work is solid, with its own tracking. It is separate from the work of making sure AI tools describe your practice correctly, covered on the AI search page.
All guides
Pick the Part of the Practice You Want to Grow
Start Here
- Orthopedic SEOSearch optimization for orthopedic groups: condition and procedure pages, surgeon pages, location pages and the proof that wins the click.
- Orthopedic Marketing GuideThe full picture of marketing an orthopedic practice: channels, patient and referrer audiences, costs, a seasonal calendar and a first ninety days.
- Orthopedic Practice Marketing (you are here)Marketing for bone and joint practices: patients searching symptoms and surgeons, referring offices, walk-in injury clinics and the website that ties them together.
Get Found in Search
- Google Maps for Orthopedic PracticesGoogle Business Profile for orthopedic groups: practice and surgeon listings, categories, walk-in hours, photos and reviews.
- AI Search for Orthopedic PracticesMake sure chat assistants and AI search summaries describe your surgeons, locations and services accurately.
- Links and Citations for Orthopedic PracticesAccurate directory listings and credible local mentions for orthopedic groups: societies, hospitals, teams, schools and community partners.
Paid Advertising
- Paid Ads for Orthopedic PracticesWhich paid channels fit an orthopedic practice: Google Ads, Meta Ads, Bing, Local Services Ads where available and small ChatGPT ad tests.
- Google Ads for Orthopedic PracticesGoogle Ads for orthopedic groups: injury and walk-in campaigns, procedure consults, surgeon names, negatives and health-ad compliance.
- Meta Ads for Orthopedic PracticesMeta Ads (Facebook and Instagram) for orthopedic groups: youth sports seasons, community events, new offices and compliant creative.
Website and Content
- Website Design for Orthopedic PracticesWebsites for orthopedic groups: service-line hubs, surgeon pages, injury clinic pages, referral paths and forms that protect privacy.
- Content for Orthopedic PracticesPatient education and referrer-facing content for orthopedic groups: condition guides, recovery explainers, comparisons and surgeon voices.
Get in Touch
Tell Us Which Service Lines Need Fuller Schedules
Is it the joint replacement calendar, the sports medicine clinic, the walk-in injury hours or the new surgeon who still has open templates? Give us the answer and we will price a flat plan around it. Call 610-825-4363 or write hello@getphound.com, and our CEO joins the first conversation.