Hearing from a growing number of doctors on RealSelf.com that getting new patients in the door is taking on greater urgency as the economy drives down discretionary spending in cosmetic surgery and treatments. This is forcing many to consider new marketing initiatives.

I'm not a medical practice marketing guru, but I do know bad marketing ideas when I see them.

Below is a mail we received that solicits a paid link from RealSelf.com to a doctor's website.  We don't sell paid links.  Moreover, Google penalizes sites that buy and sell paid links because the practice is seen as a way to manipulate the search engine results.

My advice is to stay away from "SEO Consultants" that run paid link campaigns. The risk of getting thrown into the Google doghouse for years is not worth the short-term potential benefits of new links. 

Instead, go to medical organizations where you're a member.  Request a followed link to your site.  Write an article with a link to your site and offer it to free to websites like RealSelf.com. Call other medical practices (not direct competitors) and ask for them to link to your site.

Bottom line: don't let someone send out mails like this...

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:    Site Feedback: Advertise in your website: Contextual Link Ad
Date:    Fri, 10 Oct 2008 05:37:21 -0700

Hello,

Greetings!

I am Jim Mainee and I work for RhinoplastySpecialist.com, known for its
medical expertise in Rhinoplasty surgical procedure.

As part of our on-going website development, we are inviting you to
participate on our contextual link ad simply by putting our link text in
your main page, or on its sub related pages.

We are willing to pay you in exchange of having our text in your main
page.

For further information about this program, let us hear your comments. You
can reach me at {edited}

Thank you for reading my email.

Jim