How Many Before and After Photos Are Enough?

We are working with a long-time client on redesigning their site.  The practice manager asked, “About how many pictures ideally do we need on the website? We obviously don’t have enough, but how high are we aiming?”

Presenting before and after photos on your website isn’t just about quantity, it’s also about quality.  Simply stated, you want many well photographed cases featured on your site with detailed text description.

We’ll deal with the quantity issue first.  There are four good reasons why presenting many cases per procedure is important:

1. Each new set of photos, when accompanied by a keyword-rich text description, can be published as a new page that can help you earn better search engine rankings.
2. Your state medical licensing board and medical societies do not want doctors, intentionally or accidentally, to mislead patients about what is a realistic surgical outcomes.  Providing a larger sample is more defensibly “representative” than just a few of the doctor’s favorite cases.
3. The quality of surgical outcomes is subjective.  So the more photos you show the more likely a potential patient will see an inspiring outcome.
4. More photos is perceived to mean more experience.  A surgeon who posts every consented case to their website is likely to be perceived to have more experience than a surgeon who has done many cases for the same procedures, but chooses not to post his or her work on the Web.

Quality is also an issue, but not in the way you think.  Don’t focus on isolating only your favorite outcomes.  Focus on good photography.  That means consistent framing and lighting.  It means asking patients to remove makeup for their after photos.  And as photos become dated (hairstyles, makeup or jewelry that are clearly out of style) retire those images in favor of current cases that tell potential patients you are still performing that procedure today.

Either way showing more good before and after photography on your website is a good thing.  That’s why we developed a photo gallery management tool specifically for medical professionals.