A family doctor looks at a knee X-ray, says "you should see an orthopedic surgeon," and writes a name on a slip of paper. The patient goes home and types that name into Google.
That search is the most valuable one an orthopedic practice will ever see. The patient already knows which surgeon they want. Nobody had to persuade them. All the practice has to do is make sure the name leads straight back to that surgeon, with a way to book.
It's also the search practices most often leave to chance, trusting that ranking first is enough and that the booking button is easy to find. This chapter covers both halves: a brand campaign that covers every surgeon's name from the first month, and a page for each surgeon that finishes the job the referral started.
Sixty-Two Surgeons' Names Draw More Searches Than "Orthopedic Surgeon" Does
In our example market, Nashville, the keyword list from Chapter 5 held 112 doctors' names drawn from eight orthopedic practice websites. We left out the hospital and neurosurgery sites so the count would cover orthopedics only. Sixty-two of those names draw at least 20 searches a month each. Forty draw 50 or more, and 13 draw 100 or more.
Together, those 62 names add up to about 4,760 searches a month. Keyword Planner puts "orthopedic surgeon" at 590 in the same market and "orthopedic surgeon near me" at 260.
No single surgeon is a big search. The typical name among the 62 draws about 50 searches a month. The volume comes from adding them up, and it isn't one practice's doing: one large group supplies 30 of the names and four other practices supply the rest. Your own market will have different names and different numbers. It will very likely have the same shape, because this is how orthopedic patients are sent to surgeons.
Chapter 2 covered the referral side: in the peer-reviewed surveys, physician referrals account for close to half of new orthopedic patients. Some patients arrive already asking for a particular doctor. In one practice's records, 306 of 2,642 new patients, about 12%, requested a specific provider. And patients who choose for themselves often check a surgeon by name before they call, reading reviews and credentials. Every one of those people types a name, not "orthopedic surgeon near me."
On a Surgeon's Name, the Practice Owns the Top Result and Little Else
We searched the names of 10 orthopedic surgeons from that list and recorded who held each result on the first page.
The good news first: on all 10 searches, the top organic result was the surgeon's page on the practice website or the surgeon's own site. Google knows who these people are.
The rest of page one is someone else's. Of 88 organic results across the 10 searches, 40 belonged to directories, and only 18 to the practice's or the surgeon's own pages. Most of the other 24 were social media profiles, nearly all of them the practice's or the surgeon's own accounts. A hospital's physician finder showed up on all 10 searches, and on four of them it sat at number two, right under the practice. US News appeared on eight and Healthgrades on six. On one search, a doctor with the same last name, practicing in another state, showed up on page one.
A directory listing isn't a disaster. The hospital finder is often accurate, and a patient who clicks Healthgrades may still call the practice. But every one of those results has its own phone number, its own "request an appointment" button and, in some cases, a list of other surgeons nearby. The patient came for one doctor, and page one offers several ways to end up somewhere else.
There's also the space above the first organic result. Google's trademark policy says outright that it doesn't restrict anyone's use of trademarks as keywords, and it says nothing about people's names. So any advertiser can bid on a surgeon's name: another practice, a directory, a hospital system. We couldn't confirm from our own searches whether anyone does in this market, and we won't guess. The point is that the top spot on your surgeon's name is open, and the only way to be sure it's yours is to buy it.
A Surgeon's Name Belongs in Its Own Campaign From Month One
The rollout in this guide launches two campaigns in the first month: the exact match Isolation campaign from Chapter 6, and a brand campaign. The brand campaign is where every name goes.
Set it up like this:
- One campaign, its own budget. Names never share a budget with generic searches. On a day when "knee replacement surgeon" soaks up the money, the patient searching their referred surgeon's name should still see your ad.
- One ad group per surgeon, plus one for the practice name. That way each surgeon's ad and landing page can name that surgeon, which is the whole point.
- Exact and phrase match on each name, in the forms patients use: "dr lastname," "firstname lastname md," "dr lastname orthopedic," the name plus the city. Your search terms report will show the rest.
- Misspellings take care of themselves, mostly. Exact match covers close variants, and Google counts misspellings as close variants. Orthopedic surnames get mangled constantly, so read the search terms anyway.
Two Google rules keep those searches in this campaign. A surgeon's name typed exactly the way it sits in the brand campaign goes to that keyword first, ahead of Exploration's broad keywords and ahead of Performance Max; that's Google's own priority rule for identical searches. The exception Google names is a Search campaign that has run out of budget, which is one more reason the brand campaign's budget should never be tight. And when Performance Max arrives, Chapter 10 adds the practice name and every surgeon's name to its brand exclusions, so it can't buy those searches back.
You may notice Google's brand lists, a setting that restricts a campaign to searches about chosen brands. Google describes brands as businesses: a logo, a trademark, a domain name or a business name. A surgeon's personal name doesn't fit that description as we read it, so surgeon names go in as keywords. The practice name can use either.
Keep the list current. Surgeons join and leave. A new surgeon needs an ad group the week they start seeing patients, and a surgeon who has left needs their ad group paused the day they go, before the ad sends their loyal patients to a page that no longer exists.
Brand Clicks Flatter Every Number They Touch. Keep Them Out of the Other Campaigns.
A patient who types a surgeon's name has, in most cases, already made the choice. The ad didn't persuade them; the referral or the reputation did. That's exactly why those clicks don't belong anywhere else.
Mixed into Exploration, name searches can make broad match look brilliant. The cost per consult drops, and the target CPA from Chapter 7 gets set against numbers the campaign didn't earn. When the name searches stop flowing through it, the campaign looks broken, and nobody can tell why.
So the names run in one direction only:
- Surgeon and practice names go in as negative keywords in Isolation and Exploration, on a shared negative list. Google says negative keywords account for misspellings on their own, but not for plurals or other forms, so add "dr lastname" and the full name, not just one form.
- Use full names for common surnames. A negative on a single surname like White or Bell will block unrelated searches that happen to contain the word.
- Report brand conversions on their own line. When the practice asks what Google Ads produced this month, the answer separates patients who were already looking for a surgeon from patients the ads found.
Both numbers matter. The brand campaign protects demand the practice earned through referrals and reputation. The rest of the account creates demand that didn't exist yet. Adding them together hides which one is working.
Half the Surgeon Pages We Checked Can't Book the Doctor on the Page
The ad is only half of it. A patient who clicks a surgeon's name wants that surgeon's page: who they are, what they operate on, where they see patients and how to get on their schedule.
We looked at 24 surgeon and physician pages on 12 practice and hospital websites in the example market. Every one of them had a page title naming the surgeon, and 19 stated board certification and fellowship training. The basics of who the surgeon is were almost always there.
What was missing was the next step. Twelve of the 24 pages had a button that books that specific surgeon. Eight sent the patient to a general appointment request form, where they have to name the surgeon again. Four had no way to book at all. Only 11 showed reviews or star ratings, seven had a video of the surgeon, and just two said which insurance the practice accepts.
Insurance matters more than the count suggests. In a survey of 538 patients at one academic orthopedic center, in-network status ranked second only to board certification among the things patients weigh when they choose a surgeon. A surgeon page that lists credentials and leaves out insurance answers the question patients ask second and skips the one they ask right after.
A surgeon page built for a name search carries:
- A booking button for that surgeon, not a generic form.
- The phone number that reaches that surgeon's team, or the central line if scheduling is centralized, stated plainly.
- What the surgeon treats, in patients' words: knees, shoulders, hands, the specific procedures.
- Where the surgeon sees patients and where they operate.
- Insurance accepted, or a link to the list.
- Reviews, and a short video if you have one.
A Name Ad That Lands on the Home Page Makes the Patient Find the Surgeon Twice
The last step is making the ad, the listing and the page agree.
The ad in each surgeon's ad group names the surgeon in the headline and lands on that surgeon's page, never the home page. Sitelinks can go straight to booking and to the office locations. Location assets should show the surgeon's own Google listing, using the location groups from Chapter 12, so the rating under the ad is the surgeon's own.
Check the listing, too. On seven of the 10 name searches, Google showed the surgeon's own Business Profile panel, rated 4.5 to 5.0 stars with 48 to 513 reviews. That panel has a website button. At one group, every surgeon listing we saw linked to the practice home page instead of the surgeon's page, so a patient who found the right doctor was dropped back at the front door. And one surgeon's search turned up an old listing from a practice in another state.
Then check every link on the page before an ad points at it. In our sample we found a "read reviews" button that opened a different doctor's reviews, a phone number whose tap-to-call link dialed a different number than the one printed, and a hospital profile whose website link went to another practice. None of that shows up in an ad account. All of it shows up for the patient.
Next: The Injury That Can't Wait for a Consult
The patients in this chapter already know who they want. Chapter 16 turns to the ones who don't have time to choose: the sprained ankle, the fall on the ice, the injury that needs an orthopedic walk-in clinic today, and why that line of the practice needs its own campaign.
The guide home has the full sequence.
For orthopedic groups that hand us their Google Ads management, every surgeon gets an ad group in the brand campaign before launch, and every name ad lands on a page that can book that surgeon.
