Orthopedics and sports medicine
Orthopedic marketing that turns sprains and sore joints into surgeon consults
In Charlotte, more people search for orthopedic urgent care than for an orthopedic surgeon, and the surgery searches themselves draw almost no bids. We plan your search ads, Google listings, procedure and surgeon pages, social ads and email around the walk-in injury, the joint that needs a specialist and the referring office, inside the ad policy and privacy limits of health care.
- 2,400"orthopedic urgent care" searches a month in the Charlotte area, more than any other orthopedic search that names no practice
- $0.02low end of the estimated click cost for "acl surgery" in Charlotte, against $1.58 for "orthopedic doctor near me"
- $22.20high end of the estimated click cost for "hand doctor near me", the most expensive search in the plan
- 720 to 260"orthopedic doctor near me" searches, October 2025 against July and August 2026
The short answer
What makes orthopedic marketing different from other healthcare marketing?
Orthopedic marketing sells a chain, not a visit: the injury or the worn joint brings the patient in, the surgeon earns the decision, and the practice is paid when a consult turns into the right treatment.
Patients reach an orthopedic practice three ways: a walk-in clinic after an injury, a search for a specialist by body part, or a referral from primary care. Each has its own click cost and season, and they meet at the surgeon’s schedule. Orthopedic surgeon is one of the health care categories that can run Local Services Ads, and health is a sensitive category where Google limits audience targeting, so search and the map carry most of the plan. As an orthopedic marketing agency we run orthopedic ads, orthopedic SEO, the Google Business Profile, social ads and referral email as one plan, and we read it by consults kept and by procedure line.
What orthopedic practices need their marketing to solve.
These are the pressures we see in orthopedic and sports medicine accounts, from a two-surgeon practice to a multi-site group with its own walk-in clinic and surgery center. They are why an orthopedic plan looks different from a rehab or chiropractic plan.
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Patients who choose the surgeon, not the building
Someone facing a knee or shoulder operation looks up the surgeon by name, training and focus. A practice whose website lists surgeons in a grid with one paragraph each loses that comparison.
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Procedure lines with their own markets
Joints, spine, hand, foot and ankle and sports medicine each draw different patients, click costs and referral sources. One "orthopedics" campaign lets the cheapest clicks starve the lines the practice wants to grow.
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A walk-in clinic that should feed the surgeons
The injury clinic is the busiest front door, but many walk-in patients are treated once and never booked for the follow-up. Every walk-in patient who needs a specialist and goes elsewhere is a lost consult.
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Primary care and urgent care referrals
Family doctors, urgent care centers and athletic trainers decide where many patients go. They send patients to the practice that sees them fastest and reports back.
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Consults that never become treatment
A consult is the start, not the result. Prior authorization, imaging and patient doubt sit between the visit and the procedure, and an account judged on form fills hides that gap.
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Tracking without the diagnosis
A booked consult can be counted and sent back to Google. The body part, the imaging and the intake answers stay in the practice’s own system.
What people search when they need an orthopedic specialist, and when.
Monthly searches and estimated click costs for the searches an orthopedic practice competes for. The averages hide the seasons and the gap between specialist and procedure searches, so the notes below read the curves month by month.
| Search | US / mo | Est. click cost, Charlotte |
|---|---|---|
| orthopedic urgent care | 60,500 | $1.06 to $3.48 |
| orthopedics near me | 110,000 | $1.62 to $7.38 |
| orthopedic surgeon | 90,500 | $1.30 to $6.41 |
| knee arthroplasty surgery | 49,500 | $0.43 to $2.72 |
| hip replacement surgery | 40,500 | $0.54 to $4.90 |
| orthopedic doctor near me | 49,500 | $1.58 to $7.70 |
| rotator cuff surgery | 27,100 | $0.05 to $3.68 |
| acl surgery | 27,100 | $0.02 to $1.89 |
| hand doctor near me | 22,200 | $1.68 to $22.20 |
| sports medicine near me | 18,100 | $1.64 to $5.43 |
- Specialist searches fade in summer, sports and hips climb
- "Orthopedic doctor near me" fell from 720 searches in October 2025 to 260 in July and August 2026, and "orthopedic surgeon near me" dropped to 90 in July. In the same months "sports medicine near me" rose from 140 in the winter to 260 in August and September, and "total hip replacement" went from 70 in December to 170. One flat monthly budget misses both turns.
- Surgery searches are almost unbid
- "Acl surgery" clicks start at $0.02 and "rotator cuff surgery" at $0.05 in Charlotte, with 260 and 390 searches a month. These are people reading about an operation they may need, and they are won by procedure and surgeon pages that rank, with a consult one tap away.
- Hand care is the priciest click and the walk-in the busiest door
- "Hand doctor near me" reaches $22.20 a click at the top of the range, three times the general searches. Meanwhile "orthopedic urgent care" draws 2,400 searches a month from $1.06, and one Charlotte group’s branded walk-in search draws 5,400 on its own: injury care is where patients first meet a practice.
Source: OVERTOP Search Intelligence, 12-month averages for the United States and the Charlotte, NC media market, pulled October 2026. Estimated click cost is the typical range advertisers pay for a top-of-page click.
Our approach: it depends, and the data decides.
A two-surgeon sports medicine practice and a multi-site group with a surgery center need different plans. Four things decide where an orthopedic plan starts.
- Your goals Fill a new surgeon’s schedule, grow joint replacement or spine, launch a walk-in clinic, or lean less on one hospital’s referrals. Each starts with a different campaign, page and budget.
- Your timeline Search ads, the walk-in campaign and Local Services Ads can book patients within weeks. Procedure and surgeon pages, the map ranking and new referral relationships build over months and keep paying after.
- Your budget Walk-in clicks in Charlotte start near $1, specialist searches near $1.60, and hand care reaches past $20 at the top. A smaller budget goes to the procedure lines with open surgeon time first.
- Your competition Large regional groups and hospital systems own the brand searches and the walk-in habit. An independent practice wins on a named surgeon, a narrower focus and how soon a new patient can be seen.
Data sets the budget by month and by procedure line, ties every consult to the search, listing, referral or ad that started it without the diagnosis, and shows which sources bring patients who go on to treatment.
Sports medicine practice
Win the active patient
Sports medicine and injury searches raised for late summer, a page per common injury, and email that keeps school athletic trainers and clubs informed.
Joint or spine program
Grow the surgical line
Procedure and surgeon pages that win the unbid surgery searches, a consult campaign by body part, and reporting from consult to scheduled procedure.
Multi-site group
Fill every surgeon and clinic
Listings and campaigns per location and per walk-in clinic, budgets by procedure line, and reporting by surgeon so spend follows open consult time.
If an orthopedic practice came to us, here is how we would start.
This is the pitch we would give a real client, built for a fictional Charlotte orthopedic and sports medicine practice with real search data. The business, its phone number and its website are invented. Sample data shows the kind of results a campaign like this tracks; it is not a client result and not a promise.
Harrowgate Orthopedics and Sports Medicine
- Walk-in injury clinic
- Knee and hip replacement
- Sports medicine and hand surgery
How our specialists segment search demand by buyer intent
We would split the account by front door and procedure line, because each has its own click cost, season and surgeon. Surgery research searches get pages built to rank as well as ads, since so few practices bid on them.
Walk-in injury care
The busiest front door and the cheapest click. Run during clinic hours only, with the wait and the hours in the ad, and every visit tracked to its follow-up.
| Search | Charlotte area / mo | Est. click cost |
|---|---|---|
| orthopedic urgent care | 2,400 | $1.06 to $3.48 |
| emergency orthopedic | 110 | $0.73 to $3.56 |
| orthopedic walk in clinic | 40 | $1.52 to $3.11 |
| walk in orthopedic near me | 10 | $0.88 to $4.62 |
Orthopedic doctor and surgeon
People choosing a specialist. Most of the consult budget, raised from October to the end of the year, with surgeon names and how soon a new patient can be seen.
| Search | Charlotte area / mo | Est. click cost |
|---|---|---|
| orthopedics near me | 880 | $1.62 to $7.38 |
| orthopedic surgeon | 720 | $1.30 to $6.41 |
| orthopedic doctor near me | 390 | $1.58 to $7.70 |
| bone doctors | 170 | $2.20 to $8.00 |
| orthopedic surgeon charlotte | 140 | $1.34 to $6.41 |
Knee and hip replacement
Patients researching an operation, at low click costs. Each search lands on a procedure page with the surgeon, the recovery and a consult form, and the budget rises in August and September.
| Search | Charlotte area / mo | Est. click cost |
|---|---|---|
| knee arthroplasty surgery | 590 | $0.43 to $2.72 |
| hip replacement surgery | 480 | $0.54 to $4.90 |
| knee specialist near me | 210 | $1.44 to $6.28 |
| total hip replacement | 110 | $0.73 to $12.35 |
| robotic knee replacement surgery | 40 | $1.03 to $5.00 |
Sports medicine
Active patients and parents of athletes, peaking as fall sports start. ACL and rotator cuff searches are nearly unbid, so ads and injury pages both go after them.
| Search | Charlotte area / mo | Est. click cost |
|---|---|---|
| rotator cuff surgery | 390 | $0.05 to $3.68 |
| acl surgery | 260 | $0.02 to $1.89 |
| sports medicine near me | 210 | $1.64 to $5.43 |
| sports medicine physician | 170 | $1.80 to $5.37 |
Hand and spine
The costliest clicks in the plan and the longest decisions. Run only while the hand and spine surgeons have consult openings, each sent to that surgeon’s page.
| Search | Charlotte area / mo | Est. click cost |
|---|---|---|
| back specialist near me | 320 | $1.39 to $7.19 |
| hand doctor near me | 260 | $1.68 to $22.20 |
| spine surgeons | 110 | $1.44 to $4.42 |
| hand surgeon near me | 70 | $1.54 to $18.02 |
How our negative keyword governance protects the budget
- Other orthopedic groups’ brand names
- Braces, supports and equipment sales
- Orthopedic jobs, residencies and fellowships
- Surgery videos and recovery exercise searches
- Pet and veterinary orthopedics
- Orthodontics and dental searches
Orthopedic terms attract job seekers, students, shoppers looking for a brace and people mixing up orthopedics with orthodontics. Our specialists load these exclusions before launch and read the search terms every week, so the budget reaches people ready to book a visit.
How we write and test the Google search ads
Each intent group gets message-matched ad copy engineered by our specialists to qualify buyers before the click and lift expected click-through rate.
www.harrowgateortho.com/walk-in/charlotte Orthopedic Walk-In Clinic | Sprains, Breaks and Strains | Open Evenings and Saturdays Injury care from an orthopedic team, with X-rays on site. No appointment needed. Walk in today in Charlotte. If you need a specialist, we book the follow-up for you. Current wait timeWhat we treatInsurance we acceptDirections and hours
www.harrowgateortho.com/joints/charlotte Knee and Hip Replacement | Meet Your Joint Surgeon | New Patient Consults Fellowship-trained joint surgeons in Charlotte. Read about the procedure and recovery. Book a consult with a joint specialist. Medicare and most commercial plans accepted. Our joint surgeonsKnee replacementHip replacementBook a consult
Local Services Ads and the map
Orthopedic surgeon is one of the health care categories that can run Local Services Ads, which sit above the search ads and charge per lead rather than per click. The practice would complete Google’s license and background checks for its surgeons, and once approved its listing shows a Google Verified badge. We would list the procedure lines, hours and plans it accepts, and dispute leads that were never patients. The walk-in clinic gets its own Google Business Profile, where evening hours, X-rays on site and a short wait decide the visit. Every review gets a reply that thanks the patient in general terms and never names an injury.
The Facebook ad
Social ads introduce the walk-in clinic and the surgeons to adults within a short drive, by location and broad interests, with no site-visitor or patient lists. The copy describes the practice, never the viewer’s injury or joint, because Meta does not allow ads that assert or imply a person’s health.
The email
This goes to the primary care offices, urgent care centers and athletic trainers who asked to hear from the practice, not to patients, and it never names a patient. Referring offices choose the practice that sees their patients first and reports back, a channel no ad can buy.
Faster orthopedic visits for your patients.
Our surgeons have new patient openings this month, including same-week visits for knee, shoulder and hand problems. Your office can send a referral online or by fax, and we will send the visit note and plan back within two business days.
Send a referralThe landing page the ads send people to
A patient weighing joint replacement wants to know who will operate and what recovery looks like before they call. The page leads with the surgeons, answers the referral and insurance questions, and keeps the form to a name and a time, leaving the joint for the consult.
Knee and hip replacement in Charlotte
Meet the joint surgeons, see what the procedure and recovery involve, and book a consult this month.
- Surgeon profiles with training and focus
- What happens from the first visit to recovery
- Medicare, most commercial plans and the referral you may need
- Fellowship-trained surgeons
- Imaging on site
- Free parking
Other channels, only where they fit
YouTubeSurgeons explain their focus
Short videos of each surgeon on the problems they treat, shown by location and context rather than to site visitors.
Microsoft AdsThe same plan on Bing
The joint and specialist keyword groups mirrored for desktop searchers, often older patients researching replacement, at a lower cost per click.
What each piece turns into, and how they hand off
- Search and the map catch the patient Walk-in injuries and specialist searches.
- Referring offices hear about openings Monthly email and fast visit notes.
- The consult with the right surgeon Booked by procedure line and body part.
- Follow-up carries the plan through Imaging, authorization and the next visit.
How our team tracks calls, bookings and revenue
- Calls, bookings and walk-ins by sourceOnline bookings, calls and walk-in check-ins counted by channel and by procedure line as one event, with no injury, joint or form answer attached.
- Walk-in visits that reach a surgeonThe share of walk-in patients booked for a specialist follow-up, counted in the practice’s own system, so the injury clinic is judged on what it feeds.
- Consults from the practice systemAttended consults sent back to Google as a plain conversion, only where the practice’s privacy review allows it.
- Referrals by officeNew patients from each referring office and trainer, so a quiet referral source is noticed in weeks, not at year end.
Sample monthly report: search ads
$3,000 sample monthly search budget
| Metric | Sample | Built from |
|---|---|---|
| Estimated cost per click | $1.11 | Low end of the Charlotte estimated click cost for the 22 keywords in the plan, weighted by searches (OVERTOP Search Intelligence) |
| Clicks | 2,703 | Budget divided by the estimated cost per click |
| Bookings and calls | 336 | 12.43% of clicks, the published conversion rate for physicians and surgeons (LocaliQ 2026 search benchmarks) |
| Cost per booking or call | $9 | Budget divided by bookings and calls |
| Visits attended | 235 | Sample: assumes seven in ten bookings and calls become an attended visit or consult |
| Surgeon consults from walk-in and search | 71 | Sample: assumes three in ten attended visits lead to a consult with a surgeon |
Sample data: the kind of results a campaign like this tracks, built from Charlotte search data and a published benchmark. Not a client result and not a guarantee.
Orthopedic digital marketing services, and which come first.
The four core services carry most orthopedic plans. The others join as the practice adds surgeons, sites and a walk-in clinic; a sports medicine practice and a multi-site group rarely need the same mix.
- Core service Google Ads Orthopedic ads by procedure line, walk-in hours and season, written within health policy, with Local Services Ads alongside. Learn more ›
- Core service Web development Fast surgeon, procedure and walk-in pages with booking a tap away. Learn more ›
- Core service Social media ads Facebook and Instagram ads that introduce the clinic and surgeons without naming the viewer’s injury. Learn more ›
- Core service SEO Orthopedic SEO on procedure and surgeon pages that win the surgery searches few practices bid on. Learn more ›
- Google Business Profile Separate listings for each office and walk-in clinic, with hours, photos and review replies. Learn more ›
- Email and SMS marketing Visit reminders for patients and consult openings for referring offices. Learn more ›
- Analytics and tracking Consults and walk-in follow-ups counted by source, with health details kept out. Learn more ›
- Microsoft Ads The joint and specialist search plan extended to Bing at a lower cost per click. Learn more ›
- YouTube Ads Short surgeon introductions shown by place and context. Learn more ›
What has worked for health and care organizations.
Results the email and ad platforms published for a care provider, a patient advocacy service and a healthcare training school. They are those organizations’ published results, not ours; each story shows what an orthopedic practice can take from it.
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Interim Healthcare
Read the story -
myMDadvocate
Read the story -
Stepful
Read the story
Orthopedic marketing in Charlotte, surgeon by surgeon.
We are based in Charlotte, where large regional orthopedic groups and hospital systems hold the brand searches and the walk-in habit, and independent practices compete on named surgeons and quick access. We give each office and walk-in clinic its own radius, listing and budget, time spend to the October specialist peak and the late summer rise in sports and hip searches, and keep the primary care offices around each site in the plan. We also work with orthopedic and sports medicine practices nationwide; payers, referral patterns and competition change by market, and the plan changes with them.
Six growth leaks we fix in orthopedic marketing.
When we take over orthopedic accounts, these are the places we most often find consults and procedures leaking, and what we change first.
One campaign for every body part
Walk-in, joint, spine and hand searches in one campaign let the cheapest clicks take the budget. We split the account by procedure line so each surgeon’s schedule gets the spend it needs.
Surgeons hidden behind a staff grid
Patients choosing an operation compare surgeons by name. We give each surgeon a page with training, focus and the procedures they do, and point the matching ads and listings at it.
Walk-in visits that end at the front desk
An injury clinic judged on visits alone sends specialist cases elsewhere. We track how many walk-in patients book a follow-up and make that the measure the clinic is read by.
Leaving the surgery searches to others
ACL, rotator cuff and joint replacement searches are nearly unbid, so the practice with the better procedure page wins them. We build those pages and run low bids alongside.
Counting forms, not consults kept
A low cost per lead can hide no-shows and consults that never reach treatment. We report attended consults by source and line, and move budget toward the channels whose patients go on to care.
Audiences built from patient records
Health is a sensitive category on Google, and Meta does not allow ads that imply a viewer’s condition. We remove patient lists and procedure-page remarketing and rebuild on search intent, place and the message.
Questions orthopedic practice owners ask us.
How much should an orthopedic practice spend on advertising?
It depends on how many consults your surgeons can take, which procedure lines you want to grow and whether you run a walk-in clinic. Walk-in clicks in Charlotte start around $1 and specialist searches near $1.60, so we set the budget from open surgeon time and the searches around each site, then shift it as consult data shows what each channel brings.
Should we advertise the walk-in clinic or the surgeons?
Usually both, in separate campaigns. The walk-in clinic draws the most searches at the lowest cost, and the surgeon and procedure campaigns win the patients who already know they need a specialist. We read the walk-in clinic by how many patients it books for a follow-up.
Can orthopedic practices run Local Services Ads?
Yes. Orthopedic surgeon is one of the health care categories Google lists for Local Services Ads in the US. The practice completes Google’s license and background checks, pays per lead instead of per click and earns a Google Verified badge. We run them alongside search ads and the map listings.
Does marketing replace physician referrals?
No. Referrals from primary care, urgent care and trainers stay a core source for most practices. The plan adds the patients who search on their own and keeps referring offices informed about openings, so neither source carries the practice alone.
Do you work with orthopedic practices outside Charlotte?
Yes. We are based in Charlotte and work with orthopedic and sports medicine practices across the US. The method is the same; payers, referral patterns, click costs and competition change by market.
What do you measure besides leads?
Calls, bookings and walk-ins, attended consults, walk-in patients booked with a surgeon, new patients by referring office and cost per consult, reported by site, surgeon and procedure line.
Get a free audit for your orthopedic practice.
Tell us where your offices are, which procedure lines you want to grow and how many consults your surgeons can take. We will look at your search demand, your ads, your Google listings, your referral sources and your tracking, and show you where the patients are.