Access Media Group

The GP Lens Institute (GPLI), the educational arm of the Contact Lens Manufacturers Association, has partnered with All About Vision to cross-promote eye care practitioner (ECP) locators.

GPLI’s locator is available to consumers on the Institute’s recently re-launched public information website, ContactLenses.org.  More than 1,500 eye care professionals who fit GP lenses are listed in the locator, including contact information and practice website links.  Listings also specify when an eye care professional specializes in multifocals, corneal reshaping or irregular corneas.

The All About Vision locator lists eye doctors and optical retailers whose websites link to the site’s more than 500 pages of consumer education.  Special recognition is available to listed practices that are regular contributors to Optometry Giving Sight.

Listings in both locators are free of charge to ECPs. The two organizations will promote site linking and listings to currently listed practices as well as new registrants.

All About Vision has upgraded its sponsorship of Optometry Giving Sight (OGS) to a U.S. National Silver Sponsorship. Last year, AAV’s first year of sponsorship, was at the “Supporter” level.

The arrangement for 2010 includes a cash contribution to OGS and a collaborative effort to create more awareness among U.S. eye care practices of both organizations.

At various state, regional and national meetings it attends, OGS will be encouraging eye doctors to educate their patients about eye health and vision correction by linking to All About Vision.  During two promotional periods this year, a donation to OGS will be made whenever a practice implements links.

Practices who are regular OGS donors also receives special recognition in AAV’s Eye Care Practitioner Directory.

Optometry Giving Sight, based in Sydney, Australia, is the only global fundraising initiative targeting people who are functionally blind or vision impaired simply because they do not have access to an eye examination and a pair of glasses.

A new website for Tangent Streak Multifocal Contact Lenses, developed by Access Media, was launched today.

The new site features both consumer and practitioner content, some of which was redeployed from the previous site.  Access Media created an all-new design and additional content pages using messaging adapted from Tangent Streak’s offline marketing materials.  Functionality was also added for practitioner referral requests, doctor sales inquiries, and email recommendations.

Fused Kontacts, maker of Tangent Streak, will be showcasing the new site to their customers during this week’s Global Specialty Lens Symposium in Las Vegas.

New All About Vision content offers comprehensive tips about reading eyeglass prescriptions and buying low vision magnifiers.

An optometrist explains how eye doctors determine eyeglass prescriptions for myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism.

In the low vision section, a new guide to buying low vision magnifiers includes expert advice about which devices are needed for different kinds of vision loss such as peripheral vision problems.

Just nine weeks after reaching a record 200,000 unique visitors in one week, All About Vision has served 241,631 weekly visitors, during the week ending January 16.

For the first half of January, compared with the same period last year, unique visitors are up 31%.

The site’s ten busiest pages seem to indicate an upswing in interest in areas that were somewhat out of favor in 2009.  Page views of the site’s LASIK & Vision Surgery section main page are up 52%, while the article on refractive surgery cost is up 53%.  Color contact lens sales were down in 2009, but page views of that article are up 21%.

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Ceatus Media Group has acquired the web-based assets of My Choice Medical Holdings from Vertrue, Inc. The assets consist of 23 websites — including breastimplants4you.com, newimage.com and facialplasticsurgery.net — that offer extensive information about plastic surgery and other cosmetic enhancement procedures.

The acquisition leverages the company’s leading position in online plastic surgery education as publisher of  Consumer Guide to Plastic Surgery.

Most of the content in the acquired websites focuses on popular subjects such as breast implants, facial plastic surgery, facelift and rhinoplasty. Ceatus plans to refresh and re-launch the sites, beginning with breastimplants4you.com to coincide with the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery meeting in April 2010.

For further details, see the complete news release.

Organic (non-paid) growth of unique visitors to All About Vision was a record 43% in December 2009, compared with December of the previous year. Despite the usual fall-off of traffic for the holiday season, December was the site’s fourth best month of 2009.

For all of 2009, growth of non-paid unique visitors was 29%.

All About Vision served 9.5 million unique visitors last year, measured weekly by Google Analytics, for a 22% visitor growth rate over the previous year.

Almost 22 million web pages were viewed, and visitors spent an average of 2:20 (minutes:seconds) on the site.

Google accounted for 69% of all visitors, although there were more than 23,000 referring websites during the course of the year.

All About Vision is now ten years old.  The site launched January 2, 2000.

The GP Lens Institute, the educational arm of the Contact Lens Manufacturers Association, has launched a new GP Contact Lenses website developed by Access Media.

The site educates consumers about the many benefits of GP contact lenses, and contacts in general.

The new site replaces GPLI’s first-generation consumer website, which was produced by Access Media in 1999. The updated site includes new articles on several topics:

• astigmatism
• keratoconus
• orthokeratology
• presbyopia
• irregular vision problems
• contact lens prescriptions
• contact lens cost

Popular articles from the earlier site are still there, covering topics such as bifocal contacts and the history of contact lenses, with updated information.

In addition, the site now includes video testimonials produced by Wink Productions. Featured GP wearers include consumers who use GPs for keratoconus, ortho-k and presbyopia.

The site can be found at www.ContactLenses.org.