Plastic surgery cannot survive in this modern-day without incorporating plastic surgery SEO or SEO for plastic surgeon techniques into its list of business “arsenals”
Not many people still follow the old-school approach of jumping from pillar to post to find solutions to their problems, the vast majority of people switch online for answers.
That means you need to game up for relevance, brand awareness, and accessibility.
It also means you need to start investing in creating content that is usable, engaging, and well optimized for higher conversions.
Every dollar spent on your plastic surgery search engine optimization shouldn’t be considered as an expense but an investment that will yield a high dividend in the long run.
At Embarque, we know how an active SEO strategy allows you to get queries in your practice even without much marketing effort.
This post will cover:
- What exactly is SEO?
- Why is it important to plastic surgeons?
- Is Search Engine Optimization worth it for plastic surgeons?
- SEO skills for plastic surgeons
- SERM - Surgeon Reputation Management
- 8 Tips to optimize your images for SEO
- How To Properly Optimize A Plastic Surgeon’s Instagram Account
- Before and after image strategies on Instagram
What Exactly Is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization.
This process will bring in more organic traffic to your website and get a higher ranking in search engine results.
It also requires the use of keywords in the website content that Internet users search for in search engines.
Why is it important to plastic surgeons?
Research shows that 93% of online experiences start with search engines, and 47% of users click on one of the top three lists.
For plastic surgeons, these statistics are very important because they show the importance of using SEO plastic surgery strategies, which will make your website rank high in search engine results.
When your ranking improves, you will start to get more traffic. Since Google dominates the search engine, you should focus on optimizing your website to fit it.
Is search engine optimization worth it for plastic surgeons?
The internet plays an important role in our time and so more than the fun of social media and forums. Search engines are a powerful force on the internet today.
Google, in particular, is the market leader among search engines, which makes a good ranking all the more important.
As a plastic surgeon, in particular, the Internet is an important tool for attracting potential patients.
So here are some reasons you might want to consider SEO:
- To increase the amount of traffic: In a competitive field as plastic surgery, clients will only focus on the result on the first page to get the answer they want.
This suggests that getting to the first page should be the priority of any business-minded surgeon who wants more patients and revenues.
- Optimize your site content: Content marketing has exploded in recent years as the tool many brands are using to grow their business.
Good knowledge of SEO will help you create high-quality search engine friendly content.
- Gives your business a chance in the online space: Google accounts for over 90% of mobile traffic including those searching for plastic surgery services. Becoming visible via search engines could all you need to scale your business.
- Creates a website Google understands: Setting up a website does not equal optimizing for search engines. There are several websites with no clear usage of keywords. Consequently, their website can become invisible in the search result and their audience struggles to see them.
SEO techniques for plastic surgeons
Here are a few techniques that can change your approach to SEO.
Localize your page
Google wants to know who you are, what you want to do, and what you do, so they send their crawlers to get this data from your website.
Your website must contain all your information so that potential customers can find and contact you more easily.
Localize your website by adding your mobile phone number (including your local area code) and your address on each page of your website.
If you want to target local patients in your area, be sure to use local keywords as they will highlight the actual location of your clinic.
For example, if your clinic is located in Miami, your local keywords might be:
- _Miami plastic surgery hospital, _
- _Miami’s best plastic surgeon, _
- Miami’s plastic surgery costs, etc.
Also, please ensure that your clinic lists the correct address and contact information in Google My Business (GMB) so that potential customers can find your practice more easily.
Optimize your keywords using various tools
SEO largely depends on using the right keywords. You can use keyword tools such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Keysearch, Ubbersuggest, and Keyword finder to find the best keywords.
Focus on choosing keywords that specify your expertise in your field, such as plastic surgery, laser plastic surgery, rhinoplasty, etc.
Also, use long-tail keywords based on your service, such as nose work, before and after photos, recovery time from abdominal surgery, or (in your area) even certified plastic surgeon.
The keywords should be minimally placed in the body of your published article to avoid keyword stuffing and high keyword density.
They should also be included in title tags, URLs, meta descriptions, meta keywords, website taglines, navigation, and footer links.
Carry out your research thoroughly and help potential patients find you by using the most relevant keywords you can suggest.
Specific landing page
Use a specific landing page for each service you provide. Don’t fill in everything on the landing page.
Breaking them down into separate landing pages will make it easier for Google to understand your hospital and provide accurate procedures, and it will reward you with high-quality rankings.
Describe each program you provide on the page, including how long it takes, and its benefits and success rate.
If your hospital has other branches in different cities, each city should also have a specific landing page that includes the doctor’s name and speciality, the procedures provided, working hours, and contact information.
Use call-to-action buttons
You are doing all of these research, optimization, and marketing efforts to attract more customers to find and use your clinic, so another great way to encourage them to contact you is to use a call to action button.
Use one at the bottom of every page of your website.
They might say call the doctor now and book a free consultation, or they might be a message form.
These buttons will make it easier and faster for customers to contact you.
Integrate social media with your website
Using social media is a great way to communicate with customers and find new potential ones.
Make sure to connect your clinic’s social media account to the website, because search engines love social media platforms.
Integrate them to keep your contact information consistent to improve your website’s ranking and attract more visitors.
Also, use your social media accounts to update your patients with your latest services, announce the arrival of new doctors, or share articles about relevant medical research.
By monitoring your account and always posting on it, you will always be in control of local search engine results.
Check your SEO strategy and keep it up to date
Track your website traffic, view the results, and check the progress.
By using the Google Analytics platform, you can better understand the working principles of SEO and content.
Follow the latest updates to search engines’ ranking algorithms, as they may affect your ranking.
Check your traffic, see which pages are your best performing, and identify ways to increase these results even further.
Your SEO strategy may take some time to provide you with the desired results, so please be patient because the results will be beneficial.
SERM - Surgeon Reputation Management
Plastic surgeon services are competitive.
And this is a business in which reviews of specialists play a huge role.
This is used by ill-wishers who post negative reviews about the doctor on the Internet.
Potential clients, faced with negative feedback, draw appropriate conclusions, and pass by. If there is nothing negative yet, prevention is needed.
Start managing your reputation and building a positive image at the start of your business - the earlier you start, the stronger your online reputation foundation will be.
How to manage your reputation
Eliminating the negative in search results is one way of protecting your reputation.
The ideal solution to the problem is to get rid of the negativity completely.
This is not always possible, therefore, in practice, they try to push negative references out of the top 10 search results - much fewer users look there.
For the top ten search results to be positive, they resort to the following methods:
- Create and promote sites and groups in social networks - of course, with positively colored information;
- React to negative comments on social networks, forums, and review sites to better understand where they’re coming from;
- Are engaged in sowing positive mentions on the Internet - at any sites where the target audience meets;
- Set up contextual advertising - this makes it possible to quickly eliminate the negative from the first positions (SEO methods give a delayed effect);
- Set up targeted advertising to the target audience in social networks - also gives a quick result;
- “Grow” brand advocates - loyal clients who are ready to spread positive about the specialist and the clinic (for this, people are usually additionally motivated).
Remember that up to 85% of Internet users will not order medical services if there are no positive reviews about a specialist.
The promotion of a plastic surgeon will be much more effective if the doctor’s reputation is under control.
8 Tips to optimize your images for SEO
Plastic surgery is a very image-centric niche and as such many potential clients may want to see the quality of your previous works before concluding your services.
Here are a few ways to optimize your images for SEO.
1. Consistent and quality images
There must be a relationship between the images that accompany a text and the content of the text itself.
Otherwise, when the user is looking for content, if there is no coherence between the images they find and the concept they are looking for, it will not be relevant.
On the other hand, as far as we can, we must choose original and quality images.
If we do not have the time or resources to create our images, it is interesting to bet on modifying the stock images to give them a corporate touch, different from how others use it.
2. Optimize the dimensions and weight of your images
Resize your images so that they have the appropriate measurements for your website, neither larger nor smaller.
For this, you can use free image editing tools like Canva.
Optimizing the weight of the file is essential to prevent the loading time of the web from increasing.
Use programs like ImageOptim to help you eliminate unnecessary information from the image.
Once you have saved the file, always run it through an optimization tool.
3. Name your images correctly
Let’s talk about keywords.
The file name is important when positioning images.
If we have done our SEO job well in writing the content for the page, we will know what our main keyword is.
And that is why, as we said in point 1, consistency is also important.
If the image is consistent with the text, it will be consistent with the keyword as well.
To do it properly, you have to rename the original file that comes from the camera or a download.
The new name must include the keyword or a longer phrase that contains the keyword, always separating each word with a hyphen.
For example, if the title of your article is called “Advantages of SEO for your company” _and your keyword is “_Advantages of SEO”, the file could be “Advantages-of-SEO-companies.jpg”.
4. Add relevant alternative text
The Alternative Text, also called Alt text or alternative text, is one of the basic steps that we must take into account when we try to position our images since it is the text that search engines can read since they cannot read images directly (for now).
The type of content that you should write there has to be, as far as possible, descriptive, and with the keyword, you have chosen.
It is an important element because it is one of the main reasons that Google takes into account to display one image or another.
5. Choose the appropriate format
It is important to choose a compressed format so that our image weighs little, such as jpeg or png (never tiff or other formats with extra metadata).
For animated images, the gif is an ideal format, since it has little weight. PNG format works very well with images with transparency, for example, logos. Instead, the JPEG format is a standard format for photographs.
6. Text on the image (captions)
It is proven that an image with text is more likely to get clicks than an image without text, as it provides context to the image and makes it more understandable and attractive, thus improving engagement.
For this reason, we recommend that the images promoted, and especially those that we want to share on social networks, incorporate a text that attracts attention or provides context
7. The open graph is important for SEO
The Open graph is an HTML code tag that is used so that when you share content on social networks an associated image appears. It looks like this in HTML: <meta property = ”og: image” content = ” https://website.com/image-name.jpg “/ >.
Having the Open graph labels configured guarantees that every time you share your article, the associated image will appear.
8. Spread your images
Spreading your images can help boost their positioning. That is, if an image has associated links, it will position better. A good way to get those links are social networks, especially Pinterest.
Bonus: How to properly optimize a plastic surgeon’s Instagram account
As a plastic surgeon, your Instagram account needs to be effectively optimized professionally so potential clients can find and build trust with you which is why we are adding this section.
Here are a few ways you can optimize your account:
Use branded names and profile picture
Don’t try to use generic names that make it hard for people to find you, instead use your full business name and profile picture that is more specific to your brand. This helps your audience connect more with you.
Use keywords in your profile
Using keywords in your Instagram profile is what guarantees your visibility when being searched for.
Not using relevant industry keywords in your profile is as bad as not having an Instagram account.
For instance, using the keyword “plastic surgeon” in your profile can as well go a long way to enhance your visibility.
Post high-quality pictures
Everyone knows plastic surgery is a very image-centric niche and so you can’t afford to post any low-quality images.
You want to make sure your pictures are interesting, well shot, and beautifully edited.
Don’t post anything less than that.
Make sure to post often
Just like any other platform sales strategy, you can’t appear only once in a Blue Moon and expect prospective clients to trust your services.
Make sure you show up very often by posting frequently.
You can come up with a social media content calendar template to help you keep track of your postings.
Pro tip: Posting on Mondays and Thursdays is more effective than any other day of the week.
Add a Call to Action
After doing all the works of optimizing your profile, it makes no sense to leave the money on the table. Depending on your goals make sure you are pointing your prospecting client towards an easy way to reach you.
This could be a link to your blog or an invite for consultations.
For the best result, make sure you are not asking them to do a lot of things at the same time.
Before and After image strategies on Instagram
As a plastic surgeon, it’s not news that using before and after images displaying testimonials of your clients could be one great tool to generate more leads and clients.
Prospective clients want to see how talented, skilful, and professional you are, so using before and after pictures is one way to get them hooked to want more about your services.
You can use this technique to show your patient’s surgical journey, how they move from point A to B, hence building trust with prospective patients.
Here are a few things to consider:
- Focus on image quality over quantity: You need a model photographer to create professional photos displaying your face rejuvenation and body enhancement skills to capture the attention of your audience. Never try to post anything that is not of good quality.
- Ensure you seek patient’s permission: it’s paramount that you have full permission from your patients before using their pictures. This helps to avoid troubles in the future. You should get a social media consent form at plasticsurgery.org and ensure they give consent before using their images.
- Don’t forget to hide the nipples and buttock creases: Facebook owns Instagram and has strict rules against the posting of inappropriate content, especially the ones that entail nudity. Your account can be suspended if you inadvertently keep broadcasting content that violates the accepted laid down rules. Try using branded shapes and logos to cover the essential body parts.
How can we help you?
At Embarque, our productized premium SEO content services will help you:
- Increase traffic to your site by improving your ranking in search engines like Google and Bing
- Create a strong presence for your business on local pages and directories, including Google My Business (GMB)
- Optimize your site content to make sure it targets the right geographic area, the right keywords, and the right target audience.
Once we fully understand where you are and where you want to go, we’ll create an adequately tailored content marketing campaign to help you reach your goals.
