Getting personal referrals from a doctor or friend was once the first step for anyone seeking a plastic surgeon. While referrals remain important, prospective patients now most frequently begin their search online on engines such as Google, Bing, & Yahoo.
An online search query for plastic surgeons in a specific geographic area can produce links to a dozen or more such practices, so your business’s position on the first page is critical. A 2020 study by German SEO software manufacturer, Sistrix, showed that the amount of traffic generated by each position on page one varies wildly.
- A result in position #2 on Google will generate an average of 3x more clicks than a result in position #6.
- A result in position #1 earns a click-through rate (CTR) over ten times higher than a ranking at position #10.
- Results on the second page of Google have a CTR of less than 1%.
Maintaining consistently high rankings requires a team dedicated to continuously monitoring and refining your website’s SEO strategy. The payoff is a new stream of patients growing exponentially, not only in the short run but over the entire life of your practice.
How does SEO for Plastic Surgeons Work?
Think of search engines as huge machines that have a ravenous appetite for information. They are constantly searching the internet for more of it. The newest, and most meaningful content is what they crave most. The sites with superior, relevant content that is regularly refreshed achieve the highest rankings.
The four cornerstones of SEO one must address to maximize site rankings are:
- Technical SEO: How well your content can be crawled and indexed. Technical SEO refers to improving the technical aspects of a website in order to increase the ranking of its pages in the search engines. Making a website faster, easier to crawl and more understandable for search engines are the critical elements of technical optimization.
- Content: In 1998, the founders of Google wrote the following mission statement: “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Stated another way, your content should offer the best, most well-informed answers to your prospective patient’s questions. It should be unique and relevant, and constantly updated. This is what all search engines look for. “Content is king” in determining the ranking of your website.
- On-site SEO: On-site or on-page SEO is important because it tells Google all about your website and how you provide value to visitors and customers. It’s the architecture that optimizes your site for both the reader and search engine bots. The elements of on-page SEO refers to the SEO elements you control on the webpage, such as page titles, headers, content elements, internal linking, and site speed.
- Off-site SEO: This involves improving search engine and user perception of a site’s popularity, relevance, trustworthiness, and authority. This happens when other reputable places on the Internet (websites, social media, people, etc.) link to or promote your website. These references to your site by others are called “backlinks.” Building backlinks is the essence of off-site SEO. Search engines use backlinks as indications of the linked-to content’s quality, so a plastic surgery practice website with many high value backlinks will rank higher than an otherwise equal plastic surgery website with fewer backlinks.
These components are equally important to consider when executing a successful digital marketing strategy. A robust SEO campaign for plastic surgeons will take advantage of each element to share relevant information for the targeted audience and position your practice as a leader in the industry online.
Plastic Surgeons SEO Strategies
Now that you know how plastic surgery SEO can help your practice here are three strategies that will help you achieve those first page rankings:
Original Content Development
Search engines do not like reused content or content that seems plagiarized. It is one of the core principles of their algorithms. The search engine’s job is to find the best company for all of its searchers. If you do not have original content you seem less credible and trustworthy so they don’t think you will be the right fit. In turn, you will be bumped down in the results.
Writing original content that people are searching for will help bring up your visibility online. The best way to do this is to create a blog post on questions that are most commonly asked by your patients. At least one blog each week will drastically improve your rankings and brand visibility.
Local SEO Optimization
With people usually selecting a plastic surgeon nearby, the search terms on your website are going to include the service that prospective patients are looking for as well as the city and state. You will want to optimize your site for local SEO searches to gain more visibility and patients in your area.
Including your location and address on the website will help. You need to place them in meta descriptions, title tags, text, and other copy on the site. Another strong signal to local searches is something called NAP’s (Name Address Phone Number). Search engines like to see that NAP’s are correct overall digital platforms including social media, online directories, and Google Maps.
High Authority Backlink Building
Backlink building is how search engines judge “domain authority”. They take into account other websites that are linking back to your site and how strong their authority online is. Let’s say you have two plastic surgeon websites, one is linked to high authority sites like Mayo Clinic and WebMD. While the other site is being linked to small blogs and a local chamber of commerce. Search engines will think that the site that is being linked to the Mayo Clinic and WebMD is more reputable and trustworthy and will rank them higher.
Backlink Building may take time but is a key to any successful SEO strategy. There are many ways to build backlinks starting with unique content, infographics, or a custom patient quiz.
Reach Out to a Marketing Agency for SEO Services for Plastic Surgeons
In this day in age, new business brought on by digital marketing can outperform traditional marketing methods. Digital marketing aims to strengthen your organization’s online presence through the use of relevant content, SEO optimization, and link building for your website. Plastic surgeons, like many other medical professionals, do not have to solely rely on word of mouth to garner new patients. Your website can be a 24/7 tool that works to bring in new prospective patients that are ready to acquire your services. Whether you are in need of implementing a digital marketing strategy or looking to switch or improve upon your current marketing campaign, the experts Hercules SEO can help. Contact us online or give us a call today.