Plastic Surgery SEO: Expert Tips, Costs, & Examples

Plastic surgery SEO helps clinics rank higher in search and drive more qualified leads. The cost? $3K to $10K per month. Get expert tips to bring in more patients using SEO (with real examples of plastic surgery SEO).

83% of patients use search engines to find a healthcare provider. And it’s no different when the patient is looking for a plastic surgeon.

Plastic surgery SEO is the best way to improve online visibility through organic search and attract new patients ready to book services. Let’s explore what plastic surgery SEO is and how you can use it to boost your Google rankings.

What is plastic surgery SEO?

Plastic surgery SEO is a marketing strategy used to help plastic surgeons rank their web pages higher on the search engine results page (SERP) to get in front of more potential clients.

The goal of SEO for plastic surgeons is to drive more leads and customers to the provider’s website through content that’s optimized for relevant keywords.

What is the cost of plastic surgery SEO?

The cost of SEO for a plastic surgery website varies on the size of your project. However, you can expect to spend anywhere between $3,000 to $10,000 per month. And for local SEO, the average cost runs between $500 and $3,000.

Why is SEO for plastic surgeons important?

There are many ways search engine optimization can benefit your plastic surgery practice:

• Drive organic traffic to your website. The more people who can find you on Google, the more traffic you’re likely to drive to your plastic surgery website.
• Increase visibility online. Improving your website’s ranking also improves your visibility on the search engine. The higher your ranking, the more likely patients are to see and click on your website.
• Build your brand. Improve your online presence and build your brand as you get more eyes on your website and business.
• Bring in more plastic surgery patients. The more traffic you drive to your website, the better your chances of converting visitors into patients.
• Drive profits for your practice. SEO is a cost-effective way to bring in new patients, allowing you to drive more profit for your practice.

While SEO requires you to invest time (or money if you decide to hire an SEO expert), it provides a high return on investment if you do it right.

6 ways to use plastic surgeon SEO to boost your ranking

Ready to rank on Google? Use these 6 tips to get started with plastic surgeon SEO so more patients can find you in search.

1. Fix technical SEO issues
2. Make sure your site is mobile-friendly
3. Review & fix on-page SEO
4. Do keyword research
5. Write keyword-rich blog content
6. Monitor results & tweak your strategy

1. Fix technical SEO issues

Technical SEO focuses on improving the technical aspects of your website to help increase search engine rankings. Here are a few characteristics of a technically optimized website:

• Fast: The website pages load quickly so users don’t have to wait to get the information they came for.
• Secure: You have an SSL certificate and have implemented HTTPS to keep data secure.
• Easily crawlable: Search engines can crawl the website because it has a clear sitemap and effective internal linking structure.
• No duplicate content: Duplicate content can confuse search engines unless you have added a canonical link to identify which page you’d like to rank.
• Structured data: Structured data helps search engines better understand website content using schema markup.
• XML sitemap: The XML sitemap lists all of your site’s pages. It helps ensure that search engines find all of the content.

The first step to fixing technical SEO issues is to identify what issues exist on your website. You can use tools like Semrush to do a website audit to get an overview of the technical aspects of your website and identify any issues you need to fix.

2. Make sure your site is mobile-friendly

A mobile-friendly website is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s necessary for any company that wants to do business online. Mobile optimization is an important element of SEO because it improves the user experience for website visitors, which is important to search engines like Google.

A quick (and free) way to see if your website is optimized for mobile is to run it through Google PageSpeed Insights. This tool will test your Core Web Vitals, diagnose performance issues, and give you an accessibility score based on what’s found.

Review your assessment results to see what to fix to optimize your site for mobile devices. The tool will also give a score (out of 100) for best practices and SEO, which may show more issues to address.

Here are several things to keep in mind when optimizing your plastic surgery website for mobile:

• Condense images on your site so they load quickly without sacrificing image quality.
• Optimize any videos on your pages to ensure they’re compatible with smartphones and tablets.
• Design buttons that’ll be easy for people to click on when using a smaller device screen.
• Avoid using long paragraphs that crowd the screen and make it difficult for people on-the-go to read.
• Make your mobile site easy to navigate from a smaller device screen with clear navigation.

3. Review & fix on-page SEO

On-page SEO is the process of optimizing content on your website pages to improve rankings. The good news is you have control over your on-page SEO, which means you can work to improve on-page elements for a better opportunity to rank for relevant search terms.

Some elements of on-page SEO include:

• Site content
• Internal linking
• External linking
• Title tags
• Meta descriptions
• Headers
• URLs
• Images

Not sure where to start? An on-page SEO audit will identify issues or optimization opportunities. You can use a tool like Semrush’s On-Page SEO Checker to identify ways to optimize your on-page SEO. Semrush will give you optimization ideas and even a list of tasks to get started.

While it’s more difficult to control, you must also be aware of off-page SEO — all the activities you do off your website to impact search engine rankings. This includes things like getting social media shares or building high-quality backlinks to your site.

4. Do keyword research

Keyword research is important in SEO strategy for any plastic surgery practice. The goal is to find search terms your target audience uses when looking for facilities like yours.

These keywords can be related to cosmetic procedures, types of surgery, products you use or sell, or even conditions that may lead a person to search for a plastic surgeon. Commonly asked questions are also a good place to find keyword opportunities.

When identifying keywords to rank for, consider search volume and keyword difficulty. To find the SEO sweet spot, look for keywords with higher search volume and lower competition. These are the keywords with the most potential.

You’ll mostly focus on long-tail keywords. These are keywords and phrases that tend to be longer (3 or more words) but more specific than broad keywords. While broad keywords have the highest search volume, they also have high rates of competition.

For example, let’s look at the data for the broad keyword, “rhinoplasty.”

Semrush shows the monthly search volume for this keyword is quite high at 60.5k. But the keyword difficulty is also high at 95% (out of 100). Not only would this be a difficult keyword to rank for, but because it’s broad, it’s hard to know the exact search intent.

Does the search engine user just want to know more about the procedure? Or are they looking for a surgeon to book a consult with? With a broad keyword like this, it’s difficult to understand what the search engine user wants.

Semrush also provides keyword ideas, such as variations and questions. Notice that these longer, more specific search queries have a lower search volume but also a much lower keyword difficulty.

Not to mention, these long-tail keywords give us a better idea of the search engine user’s intent. For example, “rhinoplasty near me” is likely someone looking to get this procedure done. While the keyword phrase “how much is rhinoplasty” is likely being used by someone who is in the research phase.

5. Write keyword-rich blog content

Content marketing is one of the best ways to improve SEO on your plastic surgery website. And one of the best places to create and publish high-quality content is on your site’s blog.

When you create in-depth, well-researched blog posts around keywords, you increase your chances of showing up for those keywords on Google search results. While coming up with topics can be difficult, a great place to start is with questions you often get asked by patients.

Here’s a great example of an SEO blog post from Advanced Plastic Surgery Institute that ranks in the top 3 positions for the keyword phrase, “how much does breast augmentation cost.”

Before people book a consultation, they’ll likely research the cost of cosmetic surgery procedures. By writing content about the costs of these procedures, this plastic surgery practice can drive more organic traffic to its site while building authority and trust with the reader.

6. Monitor results & tweak your strategy

To get the best results with SEO, monitor performance and tweak your strategy based on what you find.

“Tracking is an essential part of any SEO campaign, especially for plastic surgery centers,” says Sam Yadegar, HawkSEM CEO. “We use ConversionIQ (CIQ), our proprietary software, to granularly track every single step of the buyer journey so we can understand what aspects of a campaign are working and what we need to adjust to optimize for higher ROI.”

Google Analytics is a free tracking tool you can use to understand how visitors are interacting with your site and monitor your website’s performance. You can track metrics like session duration, pages per session, and bounce rates. You can also see which pages are most popular and where your traffic comes from.

Pair Google Analytics with another SEO tool like Semrush or Ahrefs to see which keywords your website currently ranks for. You can also use these tools to get competitor insights, informing your plastic surgery SEO strategy.

How to improve local SEO for plastic surgeons

While some of your potential patients may travel for plastic surgery services, many people will seek a local plastic surgery practice that’s in their city or state. Local SEO helps you reach these nearby patients looking for your services online.

Here are a few ways you can improve local SEO for plastic surgeons and bring more prospective patients to your office:

• Optimize your Google Business Profile
• Update NAP citations on directory sites & social media
• Get reviews from happy customers
• Build local SEO landing pages for office locations
• Create locally-focused service pages

Optimize your Google Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is an important asset to have when optimizing for local search. This is a free tool from Google that allows you to have control over how your business appears in Google Search and Google Maps.

When I type in “plastic surgeon near me,” these are the local plastic surgery offices that appear at the top of the search results. Each of these offices has its own Google Business Profile.

When optimizing your Google Business Profile, make sure your contact information, office hours, and website are up-to-date. Fill out all of the profile information, including the description of your office and the products/services you offer.

Google Business Profile also allows you to include images. Your patients can upload their own images when they leave a review, but you should also include images of the office, the doctors, and anything else that gives prospective patients a better understanding of your patient experience.

Update NAP citations on directory sites & social media

Your contact information needs to be up-to-date or you run the risk of driving away potential patients who could not contact your office. That’s why it’s vital to update NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) citations on directory sites and social media.

Make a list of all the local and industry-related directories where your office is listed. This could be anything from the local chamber of commerce to the directory on the American Society of Plastic Surgeons website.

Ensure all of the NAP information is accurate and update the local SEO citations any time there’s a change to your address or phone number. Do this for every plastic surgeon working in your office.

Don’t forget to check the NAP citation for national communities like Yelp or ZocDoc. Go through your social media pages on channels like Facebook and LinkedIn to make sure your NAP information is up-to-date.

Get reviews from happy customers

Many patients will visit Google to read reviews before booking a consultation. Positive reviews of your plastic surgery practice improves your Google Business Profile ranking and maintains a positive online reputation.

Encourage happy patients to leave a review of their experience with your plastic surgery office on Google. The more positive reviews you have, the more likely Google will show your practice higher in the search results.

As a best practice, reply to reviews — both good and bad. This shows potential patients that you care about your patients and take their experience seriously.

Build local SEO landing pages for office locations

If you have multiple plastic surgery offices, create local SEO landing pages for each office location. Even if you only have one office, create an SEO landing page focused on the city where your office is located.

These local SEO landing pages give you the opportunity to rank for location-based keywords. Here’s a great example from North Texas Plastic Surgery. This multi-location practice has landing pages for each office location included in the website’s top navigation.

Each landing page is optimized for the city where the office is located. The page for Dallas offers information about the services the Dallas office provides and contact information, office hours, and a map of the location.

Want to see the results of this strategy at work? Check out LightRX, a medspa with dozens of locations throughout the country. We worked with their team to clean up campaigns, refresh landing pages, and better target their ideal customers. As a result, LightRX was able to more than double their existing locations while increasing conversion volume by 76% and boosting impression share by over 111%.

Create locally-focused service pages

In addition to local SEO landing pages for office locations, you should also create locally-focused service/procedure pages. This is a page that describes the service while also including local SEO keywords.

For example, let’s say we want a BBL in Austin, TX. We might type “BBL near me” into the Google search bar. The first organic search result that appears is a service page for Brazilian Butt Life in Austin.

The service page talks all about the BBL procedure with locally-focused language using keyword phrases like “Brazilian Butt Life in Austin” and “BBL surgery in Austin.” This helps the plastic surgery office rank for these keywords, which a person may type in when looking to get this procedure done in Austin.

Best cosmetic surgeon SEO websites

Whether you hire an SEO marketing agency or decide to improve your SEO efforts in-house, it’s helpful to see examples of effective SEO at work. Let’s look at examples of the best cosmetic surgeon SEO websites and what they do well.

Body by Ravi

When you search for “cosmetic surgery Houston,” Body by Ravi Plastic Surgery and Aesthetics is the first organic search result. The home page’s meta description uses many relevant keywords like “plastic surgeon in Houston” and “cosmetic and plastic surgery.”

This plastic surgery website is a great example of a site with optimized service/procedure pages. In the top website navigation, you can choose from breast, body, face, men, or non-surgical. Each of these drop-down menus has a list of procedures, each with an informative page that’s optimized for local SEO.

For example, the “Tummy Tuck” procedure page is optimized for the Houston area. The page content explains what the procedure is, why people get it, and what the results look like while using Houston focused long-tail keywords like “tummy tuck in Houston.”

The page also includes different media like images and videos. Not only does this make the page more comprehensive and useful for website visitors, but it gives the plastic surgery practice the opportunity to rank on the image and video tabs on the Google search results page.

The plastic surgery practice also has pages for procedures that use specific products like this page for BodyTite Pro™. This page is also optimized for Houston-focused keywords.

Northwestern Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery

Northwestern Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery is the first organic search result when searching for “Chicago plastic surgeons” on Google. One thing this website does well is deliver high-quality, long-form content around topics and keywords important to its target audience.

This plastic surgery office goes beyond just publishing procedure pages. It has long-form guides to each procedure that cover everything a person would want to know before they book a consultation.

For example, this guide to “Breast Augmentation & Implants in Chicago,” provides a lot of detailed information about the procedure, types of implants, what to consider before having the procedure, and what to expect the day of the surgery.

The content is organized using optimized headers that contain relevant keywords. It also has a table of contents to the left of the content, which makes it easy for the reader to navigate through the guide.

The website also includes FAQs for each procedure. This strategy gives them the chance to rank for question-based keywords.

Los Angeles Center for Cosmetic Surgery

Another great example of a plastic surgery website with effective SEO is Los Angeles Center for Cosmetic Surgery. This practice benefits from having a name and URL that are SEO-friendly and already contain relevant keywords.

Going beyond procedure pages, this plastic surgery practice has optimized landing pages for different conditions. These pages help attract those at the beginning of the buyer’s journey, researching their options.

The hair removal page goes in-depth on different options for hair removal. The content is useful for someone researching this issue, but also gives the plastic surgery practice the opportunity to rank for location-based keywords around hair removal.

The takeaway

Search engine optimization is an important digital marketing strategy for plastic surgery practices that want to drive more qualified leads. There are a lot of moving pieces in SEO, but overall, the time, effort, and resources are worthwhile if you do it right.

If you need help creating or implementing an SEO strategy, it may be time to hire an SEO company.

As one of the best SEO agencies in the industry, HawkSEM is ready to help your plastic surgery practice bring in more new patients through organic search.

Book a consultation.