As a plastic surgeon, you’ve got a big job. And your patients rely on you in a way that’s nothing short of profound.
As a GREAT plastic surgeon, you honor that responsibility by devoting your time and effort to it.
That’s great. But it creates a problem:
There’s little time left over for anything else. Things like actually marketing your practice so it can grow.
This isn’t a YOU problem. It’s a universal problem. And it’s one that smart SEO can solve.
That’s why I’ve written this guide. I’m going to give you everything you need to start doing plastic surgeon SEO.
I’ll be here when you’re ready to thank me for all the new patients and increased revenue. But in the meantime, read on.
I don’t know why this is, exactly, but most of the plastic surgeons I’ve worked with in the past have been skeptics.
Maybe it’s because the average IQ in this field is really high. I’m not sure.
But what I DO know is that you probably need a bit more convincing before you believe SEO is actually worth your time.
I’m happy to help. Here’s what SEO for plastic surgeons actually accomplishes:
Done right, plastic surgery SEO will put YOUR website at the top of the organic search results. In other words, you’ll be this guy:
Trust me when I tell you this:
I don’t care what city you’re in. If you Google “[Your City] plastic surgeon,” the surgeon that shows up first is doing SEO.
I promise you that. It just doesn’t happen by accident. Not in this competitive industry (one of the most competitive there is).
You can be at the top, too. All you have to do is a little SEO.
Ranking No. 1 in the regular search results is great. But what about Google Maps? Plastic surgeons serve a local area, after all.
Well, SEO will help with that, too.
It’s called local SEO, and it’s an important component of any plastic surgeon’s SEO strategy. It’s mostly about your Google Business Profile (more on that later).
And the end result is that you show up in the top results when someone searches for a plastic surgeon in Google Maps.
And in the “Map Pack” on standard Google results pages:
The thing about SEO is that it makes your website show up in a bunch of different places — places where your potential patients are spending time online.
The effect of that is often direct: Those patients see your website, read a little on it, and contact you to schedule an appointment.
I love that. You will, too.
But there’s another, more indirect effect:
SEO raises brand awareness.
See, when people decide to get plastic surgery, it’s not a snap decision. They usually think about it for months. Maybe years.
And these days, when someone is thinking about something, they Google it. They read about it online.
If you’re the one supplying that early-stage information they’re looking for, they’ll remember that — consciously or subconsciously.
When they finally do decide to speak with a surgeon about the procedure they’re considering, you’re going to be the first one they think of.
So they’ll contact you.
That’s the power of the brand awareness SEO can bring.
I’ve already touched on this because it’s arguably the biggest benefit of SEO for plastic surgeons (and likely the only one that REALLY matters to you):
You get more patients when you do SEO. Plain and simple.
And more patients means more procedures. Which means more payments. Which means your paycheck is a LOT more fun to look at.
Hard to argue with that. And it’s why virtually ALL of your competitors are doing SEO and have been for years.
To sum up that last section, SEO is not optional if you’re a plastic surgeon interested in growing their practice.
Hopefully you’re convinced of that by now. And that means the next question is how, exactly, to go about doing SEO for your plastic surgery practice.
I’ll walk you through the options:
DIY plastic surgery SEO is, well, complicated.
First, you have the issue I described earlier: You have NO time to do what it takes to actually rank well.
Here’s a secret you may not already know:
Your biggest competitors — the major practices that scoop up all the patients almost effortlessly — very likely have a full-time SEO person.
That SEO person may be a full-time contractor working remotely, but the point stands: They’ve got someone working 40 hours per week on this stuff.
And they should.
Now, you might not be at that point yet. But my point is that GOOD SEO takes a lot of time — time you don’t have.
However, I can absolutely understand wanting to do your own SEO to see what it’s all about. And find out whether you’ll have some early luck with it.
I encourage that.
But please: Make a plan to pivot to one of the other options after a while. Because one of two things will happen when you do SEO the DIY way:
In either case, you’ll HAVE to explore your other options at some point.
SEO freelancers are so common at this point that they could probably populate a small island nation.
And honestly, I wouldn’t mind if they all decided to move to an island somewhere far away and leave the rest of us out of their shenanigans.
I’m only halfway kidding.
The thing about SEO freelancers is that many of them know no more about SEO than you do. They’re faking it until they make it, and most never make it.
But along the way to an inevitable failure, they manage to squeeze hard-working professionals like you for several thousand dollars a month. And they leave you with nothing to show for it.
They really ruin the reputation of this industry that I love so much. They make business owners like you believe that SEO is for scammers and snake oil salesmen.
But that’s not true. If you work with a reputable freelancer, you’ll see that (but you’ll also pay an arm and a leg and maybe another body part).
Hiring an SEO freelancer who specializes in plastic surgeon SEO is a decent option — but only if you know how to tell the good ones from the bad ones.
And trust me when I tell you that’s a skill that takes years to hone.
I’m not into BSing potential clients. So the first thing I want to tell you is that UppercutSEO is an agency that serves plastic surgeons.
You can see that I might be a little biased. I’m OK with that.
Because I feel strongly enough about this — separate from my business interests — that I think I can still get the message across:
Agencies are the way to go if you want to dominate the rankings for plastic surgery keywords.
I’ll give you a few reasons why:
I’ve seen this play out not just with my hundreds of past clients, but with dozens of other reputable agencies. It just works better when you trust the right agency to do your SEO.
Notice that I said the RIGHT agency. Here’s me being brutally honest again: Many agencies actually aren’t good at SEO. So you have to vet them and pick the right one.
Some good news for you: You’re already here, on the UppercutSEO website, so you don’t need to look any further. We’re ready to take your SEO to the next level.
I’ve been doing SEO for more than a decade. I built an extremely profitable agency and then exited it to start UppercutSEO.
Why did I do that? So I could help businesses like YOURS. And help them in the way they actually need.
I hand-crafted an SEO dashboard that provides absolute transparency. You see what you’ve ordered, what you’ve received, what’s going on, and what’s coming next.
I assembled quite possibly the best SEO team in the industry. Complete with true EXPERTS in plastic surgery SEO (not posers).
I dropped the monthly mega retainer model in favor of something that scales with you:
When you’re starting out, you can order content and links a la carte. When you start to get traction, we can transition to a monthly agreement that’s flush with the revenue your SEO is bringing in.
It hasn’t been long, but I’m already seeing incredible success for our incredible clients. And you can — and should — join them.
All right — I’ve talked enough about the broad approaches. Let’s get into specifics. Here’s how to do SEO for a plastic surgery office.
The very first step is to make sure Google can actually find, crawl, index, and rank your website.
This is the basic idea behind technical SEO, which isn’t as scary as it sounds.
If you’re going the DIY route, take these steps first:
First, set up Google Search Console. It’s a free tool that will help you understand whether Google can find and crawl and index your website.
You can use it to see the traffic you’re getting from Google. And you’ll get warnings about several types of basic technical SEO issues that may arise.
Next, enter the following into Google:
Site:yourwebsite.com
(Obviously, replace the URL with your own website.)
You should see search results displaying various pages from your website. If you see nothing, you’ve got a BIG technical SEO problem. And it’s time to reach out to a professional.
Next up is keywords. These are the words or phrases you’d like your website to show up in Google for.
You can probably guess at a few good ones. Things like:
And so on.
But keywords go MUCH deeper than that. You can target and rank for millions of keywords that could bring you new business.
To find those keywords, I recommend starting a free trial of one of the major SEO tools: Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, Ubersuggest, etc.
They’re limited until you pay for them. But they’ll give you an idea of what’s out there.
For each keyword you want to rank for, you’ll need to create content that targets it.
If you choose “plastic surgeon NYC,” you’ll need to create a webpage titled “NYC Plastic Surgeon.”
If you choose, “how much does liposuction cost in Florida,” you’ll need to create a blog post titled “How Much Does Liposuction Cost in Florida?”
Otherwise, you won’t rank for those keywords.
And remember: Google wants to rank GOOD content. So it’s worth your time or money to invest in great content if you want to rank.
Backlinks are key for plastic surgery SEO.
These are simply links on other websites that point back to your website. Simple enough, but really hard to get.
But you HAVE to get backlinks. Google uses the number and quality of backlinks pointing at a given website as a MAJOR ranking factor.
In other words, backlinks tell Google what you should rank for and how highly you should rank for it.
How does a plastic surgery office build backlinks, exactly? There are many methods:
I’ve put together dozens of guides to these and many other link building methods. I encourage you to check them out in the SEO Guides section.
Don’t forget local SEO — the way you rank in the Map Pack (the map listings at the top of normal Google results) and Google Maps.
This is almost an entirely separate discipline from the rest of the SEO methods I’ve described so far. But it’s INCREDIBLY important for plastic surgeons.
So pay attention: If you completely optimize your Google Business Profile (GBP), post on it regularly, and keep it up to date, you’re doing more than 70 percent of what it takes to do local SEO.
It’s still a lot to do, of course. You have to:
And MUCH more.
But if you do all that, you’ll see your local rankings rise. Which is more than worth the effort.
Those are the major steps to doing plastic surgeon SEO. But honestly, there’s SO much more involved. And so many micro-decisions within each task and step.
It’s a lot. I get that. But you can’t just give up.
This is how you grow your practice in 2024. This stuff WORKS. It’s already working for your competitors.
If you can’t give up and you can’t find the time or expertise to do it, what are your options? You need to call in the big guns.
UppercutSEO is the big guns. With decades of combined experience, a proven track record of REAL results, and absolute dedication to your success, you can’t — and won’t — go wrong with us.
Give my team a try. Start by claiming your 100 percent free SEO dashboard or scheduling a 100 percent free consultation with me.
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