These days, one of the first actions people take when they are deciding if they want/need plastic surgery is to go online. Once they are online, these prospects type in a few key search terms like “plastic surgeons in Miami”, “how to have a nose job?”, “breast augmentation” to kick off their buyer’s journey. The higher you rank for these and other key terms, the more likely you will attract these prospects to your practice. But what can you do to rank high on Google’s search engine results pages for organic searches? Here are some tips from Search Engine Marketing experts that are going to help you not only rank high but should also help you increase web traffic to your site.
The first tip is to create content that you know your audience is looking for. Seeing as key terms are the beginning of your prospects’ buyer’s journey, it’s only natural that you focus on targeting these terms. For this, you need to generate content. Always remember that Google’s goal is to offer its users the best possible experience. They do that by ranking good, relative content very high on their SERP pages. So, what is good, relative content?
This all depends on the mentality of your prospect. For example, if your prospect is not sure if she wants plastic surgery, then the content you create for this prospect should give a lot of details about the benefits and particulars of rhinoplasty. You should also use before/after pictures as part of your content strategy here, as well as a video from somebody in your practice discussing the latest advances with this kind of procedure. This diverse approach to content through words, images, videos is going to keep your visitors engaged on your page. The more time they spend on your site, the more likely Google will assume your page offers something of value and will thus reward you for it.
The next tip is to focus your energy on your local audience. There probably isn’t a plastic surgeon out there who wouldn’t take clients that came to them from across the globe. But this does not mean that you have to waste plastic surgery SEO efforts on folks across the country or world, for that matter, from your office. Not only does this approach dilute your messaging, but it also goes against the strong local trend that Google is pushing hard these days. Part of the reason why Google is so strong about local is because more and more people are using their smartphones to conduct searches. Google wants to give these mobile web surfers results relative to their immediate area, when appropriate. For people searching for plastic surgeons or information about plastic surgery, local is very appropriate.
You should also build a website with a clear outline. The more time people linger on your website, the higher you will rank on Google’s search results pages. A good reason why people stay longer on a site is because that website is loaded with engaging content. However, none of that content will ever be found if your website is poorly designed. Make sure that your visitors can easily bounce around from one page to the next on your website.
Your next tip is to keep your page speed fast. Images are going to play a major role in converting prospects into patients. If you can show your work on your web page, prospects are far more likely to trust you with their health and beauty. However, all of these images and videos that you add on your site could hurt your SEO. This is because Google still factors site speed to its ranking criteria. It certainly does not want its users to click on a page that takes a couple of seconds to load.
Make sure every single one of your images and videos are optimized for the web. You can check out free tools such as PageSpeed Insights to see how good your site performs. Beyond your image and video sizes, you might have to look into leveraging browser caching, and minifying Javascript to boost your site speed. Despite a push to the play-to-play model, SEO is still the best way to rank higher.