If you’ve noticed, and you definitely have if you’ve lived in the US long enough, businesses are closing down and clearing out left and right.
Kmart. Sears. Toys’R’Us. Recently, Payless Shoes.
A lot of businesses are closing for a variety of reasons, none the least of which is that people can basically find whatever they want online, find what they want in the condition and price they want, and get it sent to them whenever.
But if you’re a service, especially a sought-after one, your business is in the (general) clear.
So many service-based businesses, from psychic hovels to breweries to yoga and dance studios, have begun to pop up in place of these stores that have moved their business to the Internet.
But nowadays, all businesses need to have a presence on the Internet in order to have any staying power. Best way to go about with this: Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is what businesses use to ensure their business stays at the top of the results page when people do research for particular goods or services.
Local SEO takes finding local to a whole new level, making a specific page or website rank in a certain area. Basically, how to make your page show up on the first page of Google when someone types into the search bar ’liposuction services near me’. Or something to that effect.
The first result on any given results page gets an average of 20.5% of the clicks. From there, the second result gets 13.32%, and the third gets 13.14%. Increased traffic for a specific business also keeps that business ahead of the competition.
SEO is also free, not charging a business for ad space the way a newspaper, magazine, billboard, TV commercial, or other traditional means of marketing would.
Case studies show more than 68% of potential patients favor SEO as they are bombarded with information frequently. Appreciative consumers are good for business.
SEO For Plastic Surgeons
Plastic surgeons, like most medical practices, are local businesses. It’s best to treat yourself like one, especially since cosmetic surgery is one of the few remaining businesses that thrive on being brick and mortar. Unless, of course, someone finds a way to perform a nose job remotely.
Correct Information on Citations: Make sure all contact information on all websites (i.e. Yelp, Yellowpages, Better Business Bureau, Google local page, local search engines, etc.) regarding your small business is all consistent, especially email addresses.
For plastic surgery SEO, these may include places like:
Medical/Healthcare Review Sites:
- Caring.com
- Doctor.com
- Golden Reviews
- Healthgrades
- UCompareHealthCare
- RateMDs
- RealSelf
- Vitals
Local Listings and Keywords: Start off with the town or city your business is located in. ‘Cosmetic surgeon in Greensboro, Augusta’, for example, is specific enough without clogging up local keyword research with the name of the street you’re on.
Google Maps: Speaking of locations, please use any and all maps to pinpoint the location of your business(es). Nokia’s HERE maps are said to be the leading choice for alternatives to Google Maps, and some other choices include Waze, GPS navigation, and MapQuest.
Shorter URLs: “An industry study found that shorter URLs ranked better in Google (Dean)”. Keywords in the URL work better as well and are more likely to be picked up by the Search Engine first.
Meta Description: “The meta description is a snippet of up to about 155 characters – a tag in HTML – which summarizes a page’s content. Search engines show the meta description in search results mostly when the searched-for phrase is within the description.”
Keywords First: Many people make this easy mistake, starting off posts with a long introduction or opening fact and dropping a keyword much later. But this isn’t good for local research since the search results will pull up only the most relevant strings of text. Therefore, it’s best to start off posts, articles, and any other form of text you write yourself by bringing up the keyword in the first 100 words or so, 50 if you’re feeling confident.
Things To Keep In Mind:
Please make your information online mobile friendly. This cannot be stressed enough.
Compatibility between desktop and mobile users is always an issue, especially considering how many of us are up and out even beyond a 9-to-5 schedule. Many in that number do not have easy access to a keyboard computer for various reasons.
We’re reduced to our phones (and sometimes tablets) constantly for various reasons, convenience being one of them.
As of 2015, Google has begun to crack down on websites that are not mobile friendly. Responsive Design is the best solution to this.
A business essentially kills two birds with one stone by having Search Engine Optimization streamlining the process between making a website responsive to both desktop and mobile users. This improves user experience and ensures more potential consumers come across that website.
Do not put in ‘placeholders’. Like webpages for certain products or services with no additional information. This looks unprofessional and embarrassing if you claim to be proficient in something you don’t provide information on.
“Can’t potential customers just Google the procedure in a new tab?”
They can, but they are already on your website, looking to see just how good you are at whatever they could be looking for. People highly prize convenience and compactness, and it shows consideration and expertise on your part if you simply have all the information right on your website.
Having the information in one place that saves a customer time and 4G data on their device will bump you up in the search engine results, and all it takes is a simple copy-and-paste.
A namedrop or reference for your business is good, but it happens one too many times on Google with nothing to back it up, you can get in some really hot water for spamming Google or any other local search engine with duplicate results.
The best way to avoid trouble is to ensure the mentions of your business come from real, live people. Reviews, blog posts, references, even odd things like YouTube videos are vital to validating your business while optimizing plastic to your benefit.
The human element in SEO also ensures that dwell time on your website is high, indicating a high-quality site. If someone researching your site opens the page and immediately hits the back button, Google will see this as a sign of low quality and will allow that website to fall further and further in the search results.
Therefore, it’s a good idea to put things like videos and reviews on the opening page, make it the first thing anyone sees when they click on the link to your site. Things like that tend to keep people’s attention longer and will boost the dwell time on your site, indicating to SEO that your website is worth pushing to the front of the line.
Plastic surgeons provide high quality, valuable services outside of tummy tucks and ‘boob jobs’, and utilizing Plastic Surgery SEO as much as possible will put your practice at the top of the ranks on Google, and make it first in the minds of people needing your expertise.