Plastic Surgery Keyword Research: Understanding Search Intent
In the competitive landscape of plastic surgery, attracting the right audience to your website is crucial for success.
Maybe you've already invested in SEO for your practice and have been unhappy or haven't seen the results you anticipated. One of the biggest mistakes we see with practices that aren't happy with their SEO performance is targeting the wrong keywords or not understanding search intent and how different plastic surgery keywords have different intents behind them.
In this comprehensive guide post, we'll cover keyword research best practices for plastic surgery practices and provide SEO keyword research tips to help you uncover opportunity keywords for your website.
The Importance of Choosing Keywords for SEO
Before diving into keyword research, it's essential to understand the importance of choosing keywords for SEO. Well-researched keywords provide a solid foundation for your website's content and help search engines understand the purpose of your site.
By targeting the right plastic surgery keywords, you can attract potential clients who are actively searching for the services you offer, leading to higher conversion rates and a more successful online presence.
Types of Search Intent Behind Plastic Surgery Keywords
Search intent is a key concept in SEO that refers to the purpose behind a search query. By understanding what people look for when they enter a question into a search engine, you can help them find what they need and provide relevant content on your website. This will also help you choose the appropriate keywords for your content.
There are four main types of search intent that are important to focus on within the cosmetic surgery industry. These are as follows:
Commercial or Transactional Keywords
With commercial or transactional keywords, the searcher has the intent to make a transaction. In our case, that usually means booking an initial consultation with plastics surgeons.
There is a bit of a spectrum on how close they are to making a decision, and the keyword will show that as well. When we look at these keywords for the plastic surgery industry, they typically include service-specific keywords that are often geo-modified. Specific examples may include:
- Miami Breast Augmentation
- Coral Gables Rhinoplasty
- Miami Beach Face Lift
When a potential client searches for these keywords, they are actively looking - the demand is there. It's your job as a practice owner (or marketer) to make sure that your brand and website are showing up to capture that demand. This is where plastic surgery seo in general, comes in, but understanding the right keywords is the first step.
Another sub-set of these keywords in the cosmetic surgery industry is usually cost-based:
- Miami Breast Lift Cost
- Breast Augmentation Plastic Surgeons Miami
- Coco Village Breast Lift Cost
- Tummy Tuck Cost Miami Beach
While these searchers might not be as close to making an actual decision, they are actively researching data that supports a decision.
These are the most important SEO keywords for plastic surgeons as they are the most likely to convert quickly into plastic surgery patients.
Informational Keywords
If commercial or transactional keywords deliver booked cosmetic procedures and convert patients, then informational keywords build your brand and your perceived reputation in your industry within your market.
These types of keywords are often modified with "can I", "how" or "when" or "after", etc. and are often more long tail keywords than transactional or commercial keywords. Some examples include:
- When can I lay on my stomach after a tummy tuck?
- Can I blow my nose after rhinoplasty?
- How long does a mommy makeover surgery take?
While these keywords may not convert visitors into patients, they are still a core part of any plastic surgery SEO strategy for multiple reasons.
Firstly, they really do build your brand. I can't stress this enough. Getting eyeballs on your brand in your local market when people are researching information about potential surgical or non-surgical plastic surgery procedures will help establish you as the go-to authority.
Secondly, they support the visibility of the commercial and transactional keywords. By improving your visibility for informational keywords, Google will view your website as more of an authority in your industry, and because of this, your website will improve in the search engines for your core transactional terms.
Navigational Intent Keywords
The last type of keywords that are worth noting are navigational keywords. With these keywords, the searcher knows what they are looking for, but they are using Google to direct them there. These often include brand terms and Surgeon name terms, such as:
- CG Cosmetic Surgery Miami
- Dr. Alexander Zuriarrain
While there are certain keywords that are more "valuable" than others, a good SEO campaign will incorporate all of these types of plastic surgery keywords.
Local SEO and Google Maps Intent Keywords
It's important to highlight a sub-set of keywords that you can target with your Google Business Profile (GBP) and local SEO to improve its visibility in the search results.
Most plastic surgeons either have their own independent profile or a practice profile that can be leveraged to drive calls and appointments right from your Google business profile.
The terms you are likely to target with this profile are your main "who we are" terms (Plastic Surgery Miami, Miami Plastic Surgeons, etc.) The "near me" intent is also a big one with GBP and local. Targeting "Plastic Surgeon near me" or "Plastic Surgery near me" is better suited for your GBP profile than they are for your actual website.
How do I find the best SEO keywords for Plastic Surgeons?
There are a number of tools you can use to identify great keywords for your cosmetic surgery or plastics surgery clinic. The one we recommend the most is ahrefs.com.
While Google has its own Google Keyword Planner that does show good data, in this industry, we find that it is a little too inconsistent.
Using Ahrefs, you're able to brainstorm keyword ideas directly or use your competitors to see what keywords they rank for that you may also want to target.
For example, by putting in a starting keyword, Ahrefs will give you additional keyword ideas:
Or you can leverage their competitive insight to determine what keywords your competitors are ranking for.
What keywords do you target first with your Plastic Surgery Practice?
When we design a campaign or what we recommend for plastic surgery practice that does it themselves, we target keywords where there is a good balance of volume and competition. With tools like Ahrefs, you'll be able to find the keyword avg. volume and difficulty which will help support which search intent groups you tackle first.
Let's compare a few:
Miami Plastic Surgery
Tummy Tuck Miami
Breast Lift Miami
Obviously, most people will start by targeting the term "City + Plastic Surgery," and we can't blame them - it's got the highest volume. However, what you can see is that there is still a lot of traffic to generate by targeting individual services first.
By having great mobile-friendly service landing pages with high-quality content and well-optimized pages, including title tags, meta descriptions, and good on-page SEO you will be able to start driving traffic and leads to your business much quicker than if you tried to only focus on the main plastic surgery terms.
SEO Keywords vs. Paid Ad Keywords
While we are all about SEO here at SEO Brothers, it's important to note that keywords for SEO and keywords for PPC or Google Ads are essentially the same thing. You can run Google ads or PPC advertising for all of these search terms and do very well, or you can choose to improve the visibility of your website within the search engine results.
With PPC, you'll need to closely monitor your campaign to ensure that you are not wasting money driving traffic from people searching with the wrong intents or non-relevant keywords. These are often referred to as negative keywords. These are essentially a list of keywords that you maintain in Google Adwords to ensure you do not bid on them.
Nevertheless, SEO is just a small piece of an overall marketing strategy for plastic surgeons.
How to Rank Higher for These Keywords In The Search Engines?
Now that you have a good understanding of the different intents and keyword groups, how do we actually rank higher for all of these keywords?
This is where a good Plastic Surgery SEO strategy comes into play.
This involves many areas of SEO that we cover in our comprehensive guide, including On Page Optimization, Link Building, Content Creation and optimization, and more.
In our next guide, we'll talk about how to establish your website as a topical authority by producing content strategically to support your overall website visibility.