Google Local SEO for Surgeons

Local SEO for surgeons is the bread and butter market avenue for cosmetic surgeons, plastic surgeons, and related medical professionals. When surgeons rank in the Google 3-Pack for their core surgical practices, they can realize a significant influx of patient leads seeking the precise surgical services they they specialize in.

Ranking in the Google local 3-pack listings (shown below) is the equivalent of being the authority for a particular medical niche in a given area.

Local SEO for surgeons is approached leveraging several powerful strategies. Each SEO component focuses on the primary Google ranking factors that contribute to high ranking businesses in the local 3-pack. Below we go into greater detail as what these primary SEO components are and how they related to higher rankings.

Google Local 3-Pack SEO

Google local SEO, or optimizing a surgeon’s practice to appear in the coveted 3-pack (preferably the top spot) includes several unique variables compared to traditional organic SEO.

Some of the primary ranking factors that influence a surgeon’s Google local 3-pack presence include:

• Whether or not the Google+ page is verified with the business
• The number and accuracy of “citations” (or mentions of the business name, address, and phone number on other web listings, such as Yelp, Facebook, Yellowpages, LinkedIn, etc.)
• How well-populated and optimized the Google+ Local page is
• The authority of the practice website, how clear the citation is mentioned (in the header and/or footer,) and whether or not it’s properly linked to the Google+ page
• The amount and quality of reviews on the Google+ Local page
• The proximity in which the business is located to the centermost point of the target city or town

These are just a few of the most common ranking factors that Google considers when ranking practices in the Google local 3-pack. It’s important to keep in mind that Google is always evolving and displaying different forms of search results.

Local SEO for Specialized Surgical Procedures

One consideration that is important to keep in mind when doing local SEO for surgeons is understanding when Google shows it the local 3-pack listings and when it doesn’t.

For more specialized and niche surgical procedures (such “breast augmentation” or “rhinoplasty”) Google sometimes (depending on the city or geographic target) will display only the organic search results (and not the local listings). As a result, a slightly different strategy is needed to attain top rankings for these keyword phrases.

Some of ranking factors that influence a surgeon’s organic search visibility include:

• How authoritative the website (which is based on domain age, backlink profile, and other factors)
• The number, quality, and relevancy of backlinks pointing to the website from external sources
• The quality of the website’s content, use of keywords, and volume and depth pages
• The “freshness” of the website, or how often it’s updated with new content (often best achieved via blogging or publishing fresh content on a consistent basis)
• The internal linking throughout the website and the presence and adequacy of sitemaps

Although there are several other ranking factors involved with organic SEO for surgeons, the latter are elements that we can control. To learn more about how to start an surgeon SEO program with Optimized Surgeons, please contact us for more information.