Most surgeons and practice administrators have an idea of the handful of “vanity” searches they want to rank for on Google, like “[City]+plastic surgeon”. Yet consumers are using a much wider variety of keywords and phrases when researching and searching for plastic surgery information than ever; they are just searching differently.
And not only are they searching different topics, but consumers also often search using different keywords when researching the same information.
For instance, how do you think most consumers search Google to find a medical spa? Do they type “medical spa” or “medspa”? How about “medispa”? I found the results surprising, and it changed how we optimize for it (I include the results below).
Although Google has artificial intelligence to know that the intent of users is probably pretty similar, the search results are different and any opportunity to serve exactly what consumers are searching for, the better.
“Why should I or my practice care about this? Isn’t this just about SEO for my agency?”
Of course, keywords and search phrases have been a foundation for SEO marketing since its inception. However, we live in a digitally dominated world today where most cosmetic surgery consumers spend most of their time online. And nothing has had more of an impact on plastic surgery marketing than social media!
And the most successful social media campaigns in your local market are managed largely by the practice’s surgeon and/or team. Thus, keyword research should be important to you and your social media specialist/team so that you can incorporate results to ensure you identify and post timely, high consumer interest topics.
Social media “best practices” also suggest optimizing your posts with relevant hashtags. Keyword research may uncover highly effective hashtag strategies that your competitors may have overlooked and create additional high-quality visibility.
“How can we do keyword research without investing a lot of time or cost?”
There are a number of online resources that practices can use to help identify popular topics, subjects, and keywords for both social media and SEO purposes. To make this easier for you, here are two of the most simple ways to identify what people are searching for.
Let Google Do the Work
Google has made huge investments to develop leading-edge research and technology in artificial intelligence and learning. Google search is a learning engine and provides results largely based not just on keywords, but its users’ intent.
For instance, when you search for “Breast “Augmentation”, Google displays “Plastic Surgeons” in the local results. And right down below the 3-pack map results is a list of “People also ask” results. And when you click on a result, it drops down additional “ask” questions that people search.
Try WordStream
Wordstream offers a free keyword tool that allows you to research given keywords phrases where you can identify hundreds of keyword phrases based on your website’s content and services.
Not only will you get variety of different keyword phrases, but your report will also identify the monthly volume of searches in Google Ads, the competitive level of each keyword phrase and even the average cost per click.
Google Trends for Medical Spa Search Volume
So if you made it down here and were still wondering how most Americans search for medical spas, here is what I found. Initially, I compared:
Medical spa v. Medspa v. Medispa
This is the result I got back. Surprising to me, more people historically search Google for “medical spa” than “medspa” and I generally see more plastic surgery and medical spa websites targeting “medspa” as the primary keyword.
However, after additional research, I added “med spa” (with a space) to the list and got another surprising result.
At least in this case “med spa” was the clear winner and our recommendation for keyword optimization.
If you would like an audit of your keyword strategy, Request A Free Keyword Audit.