Plastic Surgery SEO for Plastic Surgeons

People research a procedure before they pick a surgeon: "tummy tuck cost" alone gets 33,100 US searches a month, and the practices Google shows first get the consultations. It starts with a complete Google Business Profile, then a page for each procedure that answers cost, recovery and who operates, before and after photos used only with written patient authorization, and reviews you reply to without confirming who is a patient.

This guide covers the parts that bring consultations, in the order worth doing them. For the full list of local checks, use the free local SEO checklist.

The Searches That Bring Patients

Patients search for the procedure and its price, usually with "near me". US searches a month, from Google Ads data:

Two patterns stand out. Procedure searches end in "near me", so Google Maps and your procedure pages decide most of it. And cost comes first: "tummy tuck cost" gets about 33,100 US searches a month against 8,100 for "tummy tuck near me". The practice that publishes price ranges, what they include and financing options meets patients at the start of their research, not the end.

Start With Your Google Business Profile

For "near me" searches, Google shows a map with three businesses above the regular results. Google says local results are "mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity" (Google Business Profile help). You cannot change distance. You can change the other two:

• Primary category: Plastic surgeon. Add a secondary category such as Medical spa only if you really run one.
• Services: list each procedure (breast augmentation, tummy tuck, liposuction, rhinoplasty, eyelid surgery, injectables) with a short description.
• Hours and address: exact hours for consultations, and where surgery happens if it is not at the office.
• Photos: your office, consultation rooms and team. Patient photos only with written authorization (more below).
• Reviews: ask every patient the same way, reply to every review, and never confirm in a reply that the reviewer is your patient.
• Surgeons' own profiles: Google treats doctors as individual practitioners, who may have their own profile next to the practice's, but not one profile per specialty (Google guidelines).

Step by step: the Google Business Profile checklist and how to get more Google reviews.

Build a Page for Each Service

One page per procedure patients search: breast augmentation, breast reduction, tummy tuck, liposuction, mommy makeover, BBL, rhinoplasty, eyelid surgery, facelift, and injectables if you offer them. Each page should answer what a patient asks before booking a consultation:

• Who is a good candidate, and who is not.
• A price range and what it includes: surgeon, anesthesia, facility, follow-up visits.
• Financing options, if you offer them.
• Recovery: time off work, what each week feels like, and the risks.
• Who operates, with training and board certification, and where the surgery takes place.
• Before and after photos used with authorization, and how to book a consultation.

Surgery is a health topic, so it gets extra scrutiny: Google says its systems give extra weight to content with strong experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust on topics that can affect people's health (Google). Name the surgeon who wrote or reviewed each page. Give each page a title that matches the search, like "Tummy Tuck in Scottsdale: Cost, Recovery and Results | Larkspur Plastic Surgery".

What SEOmatic's AI SEO agents do here: they find the service pages that show in Google but lose the click, then rewrite titles, headings and answers from your own Search Console data. You decide what goes live, and any change can be undone in one click.

City Pages Without Thin Copies

Patients travel further for surgery than for most care, so a page for each city or region they really come from can help. Swapping the city name in one template does not: Google's spam policies call pages created to rank for similar searches that are less useful than the destination "doorway abuse" (Google). A city page earns its place with what is true only there:

Start with the 3 to 5 places most of your patients come from. More on doing it at scale: location pages that rank.

What SEOmatic's AI SEO agents do here: they check each town on the real results page, then draft pages for the places you serve from your best page. Pages too similar to each other are held back, not published.

Before and After Photos, Reviews and Privacy

Before and after photos are the most persuasive page content in this trade, and the most regulated. With narrow exceptions, the HIPAA Privacy Rule requires a patient's written authorization before their information is used for marketing (HHS). The US Department of Health and Human Services settled with a physical therapy practice for $25,000 after it posted patient testimonials with full names and face photos without valid authorization (HHS), and with a psychiatric practice for $30,000 after it disclosed patients' information in replies to Google reviews (HHS). Safe habits:

• Get a signed HIPAA authorization for every photo, video and testimonial before it goes on your site, profile or social accounts.
• Show typical results. Under the FTC's Endorsement Guides, if a result is not what patients generally get, the ad should clearly say what they can generally expect (16 CFR 255.2).
• Never confirm in a reply that the reviewer is or was your patient, and never mention a procedure, a date or a bill. "Thank you for your kind words" works for any review.
• Ask every patient for a review the same way. Google does not allow merchants to selectively ask happy customers only or to offer anything in exchange for a review (Google).
• Never write reviews for your own practice, buy them, or use groundless threats to get one removed: the FTC rule on fake reviews has applied since October 2024 (FTC).

Credentials and Claims

Patients compare surgeons on training before price. Put on your site and profiles each surgeon's name, medical license, residency training, the board that certified them by its full name, hospital privileges and where surgery takes place. Your state medical board may restrict how you advertise board certification and other claims, so check its rules first. Use the same name, address and phone on every listing (RealSelf, Healthgrades, Yelp and the rest): see the local citation sites that matter and NAP consistency.

Add Physician Schema

Use Physician, a kind of local and medical business on schema.org, with medicalSpecialty set to PlasticSurgery (schema.org). Add it to your homepage or contact page so search engines read your name, address, phone, hours and specialty without guessing. Keep it matching what the page shows (Google, local business structured data). Example for a made-up practice:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Physician",
  "name": "Larkspur Plastic Surgery",
  "url": "https://larkspurplasticsurgery.example",
  "telephone": "+1-480-555-0158",
  "medicalSpecialty": "PlasticSurgery",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "8800 E Shea Blvd, Suite 200",
    "addressLocality": "Scottsdale",
    "addressRegion": "AZ",
    "postalCode": "85260",
    "addressCountry": "US"
  },
  "openingHours": "Mo-Fr 08:00-17:00",
  "sameAs": ["https://www.facebook.com/larkspurplasticsurgery.example"]
}
</script>

What SEOmatic's AI SEO agents do here: they add local business markup to your pages from the facts already on them, and you decide what goes live.

SEO or Paying for Patient Leads?

Many practices do both: ads for this quarter's consultations, SEO so next year depends less on them.

What Plastic Surgery SEO Costs

The basics cost time, not money: your Business Profile, reviews and procedure pages. Agencies charge monthly retainers that vary widely. Before you sign, ask four questions: which pages and listings they will change each month, how they will show you calls and consultation requests from Google, who owns the website, the photos and the Business Profile, and how long the contract runs. If they will touch patient information, such as consultation forms, photo uploads or call recordings, HIPAA requires a business associate agreement (HHS).

A 30-Day Plastic Surgery SEO Plan

1. Week 1: complete your Google Business Profile, set one review request for every patient, and write a safe reply template for your team.
2. Week 2: check that every before and after photo on your site has a signed authorization, and remove any that do not.
3. Week 3: write or fix your three main procedure pages, with price ranges, what they include, recovery and who operates.
4. Week 4: add Physician schema, build pages for your top 3 patient areas, and connect Google Search Console to see which searches already find you.