Most Plastic Surgery Blogs Should Have Stayed Unpublished
An article applying one of Millard’s Principles to modern SEO for plastic surgeons
For the private practice physician, I have some bad news. Something you all hoped to escape from your residency days: case studies, research, and academic articles. Sorry, but Google and LLMs expect this of you as a private practice physician. It’s not just plastic surgery SEO, but all medical specialties. This kind of content is what you need to set yourself apart from your competitors, because Google and LLMs are looking for authentic content, not the usual commodity content that has overwhelmed the internet.
Commodity Content Is Not a Content Strategy
Google’s own guidance for AI Search says to focus on “unique, non-commodity content” and content that adds unique value.
This guidance was published in May 2025, and SEOs are still not pushing their clients to work with them on content creation. One year is a long time in the SEO-verse. We see so many changes in SERP, and this kind of information is what could have made your brand appear in more AI citations had you known, but here’s why you didn’t know about this.
Stuck on an SEO merry-go-round of what “used to work.”
I witness this every week. Stubborn marketing groups and even freelancers adhere to their outdated strategy because it may keep things steady, and the algorithm updates have yet to affect them. They have been comfortable on their SEO cruise control until their clients get Google-slapped and they retreat to Reddit with “SEO is dead” posts, or “what happened to my site?”
I see doctors make these posts about SEO confusion. They remember the outdated SEO tactics that once gave them top-ranking blue-line positions and cannot understand why they lost those positions and why their conversions are down. The phone stopped ringing. The consultation schedule thins out. They then become guilty of violating the Dr. Luis Vasconez rule: “If plan A doesn’t work, don’t make plan B the same as plan A.”
They hire another SEO to re-implement Plan A. The first SEO guy didn’t work out, but the same plan with another SEO guy could. No mention of Plan B. Because Plan B is harder, it will require more work for both of you. Then we have money. The SEO Plan A guy is cheaper than this SEO Plan B guy. You get motivated by the money and go back to the outdated SEO merry-go-round.
So, what is SEO Plan B? Unique plastic surgery content development. Period. Yes, the usual foundation SEO is still alive and necessary, but it’s the unique content that gains AI citations. Forgive me here, but you absolutely cannot expect a general SEO marketing goon to manufacture this kind of content on your behalf. Unless your SEO is working inside of your office, you will need to help with this content.
I write this article in complete frustration after multiple failed attempts to gain before-and-after photos from a client. I have spent six months begging for this content. Here we are with a stalled website and a dentist who expects improved rankings with zero before-and-after photos on their website.
“Client responsibility does not equal paying the monthly SEO invoice.” – Pamela Howard, Plastic Surgery & Medical Marketing Strategist
Physicians in the aesthetic specialties have long been accustomed to providing photos to enhance their galleries. They want to be identified as medical artists presenting their aesthetic galleries. However, physicians of other specialties are baffled by the idea of SEO participation. While plastic surgeons have long recognized the importance of hiring a medical SEO professional, then a plastic surgery SEO professional, physicians of other specialties are lagging in modern medical SEO practices. In their defense, they also believe that medical SEO is regular SEO. It is not.
Au contraire, the difference should become more obvious as you see the content demands:
| AI visibility asset | SEO provides | Client provides |
|---|---|---|
| Procedure page | Research, architecture, writing, optimization | Surgeon input |
| Case study | Formatting, writing, optimization | Case details + approved photos |
| Before/after content | Image SEO, contextual copy | Images + patient authorization |
| Expert Q&A | Topic/query research, editing | Physician answers |
| Original clinical insight | Presentation and sourcing | Physician experience |
| Outcomes/data | Analysis and presentation | Practice data |
| Authority signals | Entity/schema implementation | Accurate credentials/affiliations |
Commodity Content – an internet drowning in interchangeable content
Why the new demand for authentic content? The internet is drowning in the same titles. The same pages trying to rank for the same keywords. Local SEO still matters, as not every business is attempting to rank nationally. However, authority is established by being unique, different, and authentic. The best way to achieve that is to avoid commodity blog titles. Instead, build your case studies and galleries. Because the last thing you want to do is try to out-write your competitor’s blog titled “Five ways a tummy tuck can make you feel better.”
Blog writing is a top factor that keeps agencies in their rut of deliverables. Businesses identify with outdated content deliverables, and they are also cheap to manufacture using AI platforms such as Claude. Business owners have grown accustomed to these legacy blog deliverables, in numerical increments per month. However, these deliverables have expanded the internet beyond the event horizon, and Google has pulled the brakes by labeling it “commodity content.”
Why do agencies continue to push commodity content blog titles? Because it has worked in the past and it’s still expected by clients. Trying to convince clients to shift to unfamiliar territory is challenging. Then, getting clients to engage in the alternative content demands has been like pulling teeth (pun intended) for SEOs. Businesses & agencies alike do not understand the amount of teamwork necessary to develop a great, worthy case study, and they struggle with the implementation of this dynamic.
However, agencies view this kind of next-level content creation as costly, especially when compared to the quick generation of another commodity-titled blog using Claude. Given the high cost of the best SEOs, this authentic content is more like an investment than a blog article likely to be deleted in a year or so.
“The key is judgment and sound judgment requires a combination of adequate knowledge, common sense and experience.” – D. Ralph Millard, Jr., M.D.
Millard’s Principle 23 was never only an operating-room rule. Hesitation usually means some part of you already knows the move is wrong. The same warning applies to a draft that could have come from any practice in any city.
Publish the case. Publish the gallery. Publish the answer the surgeon would give across a consult desk. If you cannot do that yet, leave the page unpublished. An empty URL is less damaging than one more interchangeable recovery list.
A blog package is a production schedule. It is not a publishing standard.
Would the surgeon say this in consult? Does a page already rank for this? Would ChatGPT already give this answer?
When in doubt, don’t.
