SEO Checklist for Dermatologists: 13 Steps, Each Verified

Jul 31, 2026 · SEO for Industries

Dermatology sites get judged twice: once as a local business, and once as a medical publisher under Google's health-content standards. Skip the trust work and your skincare articles simply won't rank, no matter how good the local signals are. This seo checklist for dermatologists runs 13 steps in priority order, and every step ends with a verification note so you know when to move on. Strategy and reasoning live in the companion dermatology SEO guide; this is the execution list.

The 13-step seo checklist for dermatologists

1. Split medical and cosmetic into separate site sections. "Psoriasis treatment" and "Botox" have different searchers, different intent, and different competition. Structure the nav as Medical Dermatology and Cosmetic Dermatology with service pages under each. Time: half a day of information architecture. Verify: every service page lives under one of the two sections and the URL reflects it (e.g. /cosmetic/botox/).
2. Publish full physician credential pages. Board certification, residency, fellowship, publications, society memberships — spelled out, not summarized. This is the core of E-E-A-T for a medical practice. Verify: each provider's page states "board-certified dermatologist" with the certifying board named, and the page is linked from the main nav.
3. Add physician review bylines to every medical article. "Medically reviewed by Dr. Chen, MD, FAAD" with a link to her credential page. Content without an accountable author is exactly what Google's health standards demote. Verify: no medical article on the site lacks a named, linked reviewer.
4. Audit the site for technical faults. A crawl with WebsiteChecker.Tech surfaces the broken links, missing meta tags, and slow pages that undermine a content-heavy medical site. Verify: the re-crawl after fixes shows zero critical issues.
5. Complete the Google Business Profile with condition-level services. List "acne treatment", "skin cancer screening", "eczema treatment" as services, not just "dermatology". Add each physician as a practitioner listing if they see patients independently. Verify: the services list in GBP mirrors your site's service pages one-to-one.
6. Build condition pages for medical search. Acne, eczema, psoriasis, rosacea, skin cancer — each page covers symptoms, treatment options you offer, and when to book. Example title: "Acne Treatment in Austin | Board-Certified Dermatologists" (56 characters). Time: 3–4 hours per page with physician review. Verify: each condition page has a medical reviewer byline and links to a booking path.
7. Build procedure pages for cosmetic search. Botox, fillers, laser resurfacing, chemical peels — cosmetic searchers want candidacy, downtime, and cost ranges. Include real before/after photos with patient consent. Verify: every cosmetic page answers cost, downtime, and "am I a candidate" explicitly.
8. Get the review pipeline running. Text a Google review link after appointments; aim for 10+ new reviews monthly. Cosmetic patients respond especially well when asked right after a follow-up visit shows results. Verify: review count is growing month-over-month in your GBP dashboard.
9. Respond to reviews without confirming care. HIPAA applies: thank reviewers without repeating any clinical detail. Verify: zero unanswered reviews, and no reply mentions a condition or treatment.
10. Add Physician and MedicalClinic schema. Mark up each provider (name, credentials, specialty) and the practice itself so Google can connect entities. Background: schema markup explained. Verify: Rich Results Test validates without errors on provider and location pages.
11. Answer high-volume condition questions. "Why is my acne worse in winter", "when should a mole be checked" — short, physician-reviewed posts that internally link to condition pages. Two per month is a sustainable cadence. Verify: each post links to exactly one condition page and carries a reviewer byline.
12. Earn medical-adjacent local links. Referring physician directories, hospital affiliation pages, local health-event sponsorships, med-spa association listings. Three or four quality links beat thirty directory submissions. Verify: at least three local or medical domains link to the site.
13. Schedule a monthly crawl and content review. Medical content decays — treatment guidance changes, physicians join or leave. Re-crawl monthly and flag any article older than 18 months for physician re-review. Verify: the recurring calendar entry exists and the first monthly report is filed.

The sequence matters: credentials and trust signals (steps 2–3) come before content volume (steps 6–7, 11) because in dermatology, content without accountable authorship is wasted effort. Get the trust layer right and everything you publish afterward works harder.