Local SEO For Dentists

An important point of sustaining success for your dental practice website in all locations is how it ranks on the search engines.

Prioritizing gaining top results through Google, Bing or other search engines will catapult any business’ marketing campaigns.

Our tried and tested search engine optimization and various tricks and techniques, getting on the first page of the search engines is an achievable goal.

What Is Local SEO For Dentists?

To get adjusted with how search engine optimization for dentists works, we must first understand what SEO is.

More and more companies and people the world over have become reliant on search-based answers to all of the questions.

Google has and will always be the top of the mountain of search engines and a key component to all website owners and the ability to show up on the first page can reap great outcomes.

Through great, storied content, excellent SEO methods and strategically planned optimization, there is great opportunity to enhance your website’s pages.

Is SEO for Dentists Important For Your Practice?

Before we get into specifics, let’s find out why a local dentist practice would want to invest in SEO as a marketing initiative.

Google is now the driving force of nature it has built itself up to be online behind an ever-growing reliance the world now finds ourselves living in.

Companies can no longer rely on conventional advertisements and yellow pages anymore.

Search has become the place for all users searching for local dentists and it’s time to get behind the 21st-century line of thinking.

Consider the following statistics:

• Since 1998, when Google was founded, searches have gone from 10,000 queries per day to 1.2 trillion
• 20% of all search queries are for consumers looking for businesses
• 40% of all searches are done on mobile

By being positioned on the top page of Google will give your dentist practice an advantage over your competition simply be being there when the consumer is looking.

Doing this organically (and not paying) will give your dentist’s office a first shot to thousands of local visitors searching for dentist services.

By investing in organic, local SEO for dentists, consider the following:

• Google handles 94% of all online searches with the desktop achieving a 34% click through rate and mobile achieving 35%
• Pay-per-click or paid ads only go as far as you are willing to pay. Meaning, once you stop paying, the ads go away and your dental practice’s visibility with it.
• Over 51% of all traffic comes through organically, vs 10% of paid, 5% of social and the rest through different sources.
• 87% of all smartphone users search at least once per day
• Once users hit the second page of Google searches, a 2-3% drop-off occurs and further on as they get to more and more pages of search results.
• 91% of adults use Google to find information.

6 reasons why to hire an SEO company.

Doing Local SEO for Dentists Is a Critical Marketing Strategy

First off, achieving great SEO outcomes can take weeks if not, months to realize.

There will be a demanding battle your dentistry will have against many dentists worldwide, locally-based SEO can give you results in your locale.

Most dentist offices will be shooting for higher, more used keywords or phrases and may forget about the locally-based keywords.

Being the first on your city’s dentist Google searches can go a long way.

Most practices around the globe also may not be sticking to the best SEO practices, which are always constantly changing.

Being on the ball and vigilant about being at the forefront of Google’s rigorous algorithm can take time, patience and dedication.

Once this has been achieved though, you will see great results!

Let’s see how your dental practice can achieve SEO results locally:

Dentist Related Keywords And Key Phrase Research

Ensure that you have the unique set of key phrases that pertain to your dental practice will be at the center of your SEO campaign.

These terms will directly reflect your dental practice and will give you the total customer base your practice is seeking.

For example, if your dental practice has a strong presence with “dental veneers”, it’s best to explore more options surrounding those terms.

We recommend starting by setting up an account with Google Ads.

This won’t mean you need to use the Google paid ad console.

You will now have access to a powerful Google tool known as the Keyword Planner tool and will help you find similar key phrases related to your expertise that you may or may not have thought of.

These phrases will also come with metrics related to them, including search volume and consistency.

When it comes to your dental practice, there are a few things to consider when coming up with a research scheme:

1. Hiring intentions
   When users go online to search for a good dental practice, they are looking for a specific reason. Being on top of what your potential dental client would be looking for can help put them in the right direction. The content of your website pages should reflect the potential client’s needs in mind.
   
2. Research intentions
   Putting yourselves in the consumer’s shoes can make all the difference in your phrasing approach.While the intention of the consumer can’t be actualized, having your practice’s website prepared for the line of thinking your potential customer would have is of tantamount importance. For example, when users type in “How to get rid of a root canal” – they may not be looking for dental counsel quite yet, but if they land your website page through a similar type search, it may as well be on your website.
   For users just looking to do research, it’s important for your website to feature useful information that will give users a trust factor when and if they do consider hiring a dentist.

How to Excel in SEO for Dental Practices: Optimizing Keywords

There will be multiple instances of your keywords online – both from your website and from other sources that will help maximize results.

Focusing on the important ones first and moving to the less important ones will help the process.

For instance, focus on your business’ core website pages – like the home page and services section and then your Google Business Profile page.

After that is accomplished, get your FAQ section and blog ready for optimization.

Optimizing Your Dental Practice Website for Local SEO

When it comes to optimizing your dental practice’s website for best results, it’s best to start with the core pages.
By having the hiring intent in mind, it’s best to start with your homepage and then your services sections.
Giving your clients the best opportunities to connect to you is through your services.

Here are a few tips on some of the deeper elements within those pages:

• Title Tag
  A major component of your website page is the title tag. This will be the text within the blue link that comes up on Google when searched for. This will also be a small but descriptive personification of what your page represents.
  For all pages within your website, it’s very important to incorporate the key phrases and terms you had lined up earlier here.
  We suggest using locally based titles that would include the city or locale your practice is in plus the descriptive title.
  Using 50-65 characters, many websites will feature a strong title plus the category it’s in as part of the title tag.
• Meta Description
  Another important component on your web page is the meta description. Your meta description will be the other piece of information the user will see on the Google search pages under the Title tag.
  We recommend keeping at between 100-150 characters, so be upfront and exact! Your meta description should incorporate the key phrases and will also help increase your website page’s searchability.
• H1 Title Tag
  The H1 tag is your first glimpse into the page and should always appear at the top of every page. It is a descriptive and concise description of what the page will bring and should incorporate the keyword you’ve chosen for that page.
• Body
  Your home page should have between 500 – 1000 words for best SEO practices. Your home page should include a strong description of your practice’s mission statement as well as clear and concise descriptions of your other service offerings.
  Keep all of the page’s content to be read naturally and compelling and should help encourage users to go further on in your website. This will also help your website in ranking on search engines more efficiaently.
• Service Pages
  An integral to your website’s success through SEO by being meticulous and calculated about laying out your service pages.
  Don’t try cramming all of your services on to one page, but spread them out across multiple useful and insightful pages. In each page, purposefully use your keywords and map out detailed content throughout the various pages.
  Each page will offer different results to the different services you provide for your patients. They will receive the same treatment as the home page – with a descriptive Title Tag, Meta Description, H1 Tag and should be anywhere between 500 and 1000 words.
• Other Content Pages
  By doing your due diligence through the Keyword Planner tool, you’ll be able to get more ideas for content pages that will be searchable by users looking for your content.
  By including those keywords onto other pages and blog posts and you can be sure to add more avenues to your website through those words.
• FAQ Section
  Consolidating a most asked questions page is a great idea for all the potential patients’ questions. This should include all of your customer questions upon their initial consultation with your practice.
  Being able to tackle all the questions might be a tough task at first, but if you have some that you get fairly often, it can go a long way to understanding your patient before they become your patient!

Optimizing Your Google Business Profile Dental Practice Page for Local SEO

Your dental practice’s My Business page will be the one that shows up on Google when results come in locally.
When you optimize your Google Business Profile page correctly, it will offer many benefits in your search engine optimization plans.

Your Google Business Profile page is basically a mini-website that sits within the Google framework. There’s a strong likelihood your Google Business Profile page gets ranked higher than your actual website because of that factor.

Here are a few items to cross off as you make your way through the Google Business Profile page:

• Name, Address, Phone Number
  Ensure that you have everything consistent across all platforms and websites. While having all the correct contact information can seem like something small, it will make a big difference on all your online profiles.
  Remember, you are marketing locally, so make sure you have all your local phone numbers and the dentist practice’s address properly in place.
• Verifying your dental practice
  In order to get verified within the Google Business Profile platform, you will either receive a text message to the practice’s phone number or a postcard in the mail. Once this has been verified and completed, a “Verified” stamp next to your dental practice’s name will appear.
• Categories
  The categories you place your dentist practice in is a large component to the Google your My Business profile and the services you will be providing.
  Giving them a healthy list of services will give your customers options and will fill out your Google Business Profile page’s service section.
• Being as specific as possible will lend itself to more meaningful visits and better results.
• Be sure to pick about 3-5 categories that best describe your dentist practice’s services.
• An example list of dentist categories can include the following:
  1. General dentist
  2. Orthodontist
  3. Periodontist
  4. Endodontist
  5. Prosthodontist
• Services
  Google lets you list all the services that your business provides. It is an excellent opportunity to increase the exposure by appearing on searches when users look for a certain service. Some of the dental services could be:
  
  1. Teeth Whitening
  2. Tooth Filling
  3. Dental Implants
  4. Sinus Lift
  5. Root Planing
  6. Gum Surgery
  7. Gum Implant Gum Tissue Graft Surgery
• Description
  Your page’s description serves as your elevator pitch to potential patients, essentially.
  Write out a 100-200 word explanation of your practice’s expertise that will include a brief history, recent successes and list of your services.
  Being as descriptive as possible within those checks will give more reason for potential patients to book with your dental practice.
• Images
  With your Google Business Profile page, you will be allowed a few images to showcase your practice.
  These images should convey confidence and assuredness with your dental practice, such as dental hygienists and smiling patients.
  Be sure your images have a strong resolution and focus and shouldn’t be more than 5MB in size. Try to optimize the images so they are perfect squares and fit in the 720×720 pixel resolution.
  Best practices also would be to replace the background image with something branded from your dental practice.
• Hours of Operation
  Like the website, phone numbers and address as mentioned above – your hours of operation should all be uniform and accurate. Leaving less confusion for the end-user will go a long way.

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Using Links And Citations to Turbocharge Your Dental Practice’s Local SEO

Once your website and Google Business Profile pages are all optimized, another set of practices are important to set your firm apart from the pack

Citations

As mentioned above, consistency across all platforms and entities is important.

None more than your name, address and phone number. Having consistency across all platforms will help increase your Google viability.

When you have your name, address and phone across various directories – both nationally and locally – it will create more avenues for your law firm to grow online.

By utilizing websites such as YellowPages or Yelp, it will give users more ways to get to your law firm with consistency.

By registering and creating accounts on directories, you increase your website’s ranking through those directory current rankings online.

As a law firm, it’s also important to add to various industry-specific directories as well.

Websites such as FindLaw.com and Avvo.com will add to the different ways clients can try and find your law firm.

Links

A tried and tested method of good SEO practice is link building.

When websites point their links back to your website and your website posts reciprocal links, it gives your Google profile more clout.

Creating links to websites with more of a presence than your own is best practice.

For instance, a link to or from CNN.com would give you a lot more merit as it has a heavier standing on Google.

The more links your website has the better.

How would you build those links for a local SEO campaign for dentists?

Through the directories mentioned above and through your SEO efforts, will you build a proper link pool.

Other methods such as seeing what your competition has done online and relationships you have built offline can also create more online clout over time. Be sure to follow up with your relationships to confirm those linking online.

Reviews

Reviews have been a long-running barometer on the internet.

Receiving good reviews will certainly give your practice more credibility offline, but will most certainly count for more online.

With more impactful reviews being received through Google reviews, it will help give your Google Business Profile page more visibility to prospective patients.

When many good reviews are viewable to your patience, a sense of trustworthiness will give your dental practice an advantage on the competition.

Other review websites such as Yelp for dentists also give your online imprint more impact on the internet.

To help your case, it’s good practice to send out emails requesting great Google reviews.

Being proactive about getting these reviews will give your dental practice a more sound leg to stand on and give your prospective patients more conviction.

Local SEO For Dentists: Tracking

The final component to your local SEO for dentists journey will be tracking your successes and failures on Google.

By successfully measuring your website’s success using core metrics, you will be able to tell what methods are working and what ways need some tweaking.

Ranking high on Google should be your main goal online.

If you see great results from the different guidelines outlined above, then make sure you sustain those best practices.

Through the Google search console, you will be able to see where you rank on certain terms and where you’ll be needing more help.

Website traffic is another way you can keep a record of how your website is performing.

Through website analytics tools, you can see how many click-throughs are coming through to your website and how they got there.

You can also gauge which locations and devices your clients are using to get to your website pages.

Taking proper stock of what is working and what is not should be a monthly assignment to review and employ.

Conversions are the foundation of every successful campaign.

You Can Bring A User To A Website, But Can You Convert Them?

Having these successful techniques intact should help you convert but ultimately you’ll need to sell the user on the dental practice’s best service plans and approaches.

Being your patient’s best advocate starts at ensuring their trust online and affirming that trust through your dental practice’s work.

In a city with a wide array of dental practices and expertise, it’s important to stay ahead of the curve in this ever-changing online climate we now live in.

Having your dentist website that is optimal for dental SEO in 2020 will be your launching point to a more successful practice!

If you are a dentist or own a dental clinic and you are looking to expose your clinic online you need an SEO agency.

Contact us to get started today with local SEO for dentists and work with a highly skilled digital marketing agency.