We wrote about local seo audits for small businesses here.
For many dentists, the biggest challenge with local seo is that there are sooo many dental practices to compete with. In New York County alone, there are 1,300 dental practices1. A “dentist near me” query in Google Maps shows these results:
The locations highlighted on the map are just the first few of 207 results, each page having 20 listings save for a couple of them being ads.
The listings on the left have hundreds, if not thousands, of reviews with average ratings of 4.5+.
So how can a new or under the radar dentist build their business using search?
Here are a few tactics for local SEO for dentists.
Having a Google Business Profile (GBP) is table stakes in a high competition areas like dentistry. If you haven’t done so already, create or claim your GBP. For detailed instructions, read about how to generate organic visits for Google Business Profiles. To summarize, the top ranking factors for GBP are:
Your website is very important in regards to local SEO strategy. The following is a summary on how to perform a local search audit and optimize:
Receiving local backlinks from credible local websites can improve your authority and SEO performance. Here are some methods that you can use to get local backlinks:
If you’re a solo practitioner, you’ve probably got enough going on between seeing patients, billing, filing taxes, and everything else required to run a dental practice. Creating content is time intensive and can be a full-time job.
That being said, there are some, higher priority content you should have on your site:
A blog can be highly impactful for SEO, but you usually have to produce a lot of quality content which is a lot of work.
However, if you have relevant information you frequently give to patients, consider converting these into blog articles. That way, you are leveraging existing assets (less additional work) while increasing the potential ROI (attract and convert prospective customers). Examples of blog content than can help both current and prospective patients are:
If you are able to produce content, dental-related and local-specific topics could help you rank better within local searches.
Since 57% local searches are performed on mobile devices2, it’s important to ensure a smooth user experience on mobile. That means mobile responsive pages, compressed image file sizes, and fast page speed load times. You can read more about this in our article on UX and SEO.
Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to analyze and improve your site’s loading time.
Track your GBP's performance (formerly called Insights). Available metrics are:
Keep an eye on your reviews and ratings. Responding to reviews, both positive and negative, shows that you value patient feedback and are committed to improving your services.
Use Analytics Tools to better understand how your website is doing on local search. Some local search tools include Moz Local, Bright Local or Yext. These will assist you in managing your local listings, and monitoring where you are locally listed on search engines while at the same time keeping track of what people think about your business on various review sites.
Regularly check your local search rankings to see how well your practice is performing for your target keywords. Tools like SEMrush Local, Ahrefs, or Rank Tracker can help you monitor your rankings over time and compare them with competitors. Understanding your ranking position can guide your local SEO for dentists' efforts and highlight areas that need more focus.
Depending on your geographic area, dentistry can be a highly competitive market with relatively savvy marketers when it comes to local marketing. Implementing local SEO for dentists is essential for growing and maintaining online visibility with local audiences. Google Business Profiles are optimized are a must-have for any dental practice, but that’s just one piece to the puzzle. Beyond GBP and optimizing it, there are many other steps dentists can take to rank better for local searches: local keyword targeting, service pages, expertise pages, testimonials, backlinks, and more. Be persistent, and over time, you’ll see the payoff.
1 Dentagraphics, Pulled July 10, 2024
2 "Local SEO Statistics and Trends: a 2022 Report by ReviewTrackers", ReviewTrackers, November 21, 2021
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