Potential patients usually begin the search with general phrases such as “teeth whitening near me.” If your practice appears on top of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) in response to this query, the potential patient will likely visit your website.
A well-designed local SEO campaign for dentists puts your practice on the Google Map Pack (also called Local Pack or 3-Pack). This pack is a set of three local results that Google believes to be highly relevant to the search. Appearing on the 3-pack is key to local visibility.
Let’s take a closer look at local SEO campaigns for dentists.
Traditional SEO strategies improve your website’s visibility on a global scale while local SEO aims to attract local visitors. If you achieve excellent results with both, your practice will take up a significant amount of real estate on the SERPs, making it highly visible to potential patients.
Today, 46% of Google users search for local information. After conducting a local search, 72% of searchers visit a business within five miles of their location.
With a substantial variety of dental clinics in any area, patients aren’t likely to drive too far to visit a doctor. Many practices rely on local SEO tactics to attract more patients to their websites and physical locations.
Since local competition for search terms isn’t as fierce as for global terms, the right approach to local dental SEO makes it easier to put your website on top of the SERPs.
While Google uses over 200 ranking factors to figure out where your website belongs on the SERPs, the main parameters for local SEO are:
Google evaluates how close your practice is to the searcher’s location. The closer you are, the more likely your office is to appear on the first SERP and in the 3-pack.
Accordingly, if the hypothetical patient is searching for “teeth whitening near me,” the closest practice has a chance to rank higher than other dental offices in the area.
Prominence shows how well your practice stands out from the crowd. Google checks numerous parameters to evaluate prominence, including backlinks, directories, reviews, and mentions. The more credible and trustworthy the website is, the more likely it is to appear high on the SERPs.
If you already have a strong SEO strategy, your website will likely have prominence. To boost local prominence, you’d have to work on local directories, reviews, and citations.
Your website needs to be highly relevant to the user’s search. Accordingly, if a potential patient is searching for “teeth whitening near me,” Google will look for dental websites that offer “teeth whitening” as a service.
To demonstrate the relevance of your practice, you need to make sure that you are using the right local long-tail keywords (e.g., teeth whitening Seattle) in your website content, title tags, and meta descriptions.
These six strategies can help you improve prominence and relevance while highlighting your location for proximity ranking.
The number one ranking factor for ranking in the 3-pack is your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business).
Google Business Profile (GBP) is your company’s virtual business card. It allows you to share your practice’s location on Google Maps, 3-pack, and local search results.
To optimize your practices GBP profile for local search, you need to add:
The key to maintaining a stellar GBP profile is updating it regularly, answering questions in the Q&A section, and replying to reviews.
Keyword research for local SEO is different from traditional SEO tactics since it usually includes location-specific keyword extensions. Local SEO targets keywords based on the searcher’s intent (why someone conducts a search).
For example, if a New York-based searcher is looking for “dental implants near me,” your keyword should be “dental implants New York.”
With a local keyword search you need to focus on:
If you aren’t using professional SEO services for dentists, you can take advantage of free keyword research tools, such as Google Keyword Planner, or paid software with free trials such as SEMrush or AHREFS.
To look appealing to Google’s local rankings effort, you need to monitor:
You should also use “local business” structured data to give search engine crawlers a clear understanding of your website.
A citation is a mention of your practice’s NAP online. Building citations involves finding opportunities (directories, social media profiles) to place your citation. Managing them involves ensuring accuracy and consistency across all resources.
Consider these citation opportunities:
The more high-quality citations you can build, the more credible your website will appear in Google’s “eyes.” One high-quality citation works better than a hundred low-quality mentions.
A backlink is a link from an external website to one of your web pages. The number one result on SERPs has almost four times more backlinks than results two through ten.
To attract organic backlinks, you need to work on a solid content marketing strategy. It involves creating high-quality content that doesn’t just contain relevant keywords but also provides value to the reader and backs the authoritativeness of your business.
Keep in mind that a practice that runs a blog attracts 97% more backlinks to its website.
Google reviews are part of your website’s prominence and relevance ranking factors. Meanwhile, 84% of people trust online reviews as much as they trust feedback from friends and family.
The search giant pays attention to the quantity, frequency, quality, and recency of the reviews. If your practice has numerous recent 5-star reviews, it’s likely to rank high.
You can encourage Google reviews through:
You can also use review aggregation platforms to collect Google reviews and post them on relevant web pages.
By taking advantage of the above strategies, you can gain a strong competitive edge over local dental clinics. However, these strategies aren’t always enough to beat competing practices that use top-notch professional SEO services for dentists.
That’s where artificial intelligence (AI) comes in.
While regular SEO agencies target a handful of relevant dental keywords, patient acquisition platforms that use AI can simultaneously target thousands of relevant, local keywords.
Multiple practices from California to Washington, D.C. have found success with AI-driven SEO, including:
Implementing local SEO into your marketing strategy is imperative for staying ahead of the competition. However, local marketing for dentists is no longer just a handful of effective and time-tried tactics. It’s a combination of creativity, experience, and technology.