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Masterclass Dental SEO in 2022

Masterclass Dental SEO in 2022

September 17, 2022

Searching for ways to get your practice more visible online?
Everything you need to know about Dental SEO

For doctor appointment bookings, in 2022 57% of patients start by using online search. And when patients are searching for a healthcare facility on Google, they truly mean business. Those numbers are raising from year to year dramatically.

Another Example: SimilarWeb observed that 85% of the traffic to ClevelandClinic.org, 83% of the traffic to HopkinsMedicine.org, and 87% of the traffic to MayoClinic.org comes from organic search via Google.

 

But these days it isn’t as simple as simply creating a website, job done. While the online arena has grown further and further, very complex algorithms and new SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tactics require special attention.

In 2022 patients use Google local search to find doctors. That’s why it’s important to rank for local searches – and drive local traffic – to your website.

What is Dental SEO ?

That’s where dental SEO, sometimes known as dentistry SEO or dental SEO marketing, comes into play.

Nowadays, people look online instead of in the Yellow Pages while looking for dentists. Sites that don’t rank highly on Google or Bing are frequently disregarded because users rarely scroll past the first page of results. Whether you’re brand-new to the industry or have been in business for a while, SEO for dentists is crucial to bringing in new clients—and keeping them.

This article will teach you about SEO for dentists, specifically Local SEO for Dentists, what it is, why your clinic needs it, and crucial yet basic SEO methods to get you started. 

How to improve your visibility

The best dental SEO is a process that helps to attract users onto your website. With good SEO techniques, your website will rank higher than others and as a result, generate more visits.

Dental SEO Smile

Google page ranking is complicated

Some of these methods are not too difficult to implement, and many practices only take a little time and effort. Still, some techniques require the help of an SEO expert or web designer, and you may need to help them understand your goals. Google by the way says that they take over 200 factors into consideration for ranking a single webpage.

What are the benefits of a strong SEO strategy for dentists?

If you’re a dentist, SEO marketing might not be high on your list of priorities. But on the other side, without search engine optimization, almost no one will be able to find your site.

Studies show that if your dental practice website appears in the top five listings in any relevant online searches, more than half of the clicks on your websites will result in a lead. If this happens, your dental practice will reap the benefits of more website traffic, more qualified leads, greater credibility and authority, and ultimately more patients for your practice.

dentist near me seo
"Dentist near me" - 1.2M searched last month only in the US (09/2022)

Why should Doctors and Dentists consider especially Local SEO?

Ironically, the internet is the first place most people look when they feel like seeing a doctor.
 
Someone wouldn’t open the yellow pages and look in the “D” section of the directory for the nearest dentist if they felt the need to visit one. Instead, they will use Google or another search engine, enter a keyword such as “dentist near me,” and then schedule an appointment with the dentist that they like the most.
 
The majority of patients today choose such strategy. And businesses that want to preserve or grow their foot traffic must make changes in accordance with this strategy to be among those that come up in response to localized and pertinent searches.
 
That is made possible through local SEO for Dentists or Dental SEO Services.
 
You may diversify your traffic acquisition channels and be located in key locations where your consumers are looking for you by optimizing your Google Business Profile to rank for relevant local searches.
 
Your patients will be aware of you as an option after your dental practice website rank for pertinent local searches. And if additional conditions are satisfied, they are more likely to get in touch and schedule an appointment. 
 

INCREASING FOOT TRAFFIC 

One method local SEO boosts your revenue is by increasing foot traffic to your medical office.
Additionally, it aids in the reduction of expensive web advertising, which lowers marketing expenses and ultimately boosts your bottom line.
 

In addition, local SEO enables you to interact with your competitors on an equal footing by placing you where they are. Ranking alongside your rivals would increase your chances of capturing some of their potential patients, which is a million times preferable than losing all of your internet clients to them by failing to appear in local search results.

10 useful Local SEO Techniques

Here are some effective local Dental SEO tactics that might lead to increased online exposure and revenue:

Create a Google Business Profile for your practice

The source of local web presence is Google Business Profile, previously Google My Business.
 
Small companies may gain visibility and exhibit their offerings to potential customers with the aid of Google Business Profile. It provides all the resources you need to make an optimal, precise, and informative listing that aids in giving your patients the information they need about your clinic.
 
To take advantage of local SEO benefits, your practice must be listed on Google Business Profile (GBP).
 
Google occasionally generates company listings on GBP. In such instance, you would need to take ownership of that listing, validate it, and assure its veracity to prevent it from scaring away potential patients by propagating false information.

Expand Your Keyword Research

In order for the search engines to link relevant inquiries to your listing and direct patients to it, you must do keyword research, the core of local SEO.

Local keywords are distinguished from generic keywords by geographic qualifiers like “Dentist near me” or “Pediatrician Nashville,” which serve as identifiers for them.

To begin with local keyword research, you must first be perceptive and put yourself in your patients’ shoes.
What do they consider while seeking a physician? What search terms would they enter to find a doctor?

Make a list of all the essential phrases that come to mind.

Once you’ve created a list, use tools for keyword research to look up the keywords in your list. No idea where to find them? We do use professional tools for our competitor keyword researches, for the normal user Keyword Everywhere or Answerthepublic does it pretty well.  List a few keywords that are pertinent to your phrases and strike the correct mix between competitiveness and search volume.

It is significant to remember that local key phrase search volume is often modest. Thus, don’t be afraid to shortlist keywords that are comparatively smaller.

To find out the terms your rivals are ranking for, use those keywords research tools or contact one of the several Keyword Researchers, for example on Fiverr.

Use Google Posts to Your Advantage

Google Posts is a free service that gives regional companies a great chance to interact and connect with their audience.
 
Your most recent posts, which, according to some sources, remain active for up to 7 days, can be displayed in Google Posts up to 10 at a time. You may use this area to make announcements, make offers, advertise your services, and walk the audience through your features.
 
Through Google Posts you may post both text and photos, and you can finish it with a CTA that directs readers to one of your regional landing pages.
 
 
Google Posts are made to provide prospective patients with rapid information and persuade them to perform the necessary action.
 
These may be used for a variety of post topics, including deals and discounts, goods and services, occasions, company updates, etc.
 
According to a study done on 600 GBP accounts, posts about services and discounts convert at a higher rate than ones about other concepts.
 
You must concentrate on not only publishing Google Posts but also updating them as circumstances change.
 
For instance, you can be advertising via Google Posts that your office is providing free flu vaccines before flu season. You will need to replace this post with something new when flu season is over since out-of-date material can harm your reputation.
 
You must produce clear, short, and to-the-point language that communicates your value if you want to take advantage of their potential and use them to generate outcomes.
 
Remember that even though Google Posts have a 1500 character maximum, a small part of those characters are displayed above the fold. As a result, you must concentrate as much knowledge as possible on that area.

Health And Safety Attributes

Since the epidemic, individuals have been more interested in learning about a location’s health and safety policies before traveling there.
 
Thus, Google has integrated health and safety criteria in GBP listings. Besides these fundamental characteristics, there are other informational nuggets you can use to be more perceptive and provide your patients with the knowledge they need.
 
Other features, such as whether patients must make an appointment in advance or can walk-in, can be included too.
 
These qualities provide prospects with assurance and trust, as well as the knowledge they want without having to search for it. Through your GBP, you can add the characteristics to your listing.

CONSISTENT NAP AND OFFICE HOURS

 
A poll found that 62% of participants claimed they use GBP listings to get company phone numbers and addresses.
 
This suggests that the most common reason consumers search for local companies on Google is to learn their opening and closing times, phone number, and location.
 
dentist appointment book seo

We may draw a conclusion about what would occur if any of these are inaccurate.

The potential customer would be irritated and post a nasty review.

Imagine that your office hours are advertised as 9 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday, as they are sometimes by default. But every other weekday, from 1 to 4 p.m., you practice.
Can you picture the annoyance of someone who saw your practice’s office hours online and decided to drop by to discover the timing was off?
 
Consider once again how frustrating it would be for someone to call your office using the Google contact information and wait hours for a response. These situations might result in a poor evaluation of your GBP listing, which we must prevent at all costs.
 
Thus, you must check that the information on your GBP is accurate, including your office hours, name, address, and phone number (NAP).
 
Additionally, you must make sure that this data is consistent across all your client contact points, even slight discrepancies may have a big impact.
 

Community landing pages

Many are uncertain about whether they should link the call to action (CTA) to the home page of the website or create different landing pages for each unique keyword while performing local SEO.
 
The best course of action in this situation is to direct them to your local, keyword-relevant landing page using the CTA on your GBP listing.
 
Thanks to this landing page, you can continue your dialogue with potential clients and go deeper into the keyword’s specifics.
 

Your keyword, for instance, is “Pediatrician San Francisco.” You may develop a landing page that addresses the typical complaints San Francisco residents have that would worry a pediatrician and explains how you can resolve the issue.

 

  • Consider the issues that your users may be having, and try to solve them on your landing page. To keep readers interested, use concise, clear headlines and organize your written content. 
  • Talk on the benefits of your service rather than its features, and use eye-catching, appealing visuals all over your website.
  • Be sure to optimize your website using the appropriate keywords that relate to the service you are discussing there. 
  • To increase trust in your practice, try to incorporate social proof—such as endorsements and reviews—and trust signals—such as recognition and certifications. 
  • On the page, carefully place a CTA. If you want your readers to schedule an appointment, pick one action and stay with it; for example, make your CTA “Book Your Appointment” or something similar. Avoid the paradox of choice and avoid using several CTAs.
  • Add a dynamic map at the bottom of the landing page so that users may more easily find your facility.
  • Remember to optimize your landing pages for mobile consumers, since 50% of all visits to healthcare websites originate nowadays from mobile devices.

CREATING LOCAL LINKS

Backlinks are URLs from your website that are included in the text of other websites. Link building is the process of collecting these links. (For diving deeper into Backlinks, take a look over here).

Search Engines like G
oogle prefer websites with a high number of backlinks, it considers them trustworthy and authoritative.
 
For routine SEO, people search for and get backlinks from relevant high authority websites. Yet, for local SEO, you will need to get connections from local entities so that Google will recognize your presence in that area .
 
Local link building is the process of gaining connections from local websites, and there are several ways for obtaining them.
 
Create useful information for physicians and dentists and put it on your community blog with a link back to your dental practice website.
 
If you can, you may support a local school team or students from a nearby high school or college in exchange for a link from these institutions. You may join your local chamber of commerce and publish in their news area for a link.
 
Local newspapers are available in almost every city. You may generate public relations content for them, give advice, or write articles for them that link back to your website. These websites have high domain authority, which means you may get significant links.
 
You can also search local business directories and get your practices included in them for an extra backlink.
These are only a handful of many local backlinking tactics available.

USE GBP CALLS AND MESSAGES WISELY

If you’ve posted your phone number on GBP intending to receiving calls and messages from your online audience, be sure you’ve got someone to answer them.
 
Failure to respond to internet-driven calls and messages can result in a poor customer experience, which can manifest as unfavorable reviews and poor advertising.
Dentist in San Francisco SEO

Reviews from Locals

Patients want to know that the individual they are going to consult is skilled in their field. More significantly, they wish to know that the institution meets their criteria and does not have a negative reputation. 98% of people read internet reviews for these reasons.
 
The majority of healthcare customers claim internet reviews affect their choice of a healthcare service provider.
 
You must ensure that your GBP listing has a varied range of reviews to gain the confidence of prospective patients.
 
Obtaining reviews, on the other hand, is not as simple as you may think. Around 74% of shoppers provide online reviews. People are eager to submit a negative review, but they seldom go out of their way to leave a positive one.
As a result, to benefit, you must seek good feedback.
You may follow up on every patient’s session with a request to provide feedback.
 
Make a point of going through all your reviews and removing any personally identifying information that individuals may have mistakenly included in their evaluations. 
How to get more google reviews

Responding to positive reviews is crucial, address bad ones as well so that the rest of the world knows you value your patients’ experiences and seek to improve them.

MANY PROFESSIONAL LISTINGS AT A SINGLE LOCATION

Google enables you to share an address with other businesses in the same place while still having your own GBP, if your business is separate and has its own Tax Identification Code.
 
So, if your clinic is in an office building with numerous other businesses, you may make an independent listing.
 
Yet, if you have a large hospital with many smaller clinics, creating an independent listing for each institution may become difficult.
 
Because you must have distinct firms, each of which files its own taxes and has its own phone number to make a separate listing for enterprises operating from a same site.
 

LAST WORDS

Local Search Engine Optimization may provide your clinic with a new source of visitors. It can help you rank for local prospective patients, allowing you to create more reservations and boost earnings.
 
However, before you can recap its benefits, you must first create and maintain a healthy Google Business Profile.
 
Once you’ve optimized your GBP listing, you’ll be more likely to capitalize on the power of SEO and book more appointments.
Contact us
RetratoMe 1

Markus Schad | Senior SEO Strategist

Markus Schad is Senior SEO Consultant with over 8 years experience in getting more traffic and visitors for his customers. He is the founder of Commander-SEO.com.

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