As a dentist, you understand the difficulty of attracting new patients and developing your practice without online visibility in the dental industry. You’ve also heard about local SEO –a powerful tool to improve your website’s rank in search engines, getting closer to achieving each of these goals.
Local SEO for dentists is key for growth in their businesses. The dental field is highly competitive, so executing a local SEO plan takes a lot of effort and expertise. Unfortunately, many dentists put their search engine optimisation plans on the back burner as they focus on providing excellent dental services to patients and managing their practices.
Before you select a dental marketing agency to do the job for you, you must understand the fundamentals of local SEO dental marketing. We’ve rounded up some of the most important nuggets of info below, so make sure to read on and become well-educated.
Five reasons why local SEO dental marketing is important for a dental practice
Before discovering the five best practices to enhance your local SEO approach, let’s first explore why dental SEO is so essential.
Harnessing the power of local search engine optimisation (SEO) is key to increasing your visibility on popular search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. For instance, if you own a dental clinic in Melbourne, optimising your website for relevant ‘local’ queries will ensure that it appears among the top organic results when someone searches “dentist near me” or “dentist Melbourne” – thus improving traffic significantly.
Undoubtedly, the most popular website for dentists did not become renowned by happenstance; rather, the dental practice or its SEO experts used techniques like on-page optimisation, off-page marketing and technical tactics to improve their website’s value and reliability in Google’s algorithm. As a result of this efficient local SEO strategy for dentists, websites with higher rankings can expect advantages such as:
1. Increase in organic leads from the website
Have you heard the statistic stating that 70% of clicks occur within the first five search engine results?¹ If your dental website fails to hold one of these coveted positions, you could miss out on a huge potential patient base and thousands in lost earnings.
Refining your local SEO tactics and climbing the search engine rankings will direct more targeted leads to your website. This, in turn, results in higher conversions, more scheduled appointments, and increased profits – all without breaking the bank on marketing costs.
2. Improved visibility of the dental practice
Local search engine optimisation fortifies your position in the rankings. It significantly increases your chances of being detected for a certain keyword or phrase (such as “dentist near me”) via on-site content and links from reliable online directories.
3. Increased web traffic
An increased rank in local search results leads to increased website traffic, and a higher-ranking dentist practice website will benefit from the additional visits. By taking advantage of this virtuous cycle, your dental business can see its website gradually climb up the ranks, with even more visitors drawn in by each successful step forward.
4. Digital marketing efforts at par with the competitors
If your dental practice website hasn’t launched an SEO strategy yet, one of your rivals already has. By tapping into search engine-optimised content and other ranking factors, you can draw more prospective patients to your site and rival local industry leaders in the physical and digital world. Widen the scope of your company by incorporating full SEO into its online presence.
5. Faster results
With a local SEO campaign, your dental marketing efforts can experience a dramatic improvement in no time! Unlike other campaigns that usually cost considerable amounts of money and take weeks to show effects, local SEO is inexpensive and only needs minor changes to upsurge your rank on popular search engines. Moreover, it allows you to track patient reviews on Google and Facebook effortlessly – which are some of the most reliable marketing resources for any business.
How to find your local SEO ranking?
If you want to ascertain your local SEO ranking, there are two simple ways. Firstly, try typing in “dentist near me” or a variation with the name of your town into any search engine and see where it takes you – this will show how you rank against competing dentists. On the other hand, use an available keyword tool that can be accessed by pasting your website URL into the said platform; here, you can analyse rankings and compare yourself to competitors and conduct research on applicable local keywords that could provide further opportunities for content creation.
How to improve your SEO locally?
Are you aware of local SEO’s advantages for your dental practice? To help you understand how to maximise its potential, we have compiled our top four tips on improving your rating positions in Google, Bing, Yahoo and other significant search engines. Implement these strategies today to succeed with local search engine optimisation.
Gather positive online reviews to build your practice’s reputation
Dentists aspire to obtain glowing reviews from their clients. Your ratings can remind you of your appreciation for your dental practice. Five-star Google comments inspire new patients to put confidence in your team. In reality, a positive review on Google may have the same impact as referrals via word-of-mouth marketing.
Displaying glowing testimonies on your website and Google My Business page will guarantee that potential patients are greeted with only the best that your dental practice has to offer as soon as they land on either of those pages. Plus, reviews posted on your GMB profile will notably improve both search engine ranking and visibility for you.
Capitalise on Google Posts
Google Posts is an incredible, free way for local businesses to interact with their target market. Through this platform, you are able to showcase up to 10 of your most recent posts that remain active for a week. With this great tool, you can make announcements, share offers and services or elaborate on the features of your business.
Make sure not to miss out on this opportunity; use Google Posts today.
Showcase textual content and images through Google Posts to create a captivating pitch that drives prospective patients towards conversion.
With the ultimate goal of convincing them to take the desired action, these posts can be used for various purposes such as business updates, offers/specials, services/product information, events announcements etc. Use this avenue effectively and observe an increased engagement with users in no time.
Provide a professional and user-friendly website
A tidy, modern dental office is a surefire way to make the best first impression on prospective patients. Well, if you have not focused on the user experience within your website design, visitors could receive an underwhelming first impression of your practice – one that leaves much to be desired.
If you want to revamp your dental website, don’t bother hiring a costly web developer. Instead, prioritise an intuitive and spotless interface that effectively showcases your services, displays links to social media accounts, and presents authoritative content for visitors to engage with. By doing so, creating a professional site will become much easier.
Update your Google My Business Page
Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity! Your Google, My Business Page is an invaluable asset to your dental marketing strategy, yet many businesses still need to claim their listing.
Let Google work for you by claiming, verifying and optimising your business listing on the search engine giant’s platform – Google My Business. Include pertinent information such as:
- The name of your dental practice
- Your clinic address
- Contact phone number
- Operating hours
- The category that best describes what you do
- Link to website or other webpages
Stand out from your competitors and take advantage of being seen in the top three results on Google with an enhanced My Business listing.
Showcase your top services and the unique added benefit that puts you a cut above the competition in order to capture viewers’ attention. An impressive GMB can result in increased visibility and consequently open up new possibilities for more patients to come through – allowing you to expand the growth potential.
Drive traffic to your dental blog via email
Boost your local SEO rank as a dentist through the use of email marketing. After posting some great content to your website, don’t forget to share it on social media and then follow up with an email blast using a simplified platform like Email Marketing. This will ensure that all those already subscribed to your mailing list are aware of the new article you just posted.
A top-notch dental marketing agency will not only help you manage your patients’ responses but also provide professionally designed templates that save time for the busiest dentists. All it takes is a few clicks to add your links, select targeted audience segments and hit send. With their assistance, responding to patient inquiries and booking appointments becomes easier than ever before.
Search Google for keywords to put in your online content
If you find keyword research to be intimidating or impossible, don’t worry; many dental practices also feel this way. However, it’s okay for you to spend a little money on an SEO service in order to do the work yourself. To get started with your keyword research process, first, select some keywords already ranked by your website and then compare them against the rankings of any competitors. Insert text into a Google search bar and look at all related searches listed below the box – they can provide valuable insights.
To capture the attention of potential patients, choose several pertinent questions, keywords, or phrases that are meaningful to your business and make sense for them. Utilise them in all your web content, including blog posts and service pages, so they have maximum effect.
Understand the difference between local SEO versus SEO
Understanding the differences between local SEO and SEO can benefit businesses, organisations, and marketers. Local SEO is a specialised form of search engine optimisation (SEO) that helps target patients in your local area. It focuses on optimising a website to rank high in local searches related to terms or phrases used by potential patients in your locality. This includes tapping into various listings such as Google My Business, Bing Places for Business, Yelp, Yellow Pages, and many more.
Local SEO enables businesses to connect with the people in their immediate vicinity, resulting in superior website performance. Notably, local SEO has been proven to produce higher click-through rates than traditional search engine optimisation (SEO) and helps foster a stronger relationship between dental clinics and patients within the same area.
All these factors make local SEO a superior choice over regular SEO for many businesses that want to reach out to potential patients in their own locality.
In contrast, standard SEO focuses on organic search engine optimisation – optimising a website to rank highly across all related keywords. This type of optimisation optimises content and encourages strong link-building campaigns. It also ensures that elements such as meta tags, site maps, titles and descriptions are completed accurately and in relevance.
Ultimately, when it pertains to picking between local SEO and general SEO strategies for your company’s website optimisation needs, it is essential to consider both approaches thoroughly. Both can be incredibly beneficial in helping businesses reach their target patients; therefore, you must critically evaluate which one fits better with the goals of your particular business.
What will happen if you don’t manage your dental clinic with local SEO?
Without local SEO, dental clinics are invisible to their target audience. As a result, new patients will not be able to find them, and patient numbers will decrease significantly – potentially derailing the clinic’s business success. Therefore, proper implementation of local SEO is integral for any practice striving towards longevity and prosperity in today’s digital world.
If you want to generate more patients for your dental clinic, never neglect the power of local SEO. Failing to invest in this strategy will undoubtedly result in low website thinking time and a high bounce rate – not ideal if you’re hoping for success. Leveraging local SEO is an essential step that should be taken seriously; by doing so, your business can reach its maximum potential and attract new clients from the surrounding area.
The Takeaway
Handling your dental practice, providing outstanding care to patients, and improving the search engine optimisation of your website is no small feat. There’s simply not enough time to do it all. Luckily, Mediboost’s talented team of dental SEO experts can help make it happen.
With Mediboost’s comprehensive dental marketing services, you can centralise all of your outreach strategies into a single actionable plan that will increase efficiency while reducing stress. Contact our team today and take your dental practice to new heights!
References
10 Local SEO Strategies For Doctors and Dentists
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/local-seo-doctors-dentists/453799/
Dental Industry Marketing Has Become Much More than About Teeth
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dental-industry-marketing-has-become-much-more-than_b_598db59ae4b063e2ae057eda
Tips for Dental Practices to Maximize Result From Internet Marketing
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tips-for-dental-practices_b_8038596
