You’re a dentist looking to attract more local patients and you have realized that local SEO is one of the best channels to achieve this outcome. Now, what is the first step to take to realize this goal? By carefully optimizing your website and online profiles, you can increase your trust and authority in local search results and ultimately get more clients looking for a dental office in your area. Here are a few reasons why this might be a winning decision in the long term.
4 Reasons Why Local SEO is Important for Your Dental Practice
Local SEO is important for your dental practice because it helps you to reach potential patients in your specific area. With the majority of people now using search engines to find local dentists, your dental practice has a potential to get a lot of clients from search traffic. Here are the top 4 major advantages of doing SEO for your practice:
Get your dental surgery noticed on Google
Getting your dental surgery noticed on Google is important because it allows you to reach a wider audience and attract potential patients. When people are in need of dental services, they often turn to search engines like Google to find local dental clinics or surgeons. By optimizing your dental website you can appear higher up on the search engine results page (SERP). This means that when someone searches for dental surgeries, dental implants, pediatric dentist in your area, your clinic will be more likely to be seen and clicked on. This can lead to increased website traffic, more inquiries, and ultimately more patients for your dental surgery.
Attract More Patients with Dental SEO for All Services You Offer
What if you have been trying to get more patients for Invisalign, but people only visit you for dental checkup? Or what if you want more patients that need dental implants and want to do dental implant marketing?
With the right dental SEO strategies, you can optimize your website to rank higher in search engine results for various dental services you offer. This means that when potential patients search for services like teeth whitening, dental implants, dental surgery, or orthodontics in your area, your practice will appear at the top of the search results.
Establishing Expertise and Trust
It is possible, and now a standard practice for clinics to establish expertise and trust through SEO. When your website consistently ranks high in search engine results, it signals to users that your content is valuable and trustworthy. This can help build credibility and establish your brand as an authority in your industry, creating a brand that will market your practice by itself. This approach can be as effective as joining local dental associations as being a part of ADA often signals high authority in the dental industry.
Additionally, providing high-quality, informative content on search results can showcase your expertise and position you as a trusted source of information. We could say that Local SEO can be part a of dental branding, so by consistently delivering valuable content and optimizing your website for search engines, you can establish expertise and trust with your audience.
In Reality, SEO is Free
One of the key benefits of SEO is that the clicks generated from organic search results are free. Unlike paid advertising where you have to pay for every click, SEO helps you attract organic traffic without charging you any cost per click. This means that every click you receive from search engine users who find your website through organic search results is essentially free. This makes SEO a cost-effective strategy for driving traffic to your website and can result in significant savings in marketing expenses. Additionally, organic traffic often tends to be more valuable as it is highly targeted and likely to convert into leads or patients (higher conversion rate).
6 Best Dental Local SEO Strategies for Ranking #1 on Google
Keyword Targeting on-page: Implement keyword optimization in website content and meta tags to improve visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). Make sure to include local terms like the name of your city and your address.
Content Marketing: Create high-quality, informative, and engaging dental blog posts and articles with relevant keywords to attract and engage potential patients.
Google My Business Optimization: Boost your local SEO by optimizing Google My Business listing, Bing places and Yelp including accurate NAP (name, address, phone number) information, and encouraging patients to leave positive reviews.
Dental Backlinks: Build a strong backlink profile by partnering with dental professionals, local businesses, and dental associations to increase credibility and improve search engine rankings.
Press Release: Ask local newspapers for partnership and ask them to promote your dental practice on their website.
Reputation Management: Generate positive online reviews and testimonials from satisfied customers to build trust and credibility.
Why reviews matter in local search for dentists
Reviews are important in growing your local search traffic for dentists as they provide valuable information and insights for potential patients. These are the metrics people look for, when looking for a dentist, they want to make sure they are choosing a reputable and reliable professional. Reviews allow patients to see what other people’s experiences have been like at a particular dental practice.
It can also give an idea to search engines about the quality of your practice, the more satisfied your patients are, the more like for SERPs to mention your practice. Patient review can help you a lot, for example, if your practice website is slow, you can find that out in a review and check your page speed with Page Speed Insights.
9 out of 10 people check online reviews before choosing a business.
With reputation management, meaning taking care of your online reviews and asking your patients to leave reviews about your practice, you are providing social proof for potential clients to help them make a decision.
- Online reviews provide valuable insights and feedback from previous customers.
- Checking online reviews helps potential customers make informed decisions and avoid potential scams or poor-quality businesses.
- Positive online reviews can increase a business’s credibility and attract more customers.
- Online reviews can provide specific information about a business’s products, services, and customer experiences, helping customers determine if it meets their needs and expectations.
- Reviews from your listings (such as Google) help search engines better understand your business.
Local SEO Versus SEO for dentists
Local SEO and SEO are two different strategies used to optimize a website’s visibility on search engines. Local SEO focuses on targeting specific geographic locations and optimizing a website to appear in local search results. This is particularly important for businesses that rely on attracting customers from a specific area. Local SEO involves optimizing the website’s content, meta tags, and local directory listings to increase relevancy of your business to geographic location.
On the other hand, SEO (search engine optimization) – you may call it National SEO – is a broader strategy that aims to improve a website’s visibility on search engines in general, regardless of geographic location. SEO involves various techniques such as keyword research, link building, and content optimization to increase organic search rankings.
While both strategies are effective for attracting new traffic, local SEO is more focused on targeting a specific audience in a specific location and is a better strategy for dental offices.
Why outsource dental SEO to an agency, consultant, or freelancer?
As dental practice owners, you need to understand that you are a business owner. Your time is best spent on delivering great care to your patients, that’s why hiring a dental SEO company might be good idea. Here are our 3 top reasons to delegate SEO for your dental practice.
- Outsourcing local dental SEO to a dental SEO company, allows you to focus on your core dental practice responsibilities.
- Professional dental SEO companies have expertise and knowledge in the field, ensuring effective strategies and results.
- Outsourcing can provide access to a wider range of resources, tools, and networks that can enhance your dental SEO and marketing efforts.
Want help with SEO?
If you are looking for help with your local SEO, you can get in touch for a free marketing strategy consultation session.
With the constantly evolving algorithms and increasing competition in client acquisition process for dentists, it can be challenging to stay ahead in marketing and manage your practice well at the same time. By reaching out for a marketing strategy consultation, you can gain valuable and tailored recommendations that can bring you more patients than ever.
