Updated August 7, 2021

3 Ways Local SEO Gets You More New Patients

 
Dentists acquire more new patients via Local SEO by:

  1. Verifying & optimizing their local search engine profiles; Google My Business primarily, and to a lesser extent Bing Places.
  2. Expanding their digital practice footprint (building citations) & boosting ranking signals of those search engine environments by claiming their practice profiles in the most popular local search portals, internet yellow pages sites, and niche specialty health portals.
  3. Using some type of review generation system – however generous, overt, well-timed, annoying, distasteful, or laser-targeted, you choose to make it.

Now for the background and supporting info on HOW to get there…
 

What Is Local SEO for Dentists?

 
Local SEO for dentists – or any local business – is all about magnifying your location, communicating accurate business details info, and AMPLIFYING your word of mouth.

When people in your local area search for a dentist, you want to be there – on that piece of search engine real estate – with an accurate, professional, and alluring presence.

From verifying and optimizing local search engine listings to fixing incorrect business info in one of the big data aggregators, to replying to online reviews, local search for dentists is more the task-oriented undertaking that will require some organization, but its certainly within the realm of the DIY digital marketing dentists out there.
 

Local Search Engine Listings: Google My Business & Bing Places

 
Does Yahoo Local even matter anymore? Not really, things have changed since first writing this blog post back in 2014.

Depending on how many practice locations and other potential roadblocks we won’t get into here (duplicates, spam & practitioner listings), search for, verify and correct your practice listings in these primary local search engine environments.

Most of you reading this have probably already done the compulsory work here – that wasn’t the case in 2014.

  1. Are your Google My Business & Bing Places listings optimized?

Find your practice listing (or add one if you’re new), login to each one (Google My Business & Bing Places) to confirm the listing and make sure the information being transmitted is correct – primarily your business name (some nuance allowable – but BE CONSISTENT EVERYWHERE), business address, business phone, and website.

Example of Nuance – nothing needed for location & phone details, it is what it is:

  • Anytown Smile Design: John D Doe DDS – OK, sorta and who knows about the future or previously penalized past.
  • Best Anytown Dentist | Cosmetic Dental Excellence Anytown | Call 976-GUMZ – NOT OK. Too much, incorrect, spammy, violates guidelines.

Did you know with large or group practices…or even double doc shops, the practitioners can also have Google listings in addition to the primary practice organization?

Read the Google My Business Guidelines to learn more. – https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en&ref_topic=1656880

Now that you’ve gone thru the postcard or phone call process of verifying your dental practice listings in Google & Bing, AND properly categorizing the listing, AND confirming the correctness of info, AND optimizing each listing to 100% with appropriate imagery, special offers, or captivating call to action copy, AND double-checked your work…now it’s time to work on improving the ranking factors of each listing.
 

Citation Building

 
Local Dental 360 Gets Your Dental Practice Found Online!

Google, Bing, and an exponentially expanding internet of everything information grabbers take their local business data compiled from a few major aggregators – and there are still relatively zero standards for how this information is collected, communicated, or disseminated between parties.

Dentists, as all local business owners, can boost their ranking factors in the local search engine environments and leverage their name, address, and phone data by disseminating it through various local search directories, IYP sites (internet yellow pages), and niche dental health portals.

Your strategy can be as simple as doing a search for a dentist in your area and taking note of the websites that show up in the organic search engine results pages (SERPs).

Local search sites like Yelp or Angi, internet yellow pages sites like YP.com, Superpages, or Insiderpages, and specialty niche portals such as Vitals or Healthgrades, are all sites to target with your citation building efforts.

Choose sites that are the most popular with users in your area, or that show up well on a variety of searches – or dig a little deeper and see where your competition is ranking, then follow in kind.

After that selection process, go through each listing for your practice (or add new ones if needed) to make sure the information listed is accurate and up to date.

Most sites allow some type of search – either by phone number or business name – to see if your practice is already listed.

Most if not all local search sites, IYPs, and even the specialty portals still offer FREE listings!

You just need to identify, claim, & maximize those listings to your advantage by creating a window into your practice. To do this, use keywords and locations, ensure proper categorizing, and build out each profile to 100% completeness.

 

Online Review Generation

 
Dentists Get More Reviews With Local SEO

5-star reviews for dentists can be difficult to come by IF there is no strategy in place to survey, collect, publish, then amplify your digital word of mouth.

But for those offices out there either employing a software supported system, or going at it with a stand-alone option, building online reviews is one of the most impactful ways to boost your local visibility.

Reviews are an important ranking signal in particular to your Google My Business listing, along with proper categorization, and office location relative to the city center – as defined by Google.

So how do dentists collect and publish more reviews?

It all starts with a plan.

Collecting reviews is easy, but the ultimate goal is to recruit new patients by AMPLIFYING testimonials from existing ones.

Sure positive reviews make you feel good and reinforce why you chose this profession in the first place, but without prospective patients in your local area actually seeing the reviews when they’re on the search for a local dentist, they’re really only good for the ego.

By this point, most major dental software providers offer some type of automated review generation strategy, BUT the one major missing ingredient with amplifying that digital word of mouth is where the reviews live.

You want your reviews on Google, a dedicated page on your website, your Facebook Business page, Bing Places…Nextdoor, along with Vitals, Healthgrades, Yelp…you get the point.

So, while it is good to actively solicit more reviews using an automated solution like dental software, ultimately that is the place your reviews live – IN your dental software, ON THEIR site or application (or one hosted by them).

That’s all well and good, but what happens to those reviews if you switch providers or discontinue the service?

A better alternative is to develop an organic, non-invasive, completely unannoying system of collecting reviews for your dental practice – using email as the conduit.

  • Reviews that patients can publish directly to your website or blog.
  • Reviews that your patients can leave on their social media or local search site of their choosing.
  • Reviews that are properly marked up with schema.org microdata in order to show those eye-grabbing gold stars in the search engine results pages. 👀⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

A quick and dirty synopsis of an organic review generation system could be something as simple as:

  1. Crafting a custom email message to your patients asking them to leave your practice a review – with call to action buttons linking to your social media and local search listings.
  2. Allowing them to choose where & when they leave the review – present options (not just your software app), and follow up with surveys, news, health tips…etc. (If the only email communication I get from you is an appt reminder 48 hours before my appointment, start communicating more regularly with your patients using email).
  3. Sending them an email message with these design elements in place so patients are only a click away from positively amplifying your digital word of mouth.

As a channel partner of Constant Contact, we use that industry-leading email marketing platform for our members who are looking to organically capture and publish more online reviews for their dental practice.

For less than $100 a month, those dentists use Constant Contact’s suite of email & social media marketing solutions to amplify their digital word of mouth – the right way!

A word of caution here for practices using iPads or tablets in their practice to try and collect online reviews onsite – Google knows the IP address of where the review is coming from, and it’s against Yelp’s policy to ask for reviews.

So if Google notices a run of reviews coming from your practice IP, those reviews could get flagged as spam – and never published.

And if Yelp catches wind of you soliciting reviews you could watch your listing ranking drop….but maybe the annoying phone calls would drop as well.

We all know by now that a FREE business listing with Yelp is all you need, right? Maybe another argument for another blog post.

To keep reviews meant for your Google My Business listing out of their persnickety spam filters by playing your review acquisition strategy above-board – no friends, family, fake or otherwise fraudulent reviews – real patients only.

Use this toolkit to arm your patients with how to Leave Us A Google Review,

Our Google Reviews Toolkit includes display ads, table tents, stickers & NFC (near-fields communications), as well as handouts to place in their goodie bag.

So there we have it…
 

3 Ways Dentists Using Local SEO Get New Patients

 

  1. By owning (& optimizing) your local search engine presence (Google My Business + Bing Places).
  2. By expanding your online practice visibility (Yelp, Facebook, Healthgrades, Vitals…etc.).
  3. By amplifying your digital word of mouth (review generation).

Still have questions?

Please feel free to leave a comment or activate a free 14-day trial of our Local Dental 360® citation-building & review management service.
 

Activate Your Free 14-Day Trial

 
Membership includes a complete Local SEO & social media campaign specifically designed for your dental practice.

A fully managed turn-key Local SEO solution that affords the convenience of a we-do-it-all-for-you service.

Local Dental 360® service includes:

  • Optimization of your Google My Business & Bing Places listings (single location)
  • A done-for-you citation building program & data security management
  • Smile Reports™ automated survey, review acquisition & reputation management system
  • Professional social media content marketing & design – we create it, post it, and share it
  • Weekly posting to practice Facebook, Instagram, Google My Business listings
  • Spam-fighting & listing lockdown service
  • Monthly reporting & rank tracking of your Google My Business listing

Local SEO Review Acquisition for Dentists

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