If you want to improve your visibility and your new patient marketing then you need to know about local search for dentist practices and dental offices.
Local search for dentists basically means that you’re not only targeting the Google search engine generally but also specifically in your region. In other words, you’re looking at how you can improve the number of local search queries that bring people to your website and help you get those new patients.
Call 1-888-656-775
What is SEO for Dentists?
SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimization’, the general aim of which is to climb the ranks of Google and its ‘SERPs’ (Search Engine Results Pages). SEO for dentists is a highly effective way to attract more patients and to strengthen your brand visibility.
The process of SEO basically involves the following steps:
- Selecting search terms called ‘keywords’ that people will use to try and find dentists (but which aren’t too competitive)
- Adding lots of content to your website and subtly lacing those keywords into the text (with a density of around 1-2% plus LSI optimization – a fancy term for synonyms and related language)
- Building links on external websites that point to your website
- Making sure your dentist website design is handled in such a way as to allow Google’s spiders to easily ‘index’ your content
It gets a lot more complicated than that and things like Google’s Pigeon and Panda updates have really muddied the waters. Nevertheless, that is the basic approach you need to follow.
How is Local SEO Different?
So that’s SEO for dentists generally… how is local search for dentists different?
Here, the keywords you use will be specifically local terms that include your area name or postcode in them. This is a great strategy because it reduces the competition you will face and ensures the customers you attract are near enough to actually use your services.
On top of this there are a few other things you need to do. For instance, you should make sure that you have a page for your business on Google+ with local information, you need to ensure you are on Google Maps and you should submit yourself to local directories.
There is much more to it again than that but the take home message is that it’s much easier to succeed on local search for dentists and the result will be much more targeted and relevant traffic for your website.