The term “dentist near me” is searched approximately 501,000 times per month.

More specific dental searches like “pediatric dentist near me” or “emergency dentist near me” are searched an average of 25,000 times per month.

These search volumes tell us a few things.

  1. Prospective patients are using search engines to discover dental practices.
  2. Prospective patients prioritize local searches, indicated by the high volume of “near me” searches.
  3. Your dental practice needs SEO (search engine optimization) to reach prospective patients.
local patient search
dentist marketing

Your practice likely has a dental marketing strategy. But, do you have a detailed dental SEO strategy?

If not, this post is for you. We will explore how you can move beyond social media to build visibility on search engines for your dental practice. We’ll address the SEO basics, and breakdown which tactics you should pursue to drive more traffic.

Here are the six SEO tips for dentists:

  1. Setup Google My Business
  2. Submit to Directories
  3. Get More Reviews
  4. Blog For Featured Snippets
  5. Run Paid ads
  6. Conduct a free SEO audit

Let’s brush up your SEO strategy.

1. Set up Google My Business

The search intent for a “dentist” is likely a local query.

Try searching on Google for a “pediatric dentist” and you’ll see three local dentists in a Google Places section.

How do you get your dental practice into these results? The first step is setting up a Google My Business profile.

Google My Business (GMB) gives dentists the ability to manage their online presence on Google Search and Maps. Dentists can add information like hours, location, services, photos, and moree.

After signing up for a GMB profile, you will then need to verify your location. Verification helps ensure that your business information is accurate, and something Google can rely on. The most common verification method is requesting and receiving a postcard from Google. But, there are some other methods of verification that may be available to you.

Once you request verification you can then begin to optimize a Google My Business listing. The important elements to include are your business name, industry category, and address. But after you have your basics covered, dentists should focus on items like adding service areas, hours of operation, and appointment links.

A Google My Business profile is a foundational step to increasing the visibility of your practice in search engines. If there’s only one SEO tip for dentists, it is to add as much relevant information about your practice as possible to your GMB profile.

2. Submit to Directories

Google says that in order to improve your local ranking, businesses need to focus on three areas: Relevance, Distance, and Prominence.

Relevance can be accomplished with our first SEO tip, which is entering complete information into your Google My Business profile.

There’s not much that can be done about Distance. This ranking factor is determined by the proximity of your office to the location of a searcher.

That leaves the mysterious category of Prominence, which Google refers to as “how well-known a business is.”

Google goes on to say that Prominence is also based on information about your business that is collected across the web, including links, articles, and directories.

So how can a dental office increase Prominence? By getting listed in relevant and local directories. To get you started on submitting your practice, here is a list of relevant dental directories to submit your information.

3. Get More Reviews

What else does Google say about Prominence? Well, there’s this gem:

“More reviews and positive ratings will probably improve a business’s local ranking.”

Since the competition for the top 3 spots is steep among dental practices, it is a good idea to develop a strategy on how to gather more positive reviews from patients. One common tactic for dental practices is including signage in waiting areas reminding customers to write a review.

Other popular tactics for dentists include an automated text message or a personalized email after an appointment. For a full list of suggestions, review this article on how to get more reviews on a GMB profile.

4. Blogging For Featured Snippets

That’s some extensive information about how to appear in Google’s Local Pack with Google My Business. What about the organic listings below Google’s Local Pack? Or even better, what about the Featured Snippet at the top of some search result pages.

A featured snippet aims to provide a quick answer with content from a relevant website. Here’s an example that appears after searching for “does it hurt to get wisdom teeth removed?”

You can see that Google has featured a content snippet from NHS that answers a search query without the user having to click to a website. This featured snippet helps establish NHS as the thought leader when it comes to this topic, and can help establish trust with a patient.

Establishing trust and positioning yourself as the expert is what blogging can do for you and your practice. Identify your unique specialities, think of customer FAQs, and then answer those FAQs in detail on your blog.

Wondering what to blog about? Here is a list of dental blog topics to engage and inform patients.

5. Experiment With Paid Ads

If this is a post about SEO tips for dentists, then why talk about paid ads?

Well, approximately 82% of “dentist near me” searches result in a click on an organic search listing. The other 18%? Well, those searches will click on sponsored ads located at the top of a search result page.

In other words, if you don’t run paid ads, your practice may be missing out on up to 20% of clicks per month.

For some dentists who do not want to pay the average of $9 per click, that’s perfectly fine. But for others, paid ads may be an area to explore in search engine marketing.

6. Run a SEO Audit

Ensuring that your website can be crawled and indexed by search engines is a critical element to SEO.

You can audit your dental website using a technical SEO checklist, or by using a free SEO audit tool to provide recommendations on how to improve your site.

Common recommendations include better optimizing a page title tag for your target keyword, reducing image sizes, or altering your on-page SEO to help search engines better understand your content.

You can see that Google has featured a content snippet from NHS that answers a search query without the user having to click to a website. This featured snippet helps establish NHS as the thought leader when it comes to this topic, and can help establish trust with a patient.

Establishing trust and positioning yourself as the expert is what blogging can do for you and your practice. Identify your unique specialities, think of customer FAQs, and then answer those FAQs in detail on your blog.

Wondering what to blog about? Here is a list of dental blog topics to engage and inform patients.

Next Steps

That was simple enough, right?

Optimize your Google My Business profile and take it to the next level with directory submissions and reviews. Blog to increase your impressions. And then consider tinkering with paid ads or a technical SEO audit.

Taking action on these simple SEO tips will help your dental practice get discovered more often online. Or, share this post with your marketing team so that they can begin connecting your practice with more patients.

Markitors is a dental SEO company that connects dentists with patients. Google “digital marketing company” and you’ll likely see Markitors on the first page of search results. Voted a “best place to work 3 years in a row,” Markitors does offer dental insurance to all employees.

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