If you are a dental practice looking to rank in Google and Bing for your services in a radius around your location, then this blog post is for you. Dental Local SEO is a way of ranking your services in the map pack listings in Google and Bing and getting a traditional organic rank listing. That means you can have two organic listings on page one of search engines for your services, which means double the exposure.
Here are some things to consider to rank your dental practice better in search engines through local SEO.
Google My Business
Google My Business is a free tool that allows you to create and manage a business profile on Google. This tool allows you to verify your business location, which is how you can show your service in Google Maps. Since Google is the biggest search engine with a 90% market share, you want to work on this as soon as possible.
If you don’t have a Google My Business profile, you can search for your business name to see if something comes up. If your business does show up and you don’t have access to it, you can click on “claim this listing,” which will have Google send you instructions on verifying it.
Assuming you have access to your Google My Business account, you can do several things to optimize your account from the start.
- Â Claim and verify your listing
- Fill out all the relevant information, such as your name, address, phone number, website, hours, services, and photos
- Choose the most accurate category and subcategory for your business. For example, as a dentist, you would want to fill out relevant categories around that
- Build out product categories to spotlight your services
- Encourage your customers to leave reviews and respond to them. Reviews are helpful for potential new patients to see what others have to say and also how the business responds
- Post regular updates and offers. Especially for the holidays, you want to ensure you show when you are and are not open.
- Use the Q&A feature to answer common questions.
Bing Places for Business
Bing Places for Business is similar to Google My Business but for Bing users. For example, users using Microsoft Edge have Bing as the default search engine on their Windows 11 computers, which means any search done in that browser defaults to Bing. If someone searches for a “dentist near me,” Bing will show relevant businesses directly in their Bing Places for Business results.
Below are the ways to optimize your Bing Places for Business Account.
- Claim and verify your listing
- Fill out all the relevant information, such as your name, address, phone number, website, hours, services, and photos
- Choose the most accurate category and subcategory for your business
- Encourage your customers to leave reviews and respond to them. As a note, there is no Bing Reviews tab, but Bing does pull information from Facebook and other places. However, Bing will not pull any Google Reviews into their knowledge panel
- Post regular updates and offers
Apple Business Connect – Maps
Apple Maps is the default map app for iOS and Mac users. It also helps you appear in local Siri and Spotlight search results. To optimize your Apple Maps profile, you should:
- Claim and verify your listing through Apple Maps Connect
- Fill out all the relevant information, such as your name, address, phone number, website, hours, services, and photos
- Choose the most accurate category and subcategory for your business
- Encourage your customers to leave ratings and feedback
As a note, the Apple Business Connect page is pretty basic as of December 2023. However, check back regularly into this dashboard to see what new optimizations you can do for your account.
Embed a Map of your Location on the Website
I encourage every dental client to embed their Google My Business map directly into their About Us Page, Contact Us Page, and footer section. For dental practices, you want to embed the map on your site to optimize your NAP, which stands for name, address, and phone number. By having that be the same across your website and third-party sites, you help give more trusted signals to search engines to rank you locally.
Relevant Local Directories for Your Dental Practice
For example, if you are a dental practice in Beacon, NY, you should get your website listed on directory websites in that area. You want to be featured on relevant directories for two reasons
- Increase referral traffic to your website/phone calls for people finding your listing.
- Giving additional NAP signals to search engines since they can see your business on a third-party website.
For example, TM Blast is listed on relevant directories in the upstate New York region. I did this for those two reasons above.
Local Falcon Heat Map Report for a Dental Practice
I always recommend the tool Local Falcon to dental practices who are serious about SEO. Local Falcon is a paid SEO tool that I use that visualizes the local map pack rankings for a service. If you want to do the SEO on your site, consider buying this tool to track your local rankings.
In this image above, you can see a bunch of dots that surround an area. Each of those dots represent the rank position for a target keyword called “dental implants.” Getting more number 1’s (or greens) across the map is how you get more phone calls and potential new patients.
SEMRush or a Similar Tool to Track Health Reports + Keyword Rankings
SEMRush (and other tools) can track your keyword rankings nationally, by state, or by city. To see where your dental practice ranks locally, consider getting SEMRush to track a few keywords daily.
For example, if you want to see where you rank for “root canal service” or “braces” in your town, you can set up SEMRush to track those results daily.
Next Steps
To see how well your dental practice ranks in and around your city, request a free search engine optimization report from TM Blast. The free SEO audit reviews your website from a technical perspective, provides a heat map for your target terms, and displays where you rank for your target keywords. Even if you don’t become a client of mine, you will have a baseline of where you are.
If you become a client of mine, you don’t need to worry about paying for the SEO tools I mentioned above. These are tools that I cover the cost of.
If you want to move forward with the Free SEO Audit or hire me to work on the site, you can fill out this form below.
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Greg Kristan, owner of TM Blast, LLC and The Stadium Reviews, LLC, has over 10+ years of SEO experience. He was also the SEO Manager at edX and was a contractor for Microsoft Bing Ads. Today, he works on optimizing local, national, and international company websites to rank higher in search engines through SEO. Finally, Greg has been featured on podcasts about his search experience and regularly updates his YouTube channel sharing digital marketing tips. Do you want to reach out to me about SEO help? If so, email me at greg@tmblast.com or call 877-425-2141