7 Important Dental Marketing Tips For Dentists in 2022
SEO for dentists is a big topic, so let’s not waste any time. If you’re not implementing these digital dental marketing strategies in 2022, you’ll be losing new patients to your competition.
1.) Optimize Google My Business Before Website Optimization
I know this sounds entirely backward, but hear me out. Close to two-thirds of patients searching for a new dentist will either find the dentist in the Google Map or read the dental practices Google My Business account reviews. A Google My Business account is the dental practice listing in Google maps. Either way, you look at it, a dental practice GMB account is a gateway for new patients. It’s either a big gate or a tiny little gate hidden in a corner behind a bush.
My suggestion is, to begin with, the end in mind, which is to rank as high and wide as possible in Google maps. Start with GMB optimization.
Many of the dental SEO tactics involved in website optimization are the same as GMB optimization. Still, with maps optimization as the end goal, you’ll align tactics to get to your SEO goals as quickly as possible and start attracting new patients.
2.) Understand How Local SEO Works and Optimize Accordingly
Rankings in local dental SEO (Google, Yahoo, and Bing maps) are not the same as rankings in organic search or SEM. In local SEO, rankings are fluid. A practices online presence in maps can rank #1 in a particular neighborhood, not rank in the next community across the street, and then start ranking again in the next community.
To see where you’re currently ranking in Google maps run a Google Maps Radius Report.
Once you run your report, you’ll be able to see which neighborhoods your practice ranks well for. A rankings report will enable you to get very specific about what content should be written.
3.) Add Location Pages To Your Website For Hyper-local SEO
A location page on your website signals to Google that you want to rank higher in that area. There are lots of ways to structure a location page, but all should include the following: a minimum of 650 words, and they have to be original content; links to local businesses that reside in the area; internal links to your website service pages; links to the practice GMB account, and an embedded Google map.
When we build websites for our dental clients, we will add an ‘Areas we serve’ section under the practice’s About Us page. An Areas-We-Serve page is where we house all of the location pages for our clients.
Most SEO Strategies in 2022 will likely include location page suggestions. I found a well-ranking dental practice website the other day that had several location pages.
4.) Correlate GMB Service Areas With Your Website Location Pages
In your dental practices GMB admin panel on the ‘Info’ tab, you’ll see an area called ‘Service Areas.’ Google allows a dental practice to add up to twenty service areas. Once you’ve selected your areas, write website location pages for those service areas because this will definitely help in Google searches.
Make sure to link the location pages, and don’t forget to link from the location page to your GMB account, which sends a clear message to Google that you want your GMB account to rank for that area. Connecting the dots through linking will have a direct effect on your Google maps rankings in the search engines.
With this said, you may end up writing dozens of location pages as you get more and more granular in your targeting. That’s okay; it’s what you need to do!
5.) Post At Least Once A Week To Your GMB Account
Post at least once a week to the posts section of your GMB account. This is not optional. It helps because Google wants to see that you’re active and on top of your SEO duties. Posting will keep your GMB listing fresh in Google’s eye without getting in trouble with them for spamming the system.
Posting to your GMB accounts is a great linking strategy. It would help to link your GMB posts to your website service pages, location pages, and new blog articles.
6.) Create A Google Review Campaign
Google reviews are essential to attracting prospective patients. They’re part of the ranking algorithm for a dental office but not as big of a factor as you would think. Being the most reviewed dentist in your community will not send you straight to the top of Google maps.
We all want new patients and patient reviews are a powerful social proof statement. It’s one of the goals on every dentist’s list. Data suggests that if you’re on the first page in the Google map, it doesn’t matter if you’re the top listing, as long as you have more reviews with a better rating than the other two listings. The rule is, the listing with the most reviews (and best reviews) wins.
But how does a practice go about getting more reviews? Well, it starts with being proactive and requesting patient reviews from your current patients. If you don’t ask, you won’t get.
Some dental practices are not super tech-savvy, which is why their marketing strategies may be less than successful. Suppose you want to be proactive in requesting reviews and generating new patients. In that case, you may want to consider the New Patient Conversation Inbox, which includes a texting reviews platform. This software will allow you to automate text messages requesting a review on Google for all patients that check in for tier appointments. It also includes chat bots, video integration with your website and other real-time patient communication tools.
Remember to do something positive for those who have left you a review, whether offering them an incentive or just personally reaching out to thank them for reviewing you online.
6.) Add Accepted Health Insurances To Your GMB Account
A few months ago, Google added a section to your GMB admin called Accepted Health Insurance on the Info tab. If you are a dentist that accepts insurance, you should fill this section out.
Listing your accepted health insurance in your Google My Business account shows potential patients which dental practices they should choose from immediately. We tested adding all of the insurances for a new dental SEO client and within 5 months he had quadrupled his new patients. The call data showed that he increased his calls from Google maps by more than 25 calls per month.
Make sure to fill out this section if you accept insurance, because you’ll be much more likely to show up in the Google map when potential patients search for dental practices that accept insurance.
7.) Analyze Your Inbound & Outbound Links
Inbound and outbound links are important for marketing a website. Inbound links, which point to the website from other websites, help search engines understand the popularity of your site and rank it accordingly. Outbound links, which point back to other websites on various topics, help users find related information that is not on your site. As with any dental marketing technique, inbound and outbound link building needs to be optimized in order to be effective.
You can use Google Webmaster Tools or run a website audit in order to find out who is linking to you and which pages on their website are linked to. This information will give you ideas of other dental pages or local businesses that may be helpful for improving your linking structure.
A website audit will also give you information on your title tags, page titles, meta descriptions and potential errors on your website.
Once you’ve run your audit you’ll want to connect with your website hosting company and see if they can help you fix the errors. If you don’t have a dental website company that can help, or if you need a new website, please check out our $4,000 website design credit.
About Local Dental Marketing
Local Dental Marketing, located in Salt Lake City, Utah is a firm that offers digital dental marketing services to dental practices throughout the United States and Canada. If you are interested in booking a member of the team to speak at your next event please contact us at info@localdentalmarketing.com.
