How To Soar To Top Rank In Local Website Searches
You will dominate your competition with these easy top tips
Search engine optimization (SEO) has existed since the beginning of the Internet.
Simply put, its function is to make a website – your online dental marketing – rank well in Internet search engine results. Search engines (like Google) function purely to make users’ online experiences relevant and effective while searching for online content.
For people searching a LOCAL BUSINESS (e.g. “dentist near me”), search engines promise to provide searchers access to relevant answers. Quickly
But what does this mean for your dental practice?
A new family moves within 3 miles of your practice. When it’s time to find a dentist, Mom hops on the Internet (using one of any number of connected devices) and enters a search for “family dentist.”
In the past, Google would provide many options for dentists who had websites with the words “family dentist” in it, regardless of how local they were to the person searching.
Results were based on whether or not the search term appeared in a website and not much more. She could end up looking at a dental website for a practice across the country.
This led to “keyword stuffing” – resulting in everyone and everything matching the search criteria regardless of relevance – making the user-experience difficult and frustrating. Search engines had to become “smarter.”
Because Google’s goal is to improve a user’s online experience, relevancy and consistency of your dental practice’s online information is critical, as critical as knowing the search terms people are using to find you.
Whether or not your website ranks with Google as a trusted site for users depends on many variables within its content.
For your practice to rank #1 in local searches, you need:
1. Correct listing information. Name, street address, and phone number must be correct and consistent on your website, Yelp, Google, Apple Maps, Facebook, and in the other 300+ citations across the Internet. Information must be updated across the board when any business information changes.
2. Accurate operational hours. Business hours are current in all listings and on your website.
3. Consistent online identity. Website address is included in all listings.
4. Complementary reviews. Practice reviews are on multiple review sites with 4- or 5-star ratings.
5. A visual presence. Website and listings have a picture of your practice.
We know that 72% of consumers who searched locally visited a storefront within 5 miles of their search location (WordStream 2016).
If your practice’s Local SEO is not up to date, but your competitors’ websites are, you are losing patients to them every day, so you must act immediately to rank higher than your competitors using better dental marketing.
Partner up with a marketing expert like Patient NEWS who can help you win the rank of #1 in local searches.
Go on … hit the mark! Start capturing more than your market share!