Keeping one’s dental practice up to date in an area with a wide variety of dental practices and expertise is fundamental in today’s fast-paced, ever-evolving digital landscape.

If you are a dentist who runs a private practice, you need to have a local search engine optimization (SEO) strategy in place if you want your business to rank higher in Google’s local search results. 

Integrating local SEO for your dental practice will help establish credibility online and reinforcing it through your dental practice’s output are the first steps in becoming your patients’ greatest advocate.

But before we can get a handle on how local SEO for dentists really works, we need to first have a grip on what SEO really is.

Difference Between SEO and Local SEO

One of the key differences between SEO and local SEO is the emphasis search engine optimization shifts slightly on a local scale.

The main objective of SEO is to boost your site’s rankings in relevant online search results linked for your practice. To attract local patients into your clinic, a local SEO strategy will focus on increasing your rankings in local SERPs, while traditional SEO will increase your visibility on a larger scale.

What is Local SEO For Dentists?

Any business with a physical location or operates inside a specific geographical region can benefit from optimizing their website for local search engines and this is something you should be aware of as a dental professional online.

Access to information is now easier than ever before. Patients can now explore nearby clinics using just mobile phones, and the main criteria people consider when deciding which clinic to make an appointment with are online reviews and ratings, which is where local SEO comes in handy.

It is crucial to have a local SEO strategy since the vast majority of Google users will go to the location that is within five miles of their vicinity after doing a search on the web. This will result in an increase in the number of people visiting both your website and your dental clinic.

Moreover, local SEO also gets results faster than traditional SEO owing to less competition for rankings because of specified geographical parameters, making it the best SEO strategy for dentists.

How to Begin Your Local SEO for Dentist Strategy

If you want your business to stay at the top of search results, start by improving your local SEO. This will make it easier for patients in your area to find you and make an appointment.

You might find the process of optimizing your local SEO to be overwhelming, but you can start with these small steps. 

Step 1: Verify your GMB profile’s details.

Even if you have a great website, you still need to carefully go over and evaluate the information that is on your GMB listing. If you want to rank high in local search, it’s important that you review and update your Google My Business profile with complete and accurate information since this will be featured in Google searches and Maps alongside your website.

Step: 2 Research relevant keywords for your website.

Keyword research can provide important insights about how to build your dental practice. This step will help you understand what people are actively looking for, how competitive those keywords are, and how to improve your content marketing strategy to rank better in organic search results and attract more visitors. Update the keyword list for your dental local SEO campaign. Include keywords with commercial value as well as educational value while keeping it geo-targeted.

Step 3: References of your dental practice on online directories.

Having your dental clinic listed in as many credible online directories as you can is also significant to your dental SEO strategy. If you haven’t already, get your website included in online directories as soon as possible. Just a reminder that you must do it gradually since a sudden influx of citations might make you suspicious and harm your web presence.

Starting your local SEO strategy for your dental business right away is vital to generating exceptional results. This will allow you to evaluate your site and see how well it is doing. Once you know where you stand, you can work to get better.

Following these steps can improve your visibility in search engine results, allowing you to reach more potential patients.