Dental practice within a practice?

[Tony Wang]

I have a dentist that is starting a sub-specialty practice, but wants to keep them in the same office space. So, for example, ABC Family Dentist, and then new practice is XYZ Pediatric Dentist. I'm guessing that would cause some GMB problems, but I've never seen a case like this.

He wants a separate website and GMB listing so both can rank, but I don't yet have other details (there would be a pediatric specialist manning this practice).. For example, I would think at the least he'd need a separate phone#, but could that forward to the same receptionist as the main #, or is that a no-no?

Anyone else seen this type of setup?

Any suggestions? I would try to convince him he'd be better off just keeping them both under the same practice, not that he always listens to me :-(

 

[Tim Colling]

I admire his ambitious and aggressive approach. If they are two separate businesses, albeit with common ownership, but with separate practitioners, why not? I'd probably be more inclined to go for this if there were separate receptionists.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hey Tony,

It can work but only if they are two legally separate businesses and you would need different GMB categories and phone number.

I think it would be a challenge to make it work.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Won't Possum keep him from ranking because there will be two dentists right on top of each other? Or is a search for "pediatric dentistry" enough to bring up the pediatric practice because of how specific the keyword is and it matches a GMB category? I'm betting the latter. @JoyHawkins

Also, he would probably be better off just keeping it under the same brand. I think he'll probably regret it in a few years. But he's probably not going to listen to that type of business advice from his "SEO Guy". You know? I can hear it now, "Stick to the Googs, I'll handle the business," which is fair enough I guess

 

[Colan Nielsen]

They may get filtered yes. The only way to not get filtered (other than by pure chance) is if the categories are totally different. So if one of the listings ONLY has "Pediatric Dentist" and the other one has "Orthodontist" they should rank for their respective disciplines.

But I agree with Joshua that one brand is the way to go.

 

[Cherie Dickey]

I see this a lot. Doctors wanting to build different sites to focus on different KWs because they aren't seeing as many new patients from the internet as they would like. How competitive is the area? In most cases, this strategy really doesn't work very well.

The first issue is that Dentist KWs are SO competitive, and trying to rank a new brand with a new domain in this vertical can be very difficult - both organically and in Maps. The second issue is the potential for NAP confusion, as well as the fact that if these are not 100% separate businesses with different phone numbers, signage, etc, it's against TOS to even create a listing for the other business. You COULD however create one for the pediatric doctor if a second doctor exists...

I would recommend that he keep one brand, and one website. Build a robust profile page for both doctors (are there two?), and robust content for the pediatric portion of the site. You could have "Pediatric Dentistry" as a service page with locally focused on page optimization, and sub content built off of that - services specifically for children, blog posts about children's dentistry, etc, with the pediatric doctor being the one referenced in that content (if it's a different Dr). PR work would need to be done as well to promote the new service in the community. Any backlinks that result from this could go to the main pediatric service page if there's a choice as well.

Dentists are very difficult to manage, so I wish you luck, haha!

 

[JoyHawkins]

I had a client years ago in this exact scenario. We never had any issues because the dentist practice wasn't targeting pediatric terms and didn't use that category so there was no overlap. Just make sure one is categorized as dentist and the other as pediatric dentist and you should be set. Also make sure the general dentist doesn't have content on his site refering to pediatric dentistry or that could accidentally cause him to filter the new practice.

 

[Rich Owings]

I wouldn't do it. I had an architect client who wanted a separate listing for the new construction arm of his business, at the same location. We set up a separate phone number and claimed the listing, no problem. But a few weeks later, Google merged the listings. He retained listing age and reviews, but they kept the new name and number, which we had to go in and change. And yes, we used different categories - architect and construction company.

 

[JoyHawkins]

@Rich Owings in your case were they different websites?

 

[Rich Owings]

No, but we did set up a separate construction page and linked to it.

 

[JoyHawkins]

I think having a different site in scenarios like this is key. In the case I described they did and we never ran into issues. Usually when I hear stories about merging it happens to listings that are using the same site (even if it's different pages).

 

[Rich Owings]

Great point. Nice to back in the forum, by the way. Thanks, G+!

 

[JoyHawkins]

Excited to have you back here

 

[Tony Wang]

Thanks for all the input. I definitely warned him about all those things but he already had his mind made up. I did convince him that he needed a separate phone and website, and he is adding signage outside.

The mitigating factor is that he eventually wants to move the pediatric dentist to a separate office, so I think it's all a bona fide move, not just an attempt at smoke and mirrors.

I'll also make sure there's no mention of pediatrics on the original website, that's a good tip.