Interested in your perspective here on this LOCAL SEO tactic (DENTAL)

[RichLamendola]

I was looking at the local rank tracker and search grid for a dental client.

What I found was interesting -- and I am wondering where this falls in the area of shade between white, gray and/or black hat.

So the practice, we'll call it YYY Dental. They have a regular GMB/Maps, normal, optimized etc. Then Dr. ZZZ, who is the founder of the YYY Dental has their own GMB/Maps listing, but reads Dr. ZZZ - Emergency Dentist - City. It has reviews and all, looks totally legit. And the page it's linked to is long-form, very niche for emergency dental.

I'd love to know how folks feel about this tactic.

 

[prseo]

I'd call it grey hat. Having a separate practitioner listing targeting a different category is a legitimate strategy, but keyword stuffing is not. Keyword stuffing; however, still works (though not as much as it used to) which is why people still do it.

Worth a mention that anything "emergency" in any industry almost always has more than a few black hat lead gen listings ranking.

You can suggest a name change on your competitor's listing to just Dr. ZZZ. May take a couple of tries but it should eventually get through.

 

[RichLamendola]

Interesting. Thanks!!!

 

[Cherie Dickey]

Hiya! As prseo said, having business and practitioner listings is a legitimate strategy when done correctly. There are a few best practices I (and my teams) follow:

1 - There must be multiple practitioners at a practice to be within Google's guidelines.
2 - The practitioner listing should only contain the Dr's name and the name of the business - no keywords that are not part of the actual business name.
3 - The web page the Dr listing links to should go to the Dr's page on the website.
3 - Having multiple listings is similar to having multiple websites. It's more difficult to maintain, and it's easy to compete with yourself. I personally feel that it's best to have one strong practice listing when all Drs there do the same or similar thing.
4 - Once created, Google will not merge a practitioner listing if it's a multi Dr practice - so choose wisely.

It seems to me that YYY Dental is using tactics that are not best practice at best and are against Guidelines at worst. The thing is that the shadier tactics work until they don't, and then where does that leave you?

 

[RichLamendola]

Hiya! As prseo said, having business and practitioner listings is a legitimate strategy when done correctly. There are a few best practices I (and my teams) follow:

1 - There must be multiple practitioners at a practice to be within Google's guidelines.
2 - The practitioner listing should only contain the Dr's name and the name of the business - no keywords that are not part of the actual business name.
3 - The web page the Dr listing links to should go to the Dr's page on the website.
3 - Having multiple listings is similar to having multiple websites. It's more difficult to maintain, and it's easy to compete with yourself. I personally feel that it's best to have one strong practice listing when all Drs there do the same or similar thing.
4 - Once created, Google will not merge a practitioner listing if it's a multi Dr practice - so choose wisely.

It seems to me that YYY Dental is using tactics that are not best practice at best and are against Guidelines at worst. The thing is that the shadier tactics work until they don't, and then where does that leave you?

Thanks so much -- agree on all points and have a clarifying question on 4) Once created, Google will not merge a practitioner listing if it's a multi Dr practice - so choose wisely.

What does that mean?

 

[PaulSteinbrueck]

Hmm... Maybe I will make myself a practitioner GBP & niche page - "Dr. SEO - Local SEO - [City]"