NEW Local SEO Tips for Dentists

[ElizabethRule]

Sterling Sky has a guide on local SEO for dentists that’s due for an update, and I’d love to get feedback from other local SEOs on what’s working best right now for dentist, both onsite for organic search and Google Maps (Google Business Profile).

Currently, my approach for GBP is pretty straight forward:

• Use Dentist as the primary category (unless they have a specific niche we want to hyper focus on - like pediatric)
• Fill in all 9 secondary categories
• Check off all predefined services
• Add custom services when relevant (the more niche, the better!)

I usually skip extras like posts and Q&A, since they tend to get little to no engagement or conversions.

On the onsite side, we focus on building unique service pages for each treatment, plus supporting blog content. I haven’t seen service area pages perform well for dentists, but I’d be interested to hear if anyone has different results.

I also prioritize making it easy for users to book an appointment. I LOVE when dentists have booking buttons directly on their GBPs, though it’s not very common in my experience. Does anyone have a recommended online appointment scheduler for dentist that integrates smoothly with GBP?

For those of you working with dental practices, what strategies have you found most effective? Are there specific tactics that consistently move the needle, or pitfalls you’d suggest avoiding? I’d love to hear your insights and experiences!

 

[JS Girard]

Our clients up in Quebec have some weird limitations. The Quebec licensing board for dentists recognize nine specialties and absolutely nothing else. Dentists are completely forbidden to advertise themselves as "specialists" or "experts" in any other dental field (so you better not use the "pediatric dentist" if you are not legally recognized as such!), even when that specialty is not otherwise covered by any of the recognized ones.

We literally tried to consult with them about how a client of ours which specialises in TMJ disorders could write about it and the incredibly unhelpful and convoluted PR/legal slop we got in response boiled down to "don't". very frustrating experience.

 

[Jessica C]

This is great info- ty! I wanted to ask about the services per each category (primary and additional). What do you do with all the extra and somewhat awkard services that Google has automatically added to the categories? For example, I am a photographer and Google has added "styles poses" and "boy photo" and many repetitive services just reworded multiple ways. Do I leave these alone and just ignore? or do I clean them up?

 

[JS Girard]

This is great info- ty! I wanted to ask about the services per each category (primary and additional). What do you do with all the extra and somewhat awkard services that Google has automatically added to the categories? For example, I am a photographer and Google has added "styles poses" and "boy photo" and many repetitive services just reworded multiple ways. Do I leave these alone and just ignore? or do I clean them up?

My rule of thumb for GBP services is to include as many variations as possibles as long as you do offer the service in question, unless you're curating in details with prices and description. it's ideal for maximizing the chances of hitting a long-tail keyword.

Of course if you simply do NOT offer the service (e.g. say action photography for sports), then you should remove such services.

That being said, other people might disagree and in Quebec we just don't have the problem of google dumping long lists of services on GBPs.

 

[Jessica C]

all the services listed under both my primary and secondary categories apply to my business and the servces I actually offer. Many are just awkwardly worded. Further on this point, do you treat services like keyword bank? and add as many keyword variations that you think potential customers might be typing into google maps. For example, I know of some very specific, descriptive words that my client base use in front of "photos" or "photographer"- so you would add those full long tail keywords in under services? do you add also add keywords with city names in the services, too? "family photos austin"?

 

[JS Girard]

all the services listed under both my primary and secondary categories apply to my business and the servces I actually offer. Many are just awkwardly worded. Further on this point, do you treat services like keyword bank? and add as many keyword variations that you think potential customers might be typing into google maps. For example, I know of some very specific, descriptive words that my client base use in front of "photos" or "photographer"- so you would add those full long tail keywords in under services? do you add also add keywords with city names in the services, too? "family photos austin"?

I would not use town names, no, but to give an idea, for one client who was a siding contractor, I would have 5-6 main terms (i.e. repairs, reparation, replacement, installation, renovation...) each of which had to be combined with one of three different words that could be used for "siding", and then for each of these combinations I would also have variants for each material (metal, wood, vinyl, aluminum etc.) or brand the client asked to target. It's actually more of a hassle to do in French, because I have to be mindful of elision and agreement rules.

That's what I mean when I talk about maximizing the service variants: Think of the likely other ways the client might word the service, and combine all the variants together. There are six possible different wordings for "siding repairs" before I even factor the type of sidings!

To expand on the photography thing. I could take "action photography" and then break it down into a whole bunch of topics/subgenre, each with their own possible variants like "theater performance photography", "parade photography", "dance photography", "dance action photography", "dance performance photography", "sports photography", "candid photography" etc. And then each of those would need a "photographer" variant etc.

If you have some specific that your clients call you about, yeah, I would happily put them in the list of services, at least as long as it makes sense to list it there like that. e.g. I personally would not include "[service] this weekend", though someone else might disagree.