You’ve heard the term “dental SEO” a lot and for good reason.
Paid ads can give you an immediate boost in visibility, social media can get you more brand presence and postcards can get you local awareness but SEO is a long term investment in the digital future of a dental practice.
As marketers it’s our job to help dentists see it that way.
Dental SEO sets the foundation for long term growth so when patients search for dental services in their area your client’s practice is the one they find first.
At the end of the day SEO has one goal: to make your client’s practice visible and attractive to people looking for dental care. It’s not just about traffic it’s about the right traffic to get the right patients.
What is Dental SEO?
Dental SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, is the process of optimising your dental practice’s website and overall online presence to rank higher in search engines like Google.
So when patients search for specific dental services your practice shows up at the top or in AI Overview now.
“how much does invisalign cost in Austin”
For dentists it’s not just about traditional SEO—local SEO is key. Local SEO uses special tactics to boost visibility for location based searches which is crucial for dental practices wanting to attract patients in their area.
Imagine someone in your city types “Dentists near me” or “dental implants near me” into Google. The practices that show up in the map pack or at the top of the search results have the best SEO and are most likely to get new patients.
“invisalign dentist near me”
Search engines are constantly getting better at providing users with exact, relevant and intent-matching results.
They reward content that is accurate, trustworthy and up-to-date, and they penalize content that is misleading or deceptive. As a dental marketer, your job is to convince the search engines that your dentist client is the authority in their field, and earn them a spot on the first page of the search results.
It doesn’t happen overnight, and it’s not worth sacrificing your integrity for quick fixes or shady SEO tactics. Your job is to focus on providing real value to your users, and earning your dentist client a leadership position in their field.
That means optimizing their website for the search engines (traditional SEO), but it also means building a professional and trustworthy presence online. From their website to their reviews, everything they do online should be optimized to appeal to the search engines and their patients.
When you do it right, the search engines will have a hard time ignoring your dentist.
Why Local SEO Matters for Dentists
Can you remember the last time you clicked on the second page of Google’s search results?
If you’re like most people, you can’t remember—because you’re one of the majority who don’t go past the first page. And that’s important for dentists to understand. A high ranking on Google is not nice-to-have, it’s need-to-have. If you don’t believe me, here are some reasons why:
- Google owns an impressive 91.54% of the global search market.
- Google receives 5.9 million searches every minute.
- In the US, 21% of searchers hunt for local businesses online every day.
- On mobile devices, the top search engine result gets a click-through rate of 22.4%, second position gets 13%, and third position gets 10%. By the time you drop down to #10, the CTR drops to a paltry 2.3%.
- A 2023 study found that only 0.63% of users click through to the second page of search engine results.
- This data tells us an important truth: ranking in the top 5 of Google’s search results can have a significant impact on organic traffic. Local SEO is even more important, since Google’s local pack only shows three businesses at the top of search results.
- As an SEO expert (LinkedIn), I can tell you that getting your dentist client in that coveted top 3 is not nice-to-have, it’s nice-to-survive in this ultra-competitive market.
Hristijan’s Dental Marketer’s SEO Checklist
Dominate local SEO for dental practices with this all-encompassing checklist. Each of these steps is a foundation of a successful strategy. I’ve been doing this for the past 4 years now and I’ll walk you through it below:
Do Keyword Research
Dig deep into the competition and find the low hanging fruit keywords that can give you the most value. This will help you create a strategy that’s custom tailored to your dentist client.
Claim and Fill out Google Business Profile (GBP)
Make sure it’s not suspended and filled out completely. Add relevant keywords, nice photos, and consistency with their NAP (Name, Address, Phone number).
Verify Google Search Console (GSC)
Use it to understand how Google is crawling your dentist client’s site and to monitor performance. You’ll be able to see technical issues that could be holding you back from ranking.
Work on On-Page and Technical SEO
Edit page titles, meta descriptions, headings, and optimize image alt text with your target keywords. Make sure the site is fast, mobile-friendly, and HTTPS.
Build Citations for Online Reputation
List your dentist in reputable online directories like Yelp, Healthgrades, and other industry specific sites that potential patients use to find dentists.
Create Good Content—Lots of It
Commit to blogging for dentists and creating other useful content like service pages and FAQ’s. This will not only help engage users but build authority with the search engines.
Six Local SEO Tasks for Dental Marketers to Focus On
I’ve had the privilege of creating and executing SEO strategies for over 20 dental practices across the United States over the past 4 years.
At Antibe, we’ve developed a system that works and it’s because we’ve learned from our successes and failures.
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that dental SEO is like building a house. You have to build a solid foundation before you start decorating.
Why would you want to drive traffic to a website that looks like it was created in the early 2000s?
What’s the point of asking for reviews if your Google Business Profile isn’t even set up? Why would you build citations if you don’t even have a website?
Get the foundation in place first…
Then you can worry about the fluff.
Now, these are a must to do in order to create a solid strategy for dental SEO:
- Do Your Research, Analyze Your Competition, and Create a Plan
- Google Search Console and Understanding Your Dental Website
- Google Business Profile Optimization
- Fix your On-Page and Technical SEO for your Dental Websites
- Build Citations to Increase Online Authority
