Optimizing Google My Business for More Dental Patients

Are you attempting to reach more potential dental patients online? Not sure how to go about optimizing your Google My Business listing for your dental practice? In 2018, optimizing your dental practice website and business listing is more important than ever.

Why Digital Marketing?

When it comes to spending money, more and more consumers are turning to the internet before making any decisions, even when it comes to their dental care! When it comes to digital marketing, it is highly important if you want to make sure your dental practice is being found when potential patients are searching. People these days are using laptops, tablets, and even smartphones to look up information about businesses before they even visit the location.

Recent research about search engines and local business have determined that:

• 78% of all online local searches result in an offline business conversion.
• 50% of consumers perform searches when trying to find contact information for businesses, such as an address or even phone number.
• 64% of consumers use major search engines such as Google and Bing to find local businesses.
• 46% of searches that are conducted on Google are local searches.

Digital marketing is also a more direct form of advertising, allowing dental practices to target patients that are actively seeking dental treatment. Although billboards, newspaper ads and even mailing brochures can be effective, they often target patients that aren’t even looking for a dentist. Ultimately digital marketing has a better return-on-investment in comparison to a lot of other traditional marketing tactics.

About Google’s Local 3-Pack

Have you ever noticed that when you perform a local search, such as “dental practice near me”, there are Google My Business listings embedded into the search results? This is known as the “local 3-pack” and is displayed when Google notices that a search query has local intent.

This local 3-pack section is great for local business owners to have an advantage over national businesses that may not have a local presence. Wondering what qualifies as a “local search”?

• Search terms that include a geographic reference such as a zip code, street name or even city.
• Search terms that include “near me” or “nearby”.
• Search queries that include services which are often provided by a local business, such as dental care.

Ensuring that your dental practice can be found in the local 3-pack on Google search is extremely important for finding new patients. If your practice doesn’t have a Google My Business profile, you have no chance of acquiring new patients online through local search. We recommend creating and optimizing your Google My Business profile as quickly as possible. Consumers can quickly contact your dental practice, read through positive reviews left by your patients, and even get directions straight to your dental practice.

How to Optimize a Dental Practice’s Google My Business profile

Once you have claimed your Google My Business listing, we ensure the address and phone number are local and permanent. The following steps can be taken to help increase the chances of your listing appearing in the local 3-pack:

• Make sure you enter accurate data on your Google My Business listing, including your business name, contact number, website URL, appointment URL and even hours of operation. Having accurate information allows potential patients to reach you properly and increases your relevancy.
• Make sure you select the correct primary and secondary categories for your dental practice. Your primary category is extremely important for helping Google quickly determine what business type you own. The secondary categories can be more treatment specific, informing potential patients of your exact specialties.
• Verify your Google My Business listing for your dental practice. It typically takes 5-7 business days to receive your Google verification code through the mail which allows you to verify your business online.
• Add a minimum of 5 photos that are relevant to your business and optimized. We recommend including both keywords and geographic location when optimizing any photos for your local listing.
• Monitor, manage, and respond to any reviews on your Google My Business listing. Reviews are more important than ever in 2018, using a tool like Pozative, offered by Adit can help.
• Make sure you share content from your dental practice website to your Google My Business using the post option. It can improve relevancy and increase brand awareness locally.

Get Dental Digital Marketing Today

Interested in attracting more dental patients through local searches? Contact Adit today to learn more about how our digital marketing for dentists can help your practice attract more patients online.