Your dental practice’s success hinges on your local patient base. Literally. 

Most patients won’t travel more than 30 to 40 minutes to see a dentist. That means you need to spend most of your marketing budget targeting the locals — and showing them that your practice is the best one around. (Even better than that new dentist office that just opened down the road…)

One of the most effective ways to reach and attract locals is through local SEO for dentists. Here’s how this dental patient acquisition strategy can benefit your practice.

What Is Local SEO? 

Local SEO is a form of search engine optimization (SEO) that targets people in your local area. 

Search engine optimization, in general, increases your website’s visibility and rankings in search results. But let’s drill down deeper: Local search engine optimization improves your visibility in local search results — or the results for people in your area. 

When people in your area search for “dentist near me” or “dentist in (city name),” you want your practice to be one of the top results. Having a high-quality dental or orthodontic website design is only the first step; you also need to make sure patients actually see your website. Local SEO can help you get there. 

Benefits of Local SEO for Dentists

In this digital age, SEO isn’t really optional. If your dental practice wants to stay competitive, continually attract new patients, and grow your revenue, local SEO is as crucial as novocaine during a filling. 

Let’s get to why your dental practice needs local SEO for dentists. 

Help Patients Find Your Website

Without local SEO, your dental website would essentially be lost in the void of cyberspace.

Prospective patients who search “dentist near me” will never find your website because it won’t be on the first page of search results. Instead, they’ll see a list of other dentists in your area who are doing local search engine optimization well. They’ll choose one of those dentists instead of you — the nerve! 

Local SEO increases your dental website ranking, getting it in front of more potential patients. 

You’ll gain more leads, which are people who are interested in your dental practice but haven’t taken any steps to interact with you yet. Within a larger dental practice optimization strategy, you can move those leads through the marketing funnel and turn them into long-term patients. 

Increase Your Dental Practice Brand Awareness

How do new patients find a dental practice? For many of them, the answer is a Google search. 

As many as 89% of consumers use Google to answer healthcare questions. And as many as 63% of those consumers make decisions based on the proximity of a provider to their home or office. 

In other words, your dental practice’s web presence matters. But without a local online presence, prospective patients won’t even know you exist. 

Local SEO for dentists increases your brand awareness, which is your target audience’s level of familiarity with your dental practice. Knowing that you exist is the first step in choosing you as their new dental provider. 

Stay Competitive With Other Local Practices

Wouldn’t it be nice if you were the only dental provider in your local area? Unfortunately, you probably compete for business with anywhere from 5 to 20 other practices. And we hate to say it, but a good chunk of those practices are probably already using local SEO — meaning they’re stealing patients right out from under you. 

Local SEO helps you stay competitive with the other practices in your area. 

With the right SEO strategies targeting hyper-local keywords, your website and Google Business Profile listings will rise to the top of search results, outperforming your competitors and positioning your practice as the best option for patients. 

Build Trust With Potential Patients 

When your dental website appears in the first few search results for keywords like “dentist near me,” prospective patients will trust that your practice is a reliable and worthy option. 

Google’s search algorithms value websites that have all of the following qualities:

• Experience
• Expertise
• Authority
• Trustworthiness

When your website includes professional, well-written content that is accurate and reflects your services, Google will see your site as more trustworthy, boosting your rankings in the search results. Internet users trust that Google knows what it’s doing when it displays dental practices in their search results, and they’ll see your website — and your dental practice — as a reliable answer to their problem. 

Get Your Practice on the Map 

When we say “on the map,” we mean literally — on map apps like Google Maps and Apple Maps.

Local SEO isn’t just about boosting your website’s visibility. It also includes optimizing your Google Business Profile and Google Maps listing.

Filling in the gaps in your Google Business Profile and ensuring the accuracy of all information will make Google more likely to display your dental practice in the top search results. Prospective patients will be able to find your dental clinic while searching on Google Maps or Apple Maps, further boosting your brand awareness. 

Reduce Your Advertising Costs 

Local SEO for dentists drives organic traffic as opposed to paid traffic from ads. You can think of local SEO as a free way to advertise your dental practice. Once you have an effective SEO strategy, it can continue working for you in the background and bringing in patients for free. (And who doesn’t like free?)

Many people are also more likely to click on a search result that isn’t sponsored than one that is. Prospective patients may hesitate to trust a dental practice that has paid to place its website at the top of search results. But when they see your website just below the paid slots, they’ll feel good about selecting your practice out of their own volition. 

Starting Building Local SEO With Evolvs 

At Evolvs, we make local SEO for dentists easy. We’ll handle the entire dentist marketing process for you while you focus on providing the best services for your dental patients. 

Get in touch today to learn more about our dental SEO services and schedule your FREE intro meeting.