Local SEO for Dentists (Full Guide + Checklist)

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO can help dentists attract potential clients to their websites through search engines like Google and Bing.

At Artonic, we have over 19 years of experience in digital marketing and SEO, and we’ve prepared this comprehensive guide on local SEO for dentists. In this guide, you will learn everything from what is local SEO to how to build a local SEO strategy for your dental practice.

What is Dental SEO?

Dental SEO refers to the practice of optimizing a dentist’s website to improve its visibility in search engine results, specifically for terms or “keywords” related to dental services and topics.

By using specific keywords, creating high-quality content, and ensuring a website is technically sound, dental SEO helps a practice rank higher in search results for queries like “dentist michigan” or “emergency dental services ohio”. Ultimately, the goal is to convert searchers into patients by ensuring they can quickly and easily find your practice online.

How Is Local SEO Different From Normal SEO?

While traditional SEO aims to improve a website’s visibility on a broader, sometimes even global, scale, local SEO is specifically focused on enhancing a business’s visibility within its geographical area.

Local SEO emphasizes location-based optimization strategies, which often include things like optimizing a Google Business Profile, local citations, and ensuring the website has location-specific keywords and content.

For example, here are a few examples of non-local keywords vs local keywords. The data is from the Google Keyword Planner tool.

Non-local keywords:

Dentist (Avg. monthly searches: 1,220,000)
Pediatric dentist (Avg. monthly searches: 165,000)
Affordable dentist (Avg. monthly searches: 5,400)

Local keywords:

Dentist in Michigan (Avg. monthly searches: 320)
Best cosmetic dentist in Michigan (Avg. monthly searches: 140)
Emergency dentist Michigan (Avg. monthly searches: 90)

So here’s the thing, even when the search volume for local keywords is way lower than non-local keywords, local keywords have way less competition than non-local keywords, therefore, requiring a lot less investment to appear on the first page of Google.

How to Know If My Business Needs Local SEO?

Knowing if your business needs local SEO is actually pretty easy. If you have a local address or you serve patients in a specific local area, then local SEO is right for you. Most dental practices meet these criteria due to the nature of their business anyway.

Dentist Local SEO Checklist

Here’s a simple dentist local SEO checklist:

Do a Keyword Research
Create and optimize a Google Business Profile
Optimize your website (On-Page Optimization)
Technical SEO
Build local citations and backlinks
Track and analyze your results

How to Build a Local SEO Strategy for Dental Practices

Here’s a quick guide on how to build a dentist local SEO strategy.

1. Keyword Research

Keyword research is the foundation of any successful SEO strategy. For dental practices, the goal is to identify search terms that potential patients use to find dental services in their local area. Keywords should reflect both the services offered and the locations served.

Below you will find the steps to build a functional Keyword Research.

Find the Right Tools

Before diving into keyword selection, it’s important to use the right tools for keyword research. There are a variety of free and paid tools.

Free tools include:

Paid tools include:

Keep in mind that this list is not exhaustive. At Artonic, we prefer to use the Google Keyword Planner as the data comes directly from Google.

Create a Keyword Research Spreadsheet

Once you have access to these tools, organize your findings in a keyword research spreadsheet, this will help you keep everything organized and accessible.

We recommend using two columns:

Keywords
Avg. Monthly Volume

Keep in mind that you can add more columns depending on your needs. Additionally, some tools may provide some additional information that can be useful such as KD or Keyword Difficulty.

Find the Right Keywords

Finding the right keywords can be a daunting task, but once you have the right tools, you are set up for a good start.

A couple of recommendations for finding the right keywords include making a list of terms that you (as an expert) believe your customers can be using to find your services. Additionally, you can check your organic competitors to see what terminology they are using.

Then, after you have a comprehensive list of terms, you can put them in a keyword research tool and see which terms describe your services in the best way possible.

Group Your Keywords

After you’ve exported your list of keywords from your preferred tool, we also recommend you to categorize each keyword into separate groups so that you don’t mix them. For example, you can organize them in the following groups:

Services
- Service 1
- Service 2
- Service 3
Blog
- Blog 1
- Blog 2
- Blog 3

Note that each of these groups is a unique page. As a rule of thumb, every page should have a “primary” keyword.

2. Create a Google Business Profile

Creating and optimizing a Google Business Profile is one of the most critical steps in local SEO for dentists. A properly optimized Google Business Profile ensures that your dental practice appears in Google’s Local Pack and on Google Maps, providing key information to potential patients at a glance.

Here’s an example: The Google Business Profile of McNamara Orthodontics.

Add Your Business Information

Ensure that all the basic information for your practice is accurate and up-to-date. This includes your practice name, address, phone number, and business hours.

In addition to basic details, include a detailed description of your services and any specializations. You also have to make sure to add relevant categories that describe the nature of your business.

Add Photos

Adding high-quality photos of your office, staff, and equipment gives potential patients a sense of familiarity with your practice before they even arrive. Include a mix of exterior and interior photos to provide a complete visual representation of your dental practice. Patients are more likely to trust a practice that they can see before visiting.

Make sure to update these images regularly to keep your profile fresh and relevant.

Here’s an example of the GBP of Radiant Dental. You can see that they’ve done a great job with their photo gallery:

Ask for Reviews

Online reviews are an important part of local SEO. Encourage satisfied patients to leave positive reviews on your Google Business Profile to help build trust and improve your visibility.

Responding to reviews, both positive and negative, shows that you care about patient feedback, which further boosts your credibility. The more positive reviews you have, the more likely potential patients are to choose your practice over competitors.

Here’s an example from Huron Dental Associates:

Verify Your Profile

Verifying your Google Business Profile is extremely important, the main reason being, having total control over your GBP.

In this post by Google you can learn more about how to verify your Google Business Profile, but here’s a quick summary.

Add/claim your GBP on Google
Choose a verification method (Postcard, email, phone, instant verification, etc)
Fill in the form on the screen if necessary
Wait for your GBP to be verified

Keep in mind that your verification options may be limited depending on your business type.

Create a Publication Schedule

To maintain engagement and stay visible, create a publication schedule for posting updates, promotions, or new content directly to your Google Business Profile. These posts keep your profile fresh and provide useful information to potential patients, such as seasonal offers or new services you offer. Regular posting indicates Google that your practice is active and relevant.

3. On-Page Optimization

On-Page optimization involves optimizing several elements on your website so that Google understands what each page is about.

Add Your NAP to Your Website

Make sure your practice’s Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) is clearly displayed on your website. The two main places to add your NAP include your footer and contact page. You can also add your business hours if you’d like to make them clear to Google and visitors.

Here’s an example of the footer of the Ohio Cosmetic Dentists website:

Create a Unique Page for Every Location

If your practice operates in multiple locations, create a separate page for each one. These pages should be optimized with location-specific keywords and provide detailed information about the services available at that location. This helps each location rank separately in local search results.

Localizing each page also provides a more personalized experience for potential patients searching for dental services near their area.

Here’s an example of site architecture for a business with multiple locations. Keep in mind that this is just a general example and is not suited for all dental websites.

If you don’t operate in multiple locations, you can just ignore this step.

Create a Unique Page for Every Service

Just as with location-specific pages, create individual pages for each dental service you offer. This allows you to target highly specific keywords and improves your chances of ranking for different types of dental services, from orthodontics to cosmetic procedures.

Well-structured service pages not only enhance your SEO but also improve user experience by making it easy for patients to find detailed information on the services they need.

Here’s an example:

Create Localized Content

Developing localized content that speaks to the needs and interests of your community helps you connect with local patients. Blog posts about dental health issues relevant to your region can drive traffic and increase engagement. Additionally, localized content also helps build topical authority in your target area.

Here’s an example: “Why should you hire a dentist in Michigan?”

Additional SEO On-Page Tips

Additional SEO On-Page tips include:

Optimize your meta title and meta descriptions with relevant keywords
Optimize your image alt texts and filenames with relevant keywords
Do not overuse your keywords. The page should be easy to read
Add your keywords to headings and subheadings

4. Technical SEO

Technical SEO ensures that your website performs well in search engines from a technical standpoint. Technical SEO is extremely important in any form of SEO, including local SEO for dentists.

Website Health

Here’s a short checklist including just a few of the most important elements of technical SEO:

Make sure you’re using HTTPS
Improve your site speed
Fix broken internal and outbound links
Find and fix HTTP links on HTTPS pages
Make sure your website is mobile-friendly
Find and fix redirect chains and loops

Great tools to identify technical SEO issues include ahrefs, Semrush, SEO PowerSuite, and Google Search Console.

At Artonic we mostly use ahrefs, SEO PowerSuite, and Google Search Console for our website audits.

Structured Data

Use structured data (schema markup) to help search engines understand the content on your website. Structured data is a complex topic, and its implementation often involves the help of an expert web developer.

Some common structure data types include:

Article
Breadcrumb
FAQ
Local business
Organization

To implement structure data in your website, make sure to request help from an expert like Artonic!

5. Local Citations & Backlinks

Local citations and backlinks play a critical role in boosting your online authority and credibility.

Create Citations

Local citations refer to mentions of your business across the web, mainly in relevant business directories.

Some popular business directories include:

Yellow Pages
Foursquare
Better Business Bureau
Superpages
Hotfrog
Merchant Circle
EZLocal
eLocal
Manta

We highly recommend limiting the local citations you build to reputable business directories only as low-quality, low-traffic business directories provide little to no value nowadays.

Create Local Backlinks

Backlinks from local organizations, local news websites, or other reputable businesses in your area can significantly improve your search rankings. Great ways to get a link from these types of websites are participating in community events, becoming a sponsor of local events, and offering high-quality guest posts.

6. Tracking

Lastly, tracking and measuring your local SEO efforts is essential for ensuring that your strategy is working. Use tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and third-party SEO tools to monitor your traffic, rankings, and conversions. Adjust your strategy based on these insights.

Multilocation Practices vs Single Location Dentists

We’ve already mentioned that building a local SEO strategy for multilocation practices is different from building a strategy for single-location practices. Multilocation practices are sometimes huge websites and can get complex really fast, however, there are some principles to keep in mind. Including:

Create a separate page for every location
You can attach location-based service pages to each individual location page
If you have a main location, you can optimize your home page for keywords related to your main location, if not, you can just have a general home page targeting branded keywords
Add a Name, Address, and Phone NAP to every single location page
You can create an individual Google Business Profile for each individual location and manage all your GBPs from a single account. Learn more.

Here’s a site architecture example for a multilocation practice. As said before, this is just an example, and it can change depending on your specific website needs, requirements, and keyword availability.

Local SEO for Dentists With Artonic

Dentist local SEO requires careful planning and a considerable amount of time. That’s why hiring a professional digital marketing agency like Artonic is a good investment.

At Artonic we have over 19 years of experience helping businesses in Michigan increase their visibility in search engines through comprehensive digital marketing campaigns. We helped one of our clients, Dr. Flue, a respected local chimney sweep in Southeast Michigan, achieve 1,000 organic leads in a span of 4 years. Learn more about this success story by visiting our: Dr. Flue SEO Case Study.

Learn more about our SEO services, or contact us to get started today!

Frequently Asked Questions

Learn more about local SEO for dentists.

What Is Local SEO for Dentists?

Dentist local SEO is the process of optimizing a dental practice’s website to improve its visibility in local search results. It focuses on ensuring that the practice appears when potential patients search for dental services in a specific geographic area.

How Much Does Dental Local SEO Cost?

It’s difficult to provide a specific cost for local SEO because pricing can vary widely depending on the unique needs and goals of each dental practice.

Factors such as the level of competition in your area, the current state of your website, the number of services or locations you want to target, and the scope of the SEO strategy will all influence the overall cost. Some practices may require a more comprehensive strategy while others may only need basic local SEO services.

Because every dental practice is different, it’s best to contact us for a custom quote tailored to your specific needs and budget. We can assess your practice’s current online presence and develop an SEO plan that will maximize your visibility and help you attract more local patients.