Stop Optimising For Search Engine Queries Unrelated To Your Location

SEO for dentists – basic errors to avoid

I am regularly contacted by dentists whose websites are failing in Google and where they need to do something about it. This is understandable as the importance of a great website and prominent ranking positions is well-understood.

Normally where a website fails in Google it comes down to one (or both) of these reasons:

• The site is poorly optimised giving little chance for ranking success
• The site has been optimised over-zealously and Google has penalised it in the ranking hierarchy

Today we’ll take a look at the first element, poor optimisation, and in particular something where an inexperienced SEO provider or DIY’er has failed to understand one of the key fundamentals of website optimisation.

Very often we see cases where a dentist’s website is optimised for “dentist location X” when their practice is physically based in location Y. This isn’t going to work, particularly for the more generic search queries. So why is this?

This is all about search “localisation” and understanding how Google will always give preference to local businesses when it comes to what searchers actually enter as search queries. So for someone searching for “dentist in Preston” as an example, the search engine will always present them with results for dentists based in Preston or the immediate outskirts. It won’t present them with Google results for dentists in nearby towns such as Blackburn or Bolton or indeed some of the smaller towns in between.

What tends to happen is that dentists who have practices in a smaller village or town 3 or 4 miles outside of a major urban area will want to try to attract patients from that larger area – of course there are more people and correspondingly more potential patients. What the dentist then tries to do is optimise their website for the adjacent location without realising that it will most likely be unsuccessful – this is all down to the Google localisation issue discussed above.

What also happens is where unscrupulous SEO agencies (sadly there are lots) don’t tell their client that their wishes are unrealistic, but they take their money anyway and try to blame poor ranking results on other factors – this is all too prevalent unfortunately.

How should you optimise a website for location?

It is almost pointless to try to penetrate the search results outside of your location irrespective of how good your SEO is. You may have some partial success for lesser search terms, but even then, only where competition is relatively slight. Remember that the dental business actually based in the location you’d like to target, will be optimising for anything worthwhile too – so you’ll probably still miss out.

So first and foremost you should optimise for your location and perhaps a few miles radius around it. Outside that, search localisation will defeat you in most cases unfortunately, so it’s far better to concentrate on dominating the search results in and around you.

We actually advise on this topic for lots of dentists who are looking to buy new practices and it’s a very important consideration given the power of the web for attracting new patients. So don’t neglect the web considerations when it comes to buying a new practice!

A web strategy for dentists based outside of town

So we’ve seen the effects of Google search localisation and how it can be very difficult to compete in the free search results if you are based out of town. However there is a strategy you can use which is very effective and will help you to gain new patients even if they aren’t on your doorstep. This is where paid ads and social media marketing become the key promotional channels as neither of them are bound by the constraints of search engine localisation.

You will need a suitable budget and likely a skilled marketer to help ensure you don’t waste cash on poor clicks on your ads, but where it is reasonable for someone to travel several miles for a treatment, then paid ads can work very well indeed. Using these techniques you can target appropriate audiences in any location and compete alongside those practice which are physically based there. This is a strategy we use to good effect for a number of clients who are based outside of town but still need to access the patient base there.

Summary

It is important for dentists to understand what is meant by Google localisation and ensure that this is taken into account when their website is being optimised. If you are based somewhat remotely, there are still strategies such as paid ads which can be used to compete.

If you are stuck in limbo with your website SEO failing, then please get in touch with the team at Dental Media for help. We’ll conduct a no-obligation audit and advise what to do next. You can reach us on 01332 672548 or via the website contact form.