If you’re looking for a good way to increase your local search engine rankings, raise your profile as a dental expert in your community, and ultimately attract more qualified patients, there are no two ways about it — you need to be using Google Business Profile as part of your dentist SEO strategy.
What is Google Business Profile?
Google Business Profile is basically a local listings service that your dental services can use to show potential patients in your area that you are nearby. It isn’t just used by dental practices — everything from Starbucks to local pet shops can be found there which is why it is so extensively used by local people looking for products and services in their area.
Whenever a user searches for a particular business or practice using Google, Google Business Profile listings will typically be amongst the top results and will show important information such as location, opening hours, and user reviews, allowing users to find and access the information they’re looking for quickly.
What are Google Business Profile Posts?
Google Business Profile Posts, as you might expect, are posts that you as a dental practice can add to your local listings to give them more personality and enable potential patients to learn a little more about you and your practice. You can also use them to educate and inform local people who find your practice when searching for nearby dental practices. You can include images, share special offers, promote upcoming events, and include links to your website/ phone/ etc. within Google Business Profile Posts.
How Can You Leverage The Power of Google Business Profile Posts For Your Dental Practice?
Did you know that approximately 46 percent of Google searches are local in nature or that 64 percent of local customers use search engines like Google to find what they need? How about the fact that 78 percent of local searches result in an offline sale? These are stats that simply cannot be ignored — they truly highlight the benefits of using Google Business Profile as part of your dental practice’s online marketing strategy.
However, if you run a dental practice and you’re serious about signing up as many qualified patients as possible, having your practice listed on Google Business Profile is not enough — you need to leverage the power of Google Business Profile Posts to maximize the impact your listing has on local people. Here are a few ways you can do that:
Post Educational Articles Regularly
Patients invariably choose dentists who they trust. They don’t want to trust their oral health with a dentist who may be inexperienced or lacking in knowledge in any way. That’s why it’s so important that you should use Google Business Profile Posts to regularly publish educational articles that will really show local people who find your listing that you know what you’re talking about.
Whether it’s a post on how to brush and floss correctly or a guide to having dental implants put in place, the more effort you make to educate the people who check out your listing, the more likely they are to respect you, see you as a leader in the dental industry in your area, and ultimately book an appointment with you.
Increase Your Google Rank
Climbing the ranks of Google so that you are on the first page when locals search for a dental practice in the area should be your ultimate aim if you’re serious about gaining more qualified patients. An easy way to do this is by increasing your practice’s presence online and you can do this by making regular Google Business Profile Posts.
If you do this in conjunction with a good SEO agency that specializes in Dental marketing online, you should be able to boost your traffic significantly and ultimately convert more qualified patients to your practice. The more content you have on the web, the more people will see it and the more of an expert you will be considered to be, not only by search engines but by the people who use them too.
Add Lots of Photos
Adding photos of your dental practice and your dental practitioners is a great way to put the people who find your listing and read your posts at ease. They’ll be able to get a look at the face behind all of those informative articles and see what the practice they’ll be visiting will look like. It’ll give them the confidence they need to proceed to the next stage and become qualified patients. Use real photos of you and your practice — stock photos are obvious and can put people off.
Ensure Information is Accurate
There’s little point in your dental practice being listed on Google Business Profile or in you making lots of detailed posts to that platform if your information is inaccurate. That’s why it’s important to make sure that your profile includes your correct address, phone number, email address, location, and opening hours as a minimum.
It doesn’t matter how useful the educational articles you post are — if you get the basics wrong, you aren’t going to make a very good impression online, which is the main aim of using Google Business Profile Posts in the first place!
Verify Your Practice
Another good way of ensuring you are seen as a leader and expert in your field is to have your business verified by Google. This takes a few days to go through but it will go a long way to proving your worth to potential new patients and showing them that you are a genuine dental practice they can trust.
Be Responsive
Responding to patient questions and reviews will show you to be open, honest, and professional, again marking you out as a leader, expert, and someone they can trust with their oral health.
