Many dentists, doctors and other health professionals believe that the key to success is to have enough money to invest in marketing – and magically they will have a full schedule of patients. It doesn’t work like that.
It is not mandatory to have a lot of money to be successful with marketing, for example. What matters is how to spend the budget when executing the right strategies for your segment. One, of course, is to invest in local SEO. Do you want to know why this strategy is essential for your online success? Keep reading the article below and we will answer it.
Local SEO
We’ve talked a lot about SEO in general here – which is basically the tool that will help you make your website and/or blog appear in search results when someone searches on Google for what you offer. Local SEO, therefore, is a niche of SEO that aims to work to optimize a website to be displayed for users who search for terms, services or articles focused on a particular geographic location. In this way, a given website is further enhanced for local keywords, which are used by audiences whose geolocation is interesting to the company that runs that page.
Why is it important?
It is common for many entrepreneurs to ask themselves how important local SEO is if it is possible to invest in general SEO. After all, isn’t it better for more people to access your site than just people from a specific region?
For example, imagine a user who searches for “dentist vancouver”. What do you think he’s looking for? This is obvious: a dentist in the Vancouver area. So, what do you think this user would do if they hit a Montreal dentist’s website? Do you think he would make an appointment or not?
Therefore, local SEO for dentists and doctors is essential. After all, clinics depend on local customers. Often, customers from a certain neighborhood only. Thus, it is not worthwhile for the professional to receive visits from users in other cities or states. After all, they will not become customers. Therefore, companies such as clinics, car stores, lawyers, locksmiths and other enterprises should focus more on local SEO than on the whole.
What are the best techniques?
In the header of your website, in addition to other parts, it is necessary to have some tags that help to identify your niche. For example, “Clinic X – Specialized in dental appliances”.
In these spaces, it is important to use a set of correct tags to value your local SEO. For example, use a tag that identifies your city. That is, instead of “Clinic X”; prefer “Clinic X + Vancouver”. In addition, if you operate in a specific neighborhood, choose to place the neighborhood as well. For example: “Downtown Vancouver Dentist” or “Dentist City of Burnaby”.
Also invest in content marketing focusing on long-tail keywords, such as “how to choose the best dentist in Vancouver?”. Another interesting idea is to partner up with local influencers, which can help show your work to more people – this can be done via sponsored posts, exchanging services for advertising or even link building.
Do not forget, of course, to also register your business in local Google tools, such as Google Maps and Google My Business – we have already talked about this in this article.