Ranking high on Google Maps is a highly effective method of online marketing for dental specialists to reach potential local patients. When searching for a local business, consider your habits. How often do you find the business listed on Google Maps? Do you look for local businesses on your phone through the Google Maps app? A cutting-edge marketing company will be focused on helping you optimize your dental practice digital marketing channel for Google Maps.
If you’re a dental specialist hoping to appeal to new patients for high-value services such as cosmetic dental surgeries, dental implants, smile makeovers, and sleep devices, it’s important you know what your present ranking is on Google Maps for these types of search phrases.
Why Google Maps Marketing Is an Essential Component of Your Overall Marketing Strategy
More important today than ever before is ensuring your dental practice has Google Maps local visibility. You can hurt your practice’s ability to be found by local patients by not being found on Google Maps or Google Search.
With Google Maps marketing, you’re optimizing your Google My Business profile to make it easier for people to find your store locally. Think of Google Maps as a digital sign for potential local patients. Even local patients begin their dental practice search online more often than not. If you aren’t easily found online, you risk losing potential in-person patients because of the lack of local search engine visibility.
To gain local visibility from new and old patients, it’s important that you focus on Google Maps as a part of your local search engine optimization strategy. Ranking high for Google Maps locally, where individuals are searching for directions nearby, can increase your local traffic significantly.
Reasons to Optimize Your Dental Business for Google Maps
Optimizing for Google Maps is probably one of the best online marketing campaigns that dental specialists can work on. There are some major dynamics that come into play with Google Maps optimization, such as reviews and ratings that determine how many potential patients you’ll get. Optimizing for Google Maps also determines whether you’re one search result that appears with many others or if you’re a top search.
Some reasons why you should be using Google Maps as one of your digital marketing channels include:
1. Show Up Where Potential Patients Are Searching
Patients frequently look for dental specialists on their mobile phones. When they use their phone to search, the location is on all the time, and the results automatically bring local top results. If your practice is part of this locality, it’s important to make sure you appear when they’re searching.
2. Proximity
A big plus for your business is your clinic being near market areas or landmarks. This means that individuals will be able to find your dental practice easier. For example, setting up a dental center inside a mall allows individuals to easily find your practice. Downtown areas are almost always good, as there are generally many different types of businesses there and it will make it easier to catch the attention of onlookers passing by.
3. Convenience
A good way to have patients coming back is by making your dental practice accessible and convenient. When deciding where to set your practice up, you need to think about how your patients will be getting to you. Will they be able to walk to your practice from downtown areas? Is the street convenient for both large and small cars? Do buses, taxis, and other forms of public transportation pass by the area? It’s all about convenience, and when considering where you’re going to set up practice, your patients’ needs must be a top priority.
Optimizing Your Google Business Profile
The most essential component of your dental local SEO strategy is your Google Business profile. If you don’t have one, your dental practice will not qualify to appear in the map pack results. The first thing you’ll want to do is claim your Google Business profile. To begin this process, you just go to Google Maps and search for your dental practice name. If you see your dental practice address, you then select it and click on “Claim this business.”
After you claim your dental business, you’ll want to make sure that you’ve set your business categories correctly. If you fail to set up these categories, then your practice won’t show up in local results when people type in keywords related to these categories. It’s important that you choose the categories as wisely and thoroughly as possible.
While you will choose categories that are totally relevant and custom to your business, some popular categories that you may consider selecting from include:
- Dentist
- Pediatric dentist
- Cosmetic dentist
- Orthodontist
- Dental clinic
- Dental hygienist
- Dental implants provider
- Emergency dental service
Claiming and optimizing your Google Business profile is your first step to building a solid local SEO foundation. There are other steps to taking this process even further, such as working on collecting patient reviews, generating citations, building local backlinks to your dental practice website, and more. An experienced marketing team can help ensure you take all the right steps necessary to leverage Google Maps and implement other important digital marketing processes.
Boost Your Local SEO Foundation With Google Maps
There are numerous benefits of implementing Google Maps marketing to increase brand awareness and attract new patients. It’s an indispensable tool to add to your digital marketing arsenal. Being strategically placed on Google Maps can often translate to more patients and more revenue.
These days, being online is almost a necessity, and you’ll want to ensure your local services are being added to your online marketing strategy too. If you’re not taking advantage of the power of Google Maps, you’re only hurting your future bottom line. Market My Market can help you build a highly effective digital marketing strategy. Call us at (866) 270-2250 or fill out our online form to learn more about our marketing team and services.