Medical SEO - You Don’t Need a Degree to Rank

If you're a dentist, a chiropractor, or in any other medical field, you know what it's like to be offered SEO services. Today, in my blog I'm going to show you some tricks and ways to check the work that these people are doing for you and make sure you're truly Findable online.

If you're in a medical profession, you're a doctor, you're a plastic surgeon, you're a dentist, you know, I'm sure you get bombarded by people trying to sell you SEO services. You have to be careful because clearly, you're not an SEO expert. You don't know anything about SEO and it's really easy to spend too much money and then all of a sudden you pay all this money every month.?

They keep saying they're doing all this work for you and you hear crickets in the background. There are no phone calls, there's no additional traffic. You're not getting more leads off your website. So you have to really be careful.?

I mean as a medical practitioner you need to make sure that you are picking experts in your life carefully. So, a couple of things to think about when you're hiring someone who does SEO or online marketing.?

First of all, go old-school. Check their references and get some references. Call them and say what's the worst thing about them, what was the best thing about them, did you see results, did you get any kind of reports or anything that showed you what it was like to work with them??

Also, think about other ways to be findable under a specific search. As a medical professional, I'm going to walk you through how to really take a look at what is the best way to be the most findable medical provider in your space.?

Let's go and look at my Google search results. I've typed a dentist near me. Now a couple of things to remember first of all is your Google Local listing. This is google.com/business. Very important that you get this trick out. And let me show you why.?

Take a look at my screen here. The first thing you'll see here is Park City dentistry. Park City dental and mountain dentistry. So we want to think about how we are calling our business and what we do??

A better way to think about it is if your name is Park City Dentistry, you might want to also have something in the description about dentist or dental office or cavities, fillings, emergency dentist.?

Things that nature is very important because that's what people are searching for but this is all about where my physical location is right now. And then Google Local goes out and says, "Okay, you're at this one position." It's going to look in a radius around that and see what matches your search.?

It's important for you to think about how I can purchase a domain that has what I do in the domain? So, one of our clients was Coloradoplasticsurgery.com, a brilliant domain because it had exactly the way people searched. Coloradoplasticsurgery.com. Not the doctor's name, not something he made up.?

But actually, the search that people were doing. So, what that does is it gives you an instant relevance for that keyword and he ranks number 1 under that phrase. So, let's take a look at what else we can do to leverage on a search result page. Google business that's what you're seeing up here with the map.?

Now, another very important search engine is Yelp . Some people have a love/hate relationship with Yelp. I get it. But it is still part of the marketing mix online. Yelp in itself is a very powerful tool. So, remember Yelp is also a search engine. So, we need to think about how can

I will be findable inside of Yelp.?

I'm going to go ahead and put dentist. Now, it knows where I'm currently located. I can change this to any destination, so I'm going to change this to Denver. Okay, now let's take a look. Now, we have sponsored results. Those are the people that are paying for ads on Yelp. So, let's come down to the non-sponsored ads.?

Now, one thing that dentists do really well and you know doctors are getting your photo up there. People tend to click on images of faces so much more than just images of a logo. So, really try to lead with your personality. People work with and hire people they know, like and trust.?

So, it's very important that we remember, I'm going to like your face. Do you look friendly? Are you someone I want to work with? So make sure you'll see that they got some really nice pictures of the actual dentists here.?

Now, all results, this is where you can optimize your Yelp listing. This is so important especially in the medical industry because you guys have so much competition.?

When you're thinking about becoming the most findable medical practitioner, speak to the people who are searching for you. Don't talk all doctor-like. Like a lot of med spas. They love to call themselves Med Spa. But no one searches that way.?

They search for Botox or they search for fillers or they search for the thing that they need, not the way in which you're marketing your business. This is a really important distinction between creativity and findability. Creativity is about being unique, about being different. It's about unique selling propositions and unique taglines.?

You might want to write this down: Uniqueness is the enemy of findability because the more unique you are, the less findable you are.?

I'm going to go put dentist in Denver. Speak very specifically about what you do and you will be the most findable medical practitioner in your space. So the first thing we looked at was Google business local listing then we looked at Yelp.

Let's keep seeing what else we can leverage in here. So, I'm going to go back to search results again for the Denver dentists. Let's see what else we see here. Now in dentistry. Parks... Oh, that's a good one --Park City Dental.?

Because I'm in Park City right now that's why it's trying to match me. I typed in a dentist. It knows I'm in the city. So therefore it's trying to match me with the most relevant searches that have Park City dental or dentist in that description.

He bought a domain or she bought a domain. ParkCityDental.org. Now ".org" is not a profession, not preferable. I like ".com" better. But they have the keywords right in their domain. It's so simple and effective.?

Another client of mine is DFWdentist.com. That's Dallas, Fort Worth, dentist. People in that area use "DFW". So, we bought DFWdentists.com. She kills it. She ranks for all the DFW dentistry keywords.

Now, what you'll see here are all the different ways that people search. So, these are the questions that they have and then these are the things they add on at the bottom here like the dental spa, mountain high dental, PC dental, Park City.

So, the difference between PC and Park City. So, remember that yes it is localized based on your IP address where you're sitting here right now. But remember that I'm just going to look for what's happening with me. With my medical needs not necessarily how you want me to find you.?

Either you can be the most findable website based on how people are searching or you can have a totally unfindable domain with an unfiled glide with an unfindable description on your home page.?

Do you see how hard you're working to not connect with the right audience? Use their language. Be simple about how you describe what you do and make sure that everything in your online marketing mix points toward that outcome. Like DFW dentist. Coloradoplasticsurgery.com. Don't overthink it.

If you are interested in learning more about how we can help you use the link below to book your FREE hour call with me?Book Heather Lutze: Empowering Businesses To Dominate Online!