Local Marketing in 2018
Search engine optimisation is in a constant state of flux. Every month we see Google experimenting with their algorithms, modifying the importance that some factors have and devaluing others. But, it’s not only the changes occurring in Google that are changing how marketers approach SEO, we also find ourselves having to adapt our SEO strategy as new technology is introduced.
So, what do we have to be potentially aware of in 2018?
Google Lens
Google Lens is an AI-powered technology that uses your smartphone camera and deep machine learning to not only detect an object but understand what it detects and offer actions based on what it sees (Pocket-Lint).
Currently, it is only available to Google Pixel owners but it is enabling these Pixel owners to do some pretty advanced things with their phones. Users can take a photo of your business card and Google Lens will save all the information as a contact on their phone. More importantly, however, is that the technology allows users to open their smartphone’s camera, point it at a shopfront and have instant access to a businesses’ information.
With Google Lens, your smartphone camera won’t just see what you see, but will also understand what you see to help you take action. #io17 pic.twitter.com/viOmWFjqk1
— Google (@Google) May 17, 2017
Why is this important? Well, if your Google My Business listing is a little light on reviews, or you have a poor overall Google review rating, you might want to try and obtain more positive reviews sooner rather than later as the technology will most likely be introduced to other smartphones in the future.
Voice Search
According to Google, 20 percent of mobile search queries are voice search. Whilst that may not sound like a lot, Google predicts that by 2020 50 percent of queries will be voice search.
So, what does this mean for SEO?
seoClarity discovered that the top “trigger words” used in voice search were: how, what and best (BrightLocal).
General pages of a dental website can be optimised for core keywords but for a complete SEO strategy we advise our clients to include a blog on their website.
Blogs provide the opportunity to be found for additional keywords and can allow you to optimise your site for these “how”, “what” and “best” based search terms.
NAP data consistency
NAP stands for name, address, and phone number.
It is imperative that your dental practice’s citations are consistent as Google use this information to help validate your Google My Business listing, which consequently improves the listing’s SEO.
Reviews
As mentioned earlier, obtaining reviews is more important than ever before. The trust that potential patients have in your dental practice will be massively influenced by the reviews that they see about your business – just have a look at one of our previous blogs for the statistics.
There are many ways to obtain reviews for your business, below are just a few suggestions:
- Add a review button on your website that takes the user to your Google reviews section of your business listing.
- Include a page on your website with multiple places for a user to leave a review i.e. Google, Yell, Yelp etc.
- Email patients to ask if they wouldn’t mind leaving a review for the practice or add a review button to your email signature.
- Use social media to ask for reviews.
Local Links
Google constantly assess your backlinks to determine your website’s authority.
Do you have any patients who are local bloggers? If so, you might want to ask if they wouldn’t mind writing a post about your practice and include a backlink to your website.
Local links will not only provide your website with valuable link juice but will also signal to Google the relevance your website and practice has in that location. However, it is important to acquire the right local links as not all local links will be beneficial to your SEO.
If you would like help with your online marketing, please contact Dental Design on 01202 677277 and one of the team will gladly help.
Inspiration from – Search Engine Journal
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