Local SEO is slow, and it’s easy to measure in ways that flatter whoever is doing the work. A screenshot of your practice at the top of the map, taken from the front desk, proves very little. What matters is whether more of the right patients are finding you and booking.
Set up the tools the practice owns
- Google Search Console shows which searches your website appears for, how often people click, and which pages they land on. It is free and should be registered to a practice account.
- Website analytics show visits, which pages patients read, and how many use the contact or booking form.
- Business Profile performance shows calls, website clicks and direction requests from the profile. The GBP tracking chapter explains how to separate profile traffic from the rest.
Check rankings fairly
Because distance is part of the ranking, results change depending on where the searcher stands. Searching from your office will almost always show you near the top. To get a fairer picture, check from several points around the practice, such as the neighborhoods where your patients live, using a private browsing window or a rank-tracking tool that checks a grid of locations. Track a short list of searches that matter to the practice, such as the services you want more patients for, rather than hundreds of terms.
Count patients, not clicks
The number that matters is new patients booked. Two habits get you there:
- Ask every new patient how they found you, and record it in your practice management software with consistent options. “Google search,” “Google Maps,” “insurance directory” and “referred by a friend” are more useful than a free-text box.
- Track calls, since most dental patients phone rather than fill in forms. If you use call tracking, keep the numbers consistent across listings and check your state’s call-recording consent rules.
Neither is perfect, since patients misremember and many search for you by name after hearing about you. Together they show the trend.
Compare over the right periods
Dental search rises and falls with the seasons, holidays and insurance cycles. Compare month to month and against the same month last year, not week to week. Give website and citation work a few months before judging it, and expect link building to take longer.
Judge the work, not just the report
If you pay someone for local SEO, the report should show what they did, what changed in searches and calls, and how many new patients came from search. Rankings alone, especially for terms nobody searches, are not results. The marketing budget and ROI guide shows how to turn these numbers into a cost per new patient, and the front desk phone guide covers turning more of those calls into appointments.
Your checklist
The free local SEO checklist covers every chapter of this guide on one page. Work through it once, then revisit it every quarter.