Ep. 12: SEO - Things to Know Before Hiring a Dental Marketing Company
Search engine optimization may not be the most exciting topic to discuss, but it’s crucially important for any dental practice looking to add more new patients. So we bring on special guest and expert marketer, Dan Brown, to discuss things you can do yourself to improve SEO immediately, as well as what to look out for when hiring an external SEO company.
Topics:
1:18 – The problem with paid ads nowadays and why SEO is more important than ever
5:13 – Using online reviews to your advantage
11:45 – Managing all the places your practice is listed around the web
15:41 – Your most important listing: Google My Business
18:14 – Should you pay for Yelp?
20:23 – Should you hire an SEO company? How do pick one? How do you evaluate their performance? How long do you wait for results?
29:15 – Why SEO has gotten more complex over time, so what worked 5 years ago may not work anymore
Links:
The MGE New Patient Workshop - https://www.newpatients.net/
Email Dan at DanB@mgeonline.com
Learn more about MGE - https://www.mgeonline.com/
Listen to full episode :
Have a question for Jeff?
Fill out the form and he will get back to you.
Questions From This Episode
If you're running Google ads, how many people are actually clicking that ad versus scrolling past it to an organic listing?
Only about 1 in 11 searchers click the paid ad, a number that's fallen steadily, from roughly 8 in 10 a decade ago to 5 or 6 in 10 five years ago. The other 10 out of 11 are looking at the organic listings underneath, which makes ranking well organically far more important than most practices realize.
Why does review frequency matter more to Google than a practice's total review count or star rating?
Of the roughly 220 factors that go into Google's organic ranking, reviews play a real role through three separate signals, total review count, average rating, and how consistently new reviews keep coming in, and that last one carries more weight than the other two. A practice that collected 300 reviews in a few months and then stopped adding any for a year sends Google a signal that something's wrong, even though the historical review count hasn't changed.
How many reviews should a practice actually be aiming for, and how does the average practice compare?
The average practice Dan sees has around 50 reviews, and the real floor for a practice trying to attract fee for service patients is closer to 150. Even 150 isn't necessarily enough in a densely populated, competitive market where neighboring practices may already have 500, since consumers instinctively trust the business with the larger, broader base of reviews, even if its rating is a touch lower.
What are online listings or citations, and what's the single most important detail to get right across every one of them?
Listings, or citations, are the various online directories, Yelp, Facebook, WebMD, and dozens of lesser known sites, that automatically generate a page for a business the moment it's registered anywhere, whether the owner claims it or not. The single most important detail is NAP, name, address, and phone number, which needs to be worded and formatted identically across every listing, since even a small inconsistency, Ave versus Avenue, Suite versus Ste, signals to Google that something doesn't quite match.
Realistically, how long does it take to see real results from SEO, and why does that timeline cause so many practices to give up on it?
In a genuinely competitive market, expect eight months to a year of real, consistent effort before seeing meaningful ranking movement, compared to a Google ad or a postcard, where you know almost immediately whether it worked. That lack of instant feedback is exactly why SEO tends to get neglected, and why low quality marketing companies can survive on client churn instead of long term results, since the average client leaves around month nine, right when real results would normally start showing up.
Episode Transcript
-
Jeff: Do you advertise using Google? Chances are you do, a lot of practices do. If someone were to search dentist near me in your area, where would you actually rank? First page, second page? Would your ad even show up? I'm going to give you a couple of statistics worth thinking about here. I'm not saying you shouldn't advertise, but if you're advertising on Google and someone searches dentist near me, only 1 out of 11 people are actually going to click that ad. So what are the other 10 doing? They're looking at the doctors appearing below the ad. That's what we call organic or natural SEO, search engine optimization, one of those terms we've all heard and know very little about, but it's something of real importance to your practice.
Jeff: So on this week's episode, we're going to talk about how to improve your SEO with simple things you can start doing right now. My name is Jeff Blumberg, and I'm your host, joined this week by Dan Brown. Dan's a marketing expert and a senior seminar speaker here at MGE, he delivers the majority of our New Patient Workshop and speaks at our Executive Seminars and our Communication and Sales Seminars. He's also a partner at Blumberg Digital, a digital marketing agency. Dan, all set over there?
Dan: All good.
Jeff: So we're talking SEO, and I promised this wouldn't turn into a boring, jargon-heavy episode. Let's establish first, how big a problem is this really?
Dan: It's a big one. If you look at the trend, about ten years ago, eight out of ten people would click an ad. Five years ago, five or six out of ten. Today, it's one out of eleven. As a consumer myself, and a marketer, I'll tell you it has nothing to do with being a good or bad person whether you click ads or not, it's simply consumer behavior. I'd ask any listener honestly, are you an ad clicker or an ad ignorer? Some people say they'll click occasionally, but by and large, most people just aren't looking there at all, they're looking for an organic listing.
Jeff: So if you're sitting on page three, page five of Google, even page two, you're essentially invisible.
Dan: Right, page two of Google is basically a graveyard, nobody goes there. So it genuinely matters what you do to bring your listing forward. It's real work, and at some point you should expect to bring in a professional, and I'd absolutely recommend inspecting what your current SEO provider actually is or isn't doing.
Jeff: Let's talk about what people can be doing themselves right now, before it even gets to the point of hiring somebody.
Dan: Google will never tell marketers exactly how they weight the different ranking factors, but they do publish a best practices document, updated routinely, sometimes over a thousand times a year in small ways, with major updates once or twice annually. Those best practices tell us there are roughly 220 elements that go into organic ranking. We don't get the exact weighting, so marketing companies run tests constantly to figure out what actually moves the needle. Some factors matter more than others, but let's focus on what you can act on right now.
Dan: First: three of those 220 factors involve reviews specifically. Total number of reviews, your average rating, 4.2, 4.7, 4.9, and how frequently you're actually adding new reviews. That last one is weighted more heavily than the other two.
Jeff: You're kidding, frequency matters more than overall rating?
Dan: It does. Now, if your rating is genuinely low, say under 4.7 stars, that will drive consumers away regardless of ranking. So you've really got two separate things happening: how Google ranks you, and how a consumer reacts once they see you. You could rank position one and still lose the click if your stars are weak or your review count is thin.
Jeff: So say I collected 300 reviews over four or five months, and then didn't add another one for a whole year.
Dan: That tells Google you're not seeing as many patients as you used to, it's a warning sign. When Google sees reviews coming in consistently, it reads that as, this business is alive. Google obviously doesn't have someone physically checking whether your practice is open, so it relies on signals like this, along with things like how often people are actually navigating to your location through Maps. But reviews specifically tell Google you're alive, and your rating tells them whether you're alive and doing well.
Jeff: So what's the average practice actually sitting at, since you work with a lot of newer clients coming through the New Patient Workshop?
Dan: About 50 reviews on average.
Jeff: Is that enough?
Dan: Not even close. If you're trying to attract a more fee for service patient, someone who genuinely cares about their long term health rather than just what insurance covers, you're appealing to someone who wants to see real proof you've helped a lot of people like them. I'd say 150 reviews minimum.
Jeff: And the average is 50.
Dan: Right, and that's before you even factor in competitive, densely populated markets, Miami, New York. Search dentist near me there and look at what your neighbors have. If you've got 150 and the practice next to you has 500, you're still at a real disadvantage. Think about how we shop on Amazon, you're comparing two ironing boards, one has 375 reviews, one has 50. Even if the one with 375 reviews has a slightly lower rating, say 4.7 versus 4.9, more people will trust it anyway, purely because of that broader cross section of feedback, even if it costs a little more.
Jeff: So that raises two questions: how do I actually get more reviews, and where should I be having patients leave them?
Dan: Both great questions, and genuinely worth a whole separate episode. But to stay on today's basics, understand there are really two audiences here, how Google looks at your practice, and how the actual consumer looks at your practice. For SEO specifically, Google wants to see you ranked well on your key search terms, ideally page one, position one. But even sitting at position one, if a consumer sees weak stars or a thin review count, they'll skip right past you toward a competitor with stronger social proof.
Jeff: We'll definitely do a follow-up episode specifically on generating more reviews. So, step one: get a lot of reviews, keep your rating above 4.7, and keep adding them consistently.
Dan: Right, and don't stop. I've seen offices hit 500 reviews, throw a big staff celebration, bonuses, the whole thing, and then the momentum just stops. That tells Google something's changed, and not for the better. Consistency is the critical piece here, and this all happens on your Google Business Profile specifically, so you need to actually claim it if you haven't. Enable all your notifications, download the app. There's genuinely a whole separate conversation on optimizing that page specifically for the consumer, not just for Google, but that's for another episode.
Jeff: Good, what else can people be doing right away?
Dan: Listings, sometimes called citations. Think of them as online phone books, Yelp is one, Facebook is one, WebMD is one. Search your practice name along with your city and state, not your website, just the name, and you'll get a long list of results. Each of those separate results is essentially its own directory Google treats as a place someone could find information about your practice.
Jeff: So even ones I've genuinely never heard of or visited.
Dan: Exactly, the moment your business gets registered anywhere, these directories automatically populate a page for you, whether you like it or not. It's a phone book you didn't ask for, but it exists, so you need to go in and make sure everything on it is accurate. The most important detail across every single one is what we call NAP, name, address, and phone.
Jeff: Not a nap like sleeping, you had me confused there for a second.
Dan: Name, address, phone. And this isn't just about correctness, it's about consistency. Say your address is 123 Smith Avenue, Suite 103. On Google it might read 123 Smith Ave, Suite 103. On another listing it spells out Avenue in full. Another one just says Unit or uses a number sign instead of Suite. These small variances genuinely confuse Google's algorithm, it flags them as potential inconsistencies. Your name needs to match exactly too, if you're Dr. Joe Blow Jr. with a period, it needs to read that way everywhere, not Jr. without the period, or the second, in some other listing.
Jeff: That's remarkable that something so small actually matters that much.
Dan: It genuinely does, and a competent SEO provider should already be handling this. If you're paying somebody $500 to $800 a month and this hasn't been fixed by month one, or month two at the absolute latest, that's the bare minimum they should have already done. If it's not done, you've got the wrong provider.
Jeff: What else can people do right now?
Dan: Check your practice offerings inside your Google Business Profile itself. You can list the cities you actually service and the specific services you offer. Make sure your listing category is accurate too, if you're a specialist, you should be listed as that specialist. I've seen general dentists listed as specialists, cosmetic-focused practices listed as a generic dental clinic. In the US specifically, you don't want to be categorized as a clinic, that reads as public health rather than private practice, whereas in Canada, clinic is actually the correct category.
Jeff: So even service areas that don't show up publicly still matter.
Dan: Right, you're still being indexed for those areas even if they're not displayed prominently to the public. If you're pulling patients from a town four towns over, list it. None of this should rank higher than a one or two on a difficulty scale, there's genuinely no excuse not to be doing these things.
Jeff: And I want to be clear for listeners, this is the DIY starting point, not the full expert playbook.
Dan: Exactly, we're talking about the basics here. But you'd be surprised, search for some practices and all you'll find is their website and a pile of unclaimed listings. That's fixable in five minutes from your own office. Some of these individual listings carry very little weight in Google's algorithm on their own, which is exactly why a good SEO provider will focus effort elsewhere instead of wasting time chasing every single one, but you as the doctor can still go populate them yourself, upload a couple of practice photos, it costs nothing but time.
Jeff: Any listings worth actually paying for?
Dan: Most of these directories will try to upsell you into an annual membership or advertising package, I generally wouldn't bother. Yelp is worth considering specifically if you're in a market where Yelp carries real weight for dental, mostly major metro areas. Yelp automatically generates a page for you too, whether you claim it or not, so claim it regardless. As for advertising on Yelp specifically, that's its own conversation, and I'll say honestly, I'm not a fan of Yelp's business practices or their review algorithm, and most of my clients feel the same way.
Jeff: We'll leave that part exactly as said.
Dan: Fair enough. But it is part of the landscape, and in certain markets you may want to advertise there specifically to keep competitor ads from showing up on your own page, since that happens if you're not a paying advertiser. I'm happy to review anyone's specific situation directly and tell them honestly whether Yelp advertising makes sense for them or not.
Jeff: Stepping back to the bigger picture, it seems like Google genuinely is trying to serve the consumer first.
Dan: That's exactly right, and that shift has really taken hold over the last seven or eight years. What used to be simple DIY SEO work now increasingly requires real expertise to actually break through.
Jeff: So would you say SEO now genuinely requires bringing in professional help to get onto that first page?
Dan: Yes. I hear from dentists constantly who are paying somebody $500 to $800 a month for SEO, and I can tell you plainly, if that's your entire budget, whatever that person is doing is very likely insufficient, especially in a competitive market. You need real spend and the right provider. A lot of marketing companies dance around this, and some are still running tactics that worked five or seven years ago but actively get you penalized by Google today, keyword stuffing is a great example, cramming Invisalign and implants repeatedly throughout a page. That trick worked once, Google caught on, closed the loophole, and now penalizes exactly that behavior. SEO has evolved constantly, and your provider needs to have evolved right along with it, or you're the one who ends up quietly buried on page twelve while they collect their fee.
Jeff: What strikes me most is how much this actually matters even outside pure search behavior. Say I get a postcard in the mail, I'm probably not going straight to the website, I'm typing the practice name into Google instead, and whatever comes up, reviews and all, is what I'm actually judging the practice on. Even seeing a billboard, I'm likely checking the practice online afterward. It plays an enormous role in the overall marketing picture, and I think it's gotten overlooked for two real reasons. First, people simply don't understand it, and second, it isn't instant gratification the way a Google ad or a postcard is, you know almost immediately whether those worked.
Dan: That's exactly it. Take our own experience with SEO, say your practice currently shows up on page six for dentist near me. If you commit fully to professional-level work, not just the DIY basics, expect eight months to a year in a competitive market before you see real movement. That's exactly why SEO tends to get deprioritized, it's a mountain to climb, and once you're at the top, you have to stay there too, it isn't a one-time achievement.
Jeff: So the longer someone waits to invest in it, the further ahead their competitors get.
Dan: Exactly, it's like giving other runners in a marathon a ten mile head start, unless you're exceptionally fast, you're not catching up. And the second reason SEO gets neglected is that it's genuinely complex, full of analytics most people never dealt with before. It's not nearly as complex as dentistry itself, you could absolutely learn it given enough dedicated time, but here's the frustrating part: marketing, unlike dentistry, has no real qualification requirement. A dentist has to go through school, residency, board exams, and ongoing continuing education. A marketer can just say they're a marketer, put up a website, sound confident, and that's often enough to seem credible to someone who genuinely doesn't know the subject.
Jeff: That's exactly why low quality providers can survive.
Dan: Right, they survive on churn. A typical lower-tier marketing company expects to retain a client somewhere between three and nine months, and they'd consider nine months a genuine win. But from an actual SEO standpoint, month nine is usually right when real results should be starting to show. So the client leaves right before they'd have actually seen the payoff, and the company simply moves on to the next one.
Jeff: That's a rough cycle. I'd genuinely like to see more regulation or certification in this industry eventually, something that separates people who actually know what they're doing from people who just sound like they do.
Dan: Completely agree. One more thing worth mentioning, when we first started running Facebook ads at MGE, it was just me and our marketing director, Adam Mortimer, advertising some of our in-person seminars we used to run around the country. This was back in 2013, and it was genuinely easy then. We had one client running a modest budget, somewhere around $1,500 a month, bringing in 24 to 40 new patients monthly advertising cosmetic dentistry with some fun, simple ad creative, largely because Facebook let you target demographics so precisely at the time.
Dan: But Facebook advertising got considerably more complex over the years, shaking out a lot of people who'd been doing it casually. Adam stuck with it and stayed sharp on it, if you sat me in front of that ad platform today, I'd be lost. I'd bet something very similar has happened with SEO.
Jeff: That tracks exactly with what you're describing.
Dan: It really does. Clients tell me constantly that SEO used to mean paying somebody a few hundred dollars and ranking number one within a couple weeks. Google has systematically closed those loopholes, because ultimately Google isn't there for businesses, it's there for the person doing the searching, making their experience as useful as possible. Businesses get to participate in that ecosystem, through organic ranking or paid ads, but the priority is the browser, not us. A lot of the tactics that used to spike a site to the top within days, only to crash back down once someone else copied the trick, have largely been closed off. It's a tougher, more genuinely competitive environment today.
Jeff: That covers it well, I think. So for anyone listening, if you've already handled the basics, solid review count and rating, claimed Google Business Profile, populated your listings, you're likely ready for a more advanced strategy. And I'd add, if you ever get a cold call promising to get you ranked number one within a month, or claiming your current provider is terrible without any real specifics, be skeptical.
Dan: Right, and if you're ever unsure where you genuinely stand, we offer a real SEO analysis, using a paid, fairly sophisticated tool that examines the back end of your website roughly the way Google itself does, showing which keywords you're actually ranking for in your area and which you're missing entirely. Happy to run that for anyone and just give an honest picture, here's where you stand, here's where you don't.
Jeff: I think this was genuinely valuable, that one out of eleven statistic alone is something worth sitting with, it's simply something you have to address for long term success. So for anyone listening, start with what Dan's laid out, claim your listings, do the DIY basics regardless of whatever else you're doing marketing-wise. You can knock this out in twenty or thirty minutes a day until you're caught up, and it's a genuinely good way to get more familiar with your own online presence.
Jeff: If you'd like to hear Dan go even deeper on this subject, you can attend the MGE New Patient Workshop, I'll put a link on the episode webpage, or visit newpatients.net to learn more. And if you have specific questions about your own SEO, you can email Dan directly at danb@mgeonline.com, and he'll give you his honest read on what's happening in your area.
Dan: Happy to help.
Jeff: I think we covered the essentials without getting too deep into jargon, aside from teaching me what NAP means.
Dan: That one caught you off guard for a second.
Jeff: It did, but I think we got through it. Dan, thanks so much for joining us this week.
Dan: My pleasure.
Jeff: Folks, have a great week, and we'll see you at the next episode.