This is the third article in a short series, in which I hope to explain how Australians search for dentists and dental services, and what types of results are presented to them by the search engines. In this series of articles you will learn about:
- How Australians search for dentists and dental services online
- How Search Engines make search work
- Types of results that appear in searches for Dentists (this article)
- Why just having a website may not be enough
The Types Of Results Which Can Appear In Searches For Australian Dentists
The search results page can deliver different types of results:
- Organic (or Natural) results
- Paid Results
- Local Listings (called Google Places or Google Local Listings)
Here’s the search results for the query ‘dentist Melbourne’:
The ‘Organic’ or ‘Natural’ Results
These are the web pages that Google thinks are the most relevant to the search. It’s not just dental practice websites that could be considered to be the most relevant for certain dentals search terms. You’ll also sometimes see:
Online directories (Yellow Pages, Hot Frog, Dental Directories)
Authority Websites (ADA, Dental Hygienists Association, corporate sites like Colgate)
Videos and Images
There are usually ten organic results per page, and the most valuable position is naturally #1. This is because most people will click on the first result. People seldom look at the next page of results, or beyond. Thus ‘Page One’ and especially ‘Position One’ are the most desirable positions to find your website in.
Perhaps you’ve been approached by Online Marketing agencies who guarantee that they can get your website into a #1, Top Three or Page One position? The fact is, the only people who can claim to be able to provide this coveted position are the Google Search Engineers, or more accurately, their search algorithm. All that anyone can do to help your website rank more highly is to make sure it is well-designed, complies with Google’s guidelines, and provides visitors with great quality information that is original and, as you will learn later, fresh. This improves your chances for being recognised as the most relevant site for a particular search, but cannot guarantee it. You’ll learn more about this topic in the last section of this document.
Paid Results
Google makes its money via advertising, and one of the advertising platforms it provides is called Google Adwords. These paid ads will appear in the right column and also sometimes above the organic results. Advertisers pay whenever someone clicks on one of their ads- for this reason, it’s a type of advertising called “Pay-per-click”.
Adwords are short text-based ads with a limited number of characters per each of its four lines. They are displayed as a headline, two lines of text, and the address of the website to which it will take the person who clicks on it.
Adwords can be a great platform to use if your website is new because it allows your website to be visible on page one, even if it’s not ranking organically yet.
Because Adwords are clearly a form of advertising, they are most certainly required to be compliant with the Advertising Guidelines for Registered Health Professionals. If you do engage the assistance of a Paid Search expert, please make sure that they are not tempted to use the typical marketing language that they are used to using, as much of it is not acceptable.
Here are some real examples of Adwords for Australian Dental practices that I would be very nervous about!
Local Results
Some searches trigger the Local Results, which Google introduced a few years back when it noticed that more than 20% of searches ‘had local intent’, meaning they were performed by people looking for local businesses and services.
Often a search for ‘dentist Location’ will generate a map (currently this appears in the right side column, but this changes from time to time as Google tweaks its search algorithm). The map contains red ‘map pins’ which correspond to highlighted listings that are placed within the organic results. (The blue pins in this map are for Adwords)
At the time of writing, the maximum number of local results that will appear is seven, meaning there can be up to 17 results on the first page that are not Adwords ads.