CASE STUDY – Making You Smile Cosmetic Dental Studio
SEO Keyword Strategies That Made This New York Dentist Office Smile
When working in a highly competitive market like New York City it requires even more ingenuity and creative thinking than in smaller markets. There are literally thousands of dentists located in the boroughs of New York City, so much so that you can be hard-pressed to rank even on your own street corner. When Making You Smile Cosmetic Dental Studio approached Sterling Sky they were looking for assistance in ranking and creative solutions that would allow them to stand out among the crowd. Simply going after the keyword ‘dentist near me’ wasn’t a viable option due to the competition levels so the team here at Sterling Sky came up with other keyword phrases to target that would boost their online visibility.
Successes and Strategies
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Creative Keyword Optimization
The first keyword strategy we went after was to optimize for the phrases ‘best cosmetic dentist in NYC’ and ‘cosmetic dentist in NYC.’ This particular dentist does a lot of cosmetic dentistry with procedures like dental implants, porcelain crowns, or dental contouring. We worked to add these keyword phrases into the content of their site on relevant pages, added internal linking using these phrases as anchor text, and especially optimized the title tag and meta description of relevant pages for these terms. The impact of making these small additions was significant, improving the amount that they show up for these terms in GBP insights vs. only showing up for branded terms. We were also able to get them ranking #1 in their area for ‘best dental implants near me’ which for New York is an impressive feat.
2. The Power of Before And After Optimization 
Our next step was to utilize the attraction people have to before and after imagery, especially in the dental care space. People who are looking for a dentist want to have an idea of what the results could look like when having a dental procedure performed. One of the services Making You Smile offers is tooth contouring which is a reshaping of the teeth to have a more cosmetically pleasing appearance. The before and after pictures of this procedure effectively show the difference tooth contouring can make on a person’s smile.
We optimized their tooth contouring page for before and after terms, including making it the H1 on the page, and we created before and after images and added them to the page to boost their visibility in Google image searches for before and after terms.
Not only did these small adjustments improve their visibility for ‘before and after tooth contouring’ online both in the SERP and in image search, rocketing them to the top, it improved their conversion rate on their tooth contouring page.
3. Gains in Super Competitive Markets
It can be much harder to gain ground in larger cities when it comes to ranking for generic terms like ‘dentist near me.’ Through our efforts of optimizing the homepage, updating the title tag and meta description, and working on internal linking throughout the site for ‘dentist NYC’ allowed us to get an edge on this term in Making You Smile’s direct geographic base. We were able to get them from ranking nowhere to ranking 1st from their address. And considering that there can be anywhere from 1500-10,000 people on average living in one city block in Manhattan that’s a pretty decent reach.
4. Out-of-the-Box Topic Optimization
When it comes to optimizing for dentists there are a number of topics that would be considered standard fare – dental implants, teeth whitening, fillings, etc. All of these are very competitive terms to try to rank for in the dental vertical. Sterling Sky’s approach was to go after terms that may not see as much optimization. Some of the keyword phrases we noticed that get quite a bit of search volume were related to dentists and the different types of medical insurance they accept. Using this information we created an Ultimate Guide to Dental Insurance on their site giving a breakdown of all of the insurance types they accept as well as the rough guidelines of each medical insurance plan. Creating this content helped to fill a need online for something that people were looking for and the results of taking these steps were significant. Taking their conversions from 20 to 33 for the same timeframe before and after we did the insurance optimization.
We also harvested the power of their GBP to help weed out unnecessary phone calls to the office about what types of insurance they accept by putting the answers readily available in the Q&A section of their listing, and upvoting that question to make sure it was the featured one on their listing. This helped to improve the quality of leads they were getting to their office by reducing the number of people who were just checking on insurance requirements.
5. Fluid Google Ads Strategies
Google Ads can be an effective tool to help increase leads and conversions for anyone’s business. In an overly competitive market, they can be the boost you need. But to work to the best of their ability they need to be flexible and have strategies altered as seen fit. One Ads strategy that saw fantastic results was shifting Making You Smile’s desktop ads budget to their mobile budget since these ads were performing stronger. This accompanied by an image extension swap saw great results. We found that using simple and enticing image extensions works favorably over the more traditional office images. Our ongoing review of device performance and prioritizing budget efforts accompanied by creative imaging strategies led to an incredible performance from these ads.
Teamwork Makes Dreamwork
With our different teams working together, from our GBP optimization team to our Google Ads team to our keyword strategists and onsite optimizers. We have been able to help Making You Smile see significant growth since signing on with Sterling Sky. They are pleased with the new patients and leads we have been able to provide for them.
