Updated on Dec 12, 2020 by Chris Scott
There is a big difference in your practice flow when you’re ranked 5th or 6th vs. being in 1st, 2nd for target phrases!
The phone rings more, your new patients per month start climbing and lots more. Momentum cranks up. Being top ranked is like surfing and you caught a good wave!
I have a few tips about this subject I would like to share here with you.
Today, the holy grail of SEO is position 0.
The “featured result” area where Google scrapes your site for info to display in an effort to quickly answer a question. 35%-60%, depending on whether the user is on desktop or mobile, of all Google searches now result in NO CLICK because of these featured results.
Satisfy Search Intent and Track Conversions for a Featured Result
Here is a quick video I made where I demonstrate a featured result, aka position 0, on Google for a dental practice that targets dental implant patients by being transparent with pricing on their dental website, results for an oral surgeon targeting full arch dental implants in two locations plus a periodontist result. I also show a result from the Cutting Edge website. I also quickly demonstrate the SEO power and speed of AMP pages:
Percentage of Google searches resulting in zero clicks
We strive to achieve featured results and answer box results (known as position 0) in addition to your top organic placement. We’re always digging for better and more. Once you get a few featured results for your preferred patient search queries we can also sprinkle some targeted Google Ads into the mix so that you can dominate nearly the entire first results page at Google!
There are a few different kinds of featured results to shoot for.
The first one I call the “local authority” result where someone asks a question or searches for a particular procedure and is given a featured result for what/who Google considers the local authority who can answer your query and also who is sharing data and user behavior (evidence) that they successfully satisfy Google’s searchers. Reviews and trust signals also have weight. Local featured results are highly dependent on your on-site SEO. Your content is king. You must satisfy search intent. Results will be different for every user depending on where they search from so your location is in the mix.
There are several kinds of featured results. Below is an “answer box” where Google scrapes your content that satisfies searcher intent and answers the user’s question by displaying it in position 0:
Notice a featured result answer box result like this pushes even position 2 out of view. Results like this can even be shown before ads and will sometimes push ads to the bottom of page one. Cool huh!
Notice the “People also ask” section where Google uses AI to try and help you in your quest for answers. The questions listed here are prime pickings for SEO content to place on your site and try to get featured results for.
Try it out. Ask Google some questions about your preferred procedures using an incognito or private browser window and see what shows. Note those queries you see. It would be wise to provide answers to those questions on your website. 🙂
The two results I show above strengthen my claim that dentists in particular need to be transparent and display pricing on their site in a format Google can ingest.
It’s estimated that half of all people looking for a dentist or dental procedure they would like to have are looking for pricing. If you do provide upfront pricing on your site you may just get a featured result when someone local is searching and this will often lead to a new butt in the seat.
You’re not going to scare people off by showing pricing, instead you’ll be satisfying searcher intent.
Google laps up great content like a thirsty dog.
When Google attempts to answer queries in the results with featured snippets or scraped answers, optimize to win those positions, and then provide a strong reason for searchers to click through to your site (by providing some, but not all of the information, or by offering a compelling hook to what else you provide).
Here is a helpful video from an SEO colleague, Rand Fishkin, where he provides techniques that will help your practice appear in Google’s Answer Boxes:
