210% increase in website clicks from local search and consistent top 3 rankings for core dental services

Midtown Dental Group is a full-service dental practice in the heart of New York’s Fashion District — surrounded by hundreds of competing dental clinics and corporate dental chains.
When they reached out, their main challenge was visibility: despite offering premium care and having great patient reviews, they weren’t showing up in the top local results for key search terms like “dentist near me” or “teeth cleaning NYC.”

Their goal was simple:
Get found by nearby patients, not just those searching their brand name.

Initial Audit Findings

I started with a complete local SEO audit — covering their website, Google Business Profile (GBP), and local entity signals.

Here’s what stood out immediately:

• Their GBP was listed under the primary category “Dental Clinic,” while top competitors used “Dentist.”
• The practice’s photos and posts were outdated — no activity for over 8 months.
• Website had no location-optimized content — it said “serving NYC” but never mentioned “Fashion District” or surrounding landmarks.
• Missing LocalBusiness schema and inconsistent NAP information across local directories.
• Their service pages (e.g., “Teeth Cleaning”) had good content but no city-based modifiers, making them invisible for “service + location” queries.
• No internal linking between the service pages and the homepage, reducing crawl depth.

So, while the practice had strong reputation signals, Google couldn’t clearly understand who they served, where they were, and which services to rank them for.

Competitor & Keyword Research

To win in a market like Manhattan, it’s not enough to optimize for “dentist near me.”
You have to understand the micro-intent behind local dental searches — people searching by service, insurance type, or even by building/area.

I began with an analysis of local competitors using tools like Local Falcon, GMB Everywhere, and manual grid-based search checks.
Top ranking clinics such as iSmile Dental and Gallery57Dental consistently appeared for location-based and service-level keywords like:

• “teeth cleaning near Bryant Park”
• “emergency dentist Midtown NYC”
• “cosmetic dentist Fashion District”

Using these insights, I segmented the keyword strategy into three intent clusters:

Intent Type	Example Queries	Purpose	Optimization Focus
Core Local	dentist near me, dentist Midtown NYC	Local discovery	GBP + homepage
Service + Location	teeth cleaning NYC, Invisalign Fashion District	Conversion	Dedicated service pages
Brand + Trust	Midtown Dental Group reviews, dental insurance accepted	Validation	GBP posts + FAQ schema

This gave us a structured map to rebuild both on-page and local signals around how people were searching — not just what they were searching for.

Rebuilding the Local SEO Foundation

1. Google Business Profile Optimization

The GBP was the first major win.
I changed the primary category to “Dentist” and kept “Cosmetic Dentist” and “Emergency Dental Service” as secondary categories.
Then we:

• Updated services with complete lists and descriptions.
• Uploaded new, geotagged interior and exterior photos.
• Added weekly posts featuring before/after cases and educational content (“3 Ways to Keep Your Smile Healthy Between Visits”).
• Enabled UTM tracking on the website link to measure engagement in Google Search Console.
• Collected new patient reviews that included keywords like “Midtown,” “Fashion District,” and specific treatments.

Within weeks, review mentions started aligning with local intent — helping Google strengthen entity association with the location.

2. Location-Optimized Content Strategy

The website was redesigned around clear service-based intent.

Before:

• Generic service pages (“Our Services”) with no geographic cues.

After:

• Each major service got its own page:
  • /teeth-cleaning-midtown-nyc/
  • /invisalign-fashion-district/
  • /emergency-dentist-midtown/

Each page included:

• Patient-friendly copy (written for humans first).
• Clear geographic anchors (“Located just off 37th Street, near Penn Station”).
• FAQs targeting conversational searches like “How much does Invisalign cost in NYC?”
• Internal links back to the homepage and contact page to boost relevance.

3. Local Schema & Internal Linking

I implemented structured data (Dentist schema) including:

• @type: LocalBusiness
• areaServed: Fashion District, Midtown Manhattan
• sameAs: Linked to social and business directory profiles
• geo: Precise latitude and longitude of the practice

Additionally, internal links were rebuilt:
Each service page linked to the homepage and contact page, while the homepage linked to both services and the GBP listing via a “Find Us on Google” button.

This clarified relationships between the site entities and improved crawlability.

4. Local Authority & Reviews

We created a light local PR push through small NYC dental blogs and “local healthcare directory” mentions.
Added citations on:

• Healthgrades
• Zocdoc
• Yelp (updated NAP + category)
• Google Maps (custom Q&A content)

We also started a simple review campaign — front desk printed small QR cards that took patients to a pre-filled review link.
Within two months, reviews increased by 65%, with multiple mentions of “Midtown” and “Fashion District.”

Tracking & Results

Within 6 months of restructuring:

Metric	Before	After	Change
Website Clicks (GBP)	140/month	435/month	+210%
Calls (GBP)	85/month	196/month	+130%
Direction Requests	57/month	141/month	+147%
Visibility in 1km radius (Local Falcon)	28%	72%	+157%
Top 3 Map Pack Appearances	3	12+	—

The clinic now appears in the top 3 for major search terms like:

• “dentist near me”
• “dentist Midtown NYC”
• “teeth cleaning NYC”
• “Invisalign Fashion District”

Key Lessons

1. Category precision beats keyword stuffing.
Changing “Dental Clinic” → “Dentist” was one of the biggest ranking triggers.

2. Proximity + language consistency builds trust.
Using “Fashion District” and “Midtown” interchangeably across web and GBP helped solidify entity recognition.

3. Google rewards clarity, not complexity.
Every change that simplified understanding (schema, URLs, internal links) improved performance.

Key Takeaway

Local SEO isn’t about chasing algorithms — it’s about removing confusion.
Once Google clearly understood who they were, what they did, and where they served, Midtown Dental Group began showing up where it truly mattered — in front of patients nearby.