Used to be that when contemplating where to situate your practice, you’d look at the amount of space you needed, the cost, length of lease, drive by traffic, ground floor access, signage, build-out costs and the like. Today, there’s a new consideration: Google.
Because the Internet is a growing source of new patients, and Google is a major online source of new patient traffic, how the Google algorithm will treat your practice location is another factor to consider.
While the Google algorithm is getting smarter and smarter, there are situations in which it gets mixed messages. When that happens, ranking suffers and new patient visitors to your website is dampened.
The most common instance is when your practice address is near the city limits of Town A, but because of traffic patterns, geography or other factors, most of your patients come from Town B. When attempting to optimize for Town B, Google frowns because you’re actually located in Town A.
We call this “No Man’s Land.” It gives our SEO Department fits, but there are workarounds. It may be called the “world” wide web, but when it comes to local searches Google seems much more inclined to observe your city limit sign. If you’re contemplating relocating your practice, let us know and we can evaluate the location through the eyes of Google.