The race to make a better mousetrap has nothing on the quest to make a better local search engine. Find me a dentist is an article by Rob Campbell that appears on Dr. Natalie Archer's Family Dental Care website and explores the notion that the quest to find a local dentist is a 'bleeding edge' in the technology necessary to fashion an effective local search service.
Facebook and Google+ and other social networking websites are changing the landscape and now enjoying a growing percentage of the
local search market as people trust their friends. The sites have gotten really good at polling friends too and letting influencers convince followers to give their professionals a first try.
The fastest growing dental location services are building their own databases by scraping information from some unusual sources. The benchmark is Google, which has set the bar quite high in terms of delivering useful information for local search queries.
Local search directories like Yelp, Gigpark, and Localfaves.com also index dentists with reasonably good results. Yelp is particularly good because it lets members rate the services and more real people use Yelp than SEO practitioners useGoogle plus.
The five dentist discovery services outlined in this article use different data acquisition schemes to give users accurate local choices. Each of the web services mentioned here has to believe, deep down in their databases, that they can provide better search results than Google for users seeking local dentists.
YourOralHealth.ca is the consumer facing portal maintained by the Ontario Dental Association and filled with information to help folks keep their teeth healthy. The writers here have composed interesting articles on nutrition, cosmetic dentistry, fluoride and water fluoridation, and even how to choose the right toothbrush. The website's first order of business, the first button in the navigation menu is Find a Dentist; the service is set up to help users find local practitioners using the ODA's comprehensive database of Ontario dentists.
Smile
Canada pledges to serve up better results than Google by offering users a more customizable
experience so they can best use the tool to find the perfect dental practitioner who most perfectly meets their
needs. Their site is particularly geared to provide users with an
in-depth understanding of many different treatments and procedures that
are available in Canada. They have a separate section dedicated to
kids’ dentistry where kids can play games and learn healthy dental
habits.
Dentistfind.com
is a website that puts the local search right map up front is makes it impossible for the user to ignore - its made for mobile phones. Users are encouraged to drag that little pink man around the map
and watch all of the nearby dentists appear. The blue pins that pop up
correspond to the business card blurbs that appear in the left hand
sidebar; each info card details a nearby dentist.
Dental Referral is free. There’s no charge, no obligation and no hassles associated with finding a dentist through this user generated media service. Dental
Referral is all about collecting and dispensing personal references and as such it has set out to be the number one trusted online directory specifically for consumers to find dentists in their
area. The website boasts that they provide more information than simply giving the name
and phone number of a local dentist.” By accessing the online database users will receive comprehensive
background information on registered dentists including years in
practice, education, their current licenses, and whatever specialties they practice at their dental offices.
The original article on Dr. Archer's website also outline the part that Canpages is playing and how they have differentiated themselves to try and bring some exclusivity to the local search services. The problem is that Google is just so good and for the most part, so far, hasn't dropped a stitch.
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