Dental Practices In The USA With Most Google Reviews: Local Dental SEO Report

1. Top Ten Practices With The Most Google Reviews

Of the 100 largest cities reviewed in this study the ten practices listed below had the most reviews.

2. Top Ten Practices With Most Reviews and 5 Star Rating

When looking at this data set, it’s important to realize that Google rounds up on the review rating. A practice that has a review rating of 4.6 would be rounded up to 5.0. For example, Morrow Lai and Kitterman Tulsa Children is the practice with the most number of reviews and a 5 star rating. But, when looking at their review history you’ll find that they have some 1 star reviews, they’re just few in comparison to the total number of 5 star reviews. 

Take-a-way: There’s no way to escape getting a bad review. It’s going to happen. The best way to keep your review rating high is to always be asking your best patients for reviews to keep your average review rating high.

Additional Stat: There were a total of 1409 practices with a minimum of 100 reviews and a 5 star rating.

3. Top Ten Practices That Acquired The Most Reviews In The Previous 30 Days

In order to gather this data we used the previous 30 days of review history for each practice. The date range that we counted was between December 13th, 2021 and January 13th, 2022. this takes into account the holiday break which means that the numbers are likely lower than other times of the year. But, all practices were measured on the same date range keeping the statistic fair.

Take-a-way: Setting a goal to get 50-100 reviews in a month is possible. The best way to acquire lots of reviews in a short period of time is to run a team review campaign.  This would be a short term campaign where every team member is involved and there is an incentive for your team to reach the goal set. We’ve run campaigns like this with practices many times. A good spiff would be $5 gift cards for team members that ask and get a review. Or you could run a company wide campaign where everyone wins if you reach your goal.

Additional Stat: There were a total of 1409 practices with a minimum of 100 reviews and a 5 star rating.

4. Average Google Review Ratings By Ranking Position

This chart shows the average review rating and average number of reviews based upon the Google maps ranking position for the search phrase  ‘dentist in city, state abbreviation’, for example, “dentist in Miami fl”, or “dentist in New York NY”.

To be clear, the #1 position has an average review rating of 4.64 and the average number of reviews is 341. What this means is that we took the averages of #1 listing for all of the largest 100 cities in the USA.

We stopped tracking the data at the #160th position for each city, which is 8 pages deep into the Google maps search results.

Take-a-way: It appears that more reviews = higher rankings, but remember that correlation is not causation. An argument against this claim is that those practices that actively acquire more reviews are also running local dental SEO campaigns.

With that said, this data is helpful in understanding how many reviews your practice should shoot to acquire in order to be within the average range of those practices higher in the search engine rankings.

Note: Many consumer local SEO studies have shown that people do not trust the Google review rating unless the business has at least 40 reviews. If you’re a practice that has a 5 star rating but only 30 reviews, you should shoot for more reviews to improve your social proof.

5. Most Recent & Average Number Of Reviews By Ranking Position

The chart below represents the top three Google maps ranking positions for the search phrase “dentist in (City) (State abbreviation)”. For example, ‘dentist in Sacramento CA’, ‘dentist in Miami FL’, ‘dentist in Boston MA’ etc. All 100 largest cities in the USA were used.

An average of 30.5, 19.5, and 36.6 days ago for the Most Recent Review Average appeared to be skewed high. You would think that those practices in the top three positions of Google maps would be acquiring more reviews than other practices. This data set argues against the claim that more reviews and more recent reviews improves your Google maps rankings.

Note: There were several practices in the top three ranking positions that had not acquired a review in the last year. After removing those practices that had not received a review within the past 60 days we re-ran that stats. As you can see from the chart below the most recent review number dropped significantly.

Take-a-way: It doesn’t appear that there is a search engine ranking benefit for having received a recent review. The fact that there are practices in the #1, #2, and #3 position of search engine rankings who did not have a review in the last several months supports the claim that acquiring reviews does not improve search engine rankings, or at least is not a significant factor.

One reason that the practices without any recent reviews are ranking on the front page of Google maps could be because of a strong location correlation that Google uses when searching with a geo-graphical phrase. For example, searching “dentist in Miami FL” and “Dentist near me” will produce different search results. In the first phrase Google will use the latitude and longitude of the geo-graphical phrase, and in the second Google will use the GPS point of the person searching.

Meaning, the practice may be located closer than any other practice to the latitude and longitude point of what Google considers to the be the center for that city.

To see where the center of your city is run a search in Google for the city and state. Then click into the map and look at where Google places the name of the city on top of the map. This will show you an approximate point for what Google sees as the center of the city. I did this for Salt Lake City, UT and in the map below you can see that Google considers Main St. and University Blvd. as the center point.

6. Average Number For Top 100 Practices With Most Reviews

The average number of reviews for the 100 dental practices that had the most reviews in the study. Some cities had multiple practices in the top 100, for example, Newark NJ had two practices from ChildSmile – FamilySmiles which were in the top 100.

1461

Note: There were a total of 116 practices that had more than 1000 Google reviews.

7. Top 100 Practices Average Number Of Reviews Acquired In The Previous 30 Days

This stat is the average of the top 100 practices that acquired the most reviews in the previous month.

32

Note: Of the top 100 practices that acquired the most reviews, 34 of them were listed among the top three positions of Google maps search results.

8. Largest 100 Cities Ranked For Google Review Competitiveness

Which cities in the USA are the most competitive in acquiring reviews? The statistic below will answer that question. We ranked the cities by taking the top 100 practices of each city and averaging their Google reviews.

Take-a-way: If you’re looking to be more competitive with your Google reviews you should start by making sure that you have at least as many reviews as the city average in this chart.

Local Dental SEO – Conclusion

The total number of reviews as well as the most recent reviews do not appear to have much of an impact on local dental SEO tactics.

Additional research not included in this report showed that there was no obvious correlation with practices that had higher reviews, higher ratings, and more recent reviews and search rankings.

Acquiring Google reviews is a dental marketing initiative that helps to improve a practices social proof and conversion rates. There is a strong argument that more Google reviews will increase phone calls and new patients even if your search engine rankings don’t improve. Many online consumer studies have shown that people call a practice directly from the Google map listing without any other information. This would mean that the person made a decision to call based most-likely upon address, reviews, and review rating.

In New York City the top listing had a total of 3 reviews and the most recent review was 300 days ago. I won’t mention who the practice was but, even though they were in the #1 position, who would call the office seeing their lack of reviews.

In Los Angeles the #1 position was held by a practice that had a 3.5 star rating. What a practice should do is focus on both aspects of local dental SEO, which are better rankings and also a better review portfolio. One doesn’t go without the other.

One Awesome Consideration

It was approximately 3 minutes and 52 seconds after we published this post that my good friend Len Tau said, “You forgot one!”. He then showed me McDonough Center for Family Dentistry, who has an astounding 5,007 Google reviews with an average rating of 4.7. Serious props to the team at McDonough for their hard work.

The reason that they were not included in the annual dental SEO review is because they are not located in one of the 100 largest cities in the USA. Only being able to include the largest 100 cities is simply a function of not realizing how much time and effort would go into this report. But, we’ll prepare better for our next review and hopefully we’ll be able to analyze many more cities.

Tired of Asking For Reviews? Let Us Automate The Process.

Local dental SEO and acquiring Google reviews is an important component of any dental practice’s online marketing strategy. If you’re not sure what aspects to include in your marketing plan, contact us today for a consultation!

Related local dental SEO articles to explore:

• Local Dental SEO Tips Part 1
• Local Dental SEO Tips Part 2
• Simple Dentist Search Engine Optimization Tips for 2022
• Dentist SEO: Top 6 Tips for Local Dental SEO
• Ultimate SEO for Dentists How To Appear On Google Search
• How Cosmetic Dentists Can Appear #1 On Google Search

About the Author: Adrian Lefler is a dental marketing expert and a key member of the dental marketing team at My Social Practice. My Social Practice is located in Salt Lake City, Utah. Adrian is passionate about helping dental practices grow. Interested in learning more about the benefits of dental SEO, please schedule a complimentary consultation. And, don’t forget to read our Google My Business reviews.