We Tested the “Near Me” SEO Tactic and Here’s What Happened

At Optio Publishing, we’re always paying attention to new ideas that promise to improve dental SEO. So when Sterling Sky released a video about near me searches, we took notice.

But we didn’t just take their word for it—we tested it ourselves to see how it might affect our dental clients.

What the Video Suggested

In the video, the Sterling Sky team showed that including “near me” or “near you” in key places like title tags and body content could help your site rank better for local intent searches, particularly terms like “dentist near me.” Given how common those searches are, it sounded like a potentially valuable tactic.

Local SEO rankings are highly competitive for dentists with urban areas often having up to 100+ search results serving their neighborhood. It can be a challenge for a practice to land in the top 20 search results for near me or location based searches.

So we asked the big question: Would this actually help dentists rank better?

How We Set Up the Test

We rolled out the experiment across 10 dental client websites mimicking Sterling Sky’s test. Here’s what we did:

Added the phrase “Dentist Near You” to the home page title tag on the site.
Reviewed paragraph text and added “near you” in natural places throughout the home page, About page, and contact page.
For 3 of the sites, we went further and added “near you” into the sitewide footer.
Once the updates were made, we resubmitted the sitemaps to Google to help trigger indexing.

We used BrightLocal to track rankings, capturing baseline data before the update and then checking again every 2–4 weeks afterward.

What We Saw

The short version? Not much changed.

Across nearly every client, rankings for keywords like “dentist near me” and “city dentist” remained mostly flat. A few sites saw minor ups or downs but nothing we could tie directly to the “near you” edits. Even the more aggressive changes (like adding it to every page footer) didn’t move the needle.

So, does adding “near me” to your website content help you rank higher?

Not in our experience.

Why would our results be different?

There are a couple of reasons why our test may not have produced the same ranking improvements Sterling Sky observed.

First, between their test and ours, Google rolled out a core algorithm update focused on improving the helpfulness of search results. It’s possible that this update affected how “near me” queries are handled—potentially reducing the impact of matching exact phrasing in page content or title tags.

Second, we noticed a clear trend since 2023: users are no longer appending “near me” to their searches as often as they once did. That’s because Google has gotten better at automatically detecting location. Today, a simple search for “dentist” typically triggers a local map pack without needing to include location-based keywords. Users have adapted to this, and many now just type “dentist,” trusting that Google knows where they are.

These two factors—the algorithm shift and changing search habits—may help explain why the same tactic didn’t produce the same results when we tested it months later.

What We Recommend Instead

If you're a dental office looking to rank higher in local search—especially for map results and "near me" terms—you're better off focusing on foundational local SEO tactics, like:

Getting client reviews (and responding to them).
Earning local backlinks from organizations, directories, or sponsorships.
Optimizing your Google Business Profile fully, including services, business hours, categories, and photos.

These efforts take more time and effort, but they consistently deliver results.

Why We Ran the Test

Search engine optimization is always evolving. When someone like Sterling Sky shares a new tactic, we don’t dismiss it, we test it. That’s what we do at Optio Publishing: we stay on top of the trends so our dental clients don’t have to.

If you're wondering whether a new tactic is worth trying, reach out. We’ll tell you what the data says.

Want to improve your local rankings the right way?