Did you know that 73% of people use the web to research dental treatments, and 71% of consumers also search online before scheduling an appointment with a new dentist?
This proves that the majority of people find their dentists online, doing research before deciding to book an appointment.
Your online presence is the face of your practice, and it’s what’s going to convince prospective patients to choose you over your competitors.
So, how exactly can you build a robust online presence that converts? Dental SEO is the first step!
You want to make sure that you appear first when potential patients search for your products and services online. This makes them much more likely to book an appointment with you.
In this article, we will discuss the top seven dental SEO strategies you should start implementing today to start seeing results tomorrow. Without further ado, let’s get started:
5 Dental SEO Strategy for Small Practice Owners
1. Start with a Dental SEO Plan
Before you get started with dental SEO marketing, you need to have a plan. This requires looking at three major things:
Audience
The first thing you want to tackle is to identify the type of patients you want to attract.
Segment your current patient base. Group people with common characteristics. Then, create patient profiles to represent each group.
Identify the needs of every group.
Find out what they’re looking for in a dentist or patient care.
The next step to a successful dental SEO strategy is to set goals.
What do you want to achieve with dental SEO?
Are you trying to build your brand? Establish your expertise? Attract new patients?
Whatever your goals are, they should be SMART. Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound.
Competition
Determine your ranking compared to your competitors.
Identify the keywords they’re ranking for that your site isn’t.
What are their dental SEO best practices?
It's important to do a competitive SEO analysis to determine opportunities and find ways how you can rank high for your target keywords.
2. Make it Easy for Search Engines to Rank Your Pages with Technical SEO
To have a successful dental SEO strategy, there are two things you need to achieve: making Google happy and making users happy. First, let’s focus on making search engines happy by following the best practices below:
Build your site on a reliable platform that allows you to scale and tweak your dental website SEO in the future.
Make sure you optimize your site’s speed because a slow website will not rank high. Internet users also don't like slow-loading websites. If your sites take longer than three seconds to load, they won’t hesitate to bounce and go to your competitor.
63% of all online searches are now accomplished through mobile. 70% of mobile searches also lead to online action within an hour. Make sure your website renders well across all mobile devices by using a responsive website design.
Make it easy for search engine bots to locate the contents of your site by creating a sitemap. This way, they can easily find, crawl, and rank them for relevant queries.
Make sure your site is HTTPS enabled to make your patients feel safe when making payments on your site or giving away personal information.
3. Provide New Dental Patients The Positive Experience They’re Looking for
Once you’ve made your site technically efficient for search engine bots to crawl, it’s time to focus on how to attract new patients. Google cares more about how well you satisfy people who find you through search.
The key to attracting new patients to your practice is to consistently publish high-quality content that answers their questions and satisfies their intent.
Do keyword research. This allows you to discover the terms or phrases that your target patients use when searching for your products or services online.
Determine the intent behind these searches so you can develop a list of relevant topics and keywords. This will also give you an idea of how to approach the subject matter in a way that your intended audience likes.
Do a content inventory to determine content gaps and what you need to add. This way, you can just repurpose existing content into videos, social media posts, and whatnot. Or, create content that you lack to help you rank better.
Incorporate your target keywords into your URL. It’s important to optimize your URL and make it readable to both search engine bots and users.
Add your keyword to your title tags and meta descriptions. This will make it easier for people to identify if your search result is relevant to what they’re looking for. As a result, they’re more likely to click on your link.
Don’t forget to insert your main keywords in your header tags to make it easier for people to understand the hierarchy of your page.
Use your target keywords naturally within your site's content. Your keyword should appear several times but avoid keyword stuffing.
Use your main keyword within the first 100 words of your content.
Use internal linking to help potential patients navigate across your content and discover other relevant pieces that they might find valuable.
Update your old blog posts, case studies, and other content to make sure they're fresh and remain valuable to users.
Make your site and its content accessible to all kinds of users regardless of any disabilities. This means optimizing your content for voice search and following WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines).
4. Establish Your Authority and Credibility Through Off-Page SEO
Off-page dental SEO refers to building backlinks or getting other high-authority sites to link out to you. This signals to Google that your content is credible and trustworthy.
Add self-created links to forums, social media profiles, online directories, and other online locations. Doing this is one of the easiest ways to “earn” backlinks.
Find sites that will add authority to your site and create a high-quality piece where you link out to them too. Share this piece on social media and email to gain engagement. Then, reach out to the site you want a link from and ask them if they would be willing to link out to you too.
Get the local press to talk about your practice in their pieces by participating in community events, speaking engagements, guest blogging, and other activities that will get your practice noticed.
Focus on local SEO to target potential patients within your location. Add your place to your keywords. For example, instead of just using “affordable braces”, be more specific like “affordable braces in Miami Beach.”
Claim your practice on Google My Business and optimize your page. Make sure your name, address, and contact information are accurate across all your online listings. Consistent NAPs are important to guarantee a high ranking.
Post reviews on your site and showcase user-generated content. This is a great way to engage potential patients and increase the average time they spend on your site.
Respond to negative feedback respectfully. Acknowledge it and make sure you act on complaints. Reach out to unhappy customers. Don’t ignore them.
5. Monitor Your Rankings
You need to know if your SEO strategy is working so make sure you monitor your rankings.
To achieve this, you need to track your dental SEO from two angles: metrics that influence your SEO and metrics that result from your SEO.
Below are the following metrics that impact your dental SEO:
Bounce rate
Crawl errors
Pages or sessions
Page load time
Top exit pages
Average session duration
Number of indexed pages
Metrics that tell you how well your dental SEO is working:
Number of site visits from search engines
Sessions
Search query click-throughs
Keyword ranking positions
Conversion rate
Keyword ranking positions
When Will You Start Seeing Results?
Dental SEO is a long-term strategy. So, you can expect your website pages to start ranking within several months.
Some SEO improvements can provide immediate results, especially when you apply on-page and technical optimizations.
But if it takes a while to see results, don't get discouraged. Find out what the problem is by going back to your metrics and refining your strategy.
You also want to keep in mind that SEO is ever-changing. Many factors can push your rankings up or down. What’s important is to follow best practices and stay on top of dental SEO trends.
Looking for a Dental SEO Expert You Can Trust?
We know how busy you are running your dental practice and providing your patients with the best care possible so allow us to handle the SEO side of your business.
Digital Resource specializes in helping dental practices gain traction online through SEO and generating a steady flow of new patients monthly through digital marketing.
To discuss your SEO needs, contact us today and we’ll evaluate your current dental SEO.
We will do an audit of your online presence and create a custom SEO plan that will help patients find you online easily.
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