If you’re seeking to drive inbound traffic to your dental website and convert them into prospective patients, then dental SEO is the appropriate strategy. SEO is more important than ever for dentists to succeed, and adopting the habit of committing to a strong SEO plan will yield quality organic results.
Every single visit to your dental website matters. The greater the number of visitors to your website, the greater the chance of a higher ranking. Although, you can only make it a reality if your strategy is strong to make their visit count!
Dentists cannot afford a strategy without SEO because this will slow or halt your online growth. Understanding how SEO works will help make you better equipped to transform your practice and marketing protocol to boost your rankings.
So, where do you begin? Read on below for your ultimate dental SEO guide.
What Is Dental SEO?
Dental SEO is a strategy that enables your dental practice to appear at the top of a Google search, whether it be an article, blog, or landing page. If a user types in “teeth whitening dentist” in Google, you’ll want your dental website to appear first on the first page.
Users will type keywords or other appropriate search terms relating to dentistry in the Google search bar, and your SEO strategy will determine how high your dental website appears in the results.
Why Else Is Dental SEO Important?
Besides getting to the top of Google, which is what every dentist dreams of, consider dental SEO as the pillar for a strong dental marketing strategy.
Here are further benefits to having a strong Dental SEO strategy:
Reputation and Credibility
If your reputation is poor, you won’t get anywhere with dental SEO. The technology “boom” has meant that your reputation is on the radar everywhere you turn. Patients can leave a negative Google review if the service they’ve received has been negative, or if your dental website does not provide an adequate user experience. If you have a strong reputation, and this is reflected by patients through Google reviews, you’ll surge to the top of the search engine results. The best thing is that your reputation is enhanced and the word will spread faster, gaining more credibility and popularity.
A Surge In Traffic
If you’re seeing results with web traffic, it’s an indication that your strategy is working. With a surge in traffic, you’re introducing greater opportunities for prospective patients to reach out to your practice for your dental services. Although, don’t rest on your laurels. Your strategy should also cater to contacting those visitors so you can get in front of the queue to beat the competition for new patients.
Users Will Have A Greater Website Experience
A strong website user experience is at the forefront of a strong dental SEO strategy. This includes aspects such as:
- Making the website user friendly
- Navigation is easy
- Content is organic, original and appealing
- A fast and responsive website
There is nothing worse than having a dental website that is unresponsive, difficult to navigate, and difficult to read. A poor website experience is a turn-off for users, to a point where you’re likely to lose them permanently.
The Competition Is Fierce
Don’t be put off if you see competitors that are advanced SEO users. You can still build your dental SEO strategy today. The added advantage is that you can review what other competitors are doing to optimize your strategy and help you worm your way to the top of the competition with a stronger strategy.
How Do Google Rank Dental Websites?
There are on-site and off-site ranking factors that Google considers when it comes to positioning search results.
What do we mean by On-site ranking factors?
- Dense keyword criteria
- Titles, headers, descriptions and images
- Quality of your wording content
- How accessible your website is
- How user-friendly your website is
- The average time a user spends on your website
- A strong look and feel of your website
Ultimately, these are factors that indicate a strong, navigatable, and informative website that answers the questions and needs of users.
What do we mean by Off-site ranking factors?
The off-site ranking is all about the reputation of your dental website, and the activities that impact it. If your dental website is richly spoken about or linked by other relatable websites, this means your website or content in your website is trustworthy and organic, meaning you’re doing something right.
- Website popularity
- Are your website links trustworthy?
- Are your website links closely related to the website topic?
- How did you earn the link?
Where Do I Start To Optimize My Dental Website?
A strong SEO begins with your dental website. If you’re in a position where you need to build a dental website for your practice, here are some options to help you get started.
- WordPress – A scalable website that makes it easy to build a desktop or mobile website
- Ensure Your Content Is Organic and Original – Do not copy and paste content. Ensure that your content is SEO-optimized, and this may involve undertaking keyword research so that you’re aware of the popular keywords for a chosen content topic i.e. “find a dentist near me in Australia”.
- Keyword Research – The purpose of keyword research is to learn what the popular keywords are that users type into a Google search. For example, if the user types in “Teeth Whitening in Sydney”, you’d want to ensure that your content is optimized with this keyword so it links to Google’s ranking requirements. There are many tools available to help you with us, such as Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush.
How Do I Monitor My Return On Investment?
Of course, you want to ensure that you’re getting a quality return on investment as part of your strategy. So, what do you look for?
- The volume of users at certain peak times
- Average time spent on your website
- Strategy building costs (whether it be building it yourself or using a marketing specialist)
- Average patient value
These key figures determine the amount of revenue you will generate for every user who’s converted into a patient. The amount you generate in revenue will depend on how those factors interlink to go with a strong SEO strategy. Consult us at Smile and Grow and we can help work out those metrics for you.
Get started with your dental SEO marketing strategy today! Consult us at Smile and Grow dental marketing agency today and we’d be more than happy to help!
