More people are visiting the dentist now than ever. In 2017, almost 85% of children and 64% of adults visited the dentist.
But this also means the rate of dentists is expected to grow. If you own a dental practice, it’s integral you make your practice stand out from the competition. Marketing methods, such as SEO, are a great place to start.
SEO is effective, affordable, and you can easily create an effective strategy.
Here’s how to use dental clinic SEO to take your practice to the next level.
Create Content
Not sure how to start your SEO campaign? Start by writing content. Google crawls website pages for keywords and other terms that will help them rank your website.
Most brands are starting to have blog pages. Blogging is the easiest way to improve your SEO; you can use a variety of keywords for different blog topics and regularly releasing them will help improve your SEO.
Blogs are also helpful for your customers. High-quality content educates patients, so they feel more confident investing in dental care.
But blogging isn’t the only way to publish content. Your website pages should be descriptive and rich in high-ranking keywords. This not only improves your SEO results, but will also help customers better understand your dental practice.
Use the Right Keywords
SEO starts with one basic thing: a search engine. Your customers are searching for phrases in a Google search.
These phrases are known as “keywords.” Certain keywords perform better than others; for example, some keywords receive more traffic than others.
To know you’re optimizing your content for the best keywords, you’ll want to use keyword software to test different dental search terms. The ideal keyword has at least 100 monthly searches.
You’ll also want to ensure a keyword isn’t competitive so you don’t need lots of backlinks to rank for the term. Look for a keyword difficulty of 30 or below.
All of your keywords should be in your niche.
You can choose keywords that inspire customers to visit the dentist (such as “why you should go to the dentist twice a year”) and some that provide education (such as “how to brush your teeth properly”).
In addition, there are many dental niches out there. A parent who is taking their child to their first dentist appointment is likely not searching for periodontitis advice.
Take the type of practice you own and your target customers into consideration when choosing keywords.
Use Local SEO
While you will gain website traffic attracting a wide audience, you’ll truly see more sales when you target your local demographic. This is why dentists need to use local SEO strategies as opposed to just general dental SEO.
Here are some examples of local SEO strategies:
- Ranking localized keywords
- Using Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP) Citations
- Creating a Google My Business profile
- Trying to land reviews
You’ll also want to focus on additional search engine products. For example, optimizing your practice for Google Maps will help attract the patients who live closest to your clinic.
Create a High-Quality Website
SEO isn’t just about your content. Google also looks for websites that feature a high-quality design.
Your website should have these elements:
- Fast loading time
- Easy navigation
- Mobile-friendly
How do you create a website? All dental practices should hire a professional, but there are many affordable website themes that can give you a high-quality website.
Get High-Quality Backlinks
72% of SEO experts say link building is significant when it comes to search engine rankings. Backlinking is when another website links to one of your web pages. This helps establish authority, proving to Google that you’re trustworthy in your niche.
Unfortunately, obtaining high-quality backlinks is one of the most difficult aspects of SEO. But there are ways you can get backlinks. Here are some effective methods:
- Guest blogging — you supply links to another website and they link your website in their content
- Participating in local events — you can give your website URL to the event so they can promote your website on their event page
- Answering questions — many forums, such as Quora and Reddit, offer dental advice. Answer any questions the users ask about dentistry and oral health, making sure to link back to your website.
For the best results, you’ll want to link internally to other pages on your website and link to other non-competitor dental influencers.
This is especially important for your blogs. This will increase your click-through rates (CTR) and Google will better recognize your website.
Add Sitemaps
An HTML sitemap is a place where the subpages on your website are listed, usually at the footer of your website.
HTML sitemaps improve navigation, helping patients bounce between pages and stay on your website longer. Google will notice this activity, ranking your website better.
In addition, sitemaps allow Google to crawl your website better, resulting in better rankings.
Measure Your SEO Efforts
Your SEO strategy isn’t complete without measuring your results. Here are the most important metrics to measure:
- Website traffic
- Visibility on search engines
You’ll not only want to check your entire website’s traffic, but also for specific pages. Measure your blog’s traffic and see which ones perform the best.
There are a couple of ways to check your keyword performance. You can type in the keywords you’re ranking for and see where/if your website appears. There are also tools that can show your keyword performance and the keywords you rank for.
Remember, SEO takes time. You may not receive results immediately. Don’t get discouraged — measure your results over time and find out what works for your business.
Use Dental Clinic SEO to Gain More Patients
Are you struggling to attract patients? Is there too much dentist competition in your area? If so, you’ll benefit from dental clinic SEO.
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