Dental SEO: Getting it Right [in 2020]

Let’s be honest, it can be hard to get patients in the door of a dentist’s office for their six-month routine check-up. 

It is pretty typical for the average American to skip their dentist appointments, in fact, a national survey states that only 58% of Americans visit a dentist.

It is obvious that these neglected teeth are no doubt going to need the care of a dentist sooner or later, and this is where Dental SEO comes in!

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Meaning, your website, and content are optimized in such a way to increase their presence online and to attract more qualified traffic.

SEO is used to improve the rankings of the website and its pages with search engines without having to use paid advertising.

The result is telephone calls to set up appointments. That’s what I call the return on your investment. 

What is Dental SEO and Why Do You Need It?

When your patients are in need of a dentist, most of them will hit up the largest of all search engines, Google, to search for a local, highly-rated dentist. 

This is why you may be fighting with your competitors for the top-ranking spots on the search engine results list.

You may have even experienced this yourself when searching for other companies. 

It is more appealing to choose the company that is listed first on the page. 

Why? Because with Google’s local algorithm, this company’s website has the most relevant and valuable content related to your search.

So how do you bring more local patients to your dental practice website? Dental SEO.

The Marketing Strategy Behind Dental SEO

There are quite a few SEO marketing strategies involved in getting your dental website to the top of Google’s results list. 

This SEO technique includes:

• The layout of your website
• Its performance
• The content
• The format
• The back end integration 

All in accordance with the latest in SEO, designed specifically for Dental Practices.

Let’s break down the best Dentist SEO practices for you here.

Looking at the front end of your website – the interface that your users interact with – search engines like Google will rank your site based on the User Experience. 

How does the user experience impact your site’s SEO?

User Experience is an Importance Piece of Dental SEO 

The user experience (UX) as it pertains to your website relates to how easy it is to navigate the site, how quickly the site loads, its graphic appeals and design layout, and the accessibility for the user to take action (like “call now!”).

Your patients are searching for a dentist that does high-quality work specific to their needs. 

Giving potential patients an easy layout that lists all that your dental practice has to offer is a crucial part of this SEO marketing tactic.

The navigation tabs on the top of the page should be everything that the patient needs in order to answer their questions, such as:

• To learn about the services you offer
• To know the credentials of the staff and providers
• To get hours and directions to the office
• How to contact you to schedule an appointment

Speed Matters

The speed of your site is another critical factor affecting your rankings.

You want potential patients to spend quality time on your website. 

If there are images or videos in the layout that cause it to take too long to load, you are at a high risk of losing those potential patients, due to an increased bounce rate.

Every second counts to Google. The higher the bounce rate (users landing on your website and quickly “bouncing off” or leaving) tells Google that your site isn’t high-quality.

Don’t let the aforementioned worry you if you do have videos on your site. Videos are incredibly valuable to help increase traffic to your site and to increase the dwell time – the length of time a user stays on your site.

I will talk about the value of videos for SEO later on.

Next, let’s talk dental SEO content.

The Use of Keywords in SEO for Dental: 

There’s no better way to be found on the world wide web than to speak the same language as your target audience. 

This means integrating the same words and phrases into your website’s content that your potential patients are typing into Google to find a dental practice that fits their needs.

Of course, there is a strategy in finding the right keywords. 

Conducting keyword research will tell what your target audience is typing in the search bar to get to the services you provide.

Let’s explore. 

Say you are a dentist who specializes in Pediatric Dentistry, your keywords will be tailored to a totally different audience compared to Periodontist dental practices. 

Not only are the specialties and the audience different but what you have to offer is unique than any other dental practice. 

With keywords integrated into your dental marketing content, the clients you are looking for have a far better opportunity of finding you!

The SEO content on your website goes far beyond the home page, services page, and about us page. 

Writing unique SEO content for your site in the form of blog posts will further increase your site’s value and authority with Google to get your site ranking higher on the results list.

Unique Content for Your Dental SEO

Yes, the buzz phrase “Content is King” is actually spot on. Speaking of keywords, one of the best ways to utilize them is by creating content that is useful to your target market. 

Blog writing is a very popular add-on to any SEO campaign.

This allows for unique content to be written about your dental practice and dental services, specialties, or any other information users would find helpful. 

This SEO technique allows Google to see the unique content with the relevant keywords incorporated to rank your site higher when those terms are searched.

Well-written, authoritative content that relates to your audience will also increase their dwell time on your site as they read through the blog posts.

This dental SEO strategy also applies to videos or vlogs. Hiring a marketing agency to produce high-quality video content will help to capture and keep your audience’s attention.

Video content can be created to include:

• Testimonials with happy clients
• Interviews with the providers to show expert dentistry knowledge and to build trust with clients
• A tour of the dental practice
• An introduction and welcome to the dental company
• How-to videos to show proper care of teeth
• Explanatory videos to demonstrate a procedure
• And the list goes on!

Boost Website SEO Value with Quality Content Across Multiple Pages

Another performance indicator that Google places value on is the number of pages of the website the user clicks to within a single visit to the site. 

This shows that there is relevant and valuable content on the website that holds the user’s interest.

Include Social Media Interaction with Your SEO strategy

Gaining visibility on social media is another great SEO marketing strategy for getting your prospective patients’ attention.

With the creation of new content, social media can be used to promote a new blog post or video. Social media is a great arena for free advertising and you get right in front of your target market.

The social platform is also a great advertising tool for your own posts to welcome new doctors as part of your dental practice, offer incentives for new patients, or to give health tips. 

The more recognition your dental practice gets the more well-known you will become in your town or city.

Plus, potential patients will be drawn to check out your website, read and view the great content that’s on there, and view your practice as one they can trust.  

With an easy-to-access call-to-action button listed on the pages, your phone will start ringing!

So, we’ve talked about visual elements that can be incorporated on the front end of your website, but what are the other, behind-the-scenes SEO dental marketing strategies?

Back-end Dental SEO

Here are some more effective methods to include in your dental SEO campaign.

Powerful SEO with Link Building

Another SEO strategy is to create internal and external links on your site. 

Google looks at the number of links from your website linking to authoritative, credible websites as resources. 

Google also considers the number of links that connect to the content on your website from other sources. 

If you have valuable, quality content on your website then other sources will want to link to your information, telling Google that you have some good stuff to offer!

An effective link building strategy is critical to every dental practice wanting to increase their website rankings.

So how do you get other websites to link to your website? 

This can take a little elbow grease, though, for a digital marketing company that specializes in dental SEO services, this is usually offered as part of your SEO campaign.

Speaking of links…

Successful SEO Wants You to Check for Broken Links

SEO wants you to fix what’s broken. There is nothing more frustrating for a user than clicking on a link and it lands them on a 404 Error Page. 

The users don’t like it and neither does Google. Broken links will cause a downgrade on your ranking value.

It is important to check all of the links within the website to make sure they are taking your users where they are expecting to go.

A quality dental SEO company can provide this type of audit and even help you fix broken links as part of your dental SEO services plan.

Get the Name of Your Dental Practice Out There with This SEO Tip

There are many listing services that would love to include dental practices on their sites. The more directories or listing services your dental company is on, the easier it is for your clients to find you. 

Plus, this counts as an external link – a link to your site on another site that has a high reputation is a popular SEO method.

Also, it is more impressive to potential clients when they see information about a dentist in more than one place online, especially if there is an active profile associated with the listing.

Things to make sure to include in your online listing:

• Picture of the dentist and/or office building
• Accurate phone number and address
• Hours the office is open
• Dental specialties offered
• The name and credentials of the providers in the dental practice
• Link to your dental practice website

As touched on previously, links from other resources to your website help boost rankings. Your website listed on these directories is a technique used for effective SEO.

An important point to make here, make sure that all the information on each listing, including your Google My Business profile for local business, is consistent. 

Search engines like Google do not like inconsistencies (inaccuracies).

Results You Can Expect with Dental SEO

Implementing dental SEO strategies into your website to boost your online presence takes time. 

There is the time needed for your SEO company to research and develop the proper channels, keywords, links, directories, and content that will be used to drive more patients to your practice. 

The effort in the input will definitely be seen in the results of the outcome when dental SEO services have been executed efficiently and accurately by an SEO agency.

With SEO, Dentists Achieve Higher Rankings and Get an Edge on Competitors

To ensure that you get the results you want – a high return on investment with patient numbers increasing – it is highly advised to work alongside an SEO company that will prioritize your goals and reach your milestones with their tactical dental SEO services

Put yourself ahead of your competitors and attain the rankings you are after with a robust dental SEO plan offered by a reputable SEO company.

Let me know if these tips got you thinking about your own dental marketing SEO strategy or if this piece sparked more questions about SEO. 

Drop me a line below with your thoughts, comments, and questions!