There are nearly 43,000 dental practices in the United Kingdom alone.
With numbers like that, it can be hard to find ways to set your practice apart from the competition.
Have you noticed recently that you’re not getting as many new patients as you need, or even as you’d like?
Are you concerned that you’re not booking appointments like you used to? Are you having trouble finding the right employees?
Do you feel like, even though currently have a marketing plan, no one really seems to know about your practice?
If any of these things sound similar to your current situation, including Dental SEO in your digital marketing strategy is likely the solution.
Let’s take a look at a quick statistic:
Incorporating content marketing (in your case, Dental SEO) into a digital marketing strategy has lead to a 2,000% increase in traffic – and a 40% increase in profits.
We know those are the kinds of numbers you want to see.
To get increases like that, and to get more patients in your doors, start by reading this article on the power of Dental SEO.
SEO lives and dies by keywords. They’re the things that get people on your site in the first place.
When you need to find a product, service, or pretty much anything else, what’s one of the first things you do? Enter in a search on a site like Google. You might type in something like “movie times” or “best brand of tea.”
Hopefully, your customers will search for things like “top dental practice” or “dentist near me.” The things you type into search engines are known as keywords, and they are the link between you and your customers.
However, just as you’ve probably noticed in your own life, keywords change all the time. This means that you’ll have to research, update, and include keywords in your content pretty often.
How do you find these keywords? You can start by using a free keyword generator tool. These tools will tell you what people are usually searching for when they type in something related to dentists.
As you grow, and as you post more content, it’s highly likely that you’ll need to hire a professional SEO service to help you to get more targeted keywords.
Aim to include at least three keywords in any blog post you make. However, you want to be sure to avoid keyword stuffing. Not only is it incredibly painful to read, but it also just makes you look desperate and unprofessional.
Of course, establishing profiles on social media is a huge part of Dental SEO – and customer service.
Before we even get into the SEO side of things, you need to realize that in today’s world, people see social media as an extension of customer service.
If a client called into your office and left a message asking about insurance, you wouldn’t lose that lead by not returning the call, right? So why would you leave a comment asking the same thing on social media unanswered? What about a tweet, or a message in your Facebook inbox?
Always remember to be active and responsive on social media – it’s just good for customer relations.
Of course, that’s not the only thing it’s good for. First of all, it’s true that Google is now able to take social media and the keywords you use in crafting your posts into account when ranking.
It’s also true that social media provides you with an awesome opportunity to share content from your website with your followers – meaning that your web traffic will increase.
To get the most out of your social media experience, establish accounts across multiple platforms.
Local SEO is especially crucial for dental practices. Let’s be honest: no one is going to drive from 5 States away to get their teeth checked out.
Instead, you need to tap into the awesome power – and leads – of your local market!
First, always be sure you’ve claimed your Google My Business listing. This will help you to show up in more local results. It will also ensure that those who are searching locally have all the information they need: your contact info, hours, location, etc.
Additionally, be sure to include some location-based keywords in your content. This can include things like, let’s say “best dental practices near me” or “dentists Omaha Nebraska.”
Another crucial, yet overlooked, thing that can have a huge impact on your overall Dental SEO?
How fast it takes your website to load. This impacts what’s called your “dwell time” – AKA, the average amount of time people spend on your website.
The higher your “dwell time,” the higher you’ll rank in search engines. Obviously, if your website takes forever to load, people are going to click away from it. This also means that all the awesome content you worked so hard on creating will go to waste.
To find out your current loading speeds, check out free testing sites like this one.
Reality check: these days, just as many people are accessing your dental website from their mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) as they are from their desktop computers.
If your website isn’t optimised for mobile users, you won’t get as many clicks. Additionally, people on phones may just navigate away from your site. All of this will cause your site to fall in the search engine rankings.
Also, be sure that your mobile content is free from pop-up ads that cover the majority of your content. This is because Google now takes note of this, meaning that excessive or large mobile pop-ups will lower your search engine rankings.
To be on the safe side, eliminate them altogether. Instead, rely on your awesome content to get the job done!
Did you know that companies that have a blog increase their website visitors by over 50%? You’ve probably heard that blogging is important, but we want to tell you why it’s one of the most important parts of a good Dental SEO strategy.
First of all, blogging is a great word to incorporate those keywords we talked about earlier. The more keywords you have, the more hits you’ll get. The more hits your website gets, the higher you’ll rise in search engine rankings!
All that means more patients.
Additionally, blogging is a great way for people to really get to know your practice, and learn what sets you apart. It will help to establish you as an authority both in your local community and in the dental world at large.
Finally, blog content is highly shareable and a great place to link back to your site and relevant web pages that can bring others to your website.
With the many advantages it offers, there’s no reason not to blog. If you have trouble coming up with posts, don’t worry. You can always hire a professional content writing service or blogger to help you.
Of course, for every right way to do Dental SEO, there are countless more ways to do it wrong.
The last thing on our list? Knowing what to avoid!
First off, you’re not going to win any friends, followers, or customers by constantly spamming them with content. Aim to blog once a day (or even just a few times a week if you’re busy.)
When it comes to social media content, three posts a day is perfectly fine: a morning, noon, and night post.
Additionally, be sure to vary the content you post. Trust us, it’s not going to make you look very good if you’ve posted the same article three times in a week. Doing this will get you fewer clicks, and your SEO score will be lowered.
Finally, don’t just “rewrite” the content you see on another dental practice’s website. Not only is this just lazy, it’s also not ethical. Plus, it doesn’t tell your clients what sets you apart from the competition – only that you think your competitor’s ideas are valuable.
After reading this article, we hope you’re as excited about the positive impact Dental SEO can have on your business as we are.
However, there’s a good chance that you’re also feeling a little overwhelmed. We get it: this article also proved that a good SEO strategy is a comprehensive one.
With everything else you have to do in a day, you just might not always have the time to get everything done when it comes to your digital marketing strategy.
But you don’t have to compromise your standards or let your SEO strategy fall by the wayside.
Instead, let us help.
Get in touch with us to learn how we can help you to create and implement a unique, effective, and complete Dental SEO and digital marketing strategy that will grow your practice, make your life easier and give everyone who walks through your doors an even brighter smile.