SEO for dentists, also called dental SEO is essential to grow your practice and keep new patients flowing. In this article, let take a look at Why is SEO important for dentists and how to do it?
What is SEO Strategy for Dentists?
SEO strategy for dentists is nothing but the efforts to move their website higher on the result page of search engines like Google.
Dental SEO confuses many dentists as they are experts in offering dental care and service and not in marketing. However, the growing competition in the dental practice field requires all dentists to have some knowledge about various SEO techniques to improve the ranking of their website on Google search result page, increase traffic and get more patients to the clinic.
The growing use of SEO by all businesses makes it a difficult-to-ignore marketing strategy by dentists too.
To better understand the topic, let’s begin with the basics of what is dental SEO.
Dental SEO is a tool to bring your dental website to the top spot of the search engine result page for more people to notice it. SEO isn’t a form of paid advertising as it helps generate organic traffic.
Why Is SEO Important for Dentists?
When a person looking to avail for dental service types of specific keywords on the Google search bar, he or she is likely to come across multiple search pages with various websites of many dental care providers. However, the person is more likely to click and visit websites that appear on the top 5 results of the search engine result page. This makes it extremely important for dentists to have their website appear on the top of the page to gain more visibility.
When a website appears on the top results of the Google search page, patients think of it as a reliable and trustworthy website, which motivates them to click and enter the website. The more a website is being clicked upon or entered, the higher its ranking gets as Google sees it as a credible source.
Moreover, to rank high on Google, your dental website needs to be user-friendly. This means its got to have a fast load time, mobile-friendly design, excellent content, etc. While you focus on these elements of your website to improve your ranking on Google, you are also creating a trustworthy and easy-to-navigate website that will impress your potential patients and bring them to your dental clinic.
Is Dental SEO Expensive?
SEO is a free marketing approach that gets your website on the top of search engine result pages. Though dentists don’t pay any price for SEO, they do have to incur some cost for hiring an SEO expert or professional company to create and implement SEO strategies since marketing isn’t their forte.
How Is the Position of My Dental Website Decided by Search Engines?
When a user looks for specific information online, he or she is likely to type some content in the Google search bar. The words that the user types are perceived as a question by Google, and it immediately gets on to find an answer or solution for the same.
For example – is a user types’ dentures’ in the search bar. Google might think the user is looking for a dental clinic nearby that offers fixation of dentures. It will then get on to finding the most relevant results by displaying all dental clinics providing dentures.
Google always aim at providing the best possible results based on what questions or words the user types. To find relevant answers or websites, they consider various on- and off-site elements.
I’ve been using Cloudways since January 2016 for this blog. I happily recommend Cloudways to my readers because I am a proud customer.
What are on-site elements?
On-site ranking elements include everything that appears on your website. This means Google keeps a close eye on your website to understand who you are and what you do. When ranking your website, some elements that Google will look for include:
- Content on your webpages
- Keywords you have used in the copy
- Quality of information provided on the website
- The loading time of your website
- How updated your site is
- How much time each reader is spending on your website pages
- The credibility of your site
What are off-site elements?
Off-site ranking factors are elements that appear outside your website. This means Google also looks for activities related to your dental practice that happens outside your website.
Some off-site ranking factors are:
- Naturally, manually and self-created backlinks for your website
- How popular is the linking site
- How well the content on the linking site is related to your website
- The number of backlinks you have managed to create
How Do You Know Your SEO Strategy Is Working Well?
Implementing the right SEO strategies is essential and checking their effectiveness is even more critical. Once an expert or professional company has designed and implemented an SEO strategy for your business, you can check how well it is working for you based on:
Ranking –
SEO aims to help your website rank in a higher position on the search engine result page. You can check for yourself what position your website is holding after putting in SEO efforts. Though your website may not appear on the top position overnight, you will be able to see it moving one position up with every right step.
Traffic –
If your website traffic is increasing, your SEO strategies are working right for you. Even if your website hasn’t appeared on the topmost position of the search engine result page, but you see a growth in the number of people visiting your website, you can be sure that your SEO efforts are working right.
Conversion –
With the right SEO strategies, you will see growth in your traffic and your conversion rate. If you begin to receive more enquiry calls or for submission or online bookings, you can tell that the hard work is paying off.
Reviews –
You can ask your clients to review your services on Google. More reviews online for your dental practice means more people visit your website, trust your services, book appointments with you, and are happy with your offerings.