Dental SEO Tips – 16 Ways to Maximize Your Website for Search Engines

Despite the creative digital marketing efforts of some dental marketing companies, dentists are still not found on the web by potential patients. Rest assured, there is hope: dental practice search engine optimization or aka local SEO for dentists will help your practice rank higher for keywords on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other online directories.

What is SEO?

It can be challenging for a patient to find a dental practice online if it has not been optimized for SEO. SEO stands for search engine optimization, which refers to the process of helping your dental website and other online assets rank higher in search results on sites like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. When your website and your Google My Business account ranks higher, you stand a better chance of generating clicks, calls and attracting visitors to your site, as well as returning more traffic.

Of course, you will need a quality website for this to work and a great web designer. You will need content-rich articles with key-phrases or keywords embedded throughout your website and blog. All of the content on your website should have optimized headings and image tags throughout; and alt text should tell about what viewers see when they scroll over with their mouse cursor.

Some SEO for dental practice methods, like updating the copy on your website, are simple. Other forms can be challenging to learn how to do yourself. For these tasks, you may have to hire seo professionals for help with developing a website or a dental SEO campaign.

Dental SEO can be very complicated. Make sure that you speak with someone who has had experience with improving a dental practice’s online presence and local SEO strategies before getting started on optimization.

SEO marketing for dentists: the importance of it.

The number one question regarding dental local SEO is typical, “Why does my dental practice need SEO?” 

At Local Dental Marketing, we believe in a steady increase in patients and business-building credibility through our proven SEO strategies. Studies indicate that when a site ranks within the top five search results across the major search engines (i.e., Google, Yahoo!, Bing), it attracts 2x as many qualified patient leads as similar sites on page 10 or higher. This is because ranking is correlated to authority or relevance with a particular audience segment upon which these audiences base their purchase decisions.

In most cases, if you rank within the first page of results on Major Search Engines, your website will generate clicks, calls and website visits. Remember to make sure that your services page and your title tags are correct and not duplicated through your website. 

Consumers who turn to the Internet looking for dental services are likely expanding their search results for local dentists in Google maps. It is important to note that your competitors will most likely have an edge should these customers see them first due to SEO efforts.

If your competitors aren’t already investing in dental SEO for their practices, this is a fantastic opportunity for you to get the jump on them so that your practice will rank higher and you’ll be the obvious choice for patients in your local community. 

Reach more patients online

Dental practice owners are constantly looking for ways to keep their waiting rooms busy, with treatment chairs full and phones ringing from new patients. While they want new patient growth, dentists also need to watch out for gimmicks and marketing ploys that can cause a dentistry’s integrity to be eroded.

Finding new patients starts with examining how you engage with your existing customers. You can never assume that just because someone has seen your practice before they will come again; there is so much competition in the market these days, this has never been truer.

Another important factor is not only to focus on gaining new patients, practice owners should focus on boosting the number of return visits from current patients.

When you partner with Local Dental Marketing, we’ll help you earn visibility for the keywords your target audience is searching, and reach more patients for your practice. 

Four tips for optimizing your dental website

Developing an effective SEO strategy requires knowing how to reach your audience, which begins with understanding the needs of your patients, their search intent, the competition in the area and locations where you want to rank.

Here are some ways you can begin developing a great dental search engine optimization strategy:

1. Add Relevant Keywords to your website, meta data and descriptions. Yes, patients search for dentists and also specific services like teeth whitening and bridges. But the traffic from people using long-tail searches is often very targeted and ready to convert into customers.
2. To optimize your website for the dentist or dental services, it’s essential to include keywords like ‘children’s dentist in [city]’ or ‘broken tooth repair in [town].’ in the meta descriptions of your site and blog articles. These are long-tail keywords that include a service as well as a geo location.
3. A quick way of improving your results is by adding the name of your town and nearby towns in all web copy—but don’t only focus on copywriting. Add locations to page titles and URLs too.
4. A blog is another excellent way to develop your practice SEO campaign by driving leads and attracting new customers. Blogging can help with this by publishing articles about dental care tips that will likely attract readers interested in your service. As your traffic increases and search rankings improve, you will become the first choice for people looking for a dentist nearby.
5. The ultimate function of dental search engine optimization is to cast a wider net, hoping that more patients will come through increased visibility on the web. However, for experienced dentists, it should also be an opportunity to build credibility and increase case acceptance through social proof.
6. Earn Links by providing great content that local companies will link to. Don’t be afraid to contact local businesses in your area and offer to provide link exchanging opportunities.
7. Develop dental SEO friendly content… Content is king for dental search engine optimization because it’s essential to providing potential patients with the information they need. Through informative articles allow people who are searching for dental services to learn more about what they should expect when visiting your practice, which can help decrease nervousness over first time appointments.
8. Make sure to optimize your Google My Business account by claiming it and verifying it first. Once you’ve claimed your GMB account you can begin optimizing the account by adding dental services and dental photos. Optimize by adding service and product information. This can include dental office hours, service areas and your practice description.
9. Create geo graphically targeted dental content that will help you increase your search engine rankings. This is best done by adding a section to your website called ‘areas we serve’ and writing location pages. 
10. When writing your dental SEO content, remember that Google is all about user intent. Use online tools to find out what dental terms people are searching for in the area where you want to rank and make sure these are included in all dental SEO content written on your site. Because the Google algorithm favors local businesses, making sure keyword phrases like ‘dentist near me’ or ‘best dentist in [zip]’ is an essential way of helping you rank higher than your competitors who may be using outdated dental search engine optimization techniques.
11. Make sure your dental website is mobile friendly. The reality is most users don’t go directly from a desktop computer to a dental practice website, they go using a mobile device or smartphone. And dental search engine optimization for dental practices is concerned with providing the right information to users who are searching on their phone.
12. Optimize your dental SEO by adding dental videos and dental podcasts. Because users often get frustrated looking through pages of text, dental SEO experts recommend creating video content that can be published on YouTube and embedded onto dental practice websites. Creating dental podcast episodes that include the latest news in dentistry is another way of connecting with potential patients online. And as Google considers both video and podcast content more substantive than short articles or blog posts, it can help influence rankings in a positive manner.
13. Include dental directories like The Best Dentist Network and Dentist Locator to your website and make sure that your listing information is correct.
14. Your dental SEO campaign won’t succeed without a strategy designed to improve your search rankings while appealing to potential patients’ needs at the same time. Generally speaking, highly visible keywords are better than less frequently searched terms because they’re more likely to lead to new leads or sales for your practice.
15. Reach out to local bloggers and industry leaders as part of a strategy to earn more relevant content shared by them. When it comes to search engine optimization, links serve as the most significant ranking factor. Links help boost your rankings in search results and position you as a leader in the dental field.
16. Remember to add your address and phone number to the footer of your website. You should also make sure that your phone number is in the top right hand section of your site making it easy for patients to find. 

If you have any questions about SEO for dentists or would like to learn more about our online marketing services, please contact us today.