SEO for Dentists: SEO Guide for Your Dental Practice

In today’s digital age, having a strong online presence is crucial for the success of any dental practice. SEO for dentists is a powerful strategy that not only boosts the patient count in your dental facility but also maintains patient loyalty. You can optimize the dental SEO on your website to bring your practice into the limelight.

Do Dentists Need SEO?

The answer is a strong ‘YES’. If you are a dentist who is looking to augment the number of patient appointments at your clinic, then Dental SEO should be one of your top priorities.

Dental SEO is an inbound marketing tactic. You can leverage it to get more patients through your clinic’s doorsteps than searching for them. Search engine optimization of your dentistry website will give the patients a comprehensive idea about what services you offer, your timings, and your address, among other things. It makes it easier for your potential patients to seek you out instead of you looking out for them through several mediums.

What Challenges Do Dentists Face in Getting More Patients?

Running a dental practice in today’s no cakewalk. Because of the rat race, everyone in your locality and the surrounding area has various options to choose from.

Did you know about 60% of people search online before booking an appointment?

When it concerns healthcare, people who are actively searching online directories for a dental facility in their surroundings are much more likely to book an appointment than those who aren’t.

Did you also know only 0.63% of people click on the second page of the SERPs? Hence, if you want your dental services to flourish, you better buck up your SEO.

We accept that “it is easier said than done.”. Many of you are outstanding dentists who have the required skills to cure aching teeth or straighten crooked teeth. However, in spite of striving to do our own dental SEO, you face challenges.

Let’s see the common type of challenges that dentists face while trying to optimize their websites for search engines.

• Poor Website Structure Can Drive Patients Away

A patient who is browsing for dental services needs all the information he or she needs in one place. If your website structure is subpar, it renders a poor user experience. In these cases, people will simply click on the back arrow and waver over to your competitor.

• Content Quality Determines Your Worth in Visitors’ Eyes

The quality of content can be directly proportional to your worth in the virtual space. Poor quality content will lead potential customers to believe that you are a novice in the field. If they don’t find what they are searching for on your website, they will leave the dental website in a matter of seconds.

• Inadequate Landing Pages Can Confuse Visitors

People in the 21st century are busy. Consider it a fact that they will not wait for a few seconds if all the information is not served to them on a platter. If you don’t have separate landing pages for all the services you provide, you are lagging in the game.

• Poor Backlink Portfolio is Detrimental to Your Dental SEO Marketing

Your potential clients can care less about the backlink profile your dental practice’s website has, but Google won’t! It is a crucial factor in SEO. The search engine giant attaches great value to backlinks. And if your competitors have a better backlink portfolio than you, Google will give the crown to them in SERP rankings.

• Slow Page Loading Time Irks Visitors!

Say goodbye to a chunk of website visitors if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Web speed impacts SEO tremendously. A survey shows that the bounce rate increases by 32% if loading for your dental website is about 3 seconds. Over 90% of people will happily go back to the search page of Google if your site loading time is five seconds. Hence, keeping your technical SEO on point is one of the key areas to focus on.

Step by Step Guide for SEO Success: Do it Yourself!

Entrusting a digital marketing agency is a superb idea. Nonetheless, it would require you to shell out some money to get things going. In case you want to do things yourself, you most certainly can. It just will take some time and energy. If you can manage that, you are good to go.

We are delineating 5 simple steps of SEO for dentists. Doing it will boost the online visibility of your website and get prospective patients who are easy to convert.

Step 1: Take Out Time for Keyword Research

Keywords are literally the words that prospective patients type in the search engine to find out desired web pages from which they can derive what they want. It can be information or booking an online appointment.

When conducting SEO keyword research for your dental practice, it’s crucial to avoid some common pitfalls. Keywords are essentially the words that potential patients enter into search engines, hoping to discover the information or services they need. For instance, consider the keywords “book dentist appointment” and “What do dentists do?”

The user intention behind the former is to literally book a dentist appointment online, while the latter suggests that the concerned person is looking for information.

New practitioners who are new in the dental industry would rather want to upgrade their awareness of their dental practice through optimizing local SEO. They are more likely to target keywords that have a user intent of gathering more information. If you are a well-known dentist in your locality, you are more likely to target keywords that seek to boost sales through online appointment booking.

Keyword Research Checklist

• Consideration of user intent
• A mixture of high and low search volume keyword set
• The set should include local keywords and search phrases
• Keep it relevant

Step 2: Focus on UI & UX

75% of users will evaluate your credibility based on the design of your website. Ensure that the user interface is top-notch. Knowing web design would help you gear up the user interface. In case you don’t, you can rely on a web developer to get the job done.

Keep your patients in mind while designing your website. If they find it hard to navigate, they will soon be on their way to your competitor’s page. It impacts your dental SEO campaign in a negative way. Your website should feature the different services you offer and menu it well to attract new patients.

Keeping a wholesome website is crucial for a better impact on potential patients. For this, you should have separate service pages. The top of the list would be to have an outstanding home page, About Us, different dental services, and a Contact Us page. Keep the loading time to a minimum for a better user experience.

UI & UX Friendly Website Checklist

• A home page that reflects your expertise
• Responsive website design
• Separate landing pages for different services
• Includes CTA
• Easy online appointment booking
• Web chat feature for easy communication
• Online reviews to enhance trust

Step 3: Content is KING!

This step is both crucial and time-consuming. Decking up your website can amount to nothing if it doesn’t have high-quality content to garner dental patients’ attention. There are two factors about dental content that need to be taken care of for dental website rankings at the top position on Google search results. The first is to create relevant content that is keyword-driven, and the second is that the content should be unique.

The search engine results pages would favor your dental blogs only if it has on-point meta descriptions and snippets. These small details help the visitors understand what the particular page is about.

One of the better ways to rank your blog post is by targeting long-tail keywords. Unfortunately, you can’t stuff too many of them in a blog. Target 1 to 2 of such keywords per blog, and you are good to go. The more blogs you publish, the higher the chances of generating more traffic and generating new leads for practice.

Checklist for Creating Fabulous Content

• The dental blogs should be unique
• Content should be keyword-optimized
• Avoid over-stuffing keyword
• Keep the sentences and paras short
• Create content for local visitors
• Avoid jargon from your dentistry textbooks

Step 4: Get More Online Reviews & Testimonials

A new survey reveals that people tend to choose dentists based on their online reviews, search engine rankings, and proximity to their location. If you are a new dentist trying to set foot in the business, ensure that you approach each patient personally and ask them to review your practice on Google and on your website. For dentists launching their dental SEO campaign, asking your patients to drop online reviews can help you gain new patients.

Reviews of previous patients who visited your clinic help you gain trust. Never settle for unscrupulous techniques for accumulating reviews, like buying them or incentivizing people for it. Work hard to build your website for lasting results.

Online Reviews Checklist

• Ask your patients for Google reviews
• Request them to fill out online forms
• The website should feature a review section
• Check fake reviews and remove them

Step 5: Local SEO for Dentists Rules the Roost

If you are based at Capitol Hill in Seattle, you cannot expect patients to fly from Chicago with a toothache. While patients fly from far for a visit, basing your practice on this type of client isn’t the best idea. This is why you should optimize your local SEO for dentists to attract more local patients.

Creating a booming local practice as a dentist requires thorough dedication, especially if you have taken search engine marketing into your own hands. You have to optimize your NAP SEO, google business profile, and Google Maps SEO to boost your rankings in the search pages. Ensure that you have a clear Contact Us page so that interested patients can make phone calls when they need to.

Local SEO optimization Checklist

• Target local keywords and search phrases
• Leverage online directories
• Make sure to optimize Google maps
• Set up a Google business profile and optimize it

Step 6: Earn the Trust of Search Engine Through Link Building

Posting website content is not enough if you can’t get the search engine to trust your site. This is why you have to rely on off-page SEO techniques like link building. The purpose of building a backlink portfolio is to increase domain authority.

Google and other search engines like Yahoo and Bing tend to give higher ranks to websites with robust backlink portfolios. To create a portfolio of backlinks for a dental website, you have to create guest posts, choose anchor text through keyword research, and reach out to webmasters.

Building Backlink Portfolio Checklist

• Find relevant high-authority domains
• Find dental search terms for anchor text
• Create guest posts
• Communicate with webmasters
• Do the guest posting to acquire the link

9 Best Dental SEO Strategies for #1 Ranking on SERPs

Irrespective of whether you do the dental SEO work yourself or hire an agency for it, it is always good to know the SEO basics. Knowing popular SEO for dentists’ strategies will help you to comprehend what works in this domain and what does not.

Let’s walk you through a few Search engine optimization strategies for dentists. Following more than one of these techniques can work in tandem to boost your search engine rankings. Now, some of these techniques are fairly traditional, and some are innovative. It depends on your which ones you choose.

1. Don’t Underestimate the Wonders of Google My Business (Now Google Business Profile)

If you aren’t aware of the GMB profile, it’s time you find it now. As a dentist, your billable income depends on local clients with dental issues. Google My Business is now called Google Business Profile. It is a business listing service by the search engine giant Google. It is an integral part of Local SEO.

Your GMB profile tells people what your business is about, where you are located, your contact number, working hours, etc. If you can perform Google map SEO with caliber, it will boost the Google map rankings on the top page of Google, which guides new patients to the precise location of your clinic.

2. Share Your Knowledge Through Dental Blogging

“Sharing is Caring!” The idiom is all the truer for dentists like you. As a doctor of teeth, you have knowledge and expertise on a subject that affects people’s health. As a worthy member of the society, you can start dental blogging.

Dental blogging will not only garner your appreciation from people who are in urgent need of teeth-related tips but also from Google and other search engines.

From the Panda update in 2011 to the Core update in 2022, Google works much like a human being. It understands your good intent and rewards you if you cater value to the readers.

3. Device Optimizations to Cater to The Mass

There are about 4.32 billion internet users and among them, 92.3% of people browse the internet through their mobile. Hence, mobile optimization holds a special place in the search engine rankings. The prime motto of all search engines is to give the best to its users. Hence, all of them rank dental websites that are mobile optimized.

To do device optimization, you have to keep a responsive website design, mobile-friendly navigation, resize images, optimize thumbnail formats, etc.

4. Get Vocal with Local!

One can never complete a list of suggestions on SEO for dentists and not mention local dental SEO. As a dentist, you rely squarely on the local people to have your billable work rolling. Adopting strategies like GBP optimization, targeting local dental keywords, NAP citations, etc.

Don’t expect a miracle in this aspect. As we have implied, SEO takes time. And if you are reading this blog, it means you are still fairly new to this. Consider implementing a mix of all the local strategies to rank higher in the local searches.

5. Enlisting on Yelp Really Helps!

While there are other directories like Foursquare, Merchant Circle, and Urban Spoon available, Yelp rules the roost as the No.1 Local directory in America. In fact, it is so popular that 89% of people look up Yelp to find local services.

As Yelp is so popular, enlisting your services on this platform can certainly benefit your search engine optimization marketing. Leveraging Yelp can get you more phone calls from potential patients who are looking for dentists on an urgent basis. You have to do some work while conversing with them to convert them.

6. Social Media Postings Help SEO

It is not yet established how Social media and SERP rankings are related, but we have observed that dental practices that have an active social media presence tend to have better search engine page rankings. Basically, social media optimization of your dental clinic is an off-page SEO technique.

We are asserting that social media interaction is the closest, most interactive, and most personal communication you can hold with potential patients.

Leveraging social media to boost your dental clinic’s online visibility will send referral traffic your way. The footfall of traffic generated through off-page SEO generates qualified leads that translate to better conversion.

7. Experiment with SEO Strategies

There is no dearth of patients looking for a good dentist online. It is your job to put yourself out there. For this, you might have to play and experiment with several ways in which SEO for dentists might work. As dental websites fall under the YMYL category, you have to be extra careful with it.

You might have to experiment with established SEO marketing strategies like content marketing, link building, technical SEO, etc., to garner the trust of search engines to rank higher.

8. Leverage Story Brand Framework

As a dentist, you are not yet putting on Content marketing to rank higher on search engines. You perhaps have a long way to go. If you are already thinking about it, let us tell you about the “story brand framework”. It means marketing yourself as a solution provider through stories.

Not clear yet? Read on.

StoryBrand Framework is a marketing strategy that harnesses the power of storytelling to assist local businesses in connecting with potential customers by giving weight to their pain points, their journeys, and remedies. Post content that poses a person in distress (dental pain/toothache in your case) who came to you on an urgent basis and found a solution.

9. Always Monitor SEO Efforts

You cannot shoot in the dark and expect results. If you are performing SEO for dentists, you need to have a yardstick to measure the output. Relying on Google analytics is a good idea to measure the crucial metrics of your SEO marketing.

Integrate Google search console to your website to have a clear vision of the several metrics of your website. It will give you accurate figures of the volume of the organic traffic, source of traffic, bounce rates, on-page time, etc.

Bonus Tip: Rely on Public Relation Agencies to amp up the reputation of your dental practice for better inflow of patients.

If you are looking for faster traction on search engine results, then adopting various SEO measures is imperative. However, relying solely on SEO can take time for your dental practice to flourish as far as traffic and appointments from the digital space are concerned. For immediate results, you can integrate PPC into your digital marketing campaign. Google ads, paid Yahoo ads, and Bing ads can deliver faster results.

Paid ad campaigns and SEO for dentists can work in sync to fetch you higher profit from your practice. Remember that you need a considerable budget for a paid marketing campaign. If you have the budget in hand, go for it, because as they say, “Money earns money” is true in the domain of dental practice.

4 Good Reasons Why Dentists Should Partner with a Dental SEO Agency

Google’s core algorithm is a complex maze that none can fathom. You need to be aware of Google’s SEO best practices and other norms to keep your dental practice website on the front page.

For a dentist, it is often a tough job to maintain his practice and do dental search engine optimization at the same time. This is why you need the assistance of a good dental SEO agency for this purpose.

Let’s have a look at the top reasons why a dentist SEO company can help your business;

1. They have Niche-Specific SEO Knowledge

Dental SEO falls squarely under the YMYL category. Hence, you have to be extra careful not to attract a Medic penalty from Google. A dental SEO company can help you in this regard.

They have niche-specific SEO knowledge that they have gained from the years of experience over the years. They craft and upload relevant content on the landing pages and write informative blogs to earn the trust of search engines.

Dental SEO strategy can be a tad tricky, as you will have to abide by the HIPAA regulations. In this regard, SEO for dentists can get you through the portal of Google Limbo into Google Paradise.

SEO agencies for dental professionals will focus on the different practices you do. They will design landing pages on individual services like teeth whitening, root canaling, dental implants, etc.

See, setting up a sound SEO and social media plan for your dental practice requires knowledge of two things. First, knowledge of dentistry and second, SEO knowledge for doctors & dentists. You might be a master at the former, but you might not be well aware of the latter. This is why hiring a professional SEO agency can benefit you.

2. Dental Website SEO Can Get New Patients

Geo-targeting is an essential part of SEO for dentists. It is crucial for dental SEO, as your business majorly depends on targeting the right audience who are likely to get converted.

A Dental SEO company knows which demographic to target in order to get new patients to you. While all are susceptible to dental ailments, older people above the age of 50 are more prone to be the target patients. SEO companies conduct specific surveys and know the people in your locality or the surrounding areas who might be searching for dental remedies.

3. Boost the Online Visibility of Your Practice

Only a fraction of people scrolls beyond the first page. If your website SEO is not on point, your practice will perhaps remain buried in the second or third page of the search engine result pages.

Companies that offer SEO for dentist services can boost your online visibility by targeting search phrases and relevant keywords. Dental SEO agencies optimize your on-page, off-page SEO, and technical SEO metrics to boost your search engine rankings and search results.

4. More Time to Focus on Dental Practice

You only have 24 hours in a day, and within that, you have to do a variety of things apart from looking at your patients. Cramming your schedule to do your website’s SEO can be time-consuming. Also, if you lack experience in this matter, you might have to run a few trials and errors before coming to a conclusive optimization strategy for your practice.

Partnering with a dental SEO company will allow you to have more time on your hands so that you can focus on your core practice as a dentist. It will take the load off your shoulders and give you more time to get vital things done.

FAQs on Dental SEO

Additional Resources:

• PPC for Doctors: The Ultimate Guide to Generating Online Leads
• SEO for Doctors (Proven SEO Tips to Grow Your Medical Practice)
• Advanced Lead Generation Strategies for Doctors and Healthcare Providers in 2023