You might be the best orthodontist in the vicinity, yet your competitors get to register more patient appointments at the end of the day. Have you wondered ‘why’? It is because they have a better patient base. If you want more patients, you need better online visibility and orthodontist SEO efforts can help you reach that goal.
In the United States, 77% of patients’ quest for doctors begins online. Hence, having a strong online presence is imperative for SEO success!
The good news is, ranking on the SERPs does not cost much money. You can rank on Google, Yahoo, and Bing with quality content and on-point technical SEO. Of course, you ought to have a good backlink portfolio too. But that will take time. What’s even better is that, with some effort, you can learn basic SEO skills and optimize your own website.
This blog is for orthodontists who want to learn basic skills to rank on the search engine results pages. The below 10 SEO strategies are to help orthodontists reach more prospective patients looking for orthodontic treatment.
What is SEO for Orthodontists?
Orthodontist SEO involves boosting the website’s organic search traffic through better visibility on the search engine results pages. It involves SEO practices such as uploading high quality content, targeting orthodontic practice keywords, mobile optimization, and enhancing the overall user experience, etc.
By employing these SEO strategies orthodontists can gain traction on the serps. It widens the horizon of potential markets of dental practice. Orthodontists can acquire more patients, get more brand exposure and target traffic with the help of search engine optimization.
5 Benefits of Orthodontist SEO
- Increases website Visibility: It boosts the rankings of your website on the SERPs, which increases search engine visibility.
- Get More Patient Visits: Medical websites that rank higher get more organic traffic from prospective patients who want to align their teeth. With high quality website content, you can convince patients to visit you.
- Expand Patient Base: SEO helps you expand your reach. As the internet is accessible to all, a well-optimized orthodontic website can be instrumental in helping you expand your reach.
- Improve Brand Image: 82.2% of patients search the internet before consulting a doctor
- Cost Effective Solution: SEO is the most cost-effective way of gaining traction on the search engine results pages. You can do search engine optimization for orthodontists for free, however, you have to invest your time instead.
10 Superb Tips on How to Boost SEO for Orthodontists
If you are an orthodontist who wants to capture markets by leveraging online presence, read through this blog. We shall discuss seven surefire SEO strategies to bolster SEO for your orthodontist website.
- Perform a SWOT Analysis
In the competitive market of orthodontists, it is not enough to run a technical audit alone as it only highlights issues with your website. To establish yourself as an authoritative identity, you have to seize opportunities. You can achieve that with the help of SWOT analysis.
SWOT analysis for orthodontists includes identifying the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Swots analysis offers a comprehensive roadmap for you that should lead you to the goal.
Benefits of SWOT Analysis
- Gives a clear indication about your position in the online market
- Understanding about the SEO strategies you need to strengthen
- Explores scopes of opportunities you can cash on
- Indication of search engine optimization strategies your competitors are using
- Discover the Right keywords
Keyword research is primarily for targeting a demographic cohort who might be in need of dental services. Keywords help the search engines understand what the website content is about. Applying the right keywords can significantly boost orthodontist SEO.
Of course, one has to use the keywords wisely to meet the NLP quotient of Google which determines how organically the keywords have been placed in the content.
Discovering orthodontic keywords that have a good search volume holds the potential to bring an immense chunk of web traffic to your website.
Understanding the relevant keywords that have a high search volume and low competition is impossible. For this, you require keyword research tools like Aherfs’ free keyword generator, SEMrush, Moz, Google Keyword Planner, etc.
Targeting these keywords in your on page efforts can help your website rank on the search engine results pages. However, ensure never to over-optimize the targeted keyword as that counts as black hat SEO practice and can lead to a penalty. Also, target broad keywords to reach a wider audience and tap into new opportunities.
How to Search for Orthodontic Keywords?
- Find the keywords your competitors are targeting
- Make a isn’t of seed keywords
- Search for keywords relevant to dental or orthodontic practices
- Use premium tools for researching relevant keywords
- Create a Blog Section on your Website
Adding a blog section to your website is a superb seo strategy to boost the search engine ranking of your website. You can shoot two targets with one arrow if you have a blog section with informative content.
First, As Google considers website content as the no.1 ranking factor, an addition of a high quality optometry blog to the website substantially pumps up the ranking chances.
Create content to meet Google’s search quality rater guidelines. Each blog should have high quality content that is unique and keyword-optimized. Optimizing headings and image alt tags are of course necessary. While writing a website blog, try maintaining simple sentence structure and shorter paragraphs to enhance readability.
Writing blogs on any topic won’t cut the competition. You have to understand what topics your target audience is searching on the internet. Once you have a list of popular topics on which fewer materials are available on the internet, you can create blogs on them.
Some general blog topics for the orthodontist niche are blogs on the latest technologies, types of treatment, cost of braces, how to take care of braces, etc.
Checklist for Writing Superior Orthodontist Blogs
- Blog content should be relevant to your niche
- Do internal and external linking on the blog content body
- Write in simple language for general people to understand
- Do not over optimize keywords in the blog
- Maintain a Good Website Structure
Believe it or not, after your skills as an orthodontist, your website is your 2nd most valuable asset. A higher ranking of your website guarantees better online visibility and more organic traffic. However, irrespective of the SEO optimization level, a bad website structure can hurt the patient conversion rate.
Hence a website design should be functionally stable with easy navigation options to retain patients. Most importantly it should be user friendly with a responsive design.
This increases the on page time. A higher on page time is a potent indication of the credibility of your website, which can in turn boost the ranking on the Google search results.
Tip to Create an User Friendly Website
- It should have user friendly design for easy navigation
- The look should be professional
- Fast loading time
- There should be enough informational material
- The website should have a call to action (CTA)
- Prioritize Mobile Optimization for Orthodontic Practice
The mobile traffic accounts for 60% of the entire traffic volume you get. Hence, skipping mobile optimization is not a wise decision in respect to orthodontist SEO.
To make the most, adopt a responsive design that allows your website to fit in every device, i.e. mobiles, desktops, or tablets. A responsive design ensures that people can view your website well without any impediments.
The screen space of mobiles and tablets is lesser as compared to the typical desktop or laptop. Hence, it is essential that the website content be written in smaller paras. It makes the website content more consumable to the visitors using tablets or mobile. Also, apply gZip compression to reduce the file sizes to ensure faster page loading time.
Also, another super important factor in getting your website mobile optimized is because of Google’s mobile-first indexation policy. This means websites that are optimized for mobile devices are indexed quicker than ones that aren’t!
Benefits of Mobile Optimization
- Helps reach more potential patients
- Quicker indexation of web pages
- Caters a better user experience for visitors
- Amounts to a higher conversion rate
- Optimize Google Business Profile Page
Claiming your Google Business Profile is the best way to boost the local SEO. Updating the latest information on your orthodontic practice on GBP gets you more patients from the locality.
Being an orthodontist, you don’t expect patients from another country to fly in to get their teeth aligned! Even if this happens, it is not a regular occasion. Your bread and butter majorly depends on your name & fame in the locality.
A well-optimized GBP helps you rank well in the local searches. Potential patients who are searching to get dental braces for teeth alignment from your local area can find you promptly.
Your SEO efforts for orthodontists get an immense boost when you update your Google Business Profile. To make the most of this SEO strategy, update the visiting hours, services you provide, and exact business location. This helps search engines understand your business information and rank your website well.
Tips for Optimising Google Business Profile for Orthodontists
- Choose the right category and sub-category in the GBP
- Write key-word friendly business description
- Update business location to rank on Google Maps
- Upload images to represent your orthodontic practice
- Update clinic timings and services
- Rank on Local Searches by Enlisting in Local Directories
As we mentioned earlier, the success of your orthodontic practice largely depends upon the number of potential patients you can get from your locality. More online visibility in the local searches equals more patients. To do this, another orthodontist SEO strategy is to enlist in local online directories like Yelp.
Local directories are easily accessible to patients from the surrounding areas. Hence this particular orthodontist SEO strategy can be highly beneficial in getting new patients from the locality.
Not just better visibility, local directories can also pump up patient reviews and testimonials. All you have to do is ask the patients to leave a review or set up an automated SMS or email, reminding them to do so.
Benefits of Enlisting in Local Directories
- Higher search engine ranking
- Helps local people discover your practice
- Boosts brand awareness
- Skyrockets credibility as people can leave leaves reviews
- Earn Credibility with Superior Backlink Portfolio
Acquiring high quality backlinks is an essential part of SEO strategy. A good backlink portfolio indicates that your website is credible enough to be given a spot on the first page of the SERPs.
To help an SEO beginner understand the importance of a good backlink portfolio, let’s draw a comparison. Good backlinks are similar to endorsements.
When a credit website links to your domain, it indicates to the search engines that your website contains valuable information that might be useful for prospective patients. Search engines take note of this and rank your website higher on the search results.
However, you have to keep the backlinks relevant to your niche. Hence, as an orthodontist, you can acquire backlinks to websites of other orthodontists, plastic surgeons, or healthcare professionals related to your field of study.
Adding irrelevant backlinks just for the sake of bulking up the backlink profile can backfire. Irrelevant links can confuse the search engines, resulting in a drop in the rankings.
Always give time to this strategy. Get backlinks naturally. If that is not happening in your case, you can get the help of a good guest posting agency to help you create a solid backlink profile.
Useful Tips to Create a Robust Backlink Portfolio
- Acquire relevant backlinks
- Get links to websites with high domain authority (40+)
- Engage in guest posting
- Take time to build your backlink profile
- Tap into New Opportunities with Social Media Marketing
Social media is not all about glitz and glamor. When used right, it can harness tremendous power if you leverage it for orthodontist SEO. You, as an orthodontist, who makes a living off creating beautiful smiles should definitely leverage social media to your advantage.
The first thing on your list should be to create a business page for your orthodontic practice on all social handles. Common examples are Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X (previously Twitter). Now update your business information and upload images to set the pages up.
Social media marketing is free (unless you engage in meta ads or other paid versions of ads). However, you have to pay with your time. You can upload images of your clinic, and events held at the clinic on socials like Facebook and Instagram.
For platforms like YouTube, you can shoot videos of clinic tours, important dental procedures, and patient testimonials and upload them on your channel.
While engaging in social media marketing for healthcare professionals, ensure to paste your website link on the social bio. This can help you earn more organic traffic and help bolster your SEO efforts.
Alternatively, you can get help from expert social media marketing company to take the work off of your hands. It won’t burn your pocket and allow you a great deal of time to focus on your practice.
Tips for Social Media Marketing for Orthodontists
- Be regular in posting on social media
- Join specific social media groups for orthodontists
- Be a conversation Kickstarter
- Promptly reply to comments on your posts
- Keep calm while dealing with negative comments
- Engage in Public Relations Management
Healthcare professionals such as yourself, can greatly benefit from engaging in public relations management. A good PR wing can establish you in the front and center as a trusted orthodontist. It boosts your online reputation and establishes your orthodontic practice as a trusted one in the vicinity.
With the help of good PR management, you can not only expand your online visibility but also deal with crises. If you do not have a personal public relations management wing, you can reach out to a trusted Public Relations agency to get the job done.
Benefits of Public Relations Management
- increases brand recognition
- Connects with the target audience
- Helps deal in times of crises
- Builds relations with relevant sources for your benefit
4 Common Mistakes to Avoid While Optimizing Orthodontist SEO
Many deter from the right track while optimizing orthodontist SEO. Putting certain simple strategies in place can help you rule the search rankings. You might perceive a few factors to be minor, but trust us, they are not.
Let us see where many orthodontists go wrong while optimizing websites for dental practice;
- Neglecting Local SEO
Google’s general search results are different from local search results. It has been so since 2003 when the Near Me search first came into play. Many orthodontists do not consider optimizing their website for local searches, which is a grave SEO blunder.
To thrive as an orthodontist, you need a solid local SEO strategy. Ignoring local SEO means your search visibility will not be as much in the vicinity as you need. It also means that you will have lesser organic traffic from the local area which translates to fewer patients from the locality.
As an orthodontist who definitely relies greatly on the local patients in need of orthodontic services, you must not neglect to optimize your website for local searches.
- Not caring for On-Page Optimization Factors
There’s much more to on page optimization than content. Pasting website content on WordPress and hitting upload is only half the job. Leaving on-page SEO in a half-baked state can be a blunder.
Orthodontists who are beginning with SEO need to understand that there are other on page elements like H tags, meta descriptions, and image alt tags that hold equal weightage as content. Ignoring these elements compromises your website’s visibility. Hence, ensure that you optimize all on-page elements.
- Overlooking 404 Errors
This is a technical glitch and happens either when the webpage is removed or there is an error in the URL. When a potential patient clicks on such a link, it shows error 404 in big, block letters. Such a page has no consumable content. This leads to a bad user experience.
Many orthodontists think this to be not a big matter. However, on the contrary, 404 errors can be bad for your orthodontic SEO efforts. It is better to run a technical audit every once in a while to spot these pages. Once you see one, you must take the necessary actions to omit the error or link it to 301 redirects.
- Ignoring Social Media
Never skip social media marketing if you want to boost the visibility of your orthodontic practice online. Social media are huge pools of prospective patients who are looking for orthodontic services.
Many orthodontists skip this part as it is time-consuming. However, not having a virtual social presence might not work in your favor. Hence, great up and take the best measures you can to be active on social platforms to generate referral traffic to your website.
Final Words
Gearing up for orthodontist SEO should not be much of a challenge, especially because learning basic SEO skills is not very tough. However, it can cut into your time. If you want to focus on your core business you can always take help from a professional SEO agency.
Experts in good agencies can take up any SEO challenge and mitigate matters. They come up with fierce SEO plans that drive results. However, if you choose to tread on the solo path, we hope this guide will come in handy in helping you rule the search engine results.
