If you are a dentist looking for help with SEO, you’re in the right place. This article will tell you the best SEO strategies for dentists, as well as discuss dental marketing and social media for dental offices. Dental search engine optimization is key for attracting new patients to your dental website. This is why dental marketing and SEO are practically synonymous in digital marketing space.
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Best SEO Strategies for Dentists
Search engine optimization, or SEO, maximizes your chances of being digitally visible. When someone searches a topic online, pages of results pop-up.
In the context of dentists, a prospective patient can Google dental services, resulting in related-topics: different companies, nearby locations, types of services offered, and so on.
The goal is for your company to show higher up on the search results page. The sooner your pages appear, the more chances someone will interact with it. Using SEO for dentists, there are fortunately ways to establish that essential visibility.
Optimize Dental Keywords
Get specific with what you offer with your Dental SEO strategy. Use adjectives that accurately describe your dental practice, such as all the services your practice offers. Is it an award-winning establishment? Do you specialize in pediatric dentistry? Is scheduling an appointment so flexible that customers can go to you for emergencies?
Whatever your strong characteristics may be, the new keywords should still be common enough phrases for a person to casually know. Dentist keywords work best when they are words a prospective patient would search online. The same is true for title tags and page titles.
Be cautious though: Google will penalize you if they detect an abnormal usage of keywords. Also known as “keyword stuffing,” website pages with irrelevant keywords causes a negative user experience.
- “Unnatural” repetition of phrases
- Unnecessary phone numbers
- Blocks of text listing cities and a higher-ranking web page
However, there’s no need to worry about balancing the quality versus quantity of keywords. As long as the integrity of keywords are accurate to your dental company then you’re at a good start with optimizing keywords.
Essentially, don’t completely exploit the algorithm. Rather, use the algorithm to your advantage.
Use Links
Your website should solely market your business. However, there is a balancing act with using your own links and referencing other businesses’ work.
- Repurpose internal links: Where it seems fit, you can link back to other pages or posts on your website. These internal references drive traffic back to company-produced work. More audience engagement means prospects are investing more of their time.
- Add external links: This approach can seem counter-intuitive. After all, your website is meant to promote your own brand. However, the small links to other website pages within your industry or community helps foster overall organic traffic. As a result, search engines deem you as a more credible resource.
- Earn quality links: To earn a link is the opposite of using external links. Other credible websites reference your website pages or posts as an external link. In this manner, third-parties are endorsing your work. Hence, now your link is deemed as a “quality” link because it is trustworthy.
Local SEO for Dental Offices
local SEO is a form search engine optimization based on location. Acknowledging your proximity is as simple as using the names of your business’s location, neighbor, community, or city.
While it might seem mundane, local search for dentists should not be overlooked. 97% of consumers use the internet to learn more about a local company or service.
A prospective patient can specifically search for a dental service nearby them. If potential patients search for a new dentist in your local area, you want them to find your practice. SEO experts can ensure that happens with a combination of optimizing your online presence, web design, Google Analytics, and other marketing efforts.
On the same note, do not forget to utilize Google’s online directories. Google even sets up specific spaces on their results page for local businesses. Your business should be listed on Google Maps, Google My Business, and Google Reviews. To a certain extent, all these apps are intertwined.
Don’t forget about other digital directories though. Yelp, Bing, and Apple Maps provide the same resources and qualities to consumers.
In conjunction with optimizing local searches, you can have more control on how your business information is perceived. For example, you can add a website, reference a phone number, specify services, and attach relevant images. This publicity also invites feedback through those incorporated review sites. As a result, it welcomes an interactive way to receive community commentary.
If you’re using external tools for ads, you also have the option to geographically target your area. By narrowing down the ads to surrounding communities, people will generally be more responsive because of the shorter distance. There’s also already a good chance that these are the same neighborhoods that you have already been serving.
Dentist SEO
Investing time, energy, and money into SEO strategies may seem implicitly unconventional for a dentist. On the other hand, the same tools can give you the lead it needs to be ahead of the competition. If it is within your budget, you can always hire an SEO company with expertise in dentist search engine optimization.
Based on local SEO stats, within 24 hours, 88% of prospects call or visit a business after looking up nearby businesses on a mobile device. Despite those percentages, dentists without any SEO strategies continue to miss out on high amounts of potential customers.
Benefits of Dental SEO
But, if your dental business optimizes the search engine properly, benefits will flood your way.
- Audience: Because it is on the internet, you are reaching a wider audience, with diverse demographics. Customers now have more access to refined information about your company, including the latest updates.
- Convert prospects into customers: Because of the new connection to bigger pools of customers, there’s a great potential of converting prospects to customers. If a good experience is maintained, then these customers will return to your dentist for more services. Long-term relationships with customers bring in stable income.
- Insights: Once the SEO strategies are ingrained, insights come to light. With careful analysis, the outcomes can signify what people are the most and least receptive to. With this deeper understanding, your dentist can choose to strengthen and emphasize those qualities in marketing.
Dentist Marketing
In addition to SEO tactics, you can also use digital dentist marketing strategies to gain more customers.
Demographic Targeting
Knowing your target audience makes for better online marketing. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean your services are limited to those groups of people. Rather, you’d appeal to an audience that has potential to already show significant interest.
For example, if you specializes in serving children then the ads can be geared towards parents. However, audience targeting isn’t limited to just age. Google Ads provides a range of options where you can impose ads based on parental status, gender, location, and even household income.
Pay-Per-Click Ads
Pay-per-click ads are cost-effective way to advertise your dental office. To start off, you can set your preferred budget, usually in a time span of days. Then, you only have to pay for the amount of times that a customer clicks on your ad per day, without exceeding your set payment plan.
These ads are usually displayed with a little box stating “Ad.” There’s a dedicated top space in the results page, for these text ads. Pay-per-click ads also come in image formats. Similarly, there’s also call-only ad campaigns, where people click on the ad and it automatically calls your business.
Website Content Creation
Content creation usually comes in forms of blogs, videos, newsletters, promotions. These might seem like an odd approach to dentist marketing, given the common distinction of healthcare services and media. Yet, content creation can yield effective audience outreach. In addition to looking for services, prospective dental patients may seek educational content.
For example, a customer can be researching information on how braces work and its certain procedures. Showcasing educational content is great online marketing that shows off the credibility of your establishment. Not to mention, content creation is another way to sneak in the previously mentioned relevant keywords and links.
Appointment Reminders
Whether it’s through a postcard, email, phone call, these reminders gently prompt patients to schedule an appointment. It casually brings attention back towards your establishment and signals slight urgency to arranging a necessary appointment.
Dentist Social Media Ideas
Another common way to market your dental practice is through the power of different social media platforms. Generally, individuals use these digital mediums to interact with one another. However, businesses have long hopped onto this opportunity to directly interact with customers.
By adding location-related information to your profile, you’re also optimizing local SEO. Additionally, every social media platform is popular among different demographics. You can take advantage of social media outreach to better target customers.
More than a quarter of LinkedIn users are between 26 and 35 years old, which Hootsuite claims to be the same age bracket of “LinkedIn’s advertising audience’s biggest cohort.” On LinkedIn, any marketing is geared towards professionals and established businesses.
In general, joining LinkedIn groups is great for finding guidance and bouncing ideas with businesses in the same industry. The hidden perk is that these connections have the opportunity to lead into endorsements. Other companies can also cite your establishment on their affiliated pages. The third-party endorsements reinforce your reliability as a business, at no marketing costs.
While there are many ways to approach Facebook advertising, this platform is a great tool to market your company as more community-oriented. Prospects may interpret your dentist as more friendly and therefore more approachable. This social medium is also an appropriate place to show off promotional deals.
Without a doubt, Instagram is notorious for being a quick, visuals-driven app. Through its tools, you can present the range of skill sets you possess as a dentist. For example, a video showing you performing a highly-technical procedure.
Another example would be before-and-after pictures of teeth whitening or teeth alignment. This form of content would provide visual evidence to how effective your dentistry skills are!
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