- March 7, 2024
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SEO For Dentists – The Do’s And Dont’s in 2024
As a telehealth practice owner, I have experienced the difficulties associated with marketing a dental practice first hand. For years, I tried to add the right keywords, optimize the headings, include rich content, but it resulted in minimal success.I also have about 20 years of web development and SEO experience, so why was I struggling? This was supposed to be easy.
One day, I decided to let our content speak for itself and stop trying to convince google to accept us. Seemingly overnight, we started growing to the top positions nationwide. How did this happen? Well, because we finally stopped TRYING to get google to appreciate our content. The bots are smarter than we give them credit for, they know the tricks, and by the time you have heard of a trick to beat the system, the crawlers have already started penalizing those who have used it.
We did not need an SEO company to hit the top spot in Google, and neither do you.
The Most Useful Example Of How SEO Is Evolving
We all know reviews are great, right? Well, what if some reviews end up hurting your ranking more than they help?
A few years back, many practices started offering QR codes to get reviews from patients while they were still in the office. The bots noticed, “why are all these patients leaving reviews while still inside the doors of the dental office?”. The engines that drive the google bots can see the location of a reviewer, and also the IP address of the user.
Google decided that these reviews may be worth less than normal reviews. Ofcourse a patient will leave a 5 star review when the dentist is standing next to them. So what happened? Many practices who did this, lost their ranking very quickly.
The Solution: Send patients home with a card, and send a text reminder to leave a review. You could even incentivize this with a very simple give-away.
Never hit page 2 of a google search
The Importance Of Google Search
According to this article by Delmain, 75% of people will never get past the first page of a google search. In addition to that, a study in 2023 concluded that nearly 40% of people looking for something on google will click the first result!
This high competition for visibility is what makes SEO for dentists that much more important. With your business not ranking on the first page, you already drop more than 75% of your potential customer base.
A study by Pew Research Center states that 77% of those online looking for health care start with a search engine. A valuable spot in the market that should not be overlooked.
When we finally nailed down our SEO strategy, our profit increased over 700% in a single year. I have not seen any other advertising methodology that leaves as much room for growth and scalability as a heavy focus on SEO.
How To Increase Your Web Traffic For Free
Increasing your website traffic is a direct result of a winning SEO campaign. The more traffic you get, the higher you rank, the higher you rank, the more traffic you get. You can see the feedback loop here. The problem is, how do you get ranking, if you have no traffic to begin with? The answer is to build a proper backlink portfolio. A backlink is any website that links to your own. Google grades backlinks based on relevance to your content, and reputation. A link from whitehouse.gov is much more valuable than a link from FreeSeoDirectory4U.
Initially, I began writing for blogs and news stations to get some additional backlinks for my websites. However, there are other ways to get backlinks without writing your own content, the most useful of which is: Get added to free directories, lists, coupon-websites, and match-making platforms.
Backlink Sourcing
One way of increasing visibility is through backlink sourcing. This means getting your websites URL placed on other reputable websites.
There are a few reputable location based match-making services out there, some like DentistOffices.com, Yelp, ZocDoc, and Google Maps are more helpful than others, but you should take full advantage of these platforms.
Not only will you obtain more traffic from the users on the platform, but you will be more visible to google. The backlinks are valued higher if the content is relevant to dentistry. So start listing your practice, maintain your information, post updates on google business, and start seeing the growth!
Keyword Selection
Keyword selection was more useful in previous decades, but is still relevant today. Do not let keywords decide your content! This was my largest mistake when starting in SEO. Instead, let your content help you decide on your keywords.
Below is an example of what I’m talking about. The base term “root canal” has a keyword difficult of 81, meaning that it’s incredibly hard to rank high for on google. But by adding “before and after” to it, you see a drop in volume but also a major drop in the competition.
To anybody out there writing an article on root canals… now is the time.
The keyword “Root Canal Before And After” is a winner for the moment, but it wont last long before it becomes competitive. That is how the cycle works.
Blogging/Articles
Though blogging is a great way of increasing engagement on your dental website. It’s also a perfect method for raising your SEO score by packing both keywords and backlinks into your article. This is a good way of targeting specific search results through the topic of your article. Google also favors websites that regularly update their content. This means your site will be indexed more frequently, allowing your ranking to rise.
Local Awareness
Your practice’s services don’t have to be cutting edge to help you stand apart from the crowd. Something often overlooked in SEO is locality specific keywords.
When focusing on SEO for dentists, most are only trying to obtain the local market. The good news is, competition in Manhattan is much lower than the competition across the USA.
Here is an example, try ranking for the keyword “Implant Dentists in Chicago IL” will give much better results than the keyword “Implant Dentists”. This brings you from the national competition level, down to the local level. I promise, you will have much better results.
Also, leave the “Near Me” keywords alone. The crawlers are intelligent, they know to match by location and will treat the term “Near Me” in your content negatively.
Dentists in New York
Dentists in Syracuse
So How Important Is SEO For Dentists?
The majority of individuals looking for healthcare are most likely to consult friends and family at a resounding 51%. Less prevalent than that are formal information sources like the internet at 24% and doctors/nurses at 12%. This information all comes from a study done by the National Institutes of Health detailing how most patients find their physician. Despite the majority of patient acquisitions not coming from online sources, capitalizing on that 24% of patients should not be overlooked. In the field of marketing, sometimes you need every advantage you can get.
For a quick rundown of what SEO is, I'd also recommend checking out the 5 minute video below!
Author: Jeffrey Meyers
Jeffrey Meyers is a pioneering Dental Practice owner who, over the last decade, has dedicated himself to mentoring and guiding others in the dental industry on how to expand and thrive in their own practices
A Few Valuable Resources
Claim Your Office Listing With Us
List yourself on DentistOffices.com to Increase Visibility
Google.com
Google’s Best Practices for Search Engine Optimization
DentalEconomics
Attract New Dental Patients with Internal Marketing
Top Dental SEO Companies
#1 : WebFX – Best Pricing
#2 : BITS – Most Unique Strategy
#3 : Funnel Boost Media – Best For Small Companies
