As of 2017, it’s estimated that there are over 198,000 dentists working in the country.
When you practice in a country of over 300 million people, it may seem like you shouldn’t have a hard time finding new patients. But the truth is that many dentists struggle to bring in new business.
Dentists may practice medicine, but they still need a steady stream of patients to keep their business going.
SEO for dentists can help you bring in new patients and help you reach hundreds of potential new patients. If you’re ready to use SEO to help your business, read on to learn more.
SEO for Dentists
You may need a developer to help you build an outstanding website, but luckily you don’t need to be a technical professional to practice SEO for dentists.
SEO can be easy to do when you have the right background knowledge. If you follow these SEO tips for your practice, you’ll find the new patients you need in no time.
Update Your Listings
If you’re new to SEO for dentists, you may be surprised to learn that you have an online presence that goes beyond your website.
There a lot of places where people can find information about your dental practice.
Google My Business is one of the biggest online directories of businesses, and they have a lot of your information. Your Google My Business page is where Google gets information about your website, hours, and specialties.
Before you do anything related to SEO strategy, take time to claim your Google Business listing and make sure that it’s updated.
After you’ve done that, search the web to see where else you come up. You probably have a profile on Yelp, Bing, and other review websites and search engines.
Be sure that all of the information is correct, and fill out any information gaps you find.
Be Consistent
While we’re on the topic of updating your listings, we should touch on the importance of consistency in online content.
Making sure that your information is correct everywhere, whether that’s in online profiles, your website, or on social media, is extremely important.
Naming can get a little complicated when you’re practicing dentistry.
The title “Ellen K. Jones, DDS” and “Jones Dental Associates, Inc.” may be referring to the same dental practice, but Google and other search engines won’t know that.
Make sure that your practice name is the same across the board. It can help prevent mix-ups and ensure that new potential customers have the right information from the get-go.
Ask For Reviews
Reviews play an important dual role in SEO for dentists. Popular review websites like Yelp contain a lot of information that can help people learn about your business. They’re also another website that’s connected to your business.
If you want to bring in new customers, ask some of your current happy customers to leave reviews.
Ask them to talk about their experience and the services they received. The more vivid and detailed they are about their visit, the better.
Also, take time to think about what patients are the most likely to care about during their visit.
Great dental work is important, but having a kind staff that’s helpful is just as important to patients. The same goes for having prompt appointment times and having open lines of communication with you and your employees.
Have An SEO Optimized Website
Your website is going to be the key to improving your rankings and becoming more visible online.
If you want to get the best results, get an SEO agency to handle the work. SEO isn’t all keywords and tags, much of your ranking will depend on the usability of your website.
A professional SEO agency can do things with SEO and PPC you can’t do on your own.
But for now, there a few keyword tweaks you can make on your own to perfect your website SEO.
Keywords are important to have in website copy, but using them properly is far more important than placing them whenever you can.
Only use keywords where they make sense. Don’t insert them where they don’t belong or use them too much. A Google crawler could see that as keyword stuffing, and it could harm your overall ranking.
Make sure to use appropriate keywords in header tags like H1s and H2s, alt tags, and meta descriptions.
Add The Local Element
When you’re tweaking your keywords and improving your overall SEO strategy, be sure to add some local flare to your new keywords.
When it comes to SEO for dentists, adding locations to your keywords could help you bring in a lot more customers.
Trying to rank for keywords like “dentist” or “dental hygenist” will be a considerable waste of money. A lot of people already rank for the keywords, and they’re also vague and not targeted.
Aiming for keywords with unique locations attached to them like your state, county, city, or town can help you target local customers that need someone to serve them in their area.
Don’t Forget About Mobile
In the past, mobile traffic was a very small part of overall website traffic. Today it’s estimated that over 52% of worldwide websites visits are done on a mobile device.
If you want to do SEO for dentists the right way, don’t forget about making sure your website is mobile optimized.
This is where using an agency can be handy. They can ensure that the mobile layout of your website looks nice and that your images and links work.
Next Steps
You have the foundation to start improving your website and your marketing strategy. Now it’s time to start building on that foundation and get your website in order.
Spend some time focusing on how to build your brand in the community. Check out our blog post on self-promotion so you can get some important eyes on your business.
And remember, we’re always here to help. Check out our blog for other helpful marketing tips, and be sure to contact us with any questions you may have.