A Simple SEO Guide for Dentists
The Simple Dental SEO Guide
Website creation and Blog posting has become extremely popular in the past few years; in fact, it is so popular that well over 2 million posts are created each day.
Do you know how many posts a minute that is?!
It’s over 1,350 posts each and every minute of the day. With numbers like that, it is nearly impossible to stand out as unique. Because of this having a well built website that is optimized and a successful blog to promote your business is what you will need to be noticed and rank high across the search engines.
How can you make your blog more unique? Optimization is the key to success, especially when you are trying to bring new patients to your dental business through the internet.
When discovering information is often found through Google searches, those few minutes that you take to optimize your dental website may be the difference between website success and failure. Many dentists are beginning to realize just how important this step is for their business, but what exactly is dentist SEO (search engine optimization), and how can it help you?
What is SEO?
Stand out amongst dentists in your area, with proper online optimization.
Put simply, SEO is optimizing your content so that it shows up as one of the first results when certain key words are searched for in Google or another search engine.
Ideally, you need to use words and phrases in your article that will help your page make it to the #1 spot.
For example, if the post you are trying to get traffic to is about dentistry, then you may want to incorporate keywords like teeth cleaning, teeth whitening, and tartar control into the context of your blog post. You can also add key phrases like the best way to remove plaque and teeth whitening techniques, but more on that later.
About 93 percent of all online activity that we do begins with a search in Google or other such search engine.
When the results appear, isn’t it true that you start at the top to find the information that you are looking for? No one goes to the third page to find relevant information, so why should your website show up there? If your content does not show up on the very first page that is seen after a search is completed, then you could have saved your time and not posted it to begin with.
In fact, 65 percent of all of the clicks go to the first five results, and that is exactly why SEO will make or break your website’s success and your opportunity to get new clients from the internet.
How Does a Search Engine Work?
To understand how results are listed after a search, it is important to know how the search engine finds them.
Let’s say that you are looking for information about baby teeth. You would type baby teeth into the search field, and search the web for information.
More accurately, if you are searching through Google, you are searching Google’s index of the web. After a few pages are located, Google’s automated “spiders” will find connections between pages to compile billions of results for you.
Here is how Google’s very own, Matt Cutts, describes Google’s search engine:
How does the search engine organize these pages and give you the results that you desire?
Again, that is where keywords come into play. What is a keyword?
A keyword is the word(s) typed into the search box on search engines, in order to find the information desired. For example:
The amount of times the keywords are used together, if the key phrase is exact, and the quality of the website will all come into play in search engine results.
Then, the factors are combined with all of the information a search engine finds on the internet, and the results arrive on your computer.
White vs Black: Which Hat will You Choose?
SEO has two sides; the black hat and the white hat.
The black hat is more about quick results by any means necessary and the white hat is better for long term growth.
You will need to decide which one is right for you and your blog, so to help you get a better grasp on each one, let’s see what makes them different.
• Black Hat
Black hat optimization focuses solely on getting your blog to the top of the search engine results.
Often this type of approach leads to a spammy page that is incoherent and difficult to follow.
You may be able to get a lot of click revenue through this method, but these types of posts often become banned quickly, so you will need to stay on top of the search engine updates to remain at the top (Note: At The SEO Dentist we do not perform black hat SEO as it is not in the best interest of our clients. We work with businesses whose aim is long term success).
Duplicate content and keyword stuffing makes the black hat approach less appealing to read, especially if the site redirects you or includes content that is irrelevant to obtain more clicks.
This method can produce quick results, but not long term ones.
• White Hat
White hat optimization is a far more likable method of SEO.
This method will focus on connecting to your audience and giving them the valuable content that they are looking for while still taking your dental blog optimization to the appropriate level.
The titles of your website and various content will be unique and intriguing.
The images, the content, and the links that are placed in the article will be relevant to the chosen dental topic, and it will be written in complete sentences that contain good grammar.
This is the best method to optimize your blog and give your patients the information that they need.
It will give the readers valuable information about dental procedures that they have questions about as well as have high search results that can net you new patients. Engaging content is one of the main factors that bring users back to your site, so make your blog interesting by not being short sighted when it comes to results.
Content is King
Make your decision wisely, both types of optimization can work, but don’t you want to appeal to your audience and keep them coming back to your site? Of course you do, so with this in mind, the best option for a blog that you want to be successful for a long time will utilize White Hat, rather than Black Hat optimization.
Main Focuses for SEO
When you are focusing on SEO, you will need to consider two major categories, which are on-page SEO and off-page SEO.
Both of them are extremely important to how your blog will rank in the search engine.
The On-page factor will look at features of each specific page. It will take the content into account as well as the headlines.
It will also consider the structure of the page to see if it is easy to read or it is written in one long paragraph that will intimidate most readers.
Off-page SEO refers to information and other variables that the search engine will consider while ranking your page. Some of these components are in your control, but not all of them will be. Social networks and other blogs similar to yours will be in this category as well as topics that are in the search history of the individual who is searching, which obviously is out of your control.
Both on-page and off-page SEO is important, but exactly how important is each?
Imagine that your dentist office is located in a rural area. There is a lovely garden path that is nicely trimmed leading up to the door and there are beautiful flowers and plants along the edge of the path that create an ideal curb appeal.
This represents the off-page aspect of SEO. The outside of your office looks absolutely gorgeous. It lets everyone know that this is a place that is well cared for and can be trusted. It attracts your visitor’s eyes as well as search engines, before they enter the building with only a glance.
When your patients open the door there are magazines flung all over the floor of the waiting area and there are toys lying around as well.
As they look around the room, flies are noticed flying around the room, and there is even a bit of an odor.
Do you think that your patients will stay long? Will they become patients that come back to see you for preventative care?
Probably not, which is exactly what would happen if you had perfect off-page SEO, but your website was lacking an enjoyable user experience design, with engaging pictures, video and content. Visitors will come to your site, thinking it has good information regarding a dental procedure that they need to be done, but they will be sadly disappointed with the content and leave the page within the first minute.
Bounce Bounce Bounce Rate!
According to Google, when visitors leave your site without going to another page on the site or staying for a few minutes, it is considered a bounce.
In general, the higher this bounce rate is for your site, the lower a ranking you will receive when the search engine ranks your content.
You can also consider the opposite of this scenario. Imagine that the inside of your office is perfectly spotless. There are candles placed around to give the area a crisp clean smell inside, but the exterior has two feet tall weeds in the front of the building. There is a good chance that the high weeds contain snakes or other small animals, and there is no path to the door at all. Visitors may not even stop at your dental office because the condition of the building is so poor, which is exactly what happens when the off-site SEO is not optimized. Traffic will essentially avoid entering your site, and no one will ever see the quality content that you have created.
As you can see, it is imperative for both ends of the SEO spectrum to be represented, but what needs to be done to optimize both aspects of SEO? Let’s take a look.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is affected by three main categories. Can you guess what they are? That’s right! The content, the HTML, and the build of the site are all important for creating great on-page SEO; the most important of which is content. Let’s examine each category and see why they are important for your dental business.
1. Content
The content that is on your dentistry blog is the driving force that decides who visits your site. In 1996, Bill Gates said that content is king, little did he know that 20 years later that phrase would be a critical key that would express how imperative content is when you are writing blogs.
The purpose of a search is to find the information that the individual needs, so search engines such as Google will do their best to accommodate their customer’s needs. If you are looking for a dentist in the New York City area, then you will be given a list of dentists in the area; in fact, Google will even utilize Google Maps to find out your location and see which dentists are closest to your specific location.
Google and other similar search engines always do their best to find the information that will make the searcher happy, so the most important thing to do to optimize search results in your favor is to provide excellent content for your dental site. It will require effort, but you can’t sell a used toothbrush, so why would you be able to market poor content? What makes content great in the eyes of Google?
o Quality Content
Creating content is no longer only about quality, but it is still one of the main concerns that you should think about. There could be 20 different blog posts on ways to whiten your teeth at home, but having a higher quality article will keep the interest of the readers for a longer period of time.
You do not need to invent your own content, simply see what is popular in the field of dentistry and recreate blogs based on ideas that already exist. If you have an idea, make sure that it is compelling enough to engage the users in your community. Don’t be afraid to take some time to brainstorm and flesh out the ideas that are floating around in your head before creating a blog post. This will help it flow better and sound more conversational to the community that you are trying to appeal to.
In addition to the body of your blog being well thought out and containing high quality material, you will need a title or a headline that is high quality as well. The title of the article is often the first thing that user see, so it needs to draw the attention of the searcher. If the quality of your blog posts are not up to par with other posts in the realm of dental hygiene, writing a new blog post each day can help you develop the professional approach that you are looking to create.
o Keyword Research and Usage
We have already discussed the importance of keywords, but how do you know which keywords are going to produce the best results for your dental office’s blog? Research, of course! Researching keywords that can be used for your content is imperative if you want to create great content. When you are doing keyword research, think about a specific word that has to do with the topic at hand.
Let’s say that you are writing a blog post about how to properly brush your teeth with braces. What words come to mind when you consider the topic? The first words are most likely teeth and braces, so those will be your main keywords. You will also want a few secondary keywords that will make sense in your blog post. In this example the secondary keywords may be toothbrush, dentist, or clean teeth. You may also want to consider phrases that may be searched specifically like dentists in Los Angeles, California. This is a great way to help bring searchers that are specifically looking for a new dentist in Los Angeles to your page.
While key words are important, keyword jamming is not a great idea. Google has become excellent at interpreting what a searcher is looking for; in fact, it will use your keywords as well as words that have the same meaning. The best way to have a high ranking in the Google index is to conversationally integrate the keywords that you have researched into your blog in a seamless fashion.
Make sure that your main keyword is located in the title, the URL, and the meta description. These small pieces of information are consequently the first few pieces of information the searcher will see so adding the main keyword to each will draw Google’s attention during a search. As long as the keywords are located in these three places, they will never need to be stuffed into the blog posts that you create, simply include them a few times throughout the piece.
o Fresh Content
You need to keep the content on your blog up to date. If there is a dental procedure that is no longer common explained on your site, it may be best to update the post to address the new procedure that is in place. Creating new and interesting content is not always imperative; another way to keep your page fresh is to add to existing content that is already located on your page. In addition, another way to keep fresh content on your site is to make sure that your content is evergreen, which will ensure that it remains relevant for a longer period of time.
o Be Direct
If your post‘s purpose is to answer a question that a patient may have, then make sure to include a direct answer that Google will recognize. If you think that your readers will want to know what tooth enamel is, then create a sentence that says something like: “Tooth enamel is the thin outer layer of a tooth.” Google will recognize this sentence as a direct answer, and anyone who does a search “What is tooth enamel?” will find results with this information in one of the first few result options on the page. Typically, it can be found directly under the search bar.
2. HTML
Once your content is squared away, you will need to consider HTML. You don’t need a lot of experience in data coding, just some of the basic programming skills to help you navigate through some of the features that you will need to be familiar with. If you are completely lost when it comes to HTML, then become accustomed to one of the free sites that will help you learn the basics such as Codecademy. There are even cheat sheets that you can utilize to help familiarize yourself with common HTML codes. Let’s dive into HTML and discuss the parts that will need your attention when you are optimizing your site.
o Title Tags
The title tag is the first thing that your users see. They are the headings that show up when a search is conducted, when you are creating a blog, the title tags often us an H1 tag. There should only ever be one H1 tag in a post. This is how Google will identify what the post is about and that makes it one of the most important optimizations that you can make regarding HTML. Placing a keyword in the H1 heading is a great way to ensure that your site is noticed.
o Meta Description
You know that little blurb under the title of the Google search results? That’s the meta description. It is a short 160 character snippet that summarizes the content in the post; often time it features the main keyword to draw in visitors.
If you look at the meta description, you will easily be able to tell who made this feature a concern when they were optimizing their content and who did not. If the meta description was ignored, the sentence will often end abruptly with a ellipsis in the middle of a phrase. A well thought out meta description will be less than the 160 characters you are given, and the description will give you a short, concise sentence about the topic at hand.
A well thought out meta description will look like this: Hate the idea of braces? Get a confident smile that you can be proud of with an Invisalign treatment today.
o Schema
To check if your Dental Website has schema properly coded into it, you can visit Google’s Data Testing Tool Right here.
Schema is created using different search engines to create a HTML tag that will help improve the way that your content is seen on the search results page. This code can incorporate a star rating to let you know how others view the services that the company provides. If the searcher is looking for a dentist in their community, then there may even be a mile indicator to inform them how far away the office is, which is likely going to be one of the deciding factors that a patient will use to choose a new dentist. Optimizing this HTML feature will give the most pertinent information to the reader as soon as the search is complete.
If you’re site does not have schema mark up, contact us and we’ll be glad to help!
o Subheaders
Subheadings are often used to give your article structure. They are designed to give your reader a place to pause when they are reading the article so that they are not overwhelmed with a wall of text, but subheaders can also serve as a great way to optimize your content. Often H2 tags are used for subheaders because they have a higher consideration with Google’s SEO rankings.
3. The Build of the Site
The design of your site will affect how well the users can navigate their way through your content. It can seem a bit technical at times, but the main architectural aspects that you need to worry about are pretty basic. User experience is what really matters here, which can include load times, mobile options, and a secure site. The easier your page is to navigate, the easier time Google will have finding the information being searched for.
The spiders that collect all of the information that is being searched for need pathways to find other areas of your site. The more links you have that lead users to connected content, the better your search results will be.
Using duplicated content that you created is also a great way to draw more traffic. Reposting content will not hurt your SEO; in fact, it does just the opposite if it is done right. Just make sure that your posts contain real content, not posts that are filled with spammy material and too many key words. Let’s consider some of the key factors that you should focus on.
o A Mobile Friendly Site Build
As a society, we are always on the go, so having a mobile friendly site is going to allow your blog to be read on the bus, train, in a doctor’s office, or wherever your users find themselves. Each day there are well over 500 thousand individuals who only access their Facebook through mobile devices. If your page is not mobile friendly, can you imagine how many users could be lost to similar sites? Sites that offer similar content to you are your competitors, so having mobile access to keep those visitors on your page and in your dental office is going to be important to your success. If you are unsure of how to make your site mobile friendly, then WordPress has some plug-ins that could be useful to you.
o Page Load Speed
As you may already know, nothing is more annoying than trying to navigate through a site that is slow to load and bogged down between clicks. The load speed of your site must be optimized if you are going to keep new users who visit the site coming back for more content.
Here are two great sites to check your websites speed:
https://tools.pingdom.com/
2. https://gtmetrix.com/
Studies have shown that most individuals do not like to wait for more than three seconds, which means that the website speed must accommodate that desire. If the site keeps the users engaged, the time stretches another few seconds, but typically that extension is not much longer than 60 seconds of time.
o Site Security
The security that your site offers its users is important, and recently Google has announced that it is part of their SEO rating system. There are two types of security measures that you can take to ensure that your site is safe forvisitors to use, HTTPS and SSL. Both of these security programs take a bit of effort to install, but having a safe domain space will keep visitors coming back.
Off-Page SEO
Now that you have a good idea of what you need to consider and optimize internally, the on-page aspect of your blog will be SEO friendly and ready to pull in users and convert them into more than just one time users. Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s take a look at the exterior components of the website and what needs to be taken care of and considered in order to make the path leading to your office enticing enough to take a step inside.
1. Trust
Trust is important for building a relationship with your users. Your goal is long time members of your dental community, not one time visitors, so building a level of trust that makes your users feel safe while they are on your blog is crucial. Trust is not just something that is earned because the site looks nice, there are criteria that will help improve the trustworthiness of your site in the eyes of Google.
o Authoritative Domain and Content
The first aspect that you need to consider is the domain name. This should actually take place before you begin your page because you want a domain name that has some type of authority in the dental business. If your domain name ends in a .gov or .org, that will help to build a bond of trust. Page authority is another way to build trust, and if your page authority is high enough that will lead to great SEO optimization.
o Minimize your Bounce Rate
If Google sees that users are going to your website and leaving before they explore the content of your site, it will have a negative effect on the outcome of your SEO. The object is to keep visitors on your site, so make sure that the first thing that they see is visually appealing enough to peak their interest. Providing a great first impression is one of the factors that will keep users coming back to your site.
If the site is not appealing to the senses, chances are that the visitor will leave in the first five seconds that they are on the page. The more return visitors that you have, the lower your bounce rate will be, which will build a trusting relationship between you and the community where they will begin to trust that you will provide engaging content on a regular basis.
o Domain Age and a Recognizable Identity
The age of the domain that you will be posting under is important. Users tend to trust names that they recognize over new names that they have never heard of, so if you happen to find and old domain name that is not being used anymore, you may be able to purchase it and build conversions from that name.
Creating a name for your brand is great for business. Google will recognize the name and that recognition will increase your SEO ranking. Having a name for yourself and your dental business will also be great for your office. Word of mouth is a powerful thing, and name recognition on the web will start a chain reaction that can only be beneficial.
2. Link Usage and Considerations
Backlinks are a great way for attaining a higher SEO rank, but linking to another site is not going to happen on its own. Don’t wait for someone to approach you and ask to link to your blog, create your own connections and make links that will offer value to your SEO as well as your site. It is important for the links that you use on your blog to be high quality links, which are much more useful that having a bunch of links that serve no purpose in your content.
The best way to create a link within your blog is to use anchor texts. This means that a section of the text will be highlighted, and it will be a clickable feature that links to an outside source. The text sounds conversational, and remains part of the original context of the information instead of directly pointing to a link by saying something like: “Find out more about SEO for dentists here.” You would attach the link to the word here, but using this method breaks up the natural flow of the conversation.
It is much better to say “SEO for dentists is an up and coming aspect of dental practice marketing, that many dentists are engaging in.” You would connect the link to the phrase “SEO for dentists” with the associated website. For example, we have connected it to theseodentist.com and, then you continue on with the conversation.
3. Personal Factors
Personal factors are things that you will not have control over. This includes the location of the searcher. Google will take the searcher’s county, state, or even city into account when providing them with search results. You can use cities as key words if you are trying to attract users from a specific area, but be careful not to make your local area too small.
Another factor that will affect your SEO ranking is the meaning of the word in different areas of the world. One example of this that will give you completely different search results based on where you are located is that braces are metal objects that are designed to straighten your teeth in the United States, but in the United Kingdom braces are actually suspenders that are designed to hold up your trousers. Someone searching for braces may not get the results that they are looking for, which could cause your site to have a higher bounce rate than you may desire.
In addition, if the searcher has been on your site before, it is likely that it will appear near the top of the results. This is because Google associates past browsing history to help figure out what the searcher is actually looking for.
4. Utilize Social Media Platforms
If you have a Facebook account, a Twitter account, or a YouTube account, then use them to build leads and increase your SEO ranking. The more sites that you are connected to through like and shares, the more of a connection Google will see, which means that you will have a higher overall ranking in SEO. Let’s explore a few ways that social media can work for you.
o Shares
The number of shares that you do is important, but that is secondary to the quality of the material that you are sharing. One way to engage in sharing is to find influencers who have the same interests as your site. Give them an idea when you will be posting new content and see if they would like to share it as well. Having the information available in multiple locations is a great way to have your information go viral, which will increase your SEO ranking massively.
o Likes
Encouraging your users to like your page is a great way to increase user engagement and invite them to come back to the site.
o Retweets
Retweeting also focuses on user engagement, but it can be a great way to get the word out about your blog post.
o Comments
When you create a new blog post, try to ask the community questions at the end. This will increase their engagement on the site and bring them back for more interesting conversations with others who interact on the blog. It is also a great way to find out what your readers want to read about, which can help you to create an engaging post that interests everyone.
o Sentiment Analysis
Reading comments to see what is being said about posts you make or the practices of your dental office are often made in a forum form, so it is important to know whether the comments are positive or negative. Once you know this, then you can respond accordingly.
Final Thoughts
SEO is more imperative now than it has ever been in the past. The ways that you created websites and/or blog posts ten years ago will most likely not even net you a spot on the first two pages of search results today. As we discussed, if you are not on the first page, then you are not getting new traffic to your site, which means you are missing out on a lot of potential new clients. Optimization is the key to success, how will you use the information in this guide to help your dental practice stand out in the crowd? Let us know how you do!
If you would like help optimizing your digital dental practice call us today: (844) 421-1272
The post Your Simple & Effective Dentist SEO Guide (Free Download) appeared first on Dental Marketing and Website Design for your Highest ROI - The SEO Dentist.