The Importance Of A Unique Voice In Dental Marketing
Google rewards websites that generate unique content, and a few searches into Google it isn’t hard to see why. There are plenty of sites out there all carrying the same content. Google is like any business out there: it wants to ensure a great experience for its users, so it’s going to reward sites that take the time and make the extra effort.
But, we hear you say, there’s a finite amount of content about a subject, how could it possibly be made unique? Well, focus on aspects that are unique to you. For example:
Blog About Your Patients
It is quite fascinating for patients to read stories about actual people, rather than to be lectured facts as if from a textbook. A lot of patients adopt a ‘it will never happen to me’ mentality, but this changes quickly when they read about ‘it’ happening to others.
Look at patterns or common problems that are coming up in your practice and address them through your blog. Give your patients tips to help them with potential problems.
Use your success stories to document different treatment outcomes. Show before and after pictures so that other patients can see the work that was carried out.
Ask your patients for reviews so that you can showcase your work on your dental website and take advantage of word of mouth referrals – they are very valuable.
Blog About Events And Happenings At Your Practice
Attended a conference to update your skills lately? Doing a talk at a local school? These are all things that demonstrate what your philosophy and values are, and they should be celebrated.
Create A Positive Association
Some patients associate dental treatments with the trauma of painful tooth extractions or old fashioned orthodontic braces. They need a nudge to make contact, and a reason to trust you.
Focus on the benefits of good dental hygiene and regular dental check ups to create a positive context for the information you are going to serve.
Make It Visible To Search Engines
Writing great content is one thing. Ensuring it is seen and read is a totally different matter. In order for your dental blog to come up in search results your content needs to be optimised for search engines.
- Load in under 2 to 3 seconds
- Be mobile (and cross device) compatible
- Be secure
- Have lots of rich content
- Show you have an active presence on social media channels
The keywords need to be integrated throughout your content: into titles, subheadings and through the paragraph text of your blog. They also need to be incorporated into meta titles, meta descriptions and alt text on images. This strategic placement tells search engines that this is the major keyword that your blog article is about.
Use Internal And External Links
Linking your content to higher ranking websites is a good online association for your dental website. It tells the search engines that your website is important by association.
Linking your content to other pages on your website makes it quicker and easier for users and crawlers to move between different pieces of content.
Make The Layout Easy To Use
Decide what the objective of your blog is going to be. Do you want patients to be able to access lots of content all the time, or do you want them to make an appointment based on their experience of reading one article?
Sometimes offering lots of links is a distraction, when all you really want is for the patient to fill in an enquiry form. At other times, you might really want a patient to read lots of content first: perhaps you’ve written a series about a topic and want the patient to be as informed as possible.
Features Of An Effective Blog Layout
- Large headlines make your blog easy to navigate visually
- Short summaries give your reader an idea of what to expect if they click the link
- A clear and colourful photograph creates an emotional response to the content
- A well positioned contact form makes it easy for a patient to get in touch with you and make an appointment
- Category or subject tags make it easy for a reader to find more material on a specific subject matter
Consider Making Use Of A Publishing Service
There are services like Buffer, Medium and Hootsuite that give you the opportunity to publish your content on different networks and attract the attention of bigger audiences. They will also give you insights into the different trends, as well as analytics on how your content performed so you can improve your dental marketing.
Your blog content can attract lots of new traffic through search engines if it is marketed, but sharing your articles on your social media channels will also notify your existing fans and followers that you have new material for them to read.
Update It Regularly
Don’t create an expectation around content and then drop the ball. If you want to create an engaged audience you have to feed it fresh content on a regular basis. Make sure that you have new content for your dental website every month, and recycle older posts to ensure that your audience always has something to keep you in front of mind.
Do you need help with your dental marketing? It’s time to contact the professionals: 1300 163 058
