Have you ever wondered what it means when someone talks about ideal SEO for dental websites?
In essence, it’s a dental marketing strategy that can propel your dental website up the search engine rankings, drive more traffic and get more patients through your door.
A dental SEO strategy is something that many dental practice owners are confused about, but it needn’t be. Having some knowledge in search engine optimisation (SEO) will ensure that you understand how crucial on-page SEO is and are better equipped to drive its success.
Let’s start with the basics.
What is dental SEO?
It’s the process of making your dental practice website appear higher in the search engine. For example, when someone types in ‘implant dentist near me’ or ‘family dentist in Sydney.’ a solid dental SEO strategy is what makes you appear top of the pile, above all the other dental websites.
In other words, you need search engine optimisation to be visible online when someone puts in a relevant search.
So, is SEO for dental websites expensive?
You may be paying an in-house person or a marketing team, but other than that, SEO for your dental practice is ‘free marketing.’ In other words, getting organic traffic is not a ‘pay to play’ experience.
So what about your ROI?
To determine if a dental SEO strategy is worth the return on investment, you first need to know how much a patient is worth in terms of cold hard cash to your dental practice.
Let’s say that your average patient spends around Au $900 per year, and the lifespan of each dental patient is 10 years. That’s $9000 in lifetime revenue per patient.
With a solid dental marketing strategy in place, let’s assume that your SEO brings in a conservative five new patients per month.
Using the estimates above, those five new patients are worth an extra $45,000 in lifetime revenue.
Over just one year at five new patients per month, that’s an extra $540,000 in lifetime revenue. (45 x12 equals 540)
One key point to keep in mind about SEO for dental websites is that, unlike a paid ad that you run for a certain period, any SEO strategies you put in place today will benefit you long into the future.
How do you optimise your dental practice website for SEO?
Here are some hints and tips:
Tip #1 – Build your website on a modern platform
For best search engine optimisation, we recommend WordPress. WordPress sites are flexible, scalable and look just as good on mobile devices as they do desktops. Creating sites on modern platforms ensure that you don’t get caught up in outdated media-heavy programs. These can seriously affect your dental practice website speed.
Other key areas where you can utilise for search engine optimisation include
- URL’s
- Meta Titles
- Meta Descriptions
- Image alt text
- Broken link checks
You should optimise every page on your website for all of the above.
Tip #2 Design a dental practice website for the user
User experience – or UX for short, is a vital part of any dental SEO strategy. Focus on creating a dental website that makes a great first impression and is simple and easy to navigate.
Remember, it’s no good having an informative dental website if the reader can’t access the information quickly and easily, so try to adopt the following policies:
- Quick site load speed – Google suggests a webpage should load in 2 seconds or less
- Contact details on every page
- Navigation buttons clearly laid out
- Making the site mobile-friendly
- Concise layout with sufficient white space.
Tip #3 – produce original keyword-optimised content
A dental website that makes a great first impression should be accompanied by informative and well-optimised content. Make it,
- Original – copy and paste content will be penalised
- Compelling – content should always focus on your potential customers (patients) and should address common problems, answer common questions and explain how to solve those issues.
- Keyword optimised – carry out keyword research for every page and include key phrases in headings, sub-headings, calls to action and throughout the content.
As a top tip, use a keyword tool when researching for search engine optimisation. Three of the most popular include,
- Google Keyword Planner
- SEMRush
- Moz Keyword Explorer
Tip #4 – Don’t forget off-page strategies
We’ve talked in some detail about on-page SEO for dental websites, but you shouldn’t neglect any dental marketing strategy that occurs off-site. Further dental SEO strategies include:
- Adding your dental practice to Google Maps
- Listing your dental practice on local sites and directories including, WhiteCoat.com, Yelp and Your Dentist.com
- Getting patient reviews – Have a strategy in place to garner patient reviews. Ideally, there should be patient reviews on-site directories and your dental practice website.
So now you have some excellent hints and tips to undergo dental SEO, the next question is
How do you know if your dental marketing strategy is working?
The answer is to measure or track the results of your efforts, including
- Conversions – in this case, form-submissions, patient calls and new patient bookings
- Website traffic – use tools like Google Analytics to analyse where your website traffic is coming from, whether it has increased and what pages people are reading
- Keyword ranking – Type in specific keywords used into Google to see where your dental practice is currently ranking.
Bonus tip
A simple trick to find out where your site is ranking is to open up an incognito window in your browser, type in the keyword phrase you want to rank for and browse the results. After searching the first 6-7 pages, you will benefit directly from a dental SEO strategy if you still haven’t found your dental website.
Are you ready to grow your practice and need help with SEO for dental websites?
Book a meeting with the team at Mediboost. We’re Australia’s #1 patient growth agency for the medical and dental industry.
Call today on 1300 163 058 or visit our website to book a strategy call. We can help you to get more online visitors and turn them into patients.
