If you want to stay ahead of the competition, you need a solid SEO strategy to bring in new patients to your dental clinic. At LinkNow, we sat down with our resident SEO specialists and came up with a list of 5 things you can do to improve the SEO for your dental office.
Follow our example to generate leads and build your client base now!
1. Build a Search Engine Optimized Website
The first thing you need is a great website designed for dental clinic marketing. It should be sleek and professional, designed to express the idea that your practice is friendly, welcoming, and modern. Hire a professional web designer who is a master of typography, website layouts, colour palettes, and SEO.
Speed is everything for your website. Our research indicates that you have under 5 seconds to communicate the essential information to your potential clients. That information includes:
- ⇢ Who you are
- ⇢ What you do
- ⇢ How to contact you
If you can’t do that in 5 seconds, Internet users will click that ‘Back’ button and find another dental website that’s clearer and more organized.
To complicate things, your website designer must also ensure that your dental clinic website loads quickly. A slow load speed will impact your ability to communicate your business quickly and frustrate potential clients. What’s more, Google will also take note, as load speed is a key ranking factor for Google.
2. Your Dental Website Needs to Be Mobile-Friendly
The vast majority of online searches for dental clinics are on mobile devices. Because of this, Google prioritizes mobile sites. A good web designer will build your website so that is functions well on both a desktop and a mobile. In the SEO world, we call this responsive web design because your site will be able to respond to the different requirements of various devices.
Here too, speed is everything. Consumers that are doing research on their phones are often on-the-go and expect instant results. If you thought the 5-second rule was too quick, try the 2-second rule on mobile!
Don’t lose patients through impatience. Hire a web design and SEO company like LinkNow Media to build a responsive, mobile-friendly website for your dental practice.
3. Get More Patients for Your Dental Practice with Sales-Driven Content
We’ve said it a thousand times, and we’ll say it again: Content is king in 2020!
However, not all content is created equal. The written content on your website needs to be informative, inviting, and most of all, conversion-oriented. What does that mean?
Your content needs to sell your dental services. Sounds obvious, right? But too many dental clinics think that offering information about cleaning, implants, X-rays, and other dental services is enough to bring in customers. It’s not. You need to treat your written content like sales copy. This means framing all the information on your site with the reasons why your clinic offers better services than the competition.
Not only will this convince casual browsers to become new patients, it will tell Google that you mean business, helping you rank better in Google searches.
4. Improve Your Google Ranking with Dentist Keywords
The key to ranking in Google searches is including dentist keywords in your content.By including relevant keywords in your content, you tell Google that your content is relevant to people searching for those keywords.
So, how do you choose the right keywords for your dentistry content?
Imagine you were looking for a new dentist. What keywords would you put into Google?
Select a combination of general keywords and service-specific keywords such as:
- ⇢ Dental clinic
- ⇢ Dentist
- ⇢ Dental X-ray
- ⇢ Dental implants
- ⇢ Dental surgery
Aside from your Home and About page (which should describe your overall services), each page on your site should target a single keyword. That narrow focus will ensure that your page is relevant to the searches who want that service. By focusing each page on a particular keyword (or set of closely related dentistry keywords), you’ll ensure that people who land on your page actually want to read it. That means more leads and more new patients for your clinic!
5. Find New Patients with a GMB Optimized for Dental Clinics
As a dental practice, your business depends on finding new patients in your local area. The best tool for the job is Google My Business (GMB), which, if it’s properly optimized for Google Maps, will bring in a ton of leads.
There are few ways to optimize your GMB:
Keep Your NAP Updated
Here’s another obvious bit of advice: make sure your business name, phone number, and address are correct and up-to-date. We can’t express this enough. Google will not trust your business if your contact information on GMB doesn’t match the other information about your business that’s available online. By extension, make sure that everywhere your contact information appears online (Yellow Pages, Facebook, Yelp, etc.) matches your GMB.
The last thing Google wants to do is promote a business on Google Maps that lists the wrong address. Google’s goal, after all, is to provide its users with accurate information. Keep your NAP updated, and let Google generate leads for you!
Select the Right Categories
Google organizes GMB profiles with categories. Your job is to select the categories that best-define your business. As a dentist, you will choose from the following list, updated for 2020:
- ⇢ Dental Clinic
- ⇢ Dental Hygienist
- ⇢ Dental Implants Periodontist
- ⇢ Dental Radiology
- ⇢ Dentist
- ⇢ Emergency Dental Service
- ⇢ Pediatric Dentist
- ⇢ Cosmetic Dentist
The more accurate the GMB categories, the better your leads will be.
Update Your GMB Often
Google likes businesses that are engaged with their clients and the business community. GMB is their way of keeping track of who cares and who doesn’t. Update your profile regularly by:
- ⇢ Adding relevant photos
- ⇢ Creating new GMB posts
- ⇢ Promptly responding to good and bad reviews
Encourage Dental Patients to Leave Reviews
Over 86% of consumers check reviews before making a purchase. Nowhere is this more relevant than in industries like dentistry. With consumer’s health at risk, they’re going to do a lot of research before deciding on your business.
Give your reputation a boost by asking patients to leave reviews for your dental office. If possible, encourage them to leave detailed reviews, including information like:
- ⇢ How friendly the reception was
- ⇢ How efficient the dental hygienists were
- ⇢ How knowledgeable the dentist was
These are the details consumers want to know before they become a patient. Give them what they’re looking for and they’ll give you their business. Simple as that.
And remember, always respond to reviews—whether good or bad—promptly and politely!
SEO Tricks for Dental Clinics: The Summary Version
Follow this 5-part strategy, and you’ll be bringing in new patients in no time.
- Hire an SEO and web design company like LinkNow Media to build you a website that loads fast and communicates the essential information faster.
- Make sure your new website is responsive to mobile devices.
- Create custom content that balances important information and a convincing sales pitch.
- Include dentistry-related keywords in your content to ensure that the right Google users land on your page and convert.
- Optimize your GMB profile with the correct NAP, frequent updates, accurate categories, and lots of reviews.
If you have any questions, we’re here for you. Simply leave us a comment below, and we’ll shoot you an answer ASAP.
The same goes for those who are interested in our in-house web design, SEO, and digital marketing services. Leave us a comment or give us a call at 1-888-667-7186 to speak with an SEO specialist.
Great article that you have Aubrey! This is very helpful for other businesses and newbies too. I agree with you that most of the potential patient is kin on the speed of result when searching. Nowadays, because of the pandemic that we are in, social media is a new place where friends, family, and colleagues can share information, and this has known to search services, advertise products, share knowledge and opinions. Most of us opt to use this way to get help, ideas and, contact information before getting check by the doctors or dentist not only for the security of our health but to save time to get immediate action. Thank you for sharing!