If you are new to the world of online marketing, SEO (or search engine optimization) is the process of making your website easier to spot for an online search engine, like Google. And, as you may have guessed, dental SEO is the process of not only making your website more accessible to potential patients who are looking for a dentist, it is also an important marketing strategy to boost your surgery and grow your unique brand.
And, of course, so much of your surgery’s SEO is based around your website; it is your surgery’s online business card and can really pull its weight when you are trying to attract new patients to join your surgery list.
If you are new to this area or have just launched your dental site, how can you be sure that it is working in relation to SEO?
In this article, some of the pro tips to improve the SEO of dental websites are discussed, helping you to assess your site’s performance and to learn a bit about how to improve it.
Backlinks
Imagine you are trying to buy a lawnmower; you go online, look at reviews and assess them based on the mowers that are available in your budget.
This is all well and good, but then suppose you have a friend refer you to a lawnmower that they have purchased, within your price range, that has worked well for them; which of the 2 are you more likely to buy?
This is kinda how backlinking works; when you are writing articles for your website, you will need to backlink them to websites that are trusted universally, thus boosting the reputability of your article and thus your site.
With dental sites, this could be the NHS, Bupa or other medical based sites but this is one key way to boost your sites SEO.
SEO keywords
Keywords are more specific to your surgery and what you are advertising or selling to your potential patients; say you are looking to sell dental implants, then it is likely that you will want to place these keywords all over your website and in your blog pieces.
But, to be more specific and to boost your SEO, you can also incorporate your location into your keywords, so instead of just being ‘dental implants,’ you become ‘dental implants in Wes Ham’ for example.
Mobile responsive
In years gone by, everyone had a big desktop computer, so the rules surrounding SEO were different.
Today, 2 out of every 3 hits on a website homepage is made using a mobile device, like a smartphone or tablet, so you need to design your website with that usability in mind. This will ensure that your website fits whichever screen it is loaded onto and that the homepage will be able to fully load in 3 seconds or less.
As usual, it is best to seek professional help with these areas, so aim to find a marketing team that specializes in dental SEO and marketing.
