Search engine optimization is a broad digital marketing term. A lot of things go into ensuring a website ranks among the top entries on organic search engine results pages.
These components can further be categorized into either on-page or off-page SEO tactics. The trick to mastering these tools and reflecting the same on search engine results is having a digital marketing firm like ApricotDental SEO build your strategies and marketing campaigns. This is especially true because there are aspects of SEO that might be too technical for a dentist to fully grasp and implement.
Here are the most important characteristics that will make a good SEO plan for your dental practice.
On-Page SEO
This refers to all the optimization and changes that go into your website for SEO purposes.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a combination of different elements which ensures search engines can easily access your site, as well as provide the best user experience to potential clients.
Your dental SEO specialist will consider things like:
- Website Loading Time – How long does a potential customer have to wait for your site to load? Search engines are friendlier to websites with high speeds.
- How is Your Website Design? A good website design offers an excellent user experience for your potential patients. Things such as colors, fonts, buttons, navigation, and so on are all important in ensuring visitors spend more time on your website, which reduces bounce rate.
- Website Responsiveness – More than half of internet users are now using their mobile phones to access web content. Your website should also be optimized for mobile devices, lest you’ll be excluding a significant number of potential clients.
- Website Crawlability – This refers to how easily search engines can crawl and index your website so that it can be displayed upon relevant searches.
Quality Content
A major influencing factor of a good dental SEO strategy is quality and valuable content. What does this mean exactly?
When potential customers land on your website, they are there because they want answers to a particular problem. How well does your content provide these answers or offer a solution?
Even without a dental blog, you can still offer value to your site visitors with a copy that fully explains what you do and how you can help your potential customers. Remember, content is king.
Keyword Research and Implementation
Another aspect that is core to your dental SEO plan is keyword research. Keywords are phrases your audience uses to search and find your dental services.
There are many free and paid tools to help you identify the most effective keywords in your industry and local area. Next, ensure you include these words and phrases evenly in your content, as well as in the metadata.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO refers to all the action that takes place outside your dental website but directly contributes to how it ranks on search engines.
Link Building
Backlinks are like a customer or fellow expert with word-of-mouth referrals. They refer to external sites that vouch for your services by linking back to your website.
One of the ways to create quality backlinks is linking up with fellow professionals or requesting a guest post on authoritative blogs and websites.
Online Dental Directories
Online directories are websites with identifying information about different businesses. To sign up, businesses claim a listing and fill out their details, including the most basic; name, address, phone number (NAP).
There are different types of online directories, including those dedicated to dental practices only. These websites ensure you are visible on a variety of platforms whenever potential clients perform a related search. Online directories are also perfect for local SEO, which is equally important for a dental practice looking to win local clients.