Dental SEO: 5 Strategies to increase your online Ranking for Dental Practices

Dental SEO: 5 Strategies to increase your online Ranking for Dental Practices

 

What is SEO, and what relevance does it have to a local dental clinic?

A dental practice commonly has little to no time for marketing. Emphasis is typically given to managing daily operations, scheduling, and providing patient care. This makes sense given that providing patients care is the driving force behind a dental practice. However, due to the ever-changing landscape of online marketing, dental clinics cannot afford to disregard dental clinic marketing because doing so will cost them significantly in the long term among the growing competition.

In truth, when people are seeking a dentist in their region, Google is frequently one of the very first resources they turn to. However, a straightforward Google search for “dentist” returns well over 488 million responses. In such a cutthroat environment, how would you improve the odds that a new patient discovers your practice first?

This is where local SEO for dentists comes into play.

SEO, or search engine optimization, simplifies the process for Google’s algorithms to rank a site higher on the Google search engine result pages (SERPs). Using SEO tactics for your dental clinic is crucial if you want to keep a competitive edge in the dentistry sector while also making sure that patients can discover you with ease.

Here are some SEO tactics for your dental clinic to improve its organic traffic and search engine rankings:

Dental SEO Strategies for Your Practice

1. Effective Keyword Research for dental clinic promotion

Although analysis and research are vital aspects of an effective Dental SEO strategy, keywords are the core of SEO. You can locate a service or a product online owing to keywords. It’s important to concentrate on keywords that accurately reflect the services your clinic delivers and to thoughtfully include these popular and traffic search terms into the pages and content of your website.

The most significant step when carrying out keyword research is determining the phrases and words you intend to rank for. For your dental practice to rank better on search engines, you’ll need to select your keywords carefully and also use them across your website strategically. Using keyword research tools and conducting competitor analysis will assist you in identifying pertinent words and phrases that will help rank your website on search engines.

2. Create a Strong Content Strategy

The adage “content is king” remains true when it comes to SEO for dental practices. Regularly posting fresh content will prompt Google to re-index your page more frequently, which will raise your website’s position in search results. Blog entries and/or videos about your domain of expertise could be included in your content strategy.

When writing content for your website, you must produce information that is unique and relevant to the subject or service you are providing. To put it another way, your material should establish your authority on the topic rather than merely taking up space and fulfilling the 2,000-word requirement.

To learn what your patients are looking for and how your competitors are using keywords, you must conduct an in-depth analysis. Making wise choices about the subjects and forms of content that are most likely to draw visitors and eventually turn them into patients will be facilitated with the aid of this data.

3. Hyper-Targeted Link Building for Dentists

You’ll probably want to refer to topics you’ve covered on other web pages when you write content for your website. Internal linking is the process of connecting one page of your website to another. Through this procedure, a network is built that both search engine crawlers and users may use to browse your website. Additionally, it keeps things organized and motivates site visitors to browse through several pages of the website.

On the other hand, obtaining links to your website from other high authority websites can help you improve your Google rank. Press releases, comment boards on posts about the clinic, and adding citations to regional and dental-specific directories are just a handful of the external link-building techniques. These references to authoritative sources and supplementary material demonstrate your familiarity with subject matter experts, which raises the authority of your dental website SEO in search engine results.

4. Set up and Optimize a Google My Business Page

A full “Google My Business” page is conceivably the most significant ranking element for optimal dental SEO Strategy. You can oversee and control your web presence with Google My Business, as well as increase your Google Maps visibility to local patients.

The fact that optimizing and ranking your Google My Business page is oftentimes easier than doing the same for your website is one of the main advantages of employing this tool. The sitemap pages typically rank relatively high when someone searches for specific services on Search engines, such as “dentists near me.”

With this Google My Business page, your dental practice can publish all of your clinic’s information for the search engine’s indexing, including name, location, contact information, professional photographs, summary, and business categorization. It will also dramatically improve your local dental SEO exposure.

5. Have a Strong Social Media Presence

Staying active on social media enhances your reputation in the eyes of patients and caregivers, much like having a solid content strategy. You may assist in boosting your local search rankings and organic search results by using social media sites like Google+, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, among other widely used social media platforms.

You should keep in mind that your social media profile is optimized, featuring all of the location-specific details about your clinic, the history of your practice, a stunning cover photo or video, and details about the services you specialize in. You must also include a logo, a comprehensive description providing URLs to your website, business hours, an address (authored consistently with the format used on your official site), and contact information in your profile.

Paid social advertisements are yet another wonderful marketing strategy for dental clinics, get more patient leads, and expand your clientele, in addition to optimizing your profiles and sharing valuable content regularly. Paid social media also allows dental clinics the chance to be precise and target the appropriate audience for digital dental clinic promotion.

Time to take steps forward!

Improving your dental SEO may feel like an intimidating or complex process, however, this is what you need to do today to get the ball rolling. The aforementioned SEO strategies will enable your dental clinic to gain greater online exposure and attract more prospective patients to your location. After you’ve taken care of the fundamentals, you can concentrate on enhancing your website’s content to address the problems that potential patients are having and outshine your competitors in search engine results through effective dental search engine optimization.

Don’t know where to begin and need a free SEO audit review for your practice? Click here to get started.

 

 

How to Respond to Bad Reviews

How to Respond to Bad Reviews

Every business encounters bad reviews at some point in time. While they may seem detrimental initially, you can use these reviews for good by implementing the following response tactics.

Tip #1: Don’t Delete Them 

Typically, reputable review platforms don’t give you the option to delete reviews, yet there are a few review platforms that do. You might think deleting online reviews will help your business maintain a spotless online reputation, but it can actually have the reverse effect.

Statistics show that 30% of consumers assume online reviews are fake if there are no negative reviews present on the platform at all.

Tip #2: Address Needs and Concerns

The best responses to bad reviews all exhibit a crowd control statement, an apology, and a solution to the issue at hand. Bad responses to bad reviews, however, display a more defensive attitude.

No matter what the review is, the best response conveys an apologetic, positive, and forward-thinking attitude.

Tip #3: Take Note of Areas Your Business Can Improve 

A bad review is a great opportunity to show prospects and customers alike how excellent your business’s customer service is.

If you would like aid in CRM (Customer Relationship Management) on your business’s review platforms, feel free to email us at seo@hyperlinksmedia.com with your reviews and we’d be happy to assist you in response!

 

Google June 3 Core Algorithm Update Now Live and What This Means for Your Website

Google June 3 Core Algorithm Update Now Live and What This Means for Your Website

​​Google pre-announced Saturday that they will release Google June 2019 core algorithm update and that “these core updates impact how search results are ranked and listed in the Google search results.”

​​Below is a screenshot of their announcement tweet:​​

They have also confirmed that the update has started rolling out today.

Their last core update was in March 2019. Google doesn’t usually pre-announce algorithm updates but in order to stay proactive, they started notifying site owners and SEOs about these changes, so they aren’t left “scratching their heads after-the-fact.”

What Does This Mean For You?

According to Search Engine Land, “As with any update, ​​some sites may note drops or gains. There’s nothing wrong with pages that may now perform less well. Instead, it’s that ​​changes to our systems are benefiting pages that were previously under-rewarded.

There’s no ‘fix’ for pages that may perform less well other than to ​​remain focused on building great content. Over time, it may be that your content may rise relative to other pages.”

This means there might be fluctuations in rankings for the next couple of weeks. Google confirmed that a Core update may take a couple of weeks to settle.

Here is a great video recap from Zima Media:

​What Should Be Your Next Steps?

​Here are Hyperlinks Media’s top recommendations:

1 Annotate this Core update in your Google Analytics account to benchmark your traffic
2. Use SEMrush Sensor to track the volatility of Google’s SERPs rankings and monitor any signs of major changes
3. Focus on creating new and informative content this month

If your site was affected by this change, let us know and our SEO team will be happy to help you get your site back on track. Feel free to contact us or call  281-693-5372.

 

 

Why Having a Website Isn’t Good Enough

Why Having a Website Isn’t Good Enough

So what can you do about it?

I’m so glad you asked.

Get Found

Would it really matter that a restaurant had killer fish tacos if no one could find it? No, it wouldn’t. They wouldn’t have any customers. A well-designed site is useless to search engines like Google if you’re not producing valuable content and marketing it correctly to be found on the internet.

Why would you pay for a beautifully designed site if you and your mom are the only ones visiting it? You wouldn’t (at least we hope you wouldn’t).

Convert Traffic

You can’t build a site and consider it done, with the expectation of optimizing conversions. You must work on your site every month. Your site should have as many calls-to-action, forms and offers necessary to uptick the amount of leads being drawn into your site each month.

This is only the beginning. You can expect to turn up to about 3% of your traffic into action, but where does that leave the remainder of your traffic? With remarketing, agencies like us can help you connect with visitors from your site who may not have made an immediate purchase or action. We are able to position highly-targeted ads in front of a defined audience that has previously visited your site, while they browse elsewhere on the internet.

No One Cares About You

Your website should not be a digital brochure that sits statically on the internet offering mindless information to whomever will listen. Talk is cheap. Show them what you can do for them.

They don’t care about you, they care about them. They want to know that you understand their problems. They want to know that you’ve been able to help others with those same problems. They want to know stories about your brand. They may care about your reputation when they’re making a purchasing decision, but at the beginning of their buyer’s journey, they want to be made to feel something when they interact with your brand. Engage them.

Brochures distill information and then, inevitably, are thrown away. You want people to continually return to your site, not visit it once and then never think of it again. Give them a little and keep them coming back for more. Continually publish new content, and stop constantly selling to them.

Produce for People

Great content creators are fantastic at producing content for the people, and thankfully, it’s a serendipitous result that the SERPs now reward rich content that dives deep into a subject and is perfectly matched with exceptional design that makes for an incredible UX. Produce and post for the people, and Google will reward you.

If you create content that is valuable to the lives of your customers and others in your industry, they will share it. That’s how you gain some of the most valuable, high-converting traffic.

It’s not enough to have a website. You need more. Unsure where to get started? Contact us today.

 

 

Meta Descriptions and How They Affect SEO

Meta Descriptions and How They Affect SEO

In the world of internet marketing, the meta description has long been discussed as one of the basic elements of a website’s SEO. While its significance may have grown or waned throughout the year, it is an indispensable tool for driving traffic to a website, and one of the easiest for even the most casual marketer to effectively use.

What is a Meta Description?

A meta description is a small snippet that is displayed with a website when it appears among search engine results.

Unlike a title tag or URL, the meta description does not directly inform a search engine on what a website is about. Meaning that the search engine does not analyze keywords within the text.

However, it is a valuable tool to draw visitors to your website, and therefore plays a vital role in increasing your website’s traffic. An effective meta description should grab a viewer’s attention and compel them to take a look at your website through effective language that describes exactly what’s on that page and why they should take a look. In this way, meta descriptions can be vital to increasing traffic to your website and lowering your bounce rate, which plays a big role in your SEO marketing efforts.

Writing a Great Meta Description

Meta descriptions are just one piece of the writing process for every page on your website. Making each one carry a big punch is important, and these are some ways to ensure that your meta descriptions stand out:

Length

It’s important to keep your length in mind when writing a meta description, as only the first 155-160 characters will show, depending on the width of the letters. If more text is entered beyond that length, an ellipses (…) will be displayed at the end. Conversely, if your description is too short it could be less appealing to viewers.

Relevance

Don’t leave your audience guessing. Your visitors should get a taste of exactly what your page is about from the description. Being direct with your text can help develop trust in your audience and also lower your bounce rate from visitors who are taken by surprise.

Allure

Your meta description if your chance to tell a potential visitor what they can get from viewing your website. Use action verbs and direct language to highlight the benefit of your website or service. For instance, you can tell your audience what they’ll learn or discover when they click through the link in the SERP.

Meta Description Mistakes

While failing to write a meta description at all is the biggest mistake in regards to their use, there are many common pitfalls that marketers can fall into when crafting descriptions. While including a keyword in your description can be useful in establishing relevance for what a searcher is seeking, this is not the place to worry about placing it at the beginning or cramming it in there. This is the place to sell your audience on following through and clicking to your website, so use the opportunity to really pitch your site while still remaining relevant to what the page offers and succinct. Be careful when using lists, as a meta description that simply features a list of services offered is missing out on a big opportunity to market with your writing.