Dental service advertisements have historically been centred on traditional marketing methods like print, television, radio broadcasting, and word-of-mouth recommendations. While these have proven to be useful methods, current trends have shown that more prospective patients are searching for dental services online in 2021. As a result, every good business owner must develop an online advertising strategy.
Dental SEO is a strategy to improve online visibility using images, keywords and content. It allows a website to rank higher in search engine results, gaining more visibility and online traffic.
While many dentists understand the benefits of digital marketing and dental SEO, few fail to take the leap of investment. Those who are hesitant to invest do not understand how ranking at the top of a search engine will benefit their business.
What Is SEO?
Search engine optimization, also known as SEO, is a digital marketing technique that focuses on gaining new online traffic to a dental office’s website. This is done by optimizing a dental clinic’s website and online content using relevant keywords, links and media discovered through market and keyword research.
Incorporating relevant keywords, links, and other information across a dental clinic’s website will increase its relevancy and authority, causing a search engine to rank it higher in its results. A higher ranking will result in the website being shown closer to the top of search results and increase the likelihood of more people clicking through to the website.
Develop An Online Reputation With SEO
One of the most prominent myths held by dentists is that they do not need to invest in SEO because they don’t practice globally. They believe that because their core business comes from individuals near or living in the area surrounding their dental clinic, there is no need to establish a reputation online – the only thing they need to focus on is traditional marketing. This is false and can be detrimental to one’s business.
The internet is more than just funny videos and social media influencers – many people use it to find information. For example, a person could search for information on a specific dental procedure and find a nearby dentist on Google Maps. While your dental office may appear, it may be too low in the result rankings to be found.
A dental practice can stand out among competitors by using local SEO techniques. This means that both popular and relevant searches and keywords used in the local area are incorporated into the content. This will then target individuals in the nearby area and improve rankings. Such an expert use of SEO will allow a dental office to stand out from its local competitors.
Reach More Prospective Patients
While a good social media strategy is important to a dental practice’s digital marketing strategy, there are limitations to this method. Typically, most people following a dental practice’s social media accounts are pre-existing patients. This provides a dentist with the opportunity to strengthen their customer experience and loyalty, but it fails to reach new potential patients.
An online advertising strategy can be helpful to bolster brand reputation, but advertisements that are not optimized using SEO methods may fail. Ads that have been created and circulated without SEO considerations can easily miss a target audience or fail due to poor use of keywords, failed consideration for the algorithm, or a high bounce rate on websites. This can cause even beautiful, well-thought advertisements to fail.
When content development teams optimize their visual and static content using SEO keywords, advertisements are more likely to reach and appeal to exactly who they are trying to reach. This could improve brand visibility and increase website traffic, resulting in more leads generated.
Save Money & Get Increased Online Traffic
Dentists have been investing heavily in traditional marketing methods that guarantee little success. It’s expensive to invest in new flyers, posters, billboards, and broadcast ads frequently in order to reach one’s target market. Thankfully, digital marketing offers an affordable solution to attracting new prospective customers. SEO can help dentists increase their reach while costing them much less money.
While many dentists believe that it will take a large advertising budget in order for them to reach top SEO rankings, this is untrue. Digital marketing requires much less money but a great deal of skill. Dental marketing agencies’ SEO experts can utilize special tools to complete research, analyze data and optimize the content on a weekly or monthly basis to reach prospective online customers.
Get More Traffic On Your Dental Office’s Website
An important part of dental SEO is to optimize a dental practice’s website. A website is much more than a place to offer information about dental services, it tells search engines how customers react to your online advertisements.
If a website does not match a user’s expectations or it fails to load quickly, a user will automatically exit a website after entering – this is referred to as “bounce rate”. When a website has a high bounce rate it can receive low SEO rankings because Google and other search engines recognize that most users were unhappy with their user experience.
It takes only 3 to 10 seconds for a user to determine whether they would like to stay on a site or not. This may be the only chance a dental office has to persuade a person to pick them over their direct competitor. As a result, a website needs to be built to be beautiful, fast, and easy to navigate. Using dental SEO, professional dentists can create relevant content and a great user experience. This will help a dental practice’s website retain visitors and improve SEO ranking.
Bolster Business Credibility
One of the most important parts of marketing is establishing credibility. Credibility and trustworthiness can allow a dental office to win over potential clients who were considering other local competitors. It can also help maintain loyal customers by ensuring your expertise in the dental industry.
While dentists typically established credibility during offline business like completing cleanings, dental surgeries and speaking to clients, SEO rankings are recognized globally as an important determinant in credibility. When a dental office ranks higher in search engines, most consumers find them more trustworthy. Similarly, consumers turn to Google My Business profiles, websites and social media accounts in order to determine whether a brand is trustworthy. In fact, most users trust online reviews from existing customers to determine whether a dental practice provides quality services.
Dental SEO can help increase a business’s credibility in a variety of ways. For instance, using keywords that are popularly used in the dental profession will display a dental clinic’s professionalism and expertise to new patients.
Take Control Of Your Online Reputation
While such techniques sound appealing to many dental professionals, most do not have extra time to dedicate to building out their online presence or lack an in-house team to do so. Rather than missing out on such an amazing opportunity, dental practices should take advantage of one of the best-kept secrets in the industry – a qualified SEO expert.
Most dentists can hire an SEO expert from a dental advertising agency. Dental advertising agencies are professional marketing teams that specialize in SEO for dentists. Such experts are knowledgeable in website design, content creation, social media strategy and more.
There are many reasons to hire an agency, but the most prominent is the amazing results they receive. Many dentists are pleased to find that their global authority increases and they reach their target market more efficiently when they have an SEO expert managing their online campaigns.
Grow Your Dental Practice With An SEO Expert
While much online traffic comes from Google results rankings, few dentists choose to invest in SEO. Search engine optimization is more than just gaining a massive following, it is about standing out from the crowd. A dental office that is looking to attract new patients or strengthen its relationship with its loyal customers can benefit greatly from an SEO strategy.
