In this two part post, we will look at some of the important areas of focus for dental practice website SEO.

Dental SEO – Don’t Ignore It

• 93% of all online activity starts with a search engine.
• Top listings featured in Google’s organic search results page attract 33% of the traffic.
• 50% of all mobile searches are aimed towards finding local businesses
• 59% users find a reputable local business via Google.
• SEO leads can deliver a close rate of 14.6%; close rate for outbound leads sits at 1.7%.

An SEO optimized website is one of the most effective ways of building a strong digital presence and ensuring that your dental practice website features in top search results. In addition to creating quality content, on-page and off-page optimization, as well as social optimization, there is an increased focus on building websites that are mobile friendly.

Focus on Quality Content

One of the best ways of keeping your dental practice website content quality high, relevant, and fresh is by creating content centered on trending topics. An effective tool for this purpose is Google Trends. You can keep track of what is trending and is relevant to your area of specialization. Another way maintaining a steady stream of content is by building on or improving existing content. You can always take an older post or article and give it a new spin. Or you can take an older article and create a visual item such as an Infographic, or video, or even a slideshare.

If you are unsure what kind of content to create, take some time out to find out what your audience wants or is interested in. Once you know where their area of interest lies, start creating content around those topics. Use a variety of content mediums such as PPTs, video, slideshare, audio files in addition to creating text content.

On-Page Optimization Best Practices

• Create compelling headline tags – they help search engines understand what the webpage features.
• In addition to standard keywords, use wider variations of a keyword or keyword phrase in the URL of your webpage.
• Make sure your Title Tags are interesting and unique for each page and post.
• Ensure your meta descriptions are unique and include important keywords and phrases.
• Optimize your dental content with interesting images and try to include a keyword or a variation of the keyword in the alt tag.
• Ensure that any item on your website can be accessed within 3 clicks from the homepage of your site; remember, your content should be relevant and easy to find.
• Pepper your content with internal links so readers can easily find other relevant and important items on your dental website.

Off-Page Optimization Best Practices

• Highly relevant backlinks can boost content quality, relevance, and give an added layer of validity.
• You can optimize your backlinks profile by changing the anchor link text that connects your content.
• One of the most effective ways of expanding your target audience reach is via industry influencers; connect with them and create a content sharing channel.
• Take part in conversations that happen over forums and discussion boards; you can share your expertise and build authority by providing useful answers and solutions to common and frequent concerns or issues of the reading audience.
• Locate links that are affecting your rankings and delete them.