SEO: What Every Dental Practice Should Know About It

You can do everything online, from shopping for groceries to dating to researching any topic. This includes searching for a healthcare provider. Over 75% of the population uses the internet to find a doctor.

Are they finding you?

It might seem like luck that your office is one of the top Google search engine results pages (SERP). It's not. When a user searches the internet, search engine optimization (SEO), determines who and what gets viewed first. SEO is important for all industries, products, and businesses, including dentists

SEO for Dentists: What does it mean?

It is important to understand the algorithm that determines which links will appear first in the SERP. The algorithm determines which link will be the top-ranked on the SERP when a user begins a new search (and there are 3.8 Million searches per minute2 on Google).

To compete in a more difficult market, you need to identify, design, and implement a search engine optimization strategy (SEO). Are you still not convinced? Let's take a look at four reasons why you should invest in SEO for dental.

Nearly every internet user starts their search for a dentist. They don't go directly to your site as you would hope. Instead, they type something like "good dentists nearby me" into Google. About 90% of people use search engines for local businesses.

Local intent makes up 46% of Google searches.6 A strong dental SEO strategy will ensure that your website appears first on the SERP. This is exactly what you want. Three out of four people click on the top three results in search results.

2: Attract New Patients

An SEO strategy that works will increase your page visits and clicks. What about conversion? SEO conversion rates are far higher than traditional marketing. SEO leads close to 14.6% of all time.8 Outbound leads like direct mail or events only close 1.7%.

A good SEO strategy will result in high-quality websites that are user-friendly and have excellent performance. Solid SEO can also lead to a faster website. Speed is a ranking factor for websites. This sounds fancy but it is what Google uses to determine a site's position in the SERP. High speed websites have many consumer-based advantages. Studies have shown that 40% of visitors leave your website if it takes more than three seconds to load. 

Properly setting up SEO ensures that your website is reliable and fast so that people click through to your site. This will allow them to stay on your site for a long time, eventually becoming patients.

3: Manage Your Reputation

Online reviews have made it more crucial to manage your reputation. Patients can leave their opinion on your practice via a variety of forums, websites, or search engines. A key element of any successful dental SEO strategy is monitoring and managing reviews.

Online reviews play a huge role in patients' decision-making. They are just as important when it comes to SEO.

Google ranks online reviews highly. Google ranks 15% of local map results based on factors like review quality, diversity, quantity, and other factors.

Your reputation management strategy starts with managing your reviews. This factor can be a game-changer when you realize the impact of reviews on page rank. Online reputation can improve your reputation and increase your page rank for future searches.

4: Measure SEO Results

There are many marketing tools that can be used to promote your practice. It is important to choose the right one for your dental practice. You should first evaluate the return on your initial investment. Are the new patients worth the cost?

Experience and data are required to calculate ROI. Many marketing strategies are difficult to measure. SEO strategies are different.

Google Analytics is a free tool that will allow you to see how many people visit your website each day. It will also tell you who they are, how long they spend on your site, what they click on, and whether they convert. Google Analytics is an excellent tool for measuring your SEO and digital marketing efforts. This information will allow you to determine which parts of your strategy are worth the investment and which ones need to be reevaluated.

Google Analytics is absolutely free! You can have Google analytics added to your website by your webmaster. Are you ready to improve your SEO? AIM Dental Marketing can help. To discuss how we can integrate dental SEO into your marketing strategy, call us at 1-800-723-6523