Dental SEO & Keyword Importance

5 Reasons SEO Is Important

We all know SEO (search engine optimization) is an essential aspect of any marketing campaign. Below are the top 5 reason SEO is vital for your dental practice.

1. Search Results: Most search engines users are more likely to click on one of the top page 1 or 2 of suggestions in the results pages (SERPS) than on the advertisements that Google or other SE's (Search Engines) have in place. It is important for your website to appear on top positions for many keyword searches.
2. Better User Experience: Complete SEO practices can improve the user experience and usability of a website. A complete set of SEO practices includes having an adequately coded and functioning website, with proper linking and no broken links or images.
3. Credibility: Can you be found in a search? If you cannot your credibility is at stake. Often dentists will disregard SEO services because of severe competition for a few particular keywords in their area (*see keyword importance below). True, some areas present a very high competition. However, SEO creates more than page 1 results for selected keywords. SEO allows you to be found, notifies you of reviews so you can manage your reputation, and increases your website’s trust and credibility as a professional in the field of dentistry.
4. Reputation: A great SEO campaign will include ongoing custom content published to your website. As you increase in website traffic, your pages, articles, and posts will become more relevant, increasing your reputation and credibility.
5. Social Media Promotion: People who find your web site by searching Google, Yahoo, or Bing are more likely to promote your practice on social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

SEO Keywords

As a business owner and dentist, once you discover the importance of dental SEO and the link to keywords, there’s a possibility that you will begin to overthink keyword ranking. Some dentists may even form an obsession or preoccupation regarding their keyword rankings and conclude an SEO campaign’s success based on keyword rank. Although keyword rank is an essential aspect of your SEO, there is much more going on to provide a successful dental SEO campaign. When thinking about keywords and SEO content, it’s important to remember that an effective online dental SEO campaign means much more than where each keyword ranks in an online search.

Instead of concerning yourself with, “how can I rank first on a search engine with ‘such and such’ a keyword; and how long will it take to get there?” it’s a better idea to take a more profound interest in statistics like “how many visits am I obtaining each month?”, “How useful are my keywords?”, and “What keywords are my patients searching for?” Notably, several ranking factors make search rankings for keywords fluctuate on a day-to-day basis, including:

• Search engine ranking algorithms
• Indexing of past work
• Competitors
• Current search trends

The above-ranking factors are why you may rank on the first page on one day and third or fourth page for the same term on the second day. While everyone would like always to fill that first-page ranking spot, organic optimization is ever evolving based on searches, competitors, and ongoing SEO tactics.

Thinking About SEO & Keywords Differently

Ranking well for keywords is an integral part of any successful SEO campaign, but obsessing over keyword rank can cause you to become preoccupied with information that may not be hurting your dental practice’s search presence. For example, your dental practice may be on the edge of Wichita, Kansas, and you are hoping for high keyword rank with search terms like “Wichita Dentists.” What you may not realize is that being on the very border or edge of the geographic location reduces your relevance for that geographic location and the associated keywords. Other competitors located in the center of this geographic location will always provide much high competition for rank. As in our example of Wichita, you may not realize that the neighboring cities and areas of Wichita may be offering you much higher search referrals. In this case, focusing entirely on “Wichita” keywords may not be as advantageous for your dental SEO campaign.

SEO is a more involved online marketing campaign on how visitors are finding you, what keywords they are searching for, and the relevance of keywords in your specific location. As your SEO campaign develops and changes, you need to remain patient. Google and other SE’s (search engines) crawl the entire web in about 6-7 weeks. It takes more than a month for new SEO tactics to change your rankings.

Important SEO Factors

Items you can focus on for your SEO include building your dental website with useful, credible, relevant, and keyword rich information so you can keep visitors coming back or coming in. Ensure you have a biography with easy-to-relate-to personal details.  Focusing on these aspects will boost your credibility, making sure that you’re in the back of potential patients’ minds when they’re considering a new dental practice.

Furthermore, focusing on how many visitors you are receiving each month, and keywords visitors may have used to find you is more useful than focusing only on keyword rank.  The average number of visits a dental practice should receive each month is between 250 and 350 visits each month. This average will change based on your geographic location, practice size, and specialty. Specialty dental practices typically have lower percentages. However, if you are hitting the average visits or higher, your campaign may be working for you even if you think the keywords are not.

For more information on how to put together a successful dental SEO campaign, or if your ranking and keywords have you frustrated or obsessed, please contact Pro Dental Designs. We are here to help you run a successful SEO marketing campaign for your dental practice and can help create keyword rich content for your dental website.