Dentist Search Engine Optimization Tips

One of the first steps in any dental practice marketing strategy is getting a website. To ensure that your website is being found, start implementing the following search engine optimization tips today.

A website is great. Well, that statement is not too accurate. To clarify, a website that is visible in the search engines is great. And since there are so many dentists in any given area, it can be very difficult to be on page one of Google and other leading search engines.

To illustrate the importance of page one rankings, Chitka, an advertising network and research firm, concluded that results on page one of Google consumed over 90% of search engine traffic. In other words, if your website isn’t on the first page of Google, you aren’t being found.

To ensure that your website is being found, start implementing the following search engine optimization tips today:

1. Meta Description

The Meta description is part of the “Meta Tags” used to help the search engines understand where and what services your practice offers. The important thing here is to limit the Meta Description to one to two sentences and not to stuff it with keywords or key phrases as sophisticated search engine algorithms can detect this unscrupulous method of search engine optimization. Here is an example of a good Meta Description for a dental practice:

“Located in Livonia, MI, Livonia Smiles provides the highest quality dental services in a stress-free dental office. Come visit Livonia Smiles today”

2. Backlinks

A backlink is simply a referring link from a website to your website and acts as a “vote” in favor of what you have to offer to the community. Backlinks are by far one of the strongest tools utilized to help better rank your website.

3. Patient Reviews

Without patient reviews, prospective patients won’t know whether they can trust your practice or not. Internet savvy patients (and most of them are) are utilizing the Internet than any other medium to find their next dentist. You should be asking every patient to submit a review of your practice on your Google+ Business Page and on your dentist directory listing.

Not only do patient reviews help patients in feeling that your practice is somewhere they’d like their dental services performed, but they also help in ranking your website higher in the search engines.

4. Dentist Directory Listing

Major search engines such as Google and Bing look through the web for any directory listings your practice may have to cross verify address and contact information. Once this information is positively verified, your ranking could increase in the search engines. Additionally, a dentist directory helps bring more exposure to your practice and can be an additional source of patient reviews.

5. Social Media

Social media is becoming increasingly more important in helping determine how well your website ranks in the search engines. The idea is that if people are “liking” and “sharing” your website or blog posts, they are in effect voting, in a sense, in favor of your practice.

So there are five dentist search engine optimization tips that you can start implementing immediately. Keep note, though, that results don’t occur overnight and could be months before seeing positive change.

Visit Findmydentist.com to learn more about Dental Marketing