Imagine you're a dental patient who is suffering from a chronic pain and dentists are having trouble with a diagnosis. You'd be quick to take matters into your own hands, and begin scouring the web for any hints you could find.
You're one of the few dental specialists in your field who has the technology to treat this particular pain. Chances are, you're looking for this patient, they're looking for you, but you just haven't found each other yet. It sounds like the start of a feel good medical drama, but this happens every day. Luckily, there's a real world solution to help dental specialists and patients, it's called SEO.
Operating a content-relevant website is imperative for dentists. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the factor that can set you apart and help people find you online. Learning SEO can raise your website’s position on popular search engines, like Google and Yahoo. That way, prospective patients and colleagues can find you.
Your dental patients are trying to find the services they need online.
The History of SEO
As the internet has grown, a need to sift through websites arose. Search engines met this need by developing algorithms to showcase relevant websites first. They catalog data across websites, relying heavily on keywords to identify and organize pages. Keywords are the bread and butter of SEO.
Optimizing searches became important when e-commerce was taking off in the mid-90s. Over time, SEO has become yet another arena of competition and it has been changing in pace with the Internet. Every business wants to gain traffic to their website by making it appear relevant. In response, search engines have become more refined at filtering out spam. As the internet has become more complex and efficient, so has SEO.
Making sure your website ranks well on search engines can make or break your website traffic, which can have a significant impact on your practice.
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Let's get started on 11 ways to maximize SEO.
1. Identify Top Dental Keywords Associated With Your Web Page
Since keywords are the language of SEO, determining yours is the first step. You can pinpoint which exact phrases are most searched with one of the many easy tools, such as LSI Keyword Generator.
Once you have a few top hits chosen, use them. There are a number of places to include your keywords, which we will get to later.
2. Publish Frequent, High Quality Content
Your dental-related website won’t have staying power with SEO if it’s not written with quality content. Do some research to check out what other dentistry offices are writing about. Write high quality content about the topics you know best and fill a specific niche. Use keywords throughout your writing and update frequently to remain relevant.
3. Make Your Title Interesting for your Potential Patients!
An interesting, descriptive title will encourage people to click and inform search engines about your topic. Make sure your title offers value to your target audience. That way, they’ll be sure to check it out.
4. Include Keywords in Your Title
Your title is the first place to make sure you include keywords relevant to your practice. Since it introduces your topic, this should be easy. Just fit in a keyword and you're on our way to being on all the search engines’ radars.
5. Include Keywords In Your Header
Just like your title, the header is another place search engines will scan to find relevant information. Having keywords here will also draw more readership.
6. Include Keywords In Your Image Name
While readers might never notice this trick, search engines will. Rename the images you use to contain your most important keywords. Search engines can, at present, only read words, not pictures. This is just one more creative way to include keywords in your site images.
7. Include Keywords In Your Images’ Alt Tag
This tip is a basic one. Even if your image does not completely load, the text that shows up in place of the image is called the alt tag. If you use relevant keywords, you have one more base covered to boost your rankings.
8. Use Keywords In Your URL
A URL containing keywords will always stand out better than a mix of random numbers and letters. Search engines will take note (as well as readers).
Internal linking and good menu design helps patients find the services they need.
9. Link Internally To Pages Within Your Website
Links are a great way to make your website appear important and respected to search engines. While it may seem counter intuitive, links to other pages within your site showcase your knowledge on a topic. Make sure the pages you link to are relevant to the page and are equally well written.
10. Get Your Page Linked Externally
Search engines will reward you greatly for external sites linking to your site. This isn’t the easiest technique, but it’s worthwhile. If other websites are linking to your page, you appear to be respected in the community, since you are providing such valuable content.
Sometimes you can strike a win-win negotiation with other websites to get linked, but writing high quality, original content is the best way to get noticed and grow links organically.
11. Decrease Your Page Load Times
Search engines take note of load times. If you have bulky music players or superfluous plug-ins, consider removing them. This will speed up your time and in turn, make you more favorable with search engines.
With these tips and techniques, your website will rank top in search which will allow potential patients to find you online.
To review:
- Use keywords in key locations.
- Maintain a high standard of content.
- Take advantage of links and keep your site loading quickly.
And that’s the recipe for success for your dental practice when applying SEO to your website.
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