You’ve probably heard it: “Why Dentists Should Invest in SEO” “You need SEO in digital marketing.” We’ll be the first to tell you that it’s true. If you want to gain more new patients, you’ll need to have a functional website that patients can find, even if they’ve never heard of you before. This is the main goal of search engine optimization (SEO).
To achieve the SEO goal of allowing patients to find you online, you need a unified team that works together to support each other in all aspects of your digital marketing.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization and is the act of improving the quality and quantity of visitors to your website from organic search (not advertising). As Weber noted, effective SEO involves all aspects of your digital marketing, from design, site architecture, site content, advertising campaigns, and overall website experience. If all of these elements work together to support your website’s online visibility, you’ll gain more new patients.
If that is not enough to persuade you that you need SEO, here are six reasons why dentists require SEO and the services of a dental SEO company.
6 Reasons Why Dentists Should Invest in SEO (and why to Hire a Dental SEO Specialist)
Organic search accounts for the majority of web traffic
Organic search is a fancy way of saying that it’s a search that someone does when they’re not clicking on an ad. For example, let’s say you’re looking for a restaurant in a new city. Type in “Italian restaurants near me” and a list of websites appears. At the top, you’ll see a few ads. Below the ads, you’ll see a list of websites that didn’t pay to be there. They appear organically. These are the websites that get clicked on the most and these are the places you’re trying to secure when you’re involved in dental SEO marketing.
Hiring a dental SEO company can help you get closer to landing those spots. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not an instant thing. Dental SEO takes time and dedication, but with patience and the best dental SEO company, you can get more visibility online and get more new patients.
SEO Helps Build Trust and Credibility
Remember how we mentioned that your website’s content is an important aspect of dental SEO? That’s because your content helps build trust and credibility online. As Google gets more sophisticated, it becomes better at identifying legitimate sites, scams, and useful sites for users. You need to have comprehensive, factual, and useful content on your website so that Google knows you are trustworthy and credible, so it ranks you higher in organic search listings. Your patients will see you as more trustworthy and credible when you achieve these high rankings.
Your online reputation is also part of SEO. Good SEO practices include responding to your reviews, getting cited online, and only citing other credible sources on your website. Managing these aspects of SEO helps your patients trust you and believe what you have to say.
Sounds like a lot now? Many dentists choose to hire a dental SEO company to help them manage their online presence.
Help with PPC (pay per click) campaigns
Good dental SEO helps your pay per click campaigns. If your ad appears at the top of the page and also appears at the top of the organic search results, it will appear twice, increasing the likelihood that patients will choose you.
Additionally, Google uses PPC and SEO to learn more about your business. If Google sees that you are actively participating instead of just spending money to be in first place, you will get a boost in credibility in the eyes of Google.
Giving you a competitive advantage
Most patients don’t look beyond the first page of Google to find a dentist. So if other dentists in your area and market are doing SEO, you need to do it better. The higher you can appear, the more likely you are to get the kind of patients you want to treat.
If your competitors don’t do SEO, doing so will likely put you at the top of the list.
Improves your website’s user experience
Have you ever visited a website that was slow, clunky, and had elements that didn’t work? It’s frustrating to work with a website like this. Practicing SEO helps your website shine when others are boring.
For your website to be optimized for search engines, it must load quickly, have functional elements, and have a great design. These are also the qualities of a great user experience. Google will learn about the experience you provide and improve your search engine rankings.
This is one of the main reasons why dentists often hire a dental SEO company. Your dental SEO company can ensure that all of these aspects can work together toward a common goal.
This helps you show up in local searches
Dental search engine optimization helps you appear in local search results. This is very important because you are, in fact, a local dentist (from somewhere) that local people use! By using SEO elements, you can optimize your website so that it shows up when people near you search for a dentist.
The best dental SEO companies understand the importance of local search for dentists. By hiring one, they will optimize your website so that it shows up in front of the patients who need it the most.
