With nearly 24,000 dental professionals in the United Kingdom alone, you need to do whatever you can to make sure yours stays at least two steps ahead of the competition.
One of the most effective ways to do that?
Developing a strategic and comprehensive digital marketing plan. Where’s a good place to start? By creating a dental blog for your practice.
Looking for ideas on what to write about? Need advice on creating blog content that’s geared toward Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)? Want to know the best steps you can take to promote your dental blog?
If so, this guide is for you. In it, we’re telling you everything you need to know about how to create the kind of blog that gets you more hits, more customers, and bigger and brighter smiles for both you and your patients.
What Should You Write About On Your Dental Blog?
Any way you slice it, blogging has an enormous impact on your practice – both in terms of your online/local reputation and in earning potential.
In fact, businesses that blog get close to 70% more leads than those that do not.
We know those are the kinds of numbers you want to have.
But especially if you’re not much of a creative thinker, it can be daunting to have to come up with topics for your dental blog.
Promote Your Team
If you’re stuck on what to write about on your dental blog, one of the best places to start is on your employees themselves! The relationships between dentists, assistants, and everyone else who works in your office and the patients you see is incredibly important.
You probably have a few clients that you’ve seen for almost all of their lives!
Start by posting about the people that work at your practice. What drew them to dentistry? Where did they train? What’s the funniest thing that happened to them during a root canal?
People want to work with dentists they feel really care for their patients. Putting yourself and your team out there is a great place to start.
Review Popular Products
That new toothbrush everyone is talking about? The latest whitening kit to hit the market?
As a dental professional, your opinion is valuable – and people want to hear it!
Leave product reviews online for people to read, and you’ll see a serious increase in the number of visitors flocking to your blog.
Hints About Blogging
Remember that this is a blog, not a college entrance essay. The information you put on your blog needs to be short, to the point, and accessible to everyone.
Also, avoid longs blocks of text that will likely cause readers to click away from your blog without reading any of it. This gives you a great opportunity to include lots of pictures in your text to break it up!
We also suggest including short videos, which are fun to watch and great to share on social media to promote your blog.
How To Make SEO A Part Of Your Dental Blog Content
Of course, writing engaging and unique content isn’t all that you have to do to promote your blog and increase your patient list.
In other words, what are you doing to make your blog more attractive to search engines?
You can start by peppering your content with appropriate keywords. Keywords are the words and phrases that potential patients type into search engines when they’re looking for the services you offer.
For a dental practice, that might be something like, “best dentist near me” or “dentist London.” More often than not, these keywords will include some kind of a location word.
This is why it’s so important to include keywords that mention the cities that your practice serves. It’s not going to help you or the people searching if all of your hits are coming from people that are five cities away.
Also, be sure to list your website on Google My Business. Not only will this help local searchers find, learn more about, and read reviews of your practice, but it will also help local searchers find your blog.
Finally, make sure that you avoid keyword stuffing – essentially, cramming your blog content full of keywords in an attempt to “hack” your way into a higher search engine ranking.
Not only is it incredibly painful to read, it also makes you look completely unprofessional. Trust us when we tell you – everyone is going to know what you’re trying to do.
And, that includes search engines like Google.
They can sniff out practices that are engaging in keyword stuffing, and it’s likely that your blog will fall in the search engine rankings as a result.
Instead, focus on creating original content that includes a reasonable, sane number of keywords.
How To Promote Your Dental Blog Content
There are lots of different methods and tactics you can use to promote your content. While writing creative content and using SEO in that content is crucial, there are additional methods you can use to promote it!
Social Media
This is probably the most important way to promote your blog – and your practice in general!
First of all, social media allows you to promote your blog posts on countless different platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn…the list goes on.
Each platform has a slightly different user base – which means that you’ll be able to broaden your target market and reach more people. This is why it’s so crucial that you remember to share your posts across all the social media platforms you use.
Social media allows you to interact with potential patients directly! If they leave a comment on your page or reply to a tweet, always take the time to respond. Even thank those that share your posts – since they just gave you the chance to reach whole new sets of eyes!
Keep in mind that around 80% of the time people spend on social media happens on a mobile device. As a result, always check and make sure that your blog and social media content displays quickly and clearly on smartphones and tablets.
Always share your blog posts on social media!
Link building
We’ve found that a lot of people think link building is way more complicated than it actually is. All you need to do is include both internal and external (your site, and then someone else’s) link in the blog content you write.
First of all, doing this will help you to rise in the search engine rankings. But also, it will generate more hits to your site and help you to find more potential patients.
Don’t be afraid to ask a popular industry blog or website to put a link to your site in their content! Also, whenever you leave a comment on another website or blog, be sure to include a link to your site in the comment itself.
People that read dental blogs will likely be interested in your site, too!
Posting Frequently
Our final suggestion on how to promote your dental blog?
Make sure you’re posting throughout the day! You don’t need to spam your followers, but you do need to tell search engines (and future patients!) that you frequently update your blog and social media platforms.
We suggest aiming for three social media posts a day. You can, of course, vary the platform you use, and even just share “fast facts” from past blog posts.
Try to update your blog at least once every couple of days. If you need help, there are plenty of incredible dental blogging services that can help you get there!
Need More Help Creating A Dental Blog?
We get it: just because you’ve finished reading this guide, doesn’t mean you understand everything about blogging, SEO, link building, and social media marketing.
It also doesn’t mean you automatically have the time to do it.
The good news?
We understand how to implement everything, and we also have the time to do it.
Have you noticed a plateau in the number of new patients at your practice? Are you feeling a bit threatened by a newer dentist’s office that’s opened in the area of your business? Do you just feel like your current website and blog are failing to promote your business best?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then its’ time to get a professional to update, refine, and implement your digital marketing strategy.
We believe in our services because we have years of experience writing for dental practices. So, even if we’re not dentists ourselves, we know the terminology, popular questions, and things you need to include on your site.
We run a seamless and integrated SEO and digital marketing strategy that’s effective across multiple platforms.
As George Washington once said: “With public opinion on our side, we can do anything. Without it, nothing.”
Think about it – before you buy something from Amazon, what’s the first thing you check? ….Reviews!
Whilst you’re running your dental practice, your focus is constantly on caring for patients, learning new procedures, and managing the day-to-day operations of your business. Quite rightly.
The last thing you should have to worry about is online dental practice reviews.
Yet unfortunately – you need to start.
Online reviews of your practice are a cornerstone in building your reputation.
Put simply, online review dental tell the world what your current patients think of you.
If your online reviews are positive and people are saying kind things about your practice, that’s great news! Your patients are helping to establish a positive online reputation for your practice.
According to a Zendesk survey, 90% of participants claimed that positive online reviews influenced their buying decision, and 86% said their decision was influenced by negative reviews.
If your online reviews are negative, quite frankly they can destroy your reputation – and fast. Think about it, you’ve spent all that time and effort getting a prospective patient to discover your practice, to know who you are and trust you, then you lose them at the last hurdle because you don’t have a decent online reputation, or you have a bad one that is not being managed correctly!
This is why it’s so important to not only monitor and manage your online reviews, but collect and showcase the reviews from happy patients, and address negative reviews from unhappy patients (keep reading – we’ll get to this).
By doing this, it builds trust with prospective patients and promotes your practice online.
However, the importance of reviews does not just stop there.
Online reviews are an essential part of increasing your overall dental website ranking on search engines. This is important because the higher your website ranks, the more visitors, i.e. traffic, your website receives.
Now for the best bit – the more traffic your website gets the more people are likely to convert into your patients. More patients = more revenue for your practice! Get it?
Here’s how it works:
Search engines like Google understand the importance of providing its users (your prospective patients) with quality websites, especially when it comes to dental google reviews.
So, if your website has one hundred 4 and 5 star reviews, search engines take note of your positive online reputation, meaning your website will rank higher on its search pages. You can also use tools like free online reviews reputation report to understand and strengthen your brand’s credibility.
91% of Google’s users don’t go further than the first page of Google, so you need to make sure you’re on it. (Source: Quora)
So, clearly reviews are important. The big question now is how do you get them?
Keep reading to discover 5 ways to obtain dental practice reviews from your patients.
#1 Just Ask Your Patients to Leave a Dental Practice Review
Believe it or not, many patients will leave you a review if… you just ask for one.
So do it.
Every time you finish an appointment with another happy patient, ask them to go online and leave you a review!
It’s really that easy…
If you’re not asking in person, then design a system that sends your patients a follow up email straight after they’ve left your practice, whilst their experience is still fresh in their minds.
Ask them how their experience was today, and direct them to your review links. Once they click on the links they will be taken to review sites to review your practice.
Here’s an example:
TIP: Have someone from your practice regularly check your review links to ensure they are not broken.
Sounds quite straightforward doesn’t it? It is, so long as you do it at the right time.
There’s nothing worse than checking your inbox to see a review request email from a service you received 3 weeks ago. No, I can’t remember the name of the guy who changed my tyre.
#2 Provide Exceptional Care to Your Patients
First and foremost, if you expect to get positive dental practice reviews, you have to give your patients the best service possible.
This might sound obvious, but it is what motivates patients to actually take the time to write a review for you.
Until you’ve mastered going above and beyond for your patients, getting quality reviews probably isn’t going to happen.
Sure, you may have everything set up to collect dental practice reviews (we’ll get to that in a minute!) but if your services are just average, your reviews will also probably be average. That’s not enough to make your dental website stand out against your competitors.
Think about the following questions that will help you provide the best experience for your patients…
Is my practice comfortable, clean, warm, and friendly?
Do I educate my patients about their teeth so they can make the best decisions when it comes to their dental care?
Do I give my patients the time to ask questions and share their concerns?
Are my procedure processes up to date to provide maximum comfort for my patients?
Are my front desk team equipped with the skills necessary to help patients with scheduling and billing?
(And maybe most importantly…)
What can I do to go above and beyond for my patients. Could I potentially offer child care while parents are getting their teeth cleaned? Payment plans for patients that have lower incomes?
…you get the gist?
#3 Make Patient Reviews Easy to Submit with Online Review Websites
Many patients don’t have the time to stick around after their appointment to leave you a handwritten review – and even if they did, although it looks lovely in your waiting room, a handwritten review guest book does nothing to help your dental website rank online.
That’s why it’s so important for you to take action and sign up your practice to multiple online review sites.
Doing this makes it easy for your patients to go home and review your practice when it’s convenient for them. You also benefit from the online review. It’s a win-win situation.
There’s loads of review sites out there that you can use. Spend 5 minutes researching which ones you think are most relevant to you and your customers.
Here are a few examples of what review pages will look like…
Google Reviews:
Facebook reviews:
We recommend sending your patients a follow up email asking them to leave you an online review. Make sure the This email contains links to the review sites so they can easily leave a review!.
It’s very common to have patients that love your practice, but lack the motivation to leave you a review.
I suppose you can’t blame them. Who wants to sit down and write a review after having a root canal procedure?
That’s why it’s important to find ways to motivate your patients to leave you reviews post procedure.
One of the best ways to motivate your patients is to offer them an incentive… Who doesn’t love a freebie?
How generous you want to be here is really up to you (from a free dental check or discount voucher, to a travel sized tooth brushing kit) but, knowing your patients, think of things that are really going to inspire them to leave that all important review.
#5 Make Leaving Reviews Accessible in Your Practice
You may be missing out on receiving reviews simply because your patients don’t have working Internet at home. Or perhaps, they don’t have a computer or tablet?
The easiest way to combat this problem is to offer the technology and assistance necessary to leave reviews to your patients whilst they are still in your practice.
How about setting up a tablet in the waiting room that patients can use in between treatments, or whilst they wait for their appointment?
Even better still, if your time and resources allow, it’s also a good idea to have a staff member available to assist patients that need help navigating the process of leaving a review.
Again, why not offer them an ‘in practice review incentive’? If they leave a review whilst they wait, they receive:
Free products, like toothpaste, mouthwash, or a tooth brush
Discount coupon for a teeth whitening service
A free teeth cleaning the next time they visit your office
What To Do Once You Have Collected Your Dental Practice Reviews
Well, it’s time to put them to work.
Reviews collected on review sites are already hard at work helping your website pop up in search rankings. The more positive reviews you have, the better your website looks online.
Of course, when you have positive reviews, you want to make sure you add them to your website. New patients who visit your site are going to want to know what other patients think of your practice.
We recommend placing them in your header, footer, or in side bars.
Here’s an example of someone who integrated their reviews and star rating into the footer of their website.
Depending on what website platform you use, there are widgets that can help you share your online reviews on your website.
You can also use your reviews as testimonials. To do that, just copy/paste the review with your patient’s name and add it into your dental website.
Check it out…
Collecting dental practice reviews is very important for the success of your dental digital marketing strategy, so don’t forget to do it!
The only downside of regularly asking your patients for reviews is that it may well generate the occasional negative one.
If this happens, don’t panic!
Firstly, we advise that you reach out to the patient that left the negative review and see what you could have done to make their experience better.
Then, doing the following things might help them to consider actually removing the negative review. …
Apologise to your unhappy patient and ask for their feedback on what you can do better next time (also helps to imply that you hope they’ll return!).
Offer your unhappy patient a gift (perhaps a free product) to “make up” for whatever went wrong.
Send your unhappy patient a voucher for a service, like teeth whitening, or a discount on their next hygienist appointment.
If you can get an unhappy patient to delete their negative review, (despite whether they come back to your practice or not), that’s great. If not, future patients will see your honest and genuine response.
The best dental blog post ideas answer what patients actually search: treatment costs and timelines, “does it hurt”, before-and-afters, finance options and “near me” questions. Posts built around that real patient intent are what bring high-value Invisalign and implant patients to your site, rather than generic practice news.
But what exactly is a blog and why is having one important?
Let’s have a look…
A blog is a regularly updated stream of publications packed with useful information, that features on your dental practice’s website.
It’s an online, digital place where you can…
Share valuable information with current and prospective patients
Educate prospective patients on new technologies/services
Give tips and share insightful facts
Share fun information about yourself or your team
Discuss the latest dental trends
Establish and convey the personality of your practice
That’s not all a blog does, though.
Having a blog helps direct traffic to your website, aids with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and helps you establish connections and relationships with your current and prospective patient base (as well as giving you a platform to showcase your knowledge and how much of an industry expert you are of course).
Your blog is often the first thing a prospective patient may see when searching for information online – in their buying cycle, blogs come right in at the top.
When all of these points work together, they help you to increase traffic to your website, generate leads, grow your patient list, and ultimately make more money.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? I think so.
Here’s how it works.
Firstly – there’s nothing worse than a blog which was last updated 2 years ago – so if you’re thinking of blogging for dentists, commit to updating it regularly!
Use your blog to regularly publish valuable, insightful and interesting information.
Publish your blog to your website (your Home Base) and all of your social media channels (your Outposts) – amplify it’s exposure by linking the content into your Newsletters and emails.
Current patients will read your blog, and feel nurtured by the insightful information you present to them – they know that their dentist knows their stuff!
Your blog contains lots of keywords that prospective patients might type into Google – when they do, your blog is featured and they read it.
These prospective patients find your blog so valuable that they share it on their social media pages – perhaps their friends and family will read it too…
The next time they have a dental problem, they remember your blog and search for it directly (here’s where you’ve started to build trust with these prospective patients).
Your cleverly constructed blog features a Call to Action, so your prospective patients take this action, and book an appointment at your dental practice!
However, there is one thing you need to keep in mind, in order to make it that last stage.
That thing is VALUE.
You could write blogs all day long about how much you love your pets, but is that beneficial to your prospective patients? Does that content add value to your prospective patient’s lives? The answer is no.
If all you do is write about your dog, your patients aren’t going to read your content.
The point is, to constantly and consistently provide your reader with valuable and insightful information – whilst also making it super easy to read, follow and implement.
If you’re struggling for ideas on what to write your blog about click here to download our free list of 21 Dental Blog Topics Swipe File.
When you’ve got an idea for some value-packed, insightful blog topics, there’s loads of different styles in which you can write them!
Let’s have a look at some of the most effective approaches for the dental industry, especially the insights shared by dental bloggers.
19 Dental Blog Post Ideas
Case Study blog: whether it’s the first procedure you cut your teeth on (excuse the pun), or the finished results of your first Invisalign case – presenting this to prospective patients as a case study (especially with rich content: before and after photos) is a brilliant way of showcasing your work.
Educational blogs: share insightful and valuable information, this can be from your own original findings and research or something you’ve read from a third party. Remember; if it’s third party research, add your thoughts to it and ask your readers’ opinion – a great way to increase engagement with your blog!
List blogs: list things! Here’s an example of a list post:
Emergency dental items that all sports centres should keep to hand
Checklist blog: people like the gratification of being able to tick something off a list – so for example, you could write a 10 point checklist for “Bi-Annual Dental Hygiene” and challenge your reader to tick off each element in the next 6 months (make sure one of them is to book their next hygienist appointment… at your practice).
Tutorial blogs: take your patients step-by-step through a process of how to do something (This is a great place to embed some ‘rich content’ on your website by presenting the tutorial via a video!).
Tip blogs: offer an aggregated list of valuable tips on how to do something; like tips for properly brushing your teeth, or how to spot when your toothbrush needs changing.
Example:
Definition blog: now, you might know the difference between lichen planus and gingivitis, however your prospective patients may not. Culminating a simple blog post that defines some common dental terminology can boost your SEO and become a ‘go-to glossary’ for your patients.
Series blog: look for a chance to break a blog topic up into a series of posts that you can release day to day, or week to week. This will really aid your reader retention, because of course, you’re going to leave each blog post on a juicy cliff hanger, so your reader can’t help but click on the ‘subscribe’ button for next week’s post!
Remember: link the posts together so your reader doesn’t miss the previous blog.
Interview blog: you’d be surprised how easy it is to get someone to give you an interview. All you need to do is ask them a few questions and record their answers! If you know an industry expert – excellent, drop them an email to ask if you can schedule a 5 minute call with them to discuss their field. Alternatively, why not ask a long standing patient about a successful procedure they had at your practice? Jot their answers into a blog post and give your readers a first hand look into someone else’s experience (the best bit of this one is, technically, your interviewee writes the blog content for you!).
Pick of the Week blog: this is an effective way of producing blog content weekly. Your pick of the week can be a succinct and valuable explanation of a new dental tool, toothbrush, mouthwash, industry expert… maybe even pick a patient of the week!
Review blog: a less regular and more insightful adaptation of the ‘pick of the week’ blog. Take some time to thoroughly review a new product on the market, or a new dental procedure and inform your reader about it. Or, take two and compare them – share your expertise.
Meme blog: memes are everywhere right now. Spend 5 minutes searching for a few light hearted memes about dentists/teeth and pop a few on your blog to entertain your readers.
Issue blog: find an issue (a dental condition) that may affect your audience and write a post about it. Let’s take wisdom tooth pain for example, your post will provide your reader with valuable and actionable information; anywhere from how to treat the symptoms at home, to outlining the removal procedure, to where to go for help… Which is your practice, of course!
Seasonal/Holiday blog: if you’re shutting down for Christmas, Diwali, New Year, Eid, Easter or Thanksgiving – then write a blog to tell your patients, whilst also taking the opportunity to wish them a happy holiday. If you’re not shutting down – tell your patients that if they need anything, you’re open!
Behind the scenes blog: another great place for some rich content in the form of videos and photos. Give your readers an insight into what happens behind the scenes at your practice.
Profile blog: pick a member of the team, or even yourself, and write out a ‘get to know me’ profile. Include some anecdotal information as well as your role in the practice and professional profile (okay, I know I said don’t write posts about your dog but on this occasion you can give him a mention). This helps build trust with prospective patients, and lets your current patients get to know you better.
Company update blog: is something changing about your practice? A new team member, weekend opening times, phone numbers, waiting room makeover, more car parking spaces!? If so – then share it on your blog – people want to know.
FAQ blog: have a look through your social media, and ask the front desk team to keep a note of what the most commonly asked questions are about your practice. Compile these into a blog post with the answers and voila! Blog content. (This might also be a great tab to have on your website).
Challenge blog: set your readers a challenge, perhaps it might be to; brush your teeth an extra time a day for two weeks, and post a before and after photo on our Facebook page.
If this all seems a bit daunting, or – let’s be honest, you simply don’t have time to commit to regularly updating your blog with solid, valuable content, no worries! Get in touch with us to discuss our all-in-one blogging package.
Implementing different blog types into your blogging for dentists strategy is so important; keep in mind that everyone who enters your dental practice has different dental needs, so the same goes for the people who read your blog.
Mix up your approach and keep it fresh – it’ll keep your interest in writing the content too. Check out how to promote your dental blog for more ideas.
Why don’t you give it a try?
Now is the time to commit to writing a blog for your dental practice.
Take a minute now and write down a few dental post ideas, and what blog type to write them in, that you think would be valuable content for your patients to read.
You want to grow your dental practice, but you need more visitors to your website, right?
New patient enquiries (aka leads) that come from search engines are hands down the most powerful type of enquiries after word-of-mouth referrals.
What is Search Engine Optimisation?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of implementing tactics to increase the number of targeted visitors to a website by obtaining a high rank in search results.
It’s estimated that 80% of all clicks go to the “organic” results on Google.
Unlike paid search advertising, once you build trust with Google, increase visibility and rank within the search results, you receive a consistent stream of high-quality, pre-qualified website visitors free of charge. These visitors are looking for a solution and are close to being ready to take action.
They’re gold dust.
When done correctly (and within Google’s terms of service), SEO is a long-term growth strategy that will pay dividends for years to come.
We live in a digital age where 93% of online searches begin with typing keywords, like “dentists near me” into a search engine.
Google is continuously improving their system to ensure that they deliver the most relevant, high-quality content to respond to their users’ search.
SEO is a competitive game; there are only ~13 spots on page one of Google (including the three map results) and your competitors are fighting just as hard as you are to take one of them.
But the reward of a top position (combined with some smart tactics), can catapult your practice growth.
SEO has gained somewhat of a bad wrap over the years with Cowboys in the market using shortcuts to cheat Google and get clients’ websites penalised, whilst over promising and under delivering.
This post will to cut through all of the haze and give you a step-by-step guide to getting started with SEO and allow you to benchmark how your current SEO efforts stack up.
Let’s get to it.
There are two types of SEO; Local SEO and Organic SEO.
Local SEO focuses on ranking your Google My Business listing (Google Maps listing) in the local stack that appears when a local search query (keyword) is entered into Google:
Organic SEO targets the website results below the local stack:
The ultimate aim is to rank your Google My Business listing and website for keywords your target patients are typing into Google.
Before you can start to optimise your site, you need to understand what your target patients are typing into Google (keywords) and make a decision on what keywords you want to appear for.
This is known as Keyword Research.
Step 1: Keyword Research
There are different ways of completing keyword research, some more advanced than others.
To get you started, here are three techniques that give you a comprehensive list of keywords to choose from:
– Google Keyword Planner
Google records every search a user makes and allows you to access it in a tool they call Google Keyword Planner. Here’s a YouTube video to get you started with Google Keyword Planner:
– Competitor Analysis
As the famous saying goes; don’t reinvent the wheel. Your competitors’ websites that are already ranked can give you valuable insight into what keywords are effective!
The first step is to search Google for what you would enter to find a specific treatment or private dentist in your area, then take a look at the top results and see what they have used in the titles of their pages.
A more advanced solution is using a tool like SEMRush to see which keywords are generating the most traffic to your competitors’ websites.
This doesn’t always work on low traffic sites but it is worth checking.
– Google Search Suggest
An underused and very useful way of seeing what people are searching for, is the suggested ‘search function’ on Google itself.
When you type a search query into Google, you will notice it suggests different searches, these are based on what people are actually searching and are more up to date than the keyword planner.
– Google Search Console
If you already have Google Search Console setup on your website (ask your website manager), Google will tell you what keywords people have been searching to find your site.
Make a list of your core treatments and carry out keyword research for each one. Compile a list of all the relevant keywords that also have an explicit intent to buy.
By this, I mean focus on keywords like “Invisalign provider in Birmingham” or “private dentist Croydon” where there is clear intent they are looking to take action.
Once you have this list, go back to the Google Keyword Planner and enter them all in to get the estimated search volume.
Now it’s time to choose your target keywords.
Don’t get blinded by traffic volume!
Whilst it’s important that your target keywords have a good number of people searching for them, you want to marry this with clear intent to take action.
TIP: The suggested bid is a good indication of the value of that keyword, as this is what your competitors (and maybe you included) are paying Google for every click on the paid results.
The idea is: if people are paying that amount, it must be good quality traffic.
If you stick to local keywords, with a clear intent to buy, you should be good. In more dense areas like London or Manchester, look for keywords around your immediate local area.
Step 2: “On-page” SEO
There are two primary sides to SEO. These are On-page and Off-page.
On-page SEO is about helping search engines figure out what a page on your website is about and how it is useful for users. The better optimised a page is for its target keywords, the more likely it is to show higher in the search results.
There are on-page optimisation factors from beginner level right through to advanced. Today, we are going to focus on the 20% of actions that produces 80% of the results!
1. Group your keywords into tight groups of intent and design a website page structure that allows you to target each group with one page.
TIP: A great way to find what Google considers closely related to your main keyword, is to search Google for the main keyword and look at the “searches related” section at the bottom of the page:
We might group all of these keywords and target them with a page: www.yourpractice.com/dental-implants
Do this for all your keywords, and you should start to see a website structure forming.
TIP: An excellent way to manage this is by using a Google Sheet or Excel Document and planning your site structure against your target keyword groups.
2. Include your main keyword at the start of your title tag
The clickable link that shows in the Google is known as the page title or META title.
The title of the page defines its content and holds more weight if it is at the start of the title.
That said, do not stuff your titles with keywords! This is seen as spammy. Instead, write a title that gives the user a reason to click your link.
e.g. Dental Implants in Birmingham – Award Winning Practice
You will notice when a title is too long, Google cuts it off with a …
There have been recently updated to how Google displays titles and their length but if you stick to under 60 characters you should be okay.
3. Use your main target keyword in the page URL
SEO friendly URLs that include your target keyword is another way of letting Google know what the page is about.
That said, keep it straightforward and clean.
If we were targeting “dental implants in Birmingham” I would choose to use www.yourpractice.com/dental-implants/ and let Google figure out you’re in Birmingham from the page’s content, title and other signals such as your Google My Business listing.
You will see webmasters including location in all their URLs, but we have found this to be less and less effective and a little spammy.
4. Seed your keyword into the first 100 words of content on the page
You want to ensure that your target keywords are used throughout the content on the page.
However! A word of warning, make sure it is appropriate, makes sense and is natural to do so.
Repeating your target keywords unnaturally is going to result in your website being penalised. Remember, Google wants you to deliver REAL value to the user, don’t compromise this by keyword stuffing your content.
Write quality content that delivers real value, include your target keywords where appropriate and you should be all good.
5. Write click-worthy meta descriptions
The META description is the text that shows below the title in the search results:
While the META description does not directly affect on-page SEO (Google’s words), it is your opportunity to sell why someone should click your link, over the competitors on the same page.
We also advise including your target keyword (where appropriate) for good measure. Notice how Google bolds out the keyword in the description too:
This is ultimately going to help you win the click, which is a positive signl to Google that the user clicked your website over the ones above you!
6. Avoid “thin content” and publish quality, quantitative content
Google favours pages with long content, we typically aim for 500 – 1000 words of content at a minimum, however, don’t just publish content for the sake of it.
Take the time to really understand your target patients pain when considering a treatment. Include what they need to know before they can take the next step.
Use this understanding to publish helpful content that delivers real value. If you do this correctly, you should have a page full of high-quality content that converts website visitors, into practice patients.
The combined effect is ranking for more long-tail keywords, more traffic to that page and users spending more time on your website scrolling through and reading your content. Again, all positive signals to Google that you are worth showing when someone makes a search!
7. Establish internal linking structure
Internal linking connects different pages on your website together and is crucial to decreasing your site’s bounce rate (the percentage of visitors to a website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page)
Google uses your internal linking to get around your site and establish the architecture and hierarchy of it. It also uses internal linking to distribute the “authority” of your site across your pages.
Ensure your pages interlink, especially your most important pages, but do not over do it! Only where it seems logical and appropriate to do so.
As a rule of thumb, we like to see 1 – 3 internal links per page.
To see internal linking in action, check out a page on Wikipedia.
8. Use outbound links to relevant authoritative content
This is a little more advanced, but in recent years, linking externally to content that is directly related to your page (and holds more authority than your website) is an effective way of placing you in the same “neighbourhood” as those more authoritative pieces of content when Google is evaluating your page.
Obviously, you don’t want to completely lose the visitor to those websites, so place no more than 1 – 3 links per page and keep them below the fold if possible (where the screen cuts off the page at the bottom before having to scroll).
You will notice we have linked to a few authority sites in this post!
9. Avoid any internal content duplication
If you have the same content on multiple pages on your website, it can really hurt your ability to rank as Google will stop crawling those pages on your site.
Think about it, if you continued to turn a page in a book and kept reading the same content over and over again, would you carry on reading?
Ensure that all of the content within your website is 100% unique.
10. Use a proper heading hierarchy
In its simplest form, a web page is simply a document. When writing a document, you would use different headings and subheadings to break down a piece of content in digestible chunks.
When formatting your content, you have a choice of doing this by choosing a H1 tag (most important) through to a H6 tag (least important).
These tell Google what the hierarchy of your content is.
Try to use a different keywords that are tightly related to your main keyword in your H1 tag on the page, try to avoid using your main keyword in the META title (page title) and H1 tag, this may appear over-optimised to Google.
11. Optimise images on the page
Before uploading images to your website, ensure the file name is descriptive and includes a keyword from your group that is relevant to the page it’s being embedded on.
TIP: We like to separate words using a hyphen when naming files.
More importantly, ensure your web design has used descriptive ALT tags on your images to accurately describe the image, again ensuring you include a relevant keyword to the page and image.
12. Ensure your website is super fast when loading
A slow site is not only a bore for the user and a bad experience, but it is also bad for Google.
Google’s job is to deliver a positive user experience whilst at the same time returning the most useful and relevant information to the user’s search.
Do you think they are going to show your website if it’s slow to load and delivers the exact opposite?
Lots of different factors contribute to how quickly it takes your site to load but start by ensuring you’re using a good hosting provider who maintains high-performance servers. Check that your site is correctly coded with no unessential plugins and optimise your image file sizes.
We aim for 1 – 2 second page load times as a minimum. See how fast your website scores using Google Pagespeed Insights tool!
P.S. If you need help with this, talk to us about how we can guarantee to double your website speed.
13. Your site must be mobile friendly
A mobile friendly website changes its layout depending on what device the user loads it on, from phone, to tablet, to laptop.
The primary aim of this is to deliver the best user experience possible, regardless of the device they are using to view it.
If your website is not mobile-friendly and the user has to zoom in on their smartphone to read your content, you are not delivering a positive user experience, and Google is not going to show you in the search results!
Google now even goes as far as to penalise websites that are not mobile-friendly by pushing them down the results pages, and have began prioritising mobile friendly sites over non-mobile friendly sites.
While on-page optimisation is crucial to ranking for your target keywords, off-page SEO has always been, and continues to be, the most influential ranking factor of all.
Off-page SEO is commonly called “backlinking”, however it is more than just that. It is everything that you and others do away from your website that increases the profile of your site.
A backlink is an incoming hyperlink from one site to another. The Backlinking Strategy is a complex subject with multiple layers.
However, in short, where the links come from and what words are used in those links, tells Google what your page is about and how authoritative it is.
You may have heard of the dreaded Google Penalty that wipes websites off the face of Google! This is because Google maintains a very advanced algorithm that assesses the quality of backlink sources and their relevance to your site and whether they are “natural” or not.
Off-page SEO is not about the quantity of links pointing to your website, but the quality of links (as well as other signals that tell Google how authoritative your content is, such as social media activity).
When executing off-page SEO you should only use white-hat techniques that fall within Google’s guidelines, to get you started here are 8 actionable off-page tactics:
1. Local business listings
There are hundreds of business listing websites, start with the well-known ones that include:
Facebook
Google My Business
Bing Places for Business
Yelp
Yellow Pages
Yahoo! Local
The key is to ensure that your practice’s name, address and phone number is consistent across all of them and matches what is published on your website. This might seem obvious, but a comma here and a postcode format there can make a big difference!
2. Be active on social media
Social media activity is a positive signal to Google that you are publishing good quality content, especially when it is being shared.
3. Offer to guest blog on local and relevant websites
You could offer to write an article on how to correctly brush your teeth for the local school’s blog or offer to write an article on a subject you specialise in for a popular dentistry blog.
4. Offer to write a testimonial for a product or service that you love
Let’s say you’re happy with your dental lab or insurance company, offer to write them a customer testimonial and include a link back to your site.
5. Publish online press releases
Do you have something happening that is worth shouting about? Or maybe you’ve won an award?
Press releases are a great way of building a foundation of high-authority links and getting you on Google’s radar.
6. Find unlinked mentions of your practice
Use a tool like BuzzSumo to find mentions of your practice’s brand.
See whether the person that mentioned you included a link back to your site. If not, contact them and politely ask them to update the content with a link.
7. Create compelling and valuable content and promote it
If you know your stuff and have the time to commit to writing a blog, then do it! Publish great content and promote it on social media and watch the links flow in.
8. Infographics
Everyone loves an infographic. Create an infographic on interesting statistics and promote it to your peers as a guest post on their website.
Time To Take Action
Now it’s your turn to take action and apply everything you’ve read in this post.
To beat your competitors and rank your website in Google for valuable keywords, you need to ensure your site is correctly optimised and that you are proactively building your site’s off-page authority.
Start by getting your website’s SEO score and a detailed report of the actions you can take to improve its ranking in Google:
What’s Your SEO Score?
Enter the URL of any landing page or blog article and see how optimised it is for one keyword or phrase.
