SEO Promoting dentistry: features and recommendations

Attracting clients from the Internet is a common practice even for traditional offline businesses such as private dental clinics. However, due to high competition and the specific nature of dental SEO, promoting dentistry online can be a challenging process. In this blog article, we will discuss the importance of search engine optimization for a medical facility's website and how to effectively organize all the processes involved.

How SEO can help promote a dental clinic

The Internet is a powerful marketing tool that can help dental clinics capture the attention of their audience and increase their customer base. SEO promotion of dentistry has several advantages:

• Attracting new patients: Today, most people search for dentists online, making an online presence crucial for clinics.
• Geographic expansion: a compelling pitch and presence in the top 10 search queries help attract customers from other parts of the city, for example.
• Loyalty: if the site of the dental clinic is on the first positions of the search engine, it increases trust in the institution, emphasizes its authority.

SEO for dental clinic websites can be seen as an investment. Unlike paid advertising, SEO doesn't provide immediate results (positive changes may take 4-5 months). However, once advantageous positions in search rankings are achieved, the company reaps the dividends in the form of a steady flow of free clients. This flow remains significant even after the active promotion phase is discontinued.

3 Specifics of dental website SEO promotion

1. Compliance with YMYL and E-E-A-T concepts

YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) — This is the concept of SEO targeting webpages that can impact the financial well-being, physical health, or overall welfare of users. Websites offering medical advice, financial services, legal consultations, and similar services fall under the category of YMYL (Your Money or Your Life). These resources need to be developed with special attention to the accuracy of information and the responsibility for its provision. Google may apply higher evaluation standards to them.

E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust) is a concept in SEO that pertains to the quality of content and trustworthiness of a website. The principle was introduced by Google to enhance the quality of information and provide users with reliable search results.

What does it mean? Content related to dentistry needs to be of high quality in terms of expertise, relevance, and accuracy of the provided information. It is advisable to engage copywriting specialists who have a medical background or at least experience in writing on this topic.

2. Reputation management

Three out of four consumers trust a company if it has positive reviews. 60% of customers admit that negative reviews have led them to avoid any relationship with a company.

That's why Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) is crucial for dental SEO. It involves the process of managing a brand's reputation in search engines. It includes collecting and analyzing reviews, comments, and mentions of the medical facility online to control its online image and respond to negative feedback.

To ensure successful SERM, a clear action plan is developed. This plan includes monitoring reviews and comments about the company, engaging with customers, addressing questions and suggestions, and actively working with social media and other online communication channels.

3. Location-based SEO

Local SEO for dentistry is optimization and promotion for local queries. They can include not only the name of the settlement, but also the district or even the street. In addition to using local keywords, you need to:

• add your business to local directories;
• take into account local peculiarities in the content on the website or blog;
• register your dentistry in Google My Business.

The last point is a must-have for offline businesses that want to gain popularity and attract new customers. The main semantics for SEO in the field of dentistry is “tied” to a specific location, because it is obvious that the target audience is people who live near the clinic.

A properly configured Google My Business increases your ranking in search results based on the geolocation of potential customers. With a personal profile on Google Maps, you can not only attract additional free traffic, but also attract the attention of customers who are near you and are ready to use the service right now.

A Google My Business card can even serve as a website for some time, as it can contain all the necessary information about opening hours, main services, contacts, etc.

How to promote a dental clinic to the top of Google search results

Let's briefly talk about the standard algorithm for SEO optimization and external promotion of dentistry.

Content and technical audit of the website

It all starts with analyzing the quality and effectiveness of the dental website. The process may involve studying:

• Content: assessing its quality and relevance to the audience's needs.
• SEO factors (especially if the website has been previously optimized).
• User experience: evaluating how easily information can be found, how to contact the clinic, or how to request services.
• Technical condition: checking factors such as page loading speed, code errors, and other technical aspects.

Purpose: analyzing the dental website is to identify its strengths and weaknesses and find specific ways to improve and enhance the effectiveness of SEO efforts.

Competitor analysis

Individual assessment of dental competitors is conducted using a typical scheme:

1. competitor search;
2. determining the age of the competitor's site;
3. traffic volume;
4. analyzing the intersection of your site and competitors;
5. search for competitors' top pages;
6. analyzing the structure of the competitors' site;
7. content analysis;
8. analyzing meta tags and snippets;
9. analyzing internal linking;
10. link strategy analysis.

Purpose: analyzing competitors allows you to identify other players in the dental service market, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your business compared to them, improve competitiveness, and achieve greater success in SEO promotion. Overall, this helps understand how to enhance dental services to better meet consumer needs.

Development of a promotion strategy

It is the process of making a plan and actions to achieve the goal of SEO promotion of the dentistry brand. The main task of the strategy is to attract new customers, activate the references, better positioning in the market. The process includes analyzing the target audience of the dentistry, defining the goal, selecting the methodology to achieve it, calculating and approving the budget.

Purpose: a prepared SEO strategy is a roadmap that enables the initiation of website promotion and tracking of results.

Research and selection of keywords

Analyzing and gathering semantics for SEO promotion of a dentistry website is a process that involves:

1. Audience and competitor analysis. The processes mentioned above allow you to research customer needs and semantics of other clinics' websites.
2. Identification of key topics. It is necessary to identify the main areas related to dentistry and dental health that relate to the clinic's services and are also of interest to the target audience.
3. Keyword selection for dentistry. Based on certain topics, you need to find words and phrases for SEO promotion that best describe relevant patient questions and concerns.
4. Semantic core cleaning. We remove duplicate keywords, trash phrases and irrelevant queries that have nothing to do with the subject of dentistry.
5. Determining the level of competition and frequency. This will help prioritize words and phrases.
6. Clustering. Group keywords by logic and meaning (synonyms, needs), by query type (commercial/informational, GEO).
7. Form the structure of the site. On the basis of already grouped queries, we make up the structure of categories (pages) of the site, adhering to the rule 1 cluster = 1 page.
8. Incorporate queries into the content. Distribute keywords by using them in titles, headings, SEO text, link anchors, etc.

The final step is a challenging task as the niche is filled with a large number of low-frequency queries such as "toothache, what to do?" Promoting a dental service page for such a query may not make sense, but using it in a blog article and directing the user to the relevant service is a great idea. However, it is crucial to confidently filter out "non-client" keywords, referring to queries used by dentists and other specialists that do not belong to the clinic's target audience.

Purpose: the semantic core serves as the foundation for internal website optimization and external SEO promotion, including the use of contextual advertising for dental services on the Internet.

Create high-quality personal pages for doctors

Personal pages of clinic specialists are an important aspect of increasing not only customer loyalty, but also Google searchability. Personal profiles can have a significant impact on E-E-A-T indicators (signals that determine the level of expertise and authority of a doctor on the Internet).

Here are some key elements to add to your specialist page:

• Professional achievements: detailed information about the doctor's education, work experience, specializations, and certifications that confirm their expertise.
• Photos and videos: Photos and videos showing the doctor with their team or participating in professional events will increase their credibility.
• Information about services: a clear description of services will help patients understand whether the doctor meets their needs.
• Blog or articles in professional publications: useful information or health tips will increase the doctor's credibility as an expert in their field. Special attention should be paid to the specialist's publications in popular Ukrainian or international media. If they exist, be sure to add links to such articles.
• Contact information: in addition to the phone number for making an appointment, it is advisable to place links to social media pages or profiles in professional communities.
• Additional information: Depending on the page format, you can add a block of questions and answers, doctor's quotes, photo reports on participation in conferences or other medical events.

The overall goal of a high-quality personal doctor's page is to increase their visibility in the online environment, increase patient trust, and improve their impressions of interacting with a specialist.

Optimization of content with regard to E-E-A-T

The main task of medical content is to win the client's trust. It should not only be unique and interesting, but also reveal the question that the visitor came to the site with as much as possible.

What are the main points of content compliance with the E-E-A-T concept? First of all, it must be created by an industry expert, which will be evidenced by:

• a clickable link to the author's page (personal profile of the doctor);
• unique photos, videos, and other materials provided by the author to illustrate the text (for example, before and after photos of a dental operation);
• an exclusive fact or detail that is provided by this author and is not a rewrite of existing content;
• quotes from the expert or their own unique experience.

This is just a partial list of E-E-A-T signals that will make your content look expert. They may differ depending on the type of page (for example, a blog or a commercial website page).

Optimization of metadata: title, description

For high-quality promotion, it is crucial to adhere to the structure and formatting, and to specify metadata correctly.

Metadata is information that tells search engines what the page is about. The title and description of each page of a dental website should be clear, meaningful, and contain keywords for SEO promotion, for example: “dentistry”, “hospital”, “orthodontics”, etc. The recommended length of the page title is 50 to 60 characters: this will help to avoid being cut off in search results.

The description should be consistent with the content of the page and clearly indicate its usefulness to the customer. Use keywords and include a call to action (CTA) in the description, for example: “Sign up for a free consultation now”

Optimization of the site's directory structure

The structure of dental website directories should be logical and understandable for visitors and search engines. In the classic hierarchy, the main page is at the top level, and the rest of the pages are organized by categories and subcategories.

Structured information with organically interwoven search words allows for faster indexing. This means that the pages will be included in the search results, and the SEO promotion stage will begin.

Blog

As mentioned above, a blog can be used to attract customers to dentistry in at least two ways:

1. Applying "problem-based" queries and attracting clients. Most users search for solutions to their problems rather than the name of a service.
2. Using interactive tools (quizzes) - step-by-step engagement forms that ultimately lead to obtaining client data and contact information.

For SEO promotion of a dental clinic blog, the main thing is simple and friendly language, a large number of illustrations and examples. Among the common topics on which you should write articles:

• treatment methods;
• disease prevention;
• dental care;
• answers to questions;
• reviews of technologies used by the clinic.

Purpose: the blog forms the brand of dentistry - the image of a friendly clinic, whose specialists are ready to help patients, give recommendations, answer all their questions. You can also use a blog to attract people who are looking for information on low-frequency SEO queries.

Microdata, JSON-LD

Microdata, JSON-LD is a way of adding structured data to a web page. Which in turn allows search engines to better understand the content on the page and provide users with more accurate search results. It is especially important to use micro markup for SEO promotion of dentistry pages and its services, as it can help the Google bot better understand what services are provided and what problems can be solved.

Purpose: with micro markup, for example, you can display dentist information, clinic address, phone number, price range and hours of operation, reviews, rating in search results.

External optimization (link building)

Dentistry website promotion includes:

1. engaging popular bloggers and industry experts who will natively or overtly provide dental website promotion;
2. publication of thematic content in local media, blogs, information portals with a link to the clinic's website;
3. placement of the dentistry website in thematic online directories to increase visibility;
4. use of forums, social networks for SEO promotion of dentistry, attracting additional audience to the site, quick interaction with customers.

When publishing on third-party websites, there are two options for mentioning the clinic:

• Quoting with a mention of the dental clinic's name without a link (required for brand SEO promotion).
• Link to the main or service page via a topic word (anchor) or without it.

Purpose: is that link building aims to obtain as many external links to web pages from other authoritative websites as possible. This demonstrates to search engines that the dental website is a reliable source of information, helps improve indexing in search engines, enhances the ranking of pages in search results, and ensures steady traffic. However, it's important to remember that the quality of links to the dental page is more important than their quantity.

What else should be considered?

Online marketing in dentistry is not only internal optimization and external SEO promotion of the site. The presentability of the project is important. And it is not only about high-quality and modern website design, but also about convenience and positive user experience. What can be done in this direction?

Here are some tips:

• post as many pictures of the clinic (including dentists' offices) as possible to increase trust. Clients want to know in advance what to expect;
• add data that emphasize the legality of the dental establishment: number of the license of the Ministry of Health for medical practice, photos of certificates, etc;
• provide simple and convenient navigation with easy access to information about services, opening hours, contacts and the like;
• place contact information in a prominent place. Offer different formats of contact (some people like to write, some like to call, and some like to book calls);
• provide a link to a platform with independent reviews. This is a bold move, but with proper SERM, it will significantly increase the credibility of the dental institution.

What's next?

Promoting a medical website with SEO is a long-term mission. Once you achieve results, you can reduce the intensity of promotion, but it is important to continue:

• add useful articles to your blog with relevant queries;
• monitor feedback, respond to queries, deal with negativity;
• monitor and respond to relevant trends (in SEO and medicine);
• analyze niche, competitors, audience queries, Google trends;
• update the data on the dental website pages in a timely manner;
• engage reputable partners for external SEO promotion.

*All images used in the article are solely for illustrative purposes. We do not guarantee the accuracy of the information or endorse the mentioned brands.