Dental SEO: Fix more teeth with SEO

If you’ve got a dentist’s website and it’s not optimised for SEO, you’re missing out on growing your organic traffic and increasing sales. The search engines don’t care how fancy your website is with all the bells and whistles, they care about high-quality content that satisfies user intent.

For dentists, SEO is crucial for attracting new patients and building a strong online presence.

In today’s digital age, more and more people use search engines to find information about dental services, and the first results they see are often the ones they trust the most. If a dental practice’s website is not optimised for search engines, it may not show up in search results and potential patients may not be able to find it.

Optimising a website for search engines involves a variety of strategies, including keyword research, on-page optimisation, local SEO, off-page optimisation, and measuring and tracking success.

Here at Klub Clicks, we can help drive more traffic to your dental website with our SEO services for dentists, just get in touch to see how we can take your website higher in the search engines.

What is SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimisation, is the process of improving the visibility and ranking of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs). It involves optimising the website and its content to make it more appealing to search engines, such as Google, and to users who search for related keywords.

The goal of SEO is to increase organic traffic to a website, which can lead to increased brand exposure and ultimately, more leads and conversions for the website owner.

At the moment your website will have keywords ranking in various places in the SERPs (search engine ranking positions) if they were higher those keywords would be driving more targeted traffic to your business but as it stands your leaving revenue on the table and letting potential customers find your competitors instead. This isn’t good.

What is dental SEO?

SEO for dentist surgeries is all about making your dental website super user-friendly with optimised content about dental services which will help your business show up more in the search engines

There are multiple search engines that you can optimise for, however the most popular is Google as that’s where most of the traffic is coming from but you shouldn’t underestimate other search engines like Bing which can still provide a steady stream of traffic to your website.

Why is it so important to drive organic traffic?

Because your competitors are doing it which means you’re missing out as potential customers are continuously clicking on other dental websites in your area because they have better search visibility. Plus no dentists like having empty chairs during the day, that’s just wasting money and your time.

It’s all about being shown on page one for relevant searches. For example, if you’re a dentist in Didsbury in Manchester, if people are searching for dental practices in Didsbury then it’s vital your website shows up when people are searching for dentists within the vicinity.

You might think Oh searches like that will be too low, which they can be low, however, the conversion for keywords like this can be incredibly high because the intent to find a dentist in your location is higher rather than someone who’s just searching for information about dental services.

Using keyword research to find your target audience

Keyword research is a critical component of dental SEO as it helps to determine which keywords and phrases potential patients are using to search for dental services. By targeting these keywords in your website’s content, you can improve your search engine rankings and increase your chances of attracting new patients to your practice.

To find the right keywords for your dental practice, start by thinking about the services you offer and the keywords you would use to search for them. Consider your target audience and their search behaviour. You can use keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush to find related keywords and their search volume.

These tools can help you identify popular keywords, as well as long-tail keywords that are more specific and potentially less competitive.

Once you have a list of keywords, it’s important to target them in your content in a way that is both search engine-friendly and user-friendly. Here are some best practices for targeting keywords in your content:

• Incorporate keywords into the page title, meta description, header tags, and URL structure
• Use keywords in the page content, but avoid overusing them in a way that seems unnatural
• Use variations of keywords to add diversity to your content
• Create high-quality, relevant content that uses keywords in a way that is helpful and informative to your audience
• Keep your content up-to-date and relevant by continually incorporating new keywords as they become popular

Optimising for on-page SEO

On-page optimisation is the process of optimising individual web pages to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic in search engines. It is a crucial aspect of dental SEO and involves enhancing the content and structure of your website to make it more appealing to both search engines and users.

Here are some best practices for optimising your dental website:

• Use keyword-rich titles and meta descriptions that accurately describe the content on the page
• Ensure that your website is easy to navigate, with a clear and logical structure
• Use header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to organise and structure the content on your pages
• Optimise your website’s images by using descriptive file names and alt tags
• Use internal linking to help search engines and users navigate your website

To improve website content and structure, consider the following tips:

• Use clear and concise language that is easy to understand
• Focus on creating high-quality, relevant, and engaging content that provides value to your audience
• Make sure that your website is mobile-friendly, with a responsive design that adjusts to different screen sizes
• Include calls-to-action on your pages to encourage visitors to take action
• Use schema markup to help search engines understand the information on your pages

Meta tags, header tags, and URL structure all play an important role in on-page optimisation and should be optimised to improve your website’s search engine rankings. Meta tags provide information about the content on a page, including the page title and meta description.

The page title should be descriptive and include your target keywords, while the meta description should provide a summary of the page’s content.

Header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) are used to structure and organise the content on your pages and make it easier for both search engines and users to understand the main topics URL structure is also important as it helps to provide context to search engines and users about the content on your pages.

Ideally, your URL structure should be clean and easy to understand, with relevant keywords included in the URL and a logical hierarchy.

For example, a URL for a page about dental fillings might be structured as follows: www.yourdentalpractice.com/dental-services/dental-fillings/.

Tracking and measuring your SEO results

Tracking and measuring the success of your dental SEO efforts is important to understand the impact of your optimizations and make informed decisions about future strategies.

Here are some best tools for measuring dental SEO success:

• Google Analytics: Provides detailed website traffic and behaviour data, including the number of visitors, their geographic location, and the pages they visit
• Google Search Console: Provides information about your website’s presence in Google search results, including the keywords you rank for, the number of clicks, and any crawl errors
• Ahrefs: A comprehensive SEO tool that provides data on keyword rankings, backlinks, organic traffic, and more
• SEMrush: A tool that provides a complete overview of your website’s organic search performance, including keyword rankings, backlinks, and organic traffic

To track website traffic, keyword rankings, and other key metrics, you can use the following tips:

• Set up Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track your website traffic, keyword rankings, and other important metrics
• Use tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush to monitor your keyword rankings and track changes over time
• Track your backlinks using tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to understand the quality and quantity of links pointing to your website
• Monitor your website’s bounce rate, average time on site, and other engagement metrics to understand the user experience

Using data to continuously improve dental SEO involves analysing the metrics and data you collect, and making informed decisions based on that data.

Here are some tips for using data to continuously improve your dental SEO:

• Monitor your website’s traffic and keyword rankings regularly and identify areas for improvement
• Analyse the engagement metrics of your website, such as the bounce rate and average time on site, and identify areas where you can improve the user experience
• Use tools like Google Search Console and Ahrefs to identify any technical issues with your website, such as crawl errors or broken links
• Use the data you collect to inform your content strategy and focus on creating high-quality, relevant, and engaging content that provides value to your audience
• Regularly monitor your backlink profile and use link-building strategies to improve the quantity and quality of links pointing to your website.

Get proactive with SEO with these tips to drive more traffic.

#1 Check out your competition

Did you know using tools like Ahrefs, SEM Rush or Ubersuggest, you can find out what keywords your competitors are ranking for? You can also see estimations of how much traffic they are getting and you can use this information to start creating your SEO campaign.

If there are no dentists in your local area who are rocking the SEO, then that’s great as you’ve got the perfect opportunity to establish your website as the major player in the area.

#2 Use the right keywords and match user intent

Here, you need to create a keyword map. You’re a dentist so you want to rank for the term dentist, however, that’s going to have higher levels of competition associated with it and websites with more authority will likely show up, even if they aren’t too well optimised.

Think about all the services you offer and the variations of those keywords. For example

• Dental implants
• Teeth whitening
• Braces
• Dental check-ups
• Root canals
• Fillings

To create a killer SEO strategy, you need to think about the keywords, variations that are likely to be searched and what type of content you can create

#3 Content creation

Content creation is the most important aspect of SEO. If your website has very little content that means there’s very little chance of SEO success.

Search engines like Google love something called topical authority. Topical authority means that you need to create topics on your website that are associated with dentistry.

In 2023, it’s not enough to just have a website listing service, especially in the healthcare industry, Google needs to know it can trust the domains that it’s sending traffic to.

Building topical authority can be done by creating various pages around topics, for example, here let’s say dental implants.

If you’ve got a service page about implants, to be SEO friendly, it’ll likely need to have at least 1000 words on the page, going into detail about what’s involved when having an implant done.

But you need to go further from this, look at other questions or searches that are being made and create pages about them to back them up, for example

• What are dental implants?
• What’s the process for dental implants?
• Why are dental implants so expensive?
• What are the alternatives to dental implants?

So we’ve got these four topics that we can create content around, but now it’s all about making them more SEO friendly, for example,

• Dental implants explained: The Ultimate Guide
• The 12-step process for dental implants
• Dental implants are expensive, here are 10 reasons why
• 15 alternatives to dental implants

#4 Optimise for local searches

Local SEO campaigns for dentists can be hugely effective. Get yourself a Google my business profile and start appearing in more searches.

If you’ve got multiple dental practices within a small area, realistically you don’t need a website for each practice, you can use separate landing pages for each one. Using the specific location in the page title tag and meta description will help identify each location and help your website to target specific searches for that location.

#5 Link outreach

Creating backlinks is one of the most important aspects of SEO. It goes against Google’s terms and conditions to buy backlinks, which a lot of websites do, then they get found out later on down the line and end up losing all the traffic they started getting.

Link building is all about creating backlinks from other websites in your niche or closely related.

Here in SEO, if you want to create something link worthy, we call them linkable assets. It’s something that you can use to attract more backlinks to your website naturally.

When building backlinks, ideally you want them one way, if you link to a website because a website links to you, this is called reciprocal linking which is frowned upon by the search engines as it likely doesn’t add value.

That’s not to say you can’t do one or two in relevant cases, it just means if your backlink profile is 65% reciprocal backlinks, then it’s likely your trying to spam and influence Google unethically.

Dental SEO Faqs

Got more questions about dental SEO? Browse our FAQ!

Is dental SEO different to other types of SEO?

SEO for dentists is the same as other types of SEO. It doesn’t matter what type of website or what industry you’re in, the basic SEO principles remain the same. The most common aspects of SEO include whether you want local or national SEO, then focusing on on-page SEO, off-page SEO and technical SEO.

How long to see results?

In most cases, dentist SEO takes around six to nine months to kick in and start seeing consistent results. For long tail keywords, you can see results faster, however, if there’s more competition for head keywords like dentist [location] e.g. London dentists, then these will take longer to rank for. If you want instant traffic, you should go for PPC.

How much does dental SEO cost?

Dental SEO prices vary considerably. To see a return on your investment, for local SEO strategies you should be paying around £500 – £1000 per month and for national SEO services you can be paying up to £5,000 or even more to get the results you need.

Always be cautious if you’re getting offered SEO at a very local price, these companies focus on volume and not results, and there’s not a lot that can be done for £99 per month.

Can you help improve our dental website?

Yes, of course, in our higher packages, we include User Experience as standard meaning we’ll create new landing pages for you. If you need a total redesign of your website, we can also do that too, offering extremely competitive rates.

Grow your business with dental SEO services

You know how to progress your SEO now for your business you’ve got two options. Go the DIY route and fix your SEO yourself or choose an SEO agency like Klub Clicks to help you achieve top rankings.