When someone looks for a dentist, one of the most popular means of finding a dental clinic is to search for one through search engines like Google. However, how do you make it so that your clinic is located on Google and specifically on the top search results?
If you are wondering how to do that, then the solution you are looking for is search engine optimization for your dental clinic.
Benefits of SEO for your Clinic
How will SEO help your dental clinic? SEO is the digital marketing strategy that helps rank your site’s content on search engines by tailoring your page(s) towards a specific keyword query.
Being found is essential because if they can’t find your clinic’s website, users can’t book an appointment or consultation. By using SEO to tailor your website towards keywords related to your services, you increase the chance of your business being found on Google.
But, dentists know that being found is essential. As a result, learning and using SEO well to rank in the top search results is crucial in getting more potential patients from Google. When people search for something on Google, they are more likely to click on the first three search results than the bottom search results. With more clicks, you have a higher chance of getting patients to your clinic.
Implementing your On-page SEO Strategy
Search engine optimization is essential to ranking higher on the search results, but what do you have to do to reach?
In the following sections, we will go over what you need to start your SEO campaign and start ranking your dental website on search engines.
Find The Right Keyword With Keyword Research
Before you start optimizing your page(s), you need to do keyword research. It is the process of finding keywords that people are searching for and related to your business. For example, if you are a general dental clinic, you would find keywords related to your dental services, like “dental cleaning.”
In addition to keywords related to your services, your targeted keywords should be phrases or queries that people are searching for. By choosing a keyword that doesn’t have any search volume, you won’t get any clicks (or very little) even if you rank high.
For example, “dentist near Riverside” and “dentist near me” have entirely different search volumes. To get the best SEO results for your clinic, you would prioritize “dentist near me” over “dentist near Riverside.”
Adding Your Target Keyword On Your Page
After you find your primary keyword(s), the next step to your SEO effort is to implement them into your page. Here are some places you can put your target keyword(s) to start optimizing your page(s):
Title
The first place you should put your target keyword is your title and your H1 header. It is one of the most important places to put it because it signifies to search engines what your page will be about. Without this, your page will not be as optimized as another dental website that includes their keywords in their titles and H1 tags.
The most common mistake that dentists make when doing this step is that they mistakenly put the wrong header tag when creating their services pages. Usually, this is caused by incorrectly using header tags to change the font size of a text. However, headers have an essential role in search engine optimization and how search engines rank your page(s).
We will discuss more other header tags in the next section, but in general, your title and H1 tag should have the primary keyword you are trying to target.
Subheadings
The next place to put your keyword(s) is in the subheadings. These are any tags below the H1 title. You provide a better context on what your page is about by having the exact keyword and related keywords (keyword variation or LSI). With more relevant content, search engines will prioritize ranking your pages higher on the search results. It is because Google sees that your page will provide searchers with the most relevant answers.
For example, if you have a dental service page for root canals, you would put the exact keyword or related phrases in the subheadings. In the image below, you can see that this dental page has two subheadings of “what is a root canal” and “how is a root canal performed.”
It provides users relevant information and improves the user experience (UX). However, doing this helps with SEO. These phrases show search engines that this website explains what a root canal is and maybe more relevant than other pages for root canals.
Paragraphs
The next place you can put your keyword(s) is in your main content. You can have well-optimized headers and titles, but your paragraph text plays an essential role in supporting your on-page SEO.
Having keywords like “tooth,” “dentist,” and “treatment” helps search engines get a deeper understanding of what’s on the page. Like subheadings, your paragraph text should be relevant to your targeted keywords. With more relevant information, the better your dental service page(s) will rank.
URL and Alt Tags
The last place you can put your keyword is in your URLs and image alt-tags. The URL structure may seem small, but they provide more information to search engines to rank your pages. In addition to ranking better, visitors also look at the URL structure to see if they are on the correct page, so having the proper URL structures also contribute to the user experience.
In the case of the alt-tags, users will see an image unless the image does not load. But, search sees things differently. They do not see an image as users do, but instead, they read the file name and alt-tag.
By making these additions, you can help increase your SEO and rank higher than other clinics that are not doing the small things.
Conclusion
Search engine optimization can be a long process with a lot of small steps. However, by doing all this, you can rank your dental website higher than other dentists. With a better ranking, you can increase the amount of organic traffic you get and, as a result, potentially increase the number of leads.
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