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5 Important SEO Tips for Dental Websites

On 09.05.11, In Search Engine Optimization (SEO), by

The following is a guest post by Joe Baucom of Sidekick Mag. If you are interested in guest posting for Dental Heroes, please sign up here.

If you have a website for your practice or you are going to set one up soon, check out these important search engine optimization tips below to ensure you are maximizing online traffic.

1. Go Local

Recently Google has been making major changes to the way search results are displayed. They now are including local website listings for major keyword searches where once, they did not show. This means optimizing your website for local keywords can make a huge difference in the amount of traffic you get.

Add your office location in your website’s META tags, in the footer, on the contact and about page and so on. Also include Google map directions on your contact page.

Another easy thing to do is to sign up for Google Places, which will make your website show up for even more local searches. Be sure to ask clients for reviews, because good reviews can make all the difference in whether or not someone decides to call or visit your website for more info.

2. Create Landing Pages

A typical website does not have many pages. Typical pages could include the home page, services page, contact page, about page and so on. If you want more search engine traffic, you are going to need to have more content on your site.

One great way to start is to create a landing page for every service you offer that includes local keywords. For example, if you offer teeth whitening services and your practice is in New York City. You should set up a page for Teeth Whitening in New York City that is optimized for the service keywords and the location keywords.

Be sure to also interlink your pages using descriptive keywords to help with rankings and better indexing of your site. You may also want to link to all these content pages from your main services page.

3. Get Backlinks

I see many dentist websites go up that are optimized for search engines, but not many actively try to attract more backlinks. If you want to rank for keywords such as “dentist, new york” you are going to need backlinks with that anchor text pointing back to your website. It’s as simple as that.

Submit your website to directories, guest post, write great content, create white papers, network with people and websites in your industry and do anything else you can to attract backlinks.

4. Get Social

Search engine rankings are now being affected by social votes on sites such as Twitter and Facebook. This means it will be very important for you to have accounts and pages on these sites so that you can attract more votes for your business.

Stay active on your profiles, add widgets and badges to your site and if you have a blog, install a social bookmarking plugin to make it easier for people to share your content.

5. Start a Blog

Search engines love fresh content and people love great articles. When you start a blog try to publish posts that will actually help bring in potential customers. Examples of posts could be “5 ways to pick the right dentist” or even a post using local keywords, offering a promo code or incentives to come visit your dentist office.

The more often you post and the better your posts, the more traffic and new clients you will potentially get. Keep these tips in mind, put them to use and you will be on your way to having a steady stream of new clients.

Your Tips

Do you have additional SEO tips that have succeeded in boosting your website/page rankings? Please share them in a comment below.

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Jon Baucom

Visit Sidekick Mag for The latest in dental practice management, dental equipment technology , and dental practice news and information.

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  • http://www.melbournecosmeticdentist.com.au Dentists Port Melbourne

    I personally think getting social is very important, apart from it’s SEO value, Social media is a good channel to raise awareness… and that’s the best way to interact with your clients

    • http://www.nodentures.com/ Dental Implants

      Thats true social media is the key of increase readers/traffics.If you need more traffic and increase your backlinks for dental site,you should try image submission,video submission,PPT submission etc.

  • http://www.dentistrysbusinesssecrets.com Edward Logan, DDS

    The revamp of how Google delivers local search results has been a major game changer for local businesses, including dentists. It seems important to have your business information listed the same way on a wide variety of websites and online directories and to build up reviews on multiple sites.

  • http://www.e-sharper.com Jerry Nguyen

    Great article, Jon! I like the point of creating more online content because I think having great content is key to SEO success. Building backlinks is also another great idea that may take some time in doing, but the rewards are tremendous if done correctly.

  • http://www.dental-management.net cybercfousa

    Competitors live on any of the search engine. Now adays, all organization have to do their SEO service. One thing advantage, good to build good reputation so that people or other sites will follow and trust you.

  • http://www.doctorbernstein.ca Cat Salvatori

    Hello,

    I just wanted to say this is a great article. I also find that content is king. It is important to write articles or blog posts that will capture the audience, that way it will make people want to share. SEO takes effort…it is not something you can walk away from but something that requires attention, cultivation and care.

  • http://www.redrockdental.org/ Red Rock Dental in Swampscott

    Short, sweet, and informative. I understand that, apart from quality back links, content, and relevant title and description tags, it is important to have external links to related sites of authority. Thus if a webpage describes Zoom whitening, then a link to Wikipedia or Zoom’s site itself would be both relevant and weighty.

    • http://www.dentalheroes.com Cory Kemp

      That’s correct. When you link to a relevant page on an authoritative website, the increasingly popular notion is that your page will be seen as more trustworthy to the search engines. This is still debated by even professional SEO’s, but I’ve read of plenty of instances where external linking has seemed to have a positive effect.

  • http://www.doctorbernstein.ca Cat Salvatori

    Red Rock Dental, the problem with linking to Wikipedia is it is a “no-follow” site. So if you put a backlink on their site the have code in effect a no-follow tag so that your backlink is not followed resulting in no “link juice” for you. This is likely the case with Zoom as well.

    • http://www.dentalheroes.com Cory Kemp

      @Cat,

      I believe RRD was referring to “external links” not “inbound links”. Also, I’d like to propose that not all inbound links need to be dofollow links to be beneficial. Nofollow links from authoritative sources like Wikipedia and others can have a nice effect on traffic. If the traffic is steady and relevant, then I wouldn’t care so much about the amount of “link juice” that it passes to me.

  • http://www.myphillylaser.com/ Myphillylaser29

    Hii. really I’m also agree with you here. I also think, social media is a main factor to increase your website traffic. If you want to increase the number of visitors to your website, definitely you should follow social media. It will be more beneficial for your website. Keep up such good work in future too.

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