Search Engine Optimisation is such a widely exercised technique that rules pertaining to it have seem to change more often than they used to earlier. The trend can be expected to continue for some time as almost everyone, including dentists, opts for SEO. However, techniques that were fruitful for dentist SEO around a year ago may not work at present. Increasing sophistication of search-algorithms of major search-engines is the reason behind mistakes committed by even experienced SEOs. Some of the main mistakes in dental SEO are stated below.
> Rich anchor-text links – Anchor-text-rich links are not good. The richness must be kept at or below 30%. Besides, rotation of anchor-texts is also very good practice. Though there has been a recent instance of website doctor650 that has rich anchor-texts but still reached higher ranks, the practice is neither preferable nor recommended. Instead, relevance can be emphasised upon. It is very much possible to create links for material that are not rich in anchor-texts.
> Too many links in too short time-span – It must understood that search-engines know the rate at which websites get naturally linked. Any suspicious growth in links is not entertained by major search-engines. This has been experimentally established, at least in case of Google. Marcus Taylor, a white-hat SEO, experimented with a new website. He added ten thousand links within a day of release of the subject website. The results were good but short-lived. The website reached among the top of Google’s search-results but by the end of 3rd week it disappeared from the results and has not appeared yet.
> Too many links to Home Page – Links to internal pages are far better for dental SEO than links to home page. There can be back-links to Home page but very small percentage of the total. Wikipedia is a fantastic example of how links should be managed. Only 1% of its total links are back-links to its home page while others link deeper into internal pages.
> Number and standard of content – That contents have to be relevant does not need mention. However, it can be achieved either by providing short contents to as much topics as possible or by providing detailed contents to only few topics. Short but numerous contents ensure that there are articles on varieties of search-topics. Few but detailed contents ensure that the information is sufficient to be liked, shared or revisited by certain group of users.
> Website authority – When a website is classified under ‘authority’, it naturally ranks higher. Nowadays, this can be achieved through active presence at social media. Search-engines do scan social-media to find authority of a website. Thus, contents that are liked, shared, responded to or searched at social websites improve the rank of the respective website too.
If these points are considered during dental SEO then the website is quite likely to fare better and steadier. However, it is important to stay continuously updated about the changing algorithms of search engines for proper SEO.