If you are a practicing orthodontist you will be aware of the difficulties involved in attracting new patients. Although many patients reach the dentist via a referral network consisting of dentists, many others prefer to self-refer. When it happens the prospective patients run a Google search and just select the first orthodontist from the list. For maximizing your list of patients you will need dental SEO to ensure that you are occupying the crucial top spot in the search ranking. In this article, we will see some tips for SEO for orthodontists. But first, let’s check out the reasons for the significance of dentist SEO.
Reasons to Invest in SEO for orthodontists
Google has become the new yellow pages. Getting new patients used to be a straightforward task earlier. You could place an ad in the yellow pages and wait for the inquiries to come along. However, these days due to the advent of the internet more than 90% of the patients look for local businesses online. Google is the dominant force in this regard for search. Even though the yellow page ads do not exist anymore, advertising remains one of the major expenses for most small businesses. If you can use dental SEO to improve the Google ranking there are continuous benefits to be had with a constant stream of free traffic. You need to convert this traffic into patients.
After beginning your dental SEO campaign on average the international companies are required to wait for around six months to find an improvement in the Google rankings. Orthodontists have a greater advantage because you will be competing against other orthodontists in the local area only. There is also the probability that a majority of your competitors have not discovered the power of local SEO yet. By using a targeted SEO for orthodontists’ campaign you can land on the first pages of SERPS within 30 days.
Tips
1. Select useful keywords
The first step in your local SEO campaign is finding out the list of keywords that best describe the services you are offering. You can use keywords for dental SEO such as “teeth straightening” or “braces”. After compiling sizable lists, sign up with Google Adwords. There is no need to pay for an elaborate ad campaign but you will need to have an account for using Keyword Planner from Google. The tool will allow you to find out the traffic you can get by using the keywords you have selected. It will also offer suggestions for keywords you may not have considered. After this, you need to decide which keywords you are going to target.
2. Optimize the keywords
After you have your final keyword list you will have to optimize it in two areas. First is your website and the second is on the Google My Business page. Google My Business page is similar to a mini-website for your business and it appears in the Map section of the SERPs. GMB improves your overall presence on the internet and provides the new patients with a summary of your dentistry practice details. It is a lot simpler for the GMB page to be slightly higher placed in the SERPs. It also results in a boost in the Google ranking for your dental practice.
3. Develop links and citations
When the basic structure of your local dental SEO campaign is in place, the next step is building links and citations. They are useful for improving the online reach and help in improving Google ranking. The citation is a listing of your practice information such as name, address, and phone number in a directory. Google raking can also be boosted by using inbound links from authoritative and high-quality websites.
There is professional help available that specializes in helping the dentists attract a greater number of local patients via Google. If you are looking to get help for the local dental SEO contact Affordable Dental SEO company especially if your practice lies in Clearwater, FL area.