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Today, people turn to the Internet when they’re in need of healthcare services, including dentistry. That means making your practice accessible online is crucial to your success, and that all starts with dental SEO.

In this beginner’s guide to SEO for dentists, we’ll cover topics like:

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What is dental SEO?

SEO for dentists, or dental SEO, focuses on optimizing your dental practice’s website for search engines and users to increase your site’s visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). These optimizations can include:

  • Making your site mobile-friendly
  • Improving page speeds
  • Creating helpful content relevant to your business and audience
  • Optimizing visual elements like image and video content
  • Updating your website structure for a better user experience (UX)
  • And more!

Why is dental SEO important?

Expert insights from webfx logo

savannah furlow headshot
Savannah F. Internet Marketing Consultant, Dental Industry Expert

“Dental SEO is crucial for business growth in the current digital climate, as it ensures that your business’s services are easily found by local prospective patients when they search online. Aside from increased visibility, by sharing valuable content on your site, you further show your expertise and earn trust with users (i.e. continue to build up your reputation). Compared to other digital marketing strategies – especially ones that have seen rising costs due to competition – SEO is a more cost-effective choice in the long term.”

When you’re busy helping patients take care of their pearly whites, why think about something like SEO? The truth is, SEO can be just as important to your business’s online visibility as brushing daily is to keeping teeth clean.

Dental SEO offers benefits like:

  • Stronger digital presence
  • Better online experiences for patients
  • Competitive advantage
  • Local awareness

Stronger digital presence

Did you know 75% of patients search online for healthcare providers, including dentists?

With so many patients turning to the Internet when they’re looking for any kind of healthcare provider, having a strong online presence is crucial. With a dental SEO strategy in place, you can ensure your practice is one of the first websites patients see on Google when they look for dental services.

SEO for dentists helps you boost your online visibility through tactics like keyword integration and local targeting. Through these strategies, you can earn higher rankings on Google search results, improving your chances of attracting more patients.

Better online experiences for patients

Part of optimizing your practice’s site for SEO involves improving your website for better UX. Search engine algorithms reward sites with great UX, and patients love a website that’s easy to navigate. Think about it— when you’re looking for healthcare services, would you trust a practice with a well-designed website or one with a site that’s difficult to navigate and find what you need?

By optimizing for dental SEO, you’re improving your site and offering a better online experience for prospective and current patients. Finding a dentist shouldn’t be a hassle, and with SEO for dentists, you can make a positive impact on people by offering an excellent online experience.

Competitive advantage

You’re likely thinking something along the lines of, “I don’t have time for SEO, I have patients to attend to!” The good news is your competitors are likely thinking the same thing, which is why investing in dental SEO services is even more important.

Dental SEO gives you a distinct advantage over competitors who aren’t using SEO because it helps you appear in search results before them. This way, prospective patients find and enlist your practice for services instead of competitors.

If your competitors are already using SEO, investing in it for your own practice levels the playing field and increases your chances of pulling qualified traffic away from competitor sites and toward your practice.

Local awareness

Improving your dental SEO also improves your visibility for local searches. By optimizing for local keywords like “dentist office near me,” or “dentist in [location]” you appear in searches by users near you, attracting qualified traffic to your office.

Dental SEO tips: 5 ways to optimize your site

Any marketing plan requires knowing where and how to reach your target audience, and SEO is no exception. When you address the needs of dental patients, you get their attention. This attention raises your rankings, which garners even more attention, and the cycle continues.

Here are some things your practice can do to begin the process of developing a solid dental SEO strategy.

1. Add relevant keywords

Yes, prospective patients search for dentists, but they also search for specific services, from teeth whitening and bridges to annual exams for kids. Long-tail searches, which are made up of several words, have lower search volumes, but the traffic that comes in from these queries is often highly targeted and ready to convert into real customers.

For example, rather than focusing on optimizing your website simply for dentist or dental services, you might make sure that your website includes keywords like “dentist in [your city],” “children’s dentist in [your area],” or even “broken tooth repair in [city]/[state].” These are long-tail keywords.

When optimizing your website, make sure to include keywords and phrases that describe all the services you provide. For example, don’t just use words like dentist or dental services in your website’s copy and URLs — try using words like “root canal,” “porcelain crown,” and the names of procedures you perform.

2. Optimize for local searches

When it comes to health and medicine, people look for local service providers. You’re missing these prime prospects if your SEO plan doesn’t use local SEO tactics to target specific geographic areas. The easiest way to improve your results is by adding the name of your town and nearby towns to your website copy.

dental seo serp page example

However, don’t forget about other aspects of your site beyond copywriting. You should also add locations to your page titles and URLs.

Also, ensure you’ve registered your business on Google Maps and local directory sites, which will help improve your visibility in local searches even further.

3. Start blogging

The ultimate goal of dentist SEO is to attract more patients through increased search engine visibility. That doesn’t mean they have to pay for all of your knowledge and expertise, though. For an experienced dentist, SEO marketing should be as much about building credibility as it is generating revenue.

Blogging is one way to do that. By writing a blog with dental care tips, you will start to attract interested readers and potential patients. As your traffic grows, your search rankings will also rise, and you will become an authoritative source and first choice for those looking for a dentist in your area.

4. Earn links

The number and quality of links to your website impact how high your site ranks in search results for keywords and phrases related to your business. This means that if you want to maintain your rankings, you need to earn quality links.

You can do this by creating quality content and reaching out to bloggers and industry leaders to ask if they will share your content. Not only will this boost your rankings in search results, it will also help to position your practice as a leader in the dental field. When it comes to SEO for dentists, links are essential. They serve as a thumbs up or endorsement for the content your practice publishes. That’s why search engines like Google use links as one of their biggest ranking factors.

5. Partner with a trusted dental SEO agency

A surefire way to effectively optimize for SEO and create content relevant, SEO-friendly content for your target audience is to partner with an SEO agency who understands the ups and downs of dental SEO. Agencies give you the distinct advantage of working with people who have extensive experience in the digital marketing world and are up-to-date on the always-changing SEO ranking factors and trends.

Take WebFX for example — we’re a top-ranked SEO agency with over 29 years of experience helping clients in 200+ industries, including dental!

Expert insights from webfx logo

savannah furlow headshot
Savannah F. Internet Marketing Consultant, Dental Industry Expert

“If you’re unsure of how to get started with an SEO strategy for your dental office, consider partnering with a digital marketing agency. You can rest assured that after working with dental clients nationwide for years, we offer solid industry expertise and stay up-to-date on rising trends. We tailor our strategies for your business based on your specific needs and challenges along with what we know about the industry. Additionally, because we are an agency, working with a variety of industries allows us to consistently innovate and spark fresh ideas for your dental office to keep our efforts relevant and effective.”

Dental SEO FAQs

Got more questions about dental SEO? Browse our FAQ below!

How does dental SEO work?

SEO for dentists involves optimizing your website for search engines and users, which increases the site’s visibility in relevant and organic search results. Optimizations include on-pageoff-page, and technical tactics, like updating title tags, attracting backlinks, and improving page speed.

How long does dental search engine optimization take?

Typically, dental search engine optimization takes at least six months to deliver results. In some cases, practices will start to see results, like increased traffic, phone calls, and appointments, in four months. This timeframe is normal as SEO is a long-term strategy vs. a short-term strategy like pay-per-click (PPC).

How much does SEO for dentists cost?

Prices for dental website SEO depend on several factors, but the average cost for dental SEO is $1500 to $5000 per month. If you’re looking to partner with a consultant or dental SEO expert, the average rate is $100 to $300 per hour.

How do you calculate the ROI for dental SEO?

Your practice can calculate your return on investment (ROI) from dental SEO with the following formula:

(Gain from Investment – Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment

While you can incorporate your search engine rankings and organic website traffic into your “Gain from Investment” value, you’ll most often use conversions — like a phone call or contact form completion — since those actions contribute to your practice’s biggest goals.

With free website analytics tools like Google Analytics, you can set up and track these actions.

Reach more patients with dental SEO services

Now that you understand the importance of SEO for dentists, you probably have a lot of questions about how to get started. Don’t let all the dos and don’ts of SEO overwhelm you — call WebFX and let our experts guide you to the top of the search engines!

We’ve helped hundreds of clients — including dentists — boost their search engine rankings through a variety of SEO services. Our team of experienced professionals knows how to drive more visitors to your website and help you attract new patients to your practice.

If you’re ready to start improving your SEO but don’t have the time or staff to do it, let us know.

Our dental SEO service plans will give you the presence you need to attract more patients, and you’ll barely have to lift a finger.

Give us a call at 888-601-5359 or fill out our simple contact us online today to get in touch with us for a free quote!

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