An effective SEO strategy will attract new patients to your dental practice. Learn how to gain online authority and promote your business by utilising SEO techniques.

SEO (search engine optimisation) is an effective digital marketing strategy designed to drive organic traffic to your website.

However, it remains largely untapped by Birmingham dental practices.

Read on to uncover how a quality SEO strategy can play a critical role in securing new patients and enhancing your brand as the best of the best in your local area.

Why does my practice need SEO?

Digital marketing and dentistry aren’t exactly two things we often hear in the same sentence. But just like any other highly regulated business, dentistry needs SEO to find new patients and encourage them to visit their dental practice.

And how do consumers find products and services?

Google.

To be precise, 89% of consumers begin their purchase journey via a search engine.

In our modern digital age, all businesses must face the fact that search engines are the route to economic growth and brand exposure.

For dentists to establish a new wave of loyal patients, they must follow the same SEO rules as any other business.

But more importantly, dentists must apply local SEO techniques if they wish to run a successful practice. 

New patients

Let’s say someone has just moved to your local area, and they wish to find a new dentist. Nine times out of ten, they will search for a new dentist via Google. So, the opportunity for this potential new patient to find your website relies on your brand being visible across search engines by utilising SEO techniques.

Whichever dentist ranks higher for the relevant search, such as “dentist near me” or “dentist in Birmingham” will likely be the one selected first.

Competing for relevant keywords and search terms with valuable content on-page and off-page while optimising your website with technical SEO enhancements will give your dental practice greater visibility.

By attracting organic traffic to your website with SEO, you will naturally influence new patients to use your practice, increasing profits and building your online authority as the leading dentist in the area.

Build trust in your brand

Like most aspects of healthcare, the relationship between dentist and patient is founded on trust because no right-minded patient trusts any random person to perform complex dental treatments on themselves or their family.

So, trust plays a vital role in your patient relations, and the same principle applies when promoting yourself online. The good thing about SEO is that it generates organic search results. Compared to PPC, SEO is free to rank across search engines, creating a sense of quality content ranked on merit.

Should I do SEO myself?

To keep costs low and promote growth in your dental business, implementing an SEO strategy is a proven digital marketing method. However, before embarking on a mission to attract high-quality leads organically, there are a few factors to consider first.

The four features of SEO  

SEO is not just ranking for keywords or phrases on Google. While that is an essential feature of SEO, numerous other components involved contribute to the overall success of your brand’s SEO.

  1. Technical SEO

Optimising your website’s technical SEO simply ensures a search engine can read your content and explore your website through:

  • Crawlers
  • Indexing
  • Mobile optimisation
  • Speed
  • Content structure

The more seamless the experience, the more a search engine will deem your website with acceptable UX (user experience), impacting your overall SEO score.

  • On-site

On-site SEO should focus on the performance of each individual page of your website. So, you should apply the appropriate language and professionalism with relevant keywords while making your website structure and navigation valuable to your user.

On-site SEO factors to consider include:

  • Keyword research
  • Optimised content  
  • URL
  • Page titles
  • Meta descriptions
  • UX
  • CTA (Call to action)

When optimising a website for SEO purposes, always consider your patients at the forefront of design, content, and overall experience. The key is to make it easy, valuable, and effective.

As a dental practice, don’t forget your location is crucial. Apply your address and city/region location in as many relevant content features as possible so your patients can locate you. 

  • Content

Content is king when it comes to marketing, and that works the same with SEO. After all, your website provides a platform for your business to reveal the all-important content your patients want to find.

The types of content to clearly display and promote include:

  • Services
  • Reviews and case studies
  • Opening times
  • Marketing
  • Updates and news

Applying specific keywords relevant to your business and consumer across all your website content will generate consistency for your brand and boost your ranking. 

  • Off-site 

Off-site SEO helps improve your brand’s online authority. To become a leading dentist surgery in your local area, you must become a relevant source by linking and being linked off-site.

Some proven ways to generate off-site SEO authority are through:

  • Fixing broken links
  • Building backlinks with blogs and articles
  • Appear in local listings

To encourage off-site SEO, build an online network with other valuable information sources and produce specialist content relevant to your industry.

Now you understand what to expect when launching an effective SEO strategy. To save you time and effort, it might bode well for your dental practice to hire an SEO specialist instead of attempting it yourself.

Invest in specialist SEO services for dental practices

Improving the economic growth of your dental practice through a new wave of loyal patients can be established through a successful SEO strategy.

As experts in SEO services for dental practices, our team of experts at Amay Digital can improve your brand awareness and drive organic traffic to your website all year round.

So, if your dental practice requires SEO services, contact us today for a free consultation.