As a dentist or dental office manager you know that one of the most effective ways to attract new patients is to market the clinic online. And I’m sure you’ve been bombarded with companies that promises top ranking and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) work at ridiculously low prices (compare to professional SEO firms). The truth is that if the price is that if they sell you on the “quantity” then most likely it’s automated and it will do more harm than good. Proper SEO is very labour intensive and to be done professionally you would need a professional doing it or managing and their rates are high.

Why do you need a professional to manage your SEO?

One reason is that low end SEO is not effective. The promise of 5000 links and 500 directory submissions might be true but it’s done on spammy sites that will not benefit your dental website. And more dangerously this type of service will flag Google that your site has blackhat techniques which will lead to Google penalizing or delisting your dental website.

What you SHOULD do to improve your dental website on Google

At the heart of ranking your dental website on Google is getting more links to your website. Here’s a video from Matt Cutts of Google telling you the proper ways to build links and improve your dental website ranking. Either you can do the following or your SEO company should be doing it.

1. Make a controversy post – controversy posts draw a lot of attention, feedback, and links however it’s a little difficult for dentist to attack a person. Try posting something unconventional to draw attention such as “Dentist recommend brushing 3-4 times a day but not me.” Then in the blog post discuss the importance of proper brushing technique and mention that it’s more important to have the proper technique rather than the quantity. But like most dentist you need to have a base of readers and followers first so they can respond.
2. Answering questions to help other people – Join communities to help others that have a question. Maybe there are online forums that you are already part of. Find out questions or discussions about dental care then answer their questions. Another way is to start a “Ask me anything about dental care” thread on the forum. The idea behind this is that they will visit your site and link to the content on your site.
3. Original Research – Do original research to help consumers. There are many things a dentist know from experience that is helpful to regular consumers. It does not need to be academic research, it can be simple as the life of toothbrush or comparing different floss or toothpaste.
4. Social Media – Getting to know people through social media. These are usually the tech savvy type that has websites that will link to your site. As well they can least to real world opportunities which will lead to people building links to your dental .
5. List articles – Create blog post list for a topic such as top 5 toothpaste, 5 mistakes kids make with oral hygiene.
6. Establish a blog – Make sure you have a blog, ideally on your site. If you can you sign up for free ones on WordPress.com or you can keep it simple and get a Tumblr Blog. Your blog is your online business card.
7. How to and tutorials – Create how to dental related tutorials such as how to floss, how to properly brush your teeth, how to care for dentures.
8. Provide a service – Is there something that you or your patients need but there aren’t anything available? Maybe parents want an app to help keep track of children’s teeth brushing. Make one and have it for free. People like link to your site.
9. Site architecture – Matt Cutts of Google talks about structuring your site so that search engines can index it and people can bookmark it. These things are a bit technical and you would need an SEO company to do an audit for your site. Again, make sure that it’s a reputable SEO service provider.
10. Make videos – Making videos can be very easy once you have a system in place.

Those are tactics to build links to your sites and increase your ranking on the search engines. If you hire a SEO company make sure that these are in the core of their strategy. If it is not in the core of the proposal that they give you it means the service is low level SEO quality. But service like these as you know is very labour intensive with a lot of research, expect it to be expensive, a minimum of $2,000 monthly.

Many of these you can do yourself but it’s important to have a professional service company to set everything up and review it so that it’s effective and not time wasted. If you are looking for some advice SEO and online marketing feel free to give us a call for a free consultation at 1-888-784-7878.