a trained marketing expert to interpret the
changes and implement them correctly.
So, why would that other dentist’s website
rank higher than yours? While we could
speculate all day about the possibilities,
here are just a few of the many key elements of a good search engine ranking that
could be making the difference:
Quality and quantity
of your website content
We’ve heard for quite some time now that
Google rewards websites that have high
quality content that is unique to your website. While that is still true and will probably continue to be for the foreseeable
future, the amount of copy on each of your
practice website service pages is also
important. Make sure each service page of
your website has at least a few paragraphs
of quality, unique content. A sentence or
two just won’t cut it. TIP: We’ve also been
hearing that conversion is starting to matter more to Google (i.e., how many people
click on your “Contact Us” button.) Make
sure each of your service pages are built to
convert.
Number of Google reviews
Most dentists know that getting positive
reviews and recommendations from their
current patients is beneficial for many reasons. But many don’t know that they
should be strategic in where they ask their
patients to go to post them. Research has
shown that positive reviews on your practice’s Google+ profile are fairly supportive
in helping your search engine rankings.
But make sure they are genuine. Google
is incredibly intelligent and has advised
against posting fake or false reviews and
asking your patients to post the review
right in your office.
Social signals
We’ve written about social media a lot lately.
To read some of them, check out our blog at
www.onlinedentalmarketing.com/blog.
Several studies have been released (and
subsequently debated) that found social
signals like Facebook Likes, Facebook
Shares, Twitter Retweets and Google +1s
contribute to your website’s search engine
ranking. What we do know is that evidence
is beginning to show that Google is favoring content that is being “interacted” with;
meaning shared and commented on within
social media networks. If your practice
doesn’t have social media profiles on
Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, now might
be the time to consider creating them.
Keywords that are too competitive
All dentists want their website to be found
when someone searches for “dentist + your
town”. But, depending on the size of your
market, the possibility of showing up
organically for those keywords can be next
to impossible. If your website is trying to
rank for generic and very competitive keywords and you live in a metropolitan area
(like D/FW), you may be fighting a losing
battle. When choosing your keywords, try
to imagine what your potential patients
actually type into a Google search and try
to refine your keywords. Additionally,
Google has just revamped their search
algorithm to accommodate for people
using voice search on their mobile devices
and typing in complete sentence questions
in their Google search bar.
Domain authority
Believe it or not, Google considers the age,
popularity and size of your website’s
domain when it decides which websites to
display. Your domain is the web address
that your potential patients see or type in
when they want to be taken to the home
page of your website. Google tends to give
favor to domains that have been registered
and used by people for a long period of
time because it shows that the website can
be trusted. So, if the dentist up the street’s
website is ranking higher than yours, it
could be, in part, because it’s just simply
been around longer.
Keeping up with Google’s constant updates
can be a timely process and usually takes a
seasoned marketing professional to manage and implement them all. If your website isn’t ranking where you want it to,
contact our digital marketing team today,
we specialize in building, optimizing and
marketing websites for dental practices.
Neil Rudoff is the
Senior
Account
Executive at Bullseye
Media in McKinney,
Texas. He received
his B.A. from Tufts
University in 1989
and his MBA from UT
Austin in 1993, and has been an online marketing and web design consultant since 2003.
He can be reached at (214) 491-6166 or
[email protected]. BullseyeMedia,
LLC is a McKinney, Texas based full-service
digital marketing agency that specializes
in helping dentists leverage the internet to
grow their practices. Visit our website at
www.onlinedentalmarketing.com.
If values aren’t shared, they aren’t lived.
Mei Miao
[email protected]
direct 972.754.1443
www.northtexasdentistry.com
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