Make Your Site Create New Patients
How can your dental website create new patients for you?
If you haven’t heard about Google’s latest advancement in massively improving the way in which search understands queries, it’s something you don’t want to miss. The launch of BERT, the new algorithm update, is a breakthrough in language processing technology that allows search to understand words in a sentence rather than one-by-one in order.
Why does this matter?
Simply put, BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) will likely impact your practice’s visibility and traffic, as it allows for search to have a deeper sense of language context and flow. When patients, new or existing, are not exactly sure how to form a query—the best words, how to spell something—which is often the case, BERT allows search to better understand and connect the dots.
What can I do to make my website more BERT-friendly?
There are several ways to do this, but the first step is to shift your mindset to focusing on creating content for humans rather than for BERT. Read on for 5 ways to make your dental website more compatible with conversational search.
Custom Content
Arguably the most crucial component when directing conversational queries to a website, custom content is king. Doctors’ bios, top procedures, and homepages all should read as people, more specifically, patients, would speak.
Pro tip: fill out your PBHS homepage questionnaire first thing so that your complimentary customized homepage can be created and published when your new website launches.
User Experience
Often overlooked because we can tend to focus on the overall aesthetics of a site, user experience is key when attracting new patients. It plays a major role in keeping a prospective patient on your website, so make sure that your navigation is easy to find, use, and understand.
Pro tip: OMS websites should have Wisdom Teeth and Dental Implants in the top navigation because they are the most commonly searched-for procedures. Make it easy for your patients.
Buttons
Another simple way to make navigating your website easy for your patients is to incorporate buttons. Buttons have the uncanny ability to compel users to convert. By clicking a button, a patient is carrying out an action, keeping the conversation going. Book Online buttons that link to your scheduling page and phone number buttons are especially important with mobile users.
Pro tip: Buttons are most visible if placed in the top right of every page.
Keywords
Since 2009, when Google claimed it didn’t use “keywords” as a factor in ranking, we’ve been straying farther and farther from their use. Although they continue to remain beneficial, SEO strategies are beginning to shift toward the importance of user behavior and intent rather than stringing together keywords in a non-human fashion.
Pro tip: Long tail keywords (complete phrases) are more specific so usually have a higher conversion value, attracting highly qualified traffic.
Google has made one the biggest leaps forward in the history of search with its improved language understanding capabilities. Optimizing your website to correspond with the more natural language of the BERT model will allow more patients to find you online and lead to the growth of your practice. Optimize your website for humans, and you’ll turn it into a new patient lead machine.