How can your dental site be seen on Google?

Tips on Keeping Your Practice Visible on Google

Where does your dental or medical practice rank on Google for your top procedures and services? SEO (search engine optimization) improves your search visibility and organic rankings across all top keywords that are critical to your patient acquisition process.    

Improving overall ranking performance leads to increased search visibility, making it easier for potential new patients to find your practice website. The patient’s intent has a greater impact on keywords now more than ever. Does your website provide answers to their questions?

5-step content optimization strategy PBHS SEO uses to increase search visibility:

1. Optimize page titles.

SEO page titles continue to be a strategic and very important ranking factor. There are three things to consider when optimizing page titles.

• Create meta-descriptions that persuade new patients to click through to your practice website. The <meta> description tag provides search engines with key information about a page that will inform and interest readers.
• Use unique title headings. This is important for every page on your site. Keep them descriptive and concise. High-quality descriptions jump out in Google’s search results, spiking ideal search traffic.
• Update your site and page descriptions. The more regularly updates are made, the more accurately your pages will be presented in snippets (automatically created previews of your page content).

2. Maintain clean URLs.

The cleanest URLs are straightforward and clear without any query strings or URL parameters. Search engines prefer simple, clean URLs. Google uses your URL structure to map your site and its content. 

Examples:

This is a clean URL: https://www.example.com/dental-implants/

This is not: https://www.example.com/services/procedures/dentalimplants/

3. Optimize images.

This is one of the most overlooked areas of SEO. To ensure that Google includes a thumbnail image in your page search snippet, a unique image can be incorporated on pages with relevant file names that include keywords. Image alt attributes (text alternatives or descriptions for an image) are included to provide additional context using relevant keywords. These are part of the HTML code within an image tag. ALT text should be specific, relevant, and unique to each image. For example:

<img src=”happy-elderly-couple-with-big-smiles.png” alt=”happy elderly couple with big smiles” />.

4. Focus on local SEO.

Remember when we used to go to the Yellow Pages to find a service or business in your area? Now, there are all kinds of online search options, the most common being Google. Your PBHS SEO Team keeps your Google My Business (GMB) listing updated on a regular basis.

We know that Google’s goal is to use detailed info to connect searchers with the best dental or medical practice for their needs. So, an optimized and verified GMB that accurately represents your practice and includes quality reviews will help patients choose you over your competitors. Your GMB is as important as a website, for exposure, so it should be attractive, engaging, and regularly maintained.

5. Create internal links.

A little-known secret about boosting a site’s performance and visibility lies in internal links — links from one page on your domain to another. Grow organic traffic, search visibility, and page rank with internal links within your site, to your blog posts, publications, social media, etc. The number of internal links that point to a page signals to search engines the relative importance of that page.

Are you ready to experience new patient growth?

Of all the strategies you could use to get new patients to your practice, the most effective is getting your dental or medical site seen on Google and other search engines. How to best increase visibility depends on a variety of factors, but a focus on creating engaging experiences for users that encourage visitors to convert as new patients is the number one approach. We achieve this by paying attention to the details—page titles, URLs, images, geographical locations, and internal links, and more.

Using a combination of the approaches above will help to get your practice website more visible in Google search.

Do you have the right SEO plan for your dental or medical practice? View our SEO plans and let us know if you’re interested in a more aggressive plan.  PBHS is equipped with the experience and technology that makes it easier for your practice to acquire new patients.

Contact your PBHS SEO team to discuss your SEO and online marketing strategies.