Your dental practice website’s structure matters for a variety of reasons. However, it’s your website structure for SEO that is a key determining factor for whether you get enough web traffic. Creating a website without SEO in mind is as unrealistic as working on a new patient’s teeth without consulting x-rays first. In other words, it’s just not something you’re going to do. 

How website structure affects SEO can be explained in two ways:

• Your website structure for SEO makes it easier for Google to locate pages and assess their relative importance
• Good website architecture enables you to better measure the performance of your web pages over the long term

What does a good website structure SEO for dentists look like? Here are five ways to help accomplish it:

1. Your Website Structure For SEO Needs to be Planned Out

Some dentists see a dental practice website as little more than a place to post their office hours, list the services they provide, put up the doctor’s bio and that’s about it. Clearly, it’s far more than that.

A website becomes more complex over time. The site that you first upload isn’t the same one it will be years later. Therefore, it makes sense to plan out your website structure for SEO and devise ways that it can be improved over time.

2. Have a Linking Strategy For Relevant Pages

Your web pages have collective SEO power… if an SEO strategy has been carefully designed and deployed. Part of that strategy is an excellent internal linking strategy. This helps direct patients to other pages and satisfies Google’s desire to see websites guide viewers to relevant material.

You should always use descriptive internal links. Never, ever use something like “click here” as part of any linking strategy. “Click here” means nothing to the Google bots. On the other hand, a series of words linked to other pages on a similar topic helps Google understand the connection between the two pages.

3. Get Rid of Out-of-Date or Irrelevant Content

The longer a website remains online, the more likely it is that older content becomes irrelevant to your patients. Just because it lives on your dental practice website doesn’t mean it should stay there forever. Part of your website structure for SEO must include the routine elimination of irrelevant content.

You may even have information on your web pages that no longer reflect how you do things in your practice now. Consequently, these pages no longer serve any real purpose. If this content no longer applies to your dental practice, it should go. Remember that your content should always be fresh and up to date.

4. Blogs Should Be Focused on One Category Only

Don’t get pulled into the idea that a blog can address multiple topics at once. It’s always best to keep blogs tightly focused on one topic and one topic alone. Doing so serves two functions:

• Reduces the chances of accidentally duplicating content, which Google won’t like.
• Enables you to more precisely categorize your content, which helps viewers on your site find what they’re looking for. It also helps you better understand which topics may need to be fleshed out more.

5. Don’t Let Optimizing for Search Engines Become the Sole Focus

Every marketer will tell you to concentrate on SEO best practices. That’s a good idea… to an extent. However, never forget that you are creating content for patients. Creating content strictly to make Google happy is an awful idea (although many websites go this direction). 

The problem with concentrating entirely on the search engines is that the result could easily be web pages that aren’t a good experience for viewers. If that happens, your website ceases to be a generator for new patients. After all, if patients aren’t captivated by your content, they aren’t likely to call for an appointment. Website structure for SEO must make both viewers and search engines happy. Any other approach is foolish.

Get Your Website Structure For SEO Right

Website structure SEO for dentists is essential for bringing in new patients online. Your site structure also determines how Google and other search engines rank you. Dreamscape Marketing is dedicated to improving the lives of dentists by solving digital marketing needs like a website structure that pleases patients and search engines alike. Contact us today at 888.307.7304 and let’s discuss how to take your dental practice website structure for SEO to the next level.