Why Great SEO Should Be Every Dentist’s Priority

Dental office digital marketing involves many components working together to create success for your office. Are you experiencing the level of success you’d prefer for your marketing? 

For solo and small group practices in particular, digital marketing offers opportunities to compete for new patients in a way that’s remarkably cost-effective. However, without the right dental office digital marketing strategy in place, it’s possible that dentists won’t see increases in web traffic and new patients that they’d prefer.

To better understand how dental digital marketing strategy can be derailed, let’s look at five mistakes that GPs and specialists make.

5 Dental Office Digital Marketing Mistakes To Avoid

Let’s take a closer look at the top five mistakes that could be jeopardizing your dental digital marketing strategy: 

1. Not directing viewers to specific landing pages

Maybe you’re writing blogs, perhaps you’re implementing a PPC campaign. In each case, there’s an objective that has to be achieved. For example, take the blog. A blog in and of itself isn’t especially helpful for getting new patients in the door.

Dental office digital marketing requires more than that. It becomes very helpful when a blog links to an important anchor page on your dental practice website. That landing page and you want to link to an interior landing page of greater importance. A paid ad should be going to a landing page designed specifically to be tracked. 

A landing page has a very specific purpose. Superficially, it’s to inform. However, in reality, it’s really meant to motivate prospective patients to move to the next step in the decision-making process: calling your office to schedule an appointment.

The landing page needs to inspire readers to take action. Otherwise, it serves very little purpose for your dental practice.

2. Going All In on PPC While Neglecting SEO

PPC certainly has its place but it’s not a standalone strategy. Remember that anyone may click on a PPC link.

Patients finding you through search engine results pages are more likely to be actively looking for specific dental services. Qualified leads brought in through organic SEO are more likely to stay on your website, read your content and actually take action (like making an appointment).

Always remember that web traffic alone can never increase your production. It’s qualified leads coming through your website that accomplish this task.

SEO is a valuable asset that your dental practice needs. Unfortunately, there are GPs and specialists out there spending big money each month on PPC when these funds should really be allocated a bit differently. In dental office digital marketing, some of these dollars are more effective when used for building organic SEO results.

3. Failing to use tracking numbers

Tracking numbers are unique phone numbers that allow dental practices to know when someone is calling in response to a specific paid ad. These are documented calls. They tell you whether your paid ad campaign is succeeding or failing.

Instead of hoping front desk people remember if people are calling as a result of a paid ad, data can be assessed to show the exact number of calls received. Any guesswork has been eliminated from the equation. That’s good for the front desk people because they can concentrate on simply delivering excellent customer service.

Pay-per-click marketing isn’t cheap to implement. Therefore, you want to achieve maximum results for your investment. By tracking numbers, you’ll know exactly how many calls each campaign gets. This is a far better method than trying to guess how successful a campaign has been.

Even better, the calls could be reviewed to make sure you’re attracting the right type of patients with your dental office digital marketing efforts. You also have the ability to monitor the effectiveness of front desk people answering the phones.

4. Not fully leveraging local SEO strategy for dentists

The pandemic made local SEO strategy for dentists more important than ever. Yet elements of local SEO like Google My Business listing aren’t being as fully utilized by dental practices as they should be. Your dental Google My Business listing plays a bigger role than you might think.

Dentists may know about the general idea of Google My Business like the fact that they need to have their office listed. However, Dreamscape Marketing has been shocked by how many dental practices don’t fully optimize their listing.

This is shocking, considering that GMB listings are free. They also help practices achieve higher SEO ranking. In short, failing to fully leverage the advantages of Google My Business listings makes little sense in dental office digital marketing.

5. Having a Generic Dental Practice Website

Your website shouldn’t be interchangeable with every other dental practice website. Remember that you need to answer a basic question every prospective new patient has, “Why should I choose your dental practice over another?” 

A generic website with content that reads like every other practice website won’t help you answer this question. How does your website highlight your competitive advantages? Do you offer elective procedures that your nearest competitors don’t? Be sure to highlight that.

Remember that some people see dentistry as a commodity. Don’t add to that perception with a generic website.

Take Your Dental Office Digital Marketing to the Next Level

Your dental practice website is one of the key ways you bring new patients into the office. Your production is closely tied to the effectiveness of website design, content, PPC and SEO. When all of these factors are functioning properly, your dental office digital marketing will excel.

Dreamscape Marketing, a leader in healthcare marketing, has the knowledge and experience needed to take your website from good to great.

Call us today at 888.307.7304 and let’s talk about what it will take to increase your website traffic and Google ranking.