It’s tempting to think that creating content for dental practice websites is a fairly simple process. You write up some content, post it and then people will find it. Unfortunately, it’s not quite that easy.

Consider the story of a general dentist who we recently worked with. His practice is fairly new, and he had launched a practice website the previous year. His production wasn’t where it should be but he was hesitant to point a finger at his website as the problem because he had created it himself. When we took a closer look, we discovered his website was very much the problem. His content was thin and each web page contained little more than 50 words because, in his words, “I heard web pages should be short.”

This dentist had made some very fundamental errors with website content. What he had written wasn’t bad. It’s just that it wasn’t what Google expects to see in web pages. The GP, like many dentists and specialists, wasn’t aware of all the hoops that Google makes web developers jump through to be rewarded with a high-ranking website.

Quality & SEO-Ready: Essential Elements for Dental Practice Web Pages

When you upload a web page to your dental practice website, Google will eventually locate it and analyze it to determine what value it has to readers. Many dentists don’t realize that content for dental practice websites must pass more than a dozen qualifiers for a high ranking. Some are important while others are simply a contributing factor.

Keyword Strategy

For example, does the web page employ a keyword strategy? If so, is the keyword:

• Used too often?
• Evenly distributed throughout the page?
• In any of the subheads?
• Part of the meta description?
• At the beginning of the title?

That’s just the criteria associated with the keyword. The scrutiny that takes place with content for dental practice websites doesn’t end there.

Readability

Many dental practices uploading web pages never stop to consider readability factors. For example, content for dental practice websites will be judged in terms of:

• Passive tense: are you using it too frequently?
• Transitional phrases: are there enough?
• Length: is the word count at least 300?
• Sentences: do too many contain more than 20 words?
• Subheads: are there too few?

For most dentists, this list of criteria probably comes as a shock. Who knew Google was so picky? Unfortunately, the scrutiny doesn’t stop there.

The Flesch–Kincaid Readability Test

Google also judges any content for dental practice websites on how hard or easy it is to read. How does your page rate according to the Flesch–Kincaid readability tests? Generally, you’re aiming for an 8th grade reading level. Right or wrong, that’s the gold standard for online content.

If your content is viewed as higher than 8th grade level, search engines like Google will see it as hard to read. This can be the kiss of death. As far as Google is concerned, hard to read translates into a less satisfying experience for people and, bang, your page ranks lower as a result.

Unfortunately, this Flesch–Kincaid evaluation of your content can be tricky to deal with. For example, a web page about dental procedures can easily be considered “difficult to read” once you slip a few technical terms into the content. Does that make sense? Maybe not, but that’s what happens when algorithms judge a page rather than human eyes.

We Create Quality Content for Dental Practice Websites

Your dental practice matters too much to take chances with thin content or writing that doesn’t satisfy Google’s requirements for value. Therefore, you should consider working with outside experts who can build your website into an effective tool for driving people to your practice.

Dreamscape Marketing, a Premier Google Partner, has created hundreds of websites for our healthcare clients. In addition, we’ve crafted more than 50,000 pages of quality, original content. If you’re ready to take your dental practice’s website to the next level of success, let’s talk. After all, your website is the key to increasing production. Call us today at 888.307.7304 or email us at info@dreamscapemail.com.