If you want to be #1 in Google search results and you haven’t applied search engine optimization (SEO) to your dental practice website, well, you’ve got some cavities to fill in your online dental marketing.
Failing to build search engine optimization into your website is like opening your dental practice on a side street without signs and without telling anyone you’re there. How will any patients find you? This is where SEO for dentists and digital marketing comes in.
With dental SEO marketing, dentists like you can help people find your practice on search engines like Google or Bing. A sturdy dental SEO strategy starts with determining the words and phrases people use to search for your services (keywords) and then incorporating them into your site content and code.
This article will help you improve your dental SEO and increase the number of new patients seeing your website. You'll also understand some technical search engine optimization best practices. This article is a guide to making sure you put keyword information in the right places and take other steps to improve your dental website’s position on search engine results pages.
Marketers tend to talk about SEO and “Local” dental search engine optimization. Local dental SEO adds a layer of geographic relevance so that when someone searches for “dentist near me,” the search engine shows dental practices in or near the searcher’s town.
For most dentists, it’s not worth worrying about the difference between SEO and local dental SEO. For a dental practice that relies on patients who live nearby, it is ALL local SEO.
Search engine marketing for dentists starts with your website content; making sure the site looks good and is easy to use on mobile devices; making sure the site loads quickly; and making sure some dental SEO tactics are built into your site infrastructure. Nailing your dental SEO is only one aspect of your dental marketing.
Related: Best Dental SEO Websites For Dental Offices
I created an easy to follow foundation and dental SEO tips for dentists to get started with their SEO marketing strategy. There is a lot to unpack here so please research each step.
Neil Patel has a great digital marketing blog and youtube channel that dives deep into 100's of SEO topics.
Beyond the SEO basics, Google looks at three local factors when deciding to show your dental practice to searchers.
Google says that it relies on the information in your Google Business Profile to determine whether your practice matches what a prospective patient is searching for. When it comes to SEO for dentists, your profile should contain “complete and detailed business information” so Google can better match you to searchers to your dental practice.
It may seem an obvious point, but search engines look at how far you are from their best estimation of where the searcher is. If the search phrase includes a location like “best dentist in Atlanta,” the search engine will return results for dentists there. If the search query doesn’t include a location, the search engine will use what it knows about searchers to determine where they are.
Search engines look at links to your website, online articles, directory listings, and reviews to determine what others think about you. It’s like measuring online word-of-mouth. With more links to your site and good reviews, you’re more likely to rank higher in local searches.
Most of your dental SEO work should focus on elements of your website. If you’re building a new dental website from scratch, take advantage by building in SEO tactics from square one. If you are looking to build new website for your dental practice checkout my 7 best dental website builders and services article.
If you’re working with an existing site with no plans for a rebuild, no worries. You’ll just need to dig into your website content and implement some digital marketing changes. If that sounds daunting, you may want to hire someone to help. It could be your web developer, an SEO expert or even a freelance writer who’s got experience with websites and dental SEO services.
Let’s break down some of the things you can build into your dental website content and site code:
Your website content should be well-written and easy to understand, but it should also be chock full of dental keywords -- the words and phrases that people are likely to use when using a search engine to look for a dentist and dental services.
Keywords should include services you offer, like teeth cleaning, dental implants, dental bridges, and teeth whitening. But don’t forget that people also search for their symptoms: “dental practice near me,” “I broke a tooth,” or “the best way to straighten teeth.”
Keyword research tools are a must. SEMrush is an industry leader and has a free trial of their powerful platform. Try SEMrush.
Headings include page titles -- the main headline on a page -- and subheads, which can make your page content easier to scan and read.
Heading elements are:
Headings are styled in away that is easy to read and has an intuitive flow. Headings should also contain keywords. Try to avoid generic headings like “Services,” “About Us,” or “Contact Us.”
When Google displays a search result, the result usually includes a sentence or two of text underneath the page title. You can help Google by writing your own descriptions for each page. In some cases, Google might ignore your description and create its own based on the page content. If you don’t write descriptions at all, you’ll be at the mercy of Google’s artificial intelligence.
These are web links to other pages on your site. For example, you might have a list of services on your home page with the text for each linking to a specific page about it. On your page about regular check-ups, you might link to a page about daily brushing and flossing.
These interlinks lead readers to other helpful information, and they help search engine bots learn about your site as they follow links and crawl through your site.
These are links from your website to other sites. For example, if you want readers on your site to learn more about oral cancer, you might link to an article on the American Dental Association website.
Outbound links to authoritative sites help search engines know you also have a certain amount of authority.
How a dental patient experiences your website is another piece of the dental SEO puzzle. User experience includes things like simple design and easy-to-find navigation. It also includes making sure that your links match the content on the linked page and that there are no “page not found” errors.
A good website also has consistent branding, which means your logo appears the same way throughout your site, you use a matching color scheme, and your branding also appears the same way on social media sites. Consistent branding reassures site visitors that they’re in the right place and is an important part of your dental marketing.
The user experience especially applies to the mobile version of your site. Google currently evaluates the mobile version of your site. Even if the desktop version of your site looks great, you’ll lose dental SEO points and new patients if the mobile version is hard to use.
There are some other ways to strengthen your web presence so that Google understands your location. As it crawls the internet and your dental practices website, Google looks for matching names, addresses and phone numbers -- NAP in marketing-speak.
Anywhere you list information about your dental practice, the name of your practice, the address and the phone number should be identical. For example, if you want to include “DDS” in your name, include it everywhere. If your address is “North Second St.,” choose one way to list it. Don’t choose both North Second Street and “N. 2nd St.”
Next to your website, the best place to put your dental practice location and contact information is your Google Business Profile, formerly called Google My Business. If you have not claimed your listing, visit business.google.com to get started. A completed Google business profile is critical to dental search engine optimization.
You can use the local business listing to update your office hours, post photos, monitor reviews, and write a profile of your practice. Once the profile is up and running, you’ll want to use it to update your hours for holidays and post any news about your practice.
Your dental website should display the correct name, address and phone information on every page, either in the header at the top of the page or in the footer at the bottom. You should have a “contact” page on which you list the NAP information, provide a map of your location, and post a contact form that allows potential patients to send an email.
Perhaps the most technical part of loading your site with location information is adding something called structured data to your website code. You, or your web developer, can add structured data using JavaScript from Schema.org.
Structured data can give you a decent advantage over the competition when it comes to dental SEO.
When you add information like address, city, ZIP code, phone number, longitude and latitude coordinates, photos, and hours directly into your code, it’s easier for search engines to find and then use in search results.
The “rich” search results are expanded beyond the typical headline, web address and description. Thanks to structured data, search engines can also display the types of dental services you offer, links to your social media and even customer reviews from your dental website. The higher your rank on the search engine rankings the larger your online presence will become.
At the core of your dental practices digital marketing, content is king. That means your website text, headings, photographs, and videos carry more weight than anything when it comes to dental website SEO.
Take the time to write full articles about the services you offer. Your articles, photos and videos should answer common questions patients ask.
It’s worth taking extra time to research keywords that people use to find dentists and dental services. Avoid the trap of thinking that the way YOU might search is the same way patients might search. It’s OK to make your own list but then look for tools that can help.
One trick is to use Google Search’s autofill function. When you start typing a search query, the search engine suggests about 10 options based on common searches. You’ll often see search terms you might not have thought of.
Tools like SEMrush make keyword research easy. With SEMrush you can also track rankings over time to see progress.
With keywords in hand, the next step is to prepare copy, photos, illustrations, or videos that contain the keywords you’ve researched. It’s considered a best practice to focus on just one or two keywords for each page of content. Including keywords is important, but it’s even more important to write so content is easy to understand.
Search engines could penalize your site if you try to “stuff” keywords into text in ways that don’t make sense.
Once you’ve got complete information about your services, your location, your staff, and how to contact you, consider updating your site regularly with a blog. Blogs are great for dental SEO because search engines favor sites with fresh and relevant content.
They’re a perfect tool for content marketing, which is creating content with the goal that it will be discovered in searches and that other sites will link to it. Great SEO for dentists tactics includes sharing your blog content by linking to it from social media.
The process of finding other websites to link back to your content is called link-building. It requires that you have interesting, entertaining or unique information on your site and that you develop relationships with website owners who would be interested in linking back to you.
Even though it can be time-consuming, you’ll get an SEO boost when authoritative websites link to you. Not only that, links from popular sites like a local newspaper can increase your site traffic. I recommend dental SEO services to handle content marketing for your dental practice blog.
Online reviews are another key element to dental search engine optimization and digital marketing. Good reviews as part of your website, your Google Business Profile, your social media, and directory sites support your expertise and build your reputation. Although it may feel awkward, there’s nothing wrong with inviting patients to write online reviews.
The quantity of reviews helps too, even if they are negative. Critical comments lend a bit of authenticity to a set of reviews. They also give you a chance to respond and even to make changes if you feel the criticism is valid.
You can also demonstrate your expertise and build your reputation with social media. With social media, you can post links to articles on your website, write insightful comments about other posts, and engage with people who have questions about your practice.
Try using video to explain various services and procedures. Video lets people see your personality and hear how you describe your work. Reviews are one of the best returns on investment when it comes to SEO marketing, it gives potential patients an idea of your dental practice and your rank higher on the search engine rankings.
Search engine optimization should not be a once-and-done task. SEO for dentists involves time and dedication to show up number one in google. Search queries evolve, so you need to make sure your content contains up-to-date keywords. Use website analytics and other tools to see what search terms people use to reach your site.
Your practice will evolve, too, so make sure your website reflects that. Check your site’s accuracy a few times a year. Update your office hours as needed both on your site and on your Google Business Profile.
Find ways to add new information. Maybe there’s a new question that people keep asking that could be answered in a blog or on a page for frequently asked questions.
Check your site’s accuracy with weekly reports from google analytics and add some new keyword ideas from SEMrush.
Keeping your website up to date and fresh will help keep it top of mind for search engines that are trying to find the most appropriate websites for people looking for a dentist and dental care.
Local SEO for dentists is a way to make sure that people searching for a dentist in your area can find your practice easily on the internet. There are several ranking factors you can optimize your website and your online listings, and make sure that your practice is listed in local directories. You can also encourage patients to leave reviews about your practice on different websites. The goal is to make it easy for people to find and contact your dental practice, so that they can make an appointment with you.
Some key steps to remember for higher search engine results and Local SEO for dentists are:
By following these steps, your dental practice can improve its visibility in local search results, making it more likely that people searching for a dentist in your area will find and choose your practice. Google has made it extremely for patients to find a dentists, you just have to tweak some things!
Google Analytics is a tool that helps you track and understand how people are finding and interacting with your website and traffic. To set it up for your dental practice, you would need to create a free account with Google Analytics and then add a small piece of code to your website. Once it's set up, you'll be able to see things like how many people are visiting your website, where they're coming from, and what pages they're looking at.
With, Google Analytics, you can track which pages on your website are getting the most website visitors and engagement. Then you can focus on improving the content and design of those pages to make them more appealing to prospective patients. You can also track how people are finding your website, such as through search engines or social media. This will help you understand which marketing strategies are working best for your practice and where to focus your efforts.
You can also use Google Analytics to track conversion goals like phone calls, form submissions, and appointment bookings. This will give you an idea of which pages are most effective in getting patients to take action and contact your practice.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool that can help you understand your website's performance and make data-driven decisions to improve your online presence and attract more patients to your practice. You don't need an SEO company to do this! Here is a youtube video showing how to set up Google Analytics 4 to your website!
Dentists can use SEO services such as SEMrush to grow their dental website by utilizing tools such as keyword research, competitor analysis, and backlink analysis. These tools can help the dentist to understand which keywords and phrases potential patients are using to search for dental services, identify their top competitors and what they are doing to rank well, and assess the quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to their website. Additionally, SEMrush can help dentists to identify technical SEO issues on their website and fix them to improve their search engine results ranking.
Dental SEO is powerful and if it were easy, everyone would do it. So here is a recap of this article so you can focus on dentistry and not dental marketing and SEO.
Getting your dental practice on the first page of Google involves a few key steps:
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Zach Westerhoff is a dental marketing expert. Join Zach and over 5,000 dentists to learn how to scale your dental business like a tech startup. Zach managed digital marketing teams & campaigns for large SaaS companies and retail giants. As co-founder of teethtalk ads, his goal is to help dentists advertise their practice to patients looking for treatment.
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