The 4 Worst Dental SEO Mistakes to Avoid
Where your dental practice is concerned, you would often come to the decision that it would be best to get the SEO work done on your own. In your opinion, how difficult could it really get? However, the reality is that once you sit down to get the actual work done do you come to realize that there is way more to it than meets the eye.
It demands huge knowledge for every aspect of Google platform and ever-changing ranking algorithms as well as many hours of doing SEO for your dental website. Not to mention that it demands hundreds of hours of learning SEO best practices for dentistry specifically.
Hence, if you would really like to know about certain SEO mistakes that you should avoid, it would be best to hear it from the perspective of a Dental Marketing Consultant.
Website Mistakes Affecting Your SEO:
- Using a website builder or directory web design services
In the case of designing your website and doing SEO, you would find that majority of the dental professionals tend to use directory web design services or a website builder. So, while this might be helpful, cost, and time-saving in a lot of cases, that does not necessarily mean that you would be able to apply in your case as well.
This would be despite the fact that it tends to provide the flexibility of customization. Using web technology that would be considered ancient or outdated is also another big mistake. To keep up with modern times, there is no way that you would be able to do it with outdated technology.
How to fix it:
Rather than burdening yourself with the added responsibility of designing your website and also doing SEO, it would be best if you would get the work done by a Dental Marketing Expert. In addition to having comprehensive and accurate knowledge about what would need to be done, they would also have customized solutions to design and rank your website.
In this way, you would never have to worry about your content or outlook being plagiarized or being accused of copying your rivals. Hire a dental SEO expert who would use all the latest web technology. This would include HTML5 and CSS3. This would help to make your business appear more attractive and professional.
- Not having a mobile-friendly website:
I stressed a lot about the need for mobile websites for dentists since the first time Google announced they are going to penalize non-mobile friendly websites in April 2015 by decreasing their ranking or even removing their website from mobile search results. Here are some of the important reasons why your website should look good and run smoothly on mobile devices:
- 70% of Australians own either a smartphone or tablet device, and 32% own both devices
- 50% of people, even if they like a business, will use them less often if the website isn’t mobile-friendly
- Allows greater connectivity with your patients
- When people visit a mobile-friendly website, 74% of people are more likely to return to that website in the future
- 87% of millennials have their smartphone on their side day and night. At this rate, the next generation of consumers might not ever see a traditional desktop website because they won’t have a machine to access it on
- 30% of Google Ads are accessed by mobile phones. Therefore, if you are using Google Ads and you don’t have a mobile website then you are instantly wasting 30% of your money
How to fix it:
Visit Google Mobile Friendly Test site and enter your website URL to see if your website is mobile-friendly. If it is NOT, feel free to contact Zara Basiri to see how we can help you fix this.
To read more about this important subject, please visit my other thorough article, Mobile Friendly Website.
- Providing too little or duplicate content (No Blog/ Poor Content Blog)
The main purpose of your dental practice would be to create awareness and make your target patients believe that you would indeed be the perfect choice for them and their families. This is something that you would be able to do by providing all the relevant information on your website. However, the sad part is that very few people actually care about giving all relevant information to their patients, online.
How to fix it:
If you would really like your patients to believe that you would be the perfect candidate, take some time out and think things from their perspective. In this way, you would be able to create a list of all the things that they would like to know. Then, you would be able to arrange all this information in an attractive manner on your website.
Try posting regular articles and valuable content on your blog at least once a week to keep your potential patients interested and aware of their dental health situations. The more they know about their dental health, the better they can take action for their treatments and make a better decision to save their teeth on-time.
- A non-existent or weak call to action
One of the biggest mistakes that you would be able to find on dental websites is a weak or non-existent call to action. If there would be no call to action, there would be no way that your customer would be motivated to do anything.
How to fix it:
Rather than succumbing to the generalized call to actions that you would be able to get off the web, personalize it to your content and dental service. This would definitely make your customers feel more valued and important.
SEO Mistakes:
- Slow Speed Website (Loading In More Than 3 Seconds)
As Moz blog mentioned, Google uses a multitude of factors to determine how to rank search engine results. However, in 2010, Google did something very different. Google announced website speed would begin having an impact on search ranking.
Now, the speed at which someone could view the content from a search result would be a factor. The mystery widened further in June when Google’s Matt Cutts announced that slow-performing mobile sites would soon be penalized in search rankings as well.
With that said, your website must load less than 3 seconds, or your potential patient visitor will bounce back and visit your competitor website and contact them to get their dental treatments done. You can’t afford multiple numbers of potential patients leaving your website every single day because it’s loading only 1 second late.
How to fix it:
Visit Google Page Speed Test Website and enter your website URL. This is another free online tool from Google to test and check your website page speed and how your visitors are experiencing your website loading speed.
It will exactly tell you if your website speed health is good on both mobile and desktop and if NOT, it will exactly let you know what to fix in order to increase your website page speed to a healthy green level. Normally speed higher than 85 is acceptable and considered good.
- Low quality and irrelevant websites pointing to your website/ Bad backlink
A bad backlink comes from unrelated and untrusted sources. Sites that have been penalized and those that are violating Google’s Webmaster Guidelines can have a negative impact on your SEO.
How to fix it:
A quality backlink comes from relevant authoritative domains in your niche/industry. If the website linking to your site has a high Domain Authority and has similar content, your backlink will be good for SEO.
- Poor navigation & no sitemaps
When it comes to improving your rankings, an XML sitemap can be a really good partner. XML Sitemap helps Google and other main search engines to easily understand your website structure while crawling it. XML Sitemap was first introduced by Google in 2005.
Consider it as a blueprint for your website so Google can understand what your website is all about when crawling your site. The better Google can understand your website structure, the better it can show your site to the relevant potential patients, online.
How to fix it:
If you are under WordPress and you have a simple website with not too many web pages, you can download and install XML Sitemap plugin and use it to generate all your website sitemaps, it is simple. Then you must verify your XML sitemap with Google Webmaster Tool to ensure it is in the right format and correctly uploaded to your web server.
- Hiring the wrong SEO firm
Unfortunately, the SEO industry has a lot of shady practitioners that promise great results for a small monthly expense. Beware: if an offer is too good to be true, it usually is — and in SEO, it always. Even local SEO is getting harder and more complex these days and it needs more SEO efforts for the best possible results.
Although some of the general digital marketing companies may get you results randomly, however working with a Dental Marketing Specialist who understands the dental industry or even better than that, they are in the dental industry themselves such as Zara Basiri, is a huge advantage and peace of mind for your dental practice marketing efforts.
How to fix it:
For the best possible results make sure you always consult with companies who are purely specialized in your industry and niche. As a Dental Nurse, I know there is so much about dentistry and dental practice to know.
With that said, how a company that does marketing for all types of industries such as construction, painting, retail, restaurant, plumbing, flooring, etc, … all together, can have pure focus and specialty on what works and what doesn’t work for a dental practice?
- Title Tags with No Keywords – Extra Bonus Mistake 🙂
Title tags are a major factor in helping search engines understand what your page is about, and they are the first impression many people have of your page. Title tags are used in three key places: (1) search engine results pages (SERPs), (2) web browsers, and (3) social networks (Source: MOZ).
If your title tags are not relevant and optimized for the target keywords that your potential dental patients are typing, then there is a very low chance of your website being discovered by your targeted visitors.
How to fix it:
- Give every page a unique title
- Put important keywords first
- Write to your patients
- Your title should match the people query
(Source: MOZ)
Is a Great Website and SEO Campaign Worth It?
The real value of a great website and SEO campaign are the following:
- More new patients
- Better value patients
- Better ability to sell new services to patients
The real question is: What are these three things worth to your dental practice?
Have you ever thought about that?
Dental Practices that do a great job of calculating the lifetime value of their patients are the most successful in setting the proper budgets for their dental online marketing activities. Failing to do this well could be the biggest mistake of all — and correcting it will lead to substantial growth for your practice. 🙂
So calculating your patient’s lifetime value is the first and indeed most important step in getting clear about the marketing efforts and investment required.
Some more valuable insights
According to Chitika.com, only 53% of clicks go to the #1 position. However, 75% of Google users click on the top 5 results, and out of that %75 user clicks, %53 of the clicks are on the #1 position.
The following insights show you how much traffic share you have on Google compared to your higher positioned competitors.
- The first position gets 53%
- The second position gets 15%
- The third position gets 9%
- The fourth position gets 6%
- The fifth position gets 5%
Adwords paid ads to get only %15 clicks and this is distributed between all Google advertisers.
AdWords:
- The top ad-block on SERPs accounts for just 24% of all paid listings and gets 85% of all paid ad clicks
- The bottom ad-block on SERPs accounts for 15% of all paid listings and gets 2% of all paid ad clicks
P.S: I never had efforts on doing SEO for my own website as my favorite marketing method is Facebook Ads which I enjoy a lot and I enjoy increasing the rankings for my clients only, but being knowledgeable about Google’s best practices and what Google loves and rewards the most, My website has been ranking #1 multiple times in whole Australia and Melbourne, automatically with little to NO SEO effort on my side for our main keywords.
Although I don’t reveal my client’s confidential marketing information, the following selected screenshots should be an indication that WITHOUT SEO efforts how far we could get so successful. If they can’t rank their own business above us, how can they rank your dental practice?
If they can’t rank their own business above us, how can they rank your dental practice?
With that said, in order to establish ourselves for the #1 position in whole Australia, I will be doing SEO from now on and it’s easy for us.
(Sorry the keywords are hidden as they are our main keywords and not all competitors play the fair game and may want to stimulate Google to penalize us so they can take over)
And a lot more rankings organically rewarded by Mr Google, however, we don’t need that …
Conclusion (Take ACTION)
Dentists who are investing in SEO want to achieve a higher return on their investment. Marketing money should effectively improve the dentist’s website and advertising efforts and turn website traffic and visitors into patients.
It can be difficult for a dentist without a specialty in search engine optimization (SEO) to stay on top of the ever-changing field of SEO Because search engine algorithms change regularly and frequently. Professional SEO companies who specialize in dental marketing and proudly working directly in the dental industry themselves, such as Zara Basiri, are available to bring years of online dental marketing experience to the table for amazing results.
Consider working with Zara Basiri if you are seeking a dental marketing firm that can keep your site relevant, competitive, and work for you and your dental practice!
If you need further help with your dental marketing efforts and proper strategies, feel free to go ahead and apply for our services by clicking on the “Apply Now” button and booking your strategy session call.
About the author
Zara Basiri is a Dental Marketing Consultant and Dental Nurse in Melbourne, Australia.
She Helps Dentists Get A Steady Flow of Quality New Patients By Untapped Digital Marketing Skills And Strategies.
She pursues her love for the dental industry by working part-time as a Dental Nurse as well.
When she is not doing digital marketing for her clients, you can find her making EDM music or shopping for her next unique fashion outfit.
Follow Zara Basiri on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+.
Have questions? No worries, Direct live chat with us on our website now. 🙂
To Your Full Bookings!
Zara Basiri
Dental Marketing Consultant/ Dental Nurse
www.ZaraBasiri.com
If you find the article valuable, please share it.
