If you are a dentist who is concerned with how well your dental office ranks on Google, you might be losing sleep to the point of anxiety.
In general, feelings of anxiety stem from fear, and often the fear is from something we perceive, not that is actually real. Now, it is beneficial to your practice to rank well on Google, but rankings are not the sole metric you should be focusing on to determine your dental office’s capacity for reaching new patients online.
“Top” rankings on Google do not automatically translate to traffic, and a high traffic volume does not always equal qualified potential patients. Share on XSo what CAN you do to attract the right traffic to your practice’s website? Simply produce and publish high-quality content consistently.
Not only will content that is informative and high-quality will attract new business to your practice, it will also attract the right type of web traffic to your dental office’s website. The goal of the content you produce is to provide help to your patients, by giving them relevant and informational material.
Relevant content helps potential and existing patients make informed choices regarding their dental care, find solutions to their problems, and so much more. Providing this information may compel a prospective patient to book an appointment with your clinic. A high-quality web page or blog post that attracts qualified potential patients to your firm can enhance interest in your office’s services even long after publishing the content.
To learn how you can build a meaningful and sustainable digital presence for your dental office, and eliminate all the anxiety that stems from worrying about search engine rankings, keep reading.
Writing informative dental blog posts for your potential patients
You can increase the visibility of your dentist office’s website by composing blog content that is informative to both new and current patients, and even referral sources. When you really examine how your potential patients actually use search engines, the merits of composing useful, high-quality content becomes quite clear.
The public uses search engines like Google for a variety of reasons, like finding reviews, shopping or directions. It may surprise you to learn that most people utilize a search engine to do research on something. Your potential patients will likely be using search engines to seek out more information about their dental needs or concerns.
In the past, online searches were almost exclusively simple keywords (Think, “Dentist Florida”). However, patients nowadays are far more discriminating than they used to be. Today, patients are more likely to use a search engine to find answers than an actual human being. When a user searches Google, it will return the most relevant results to those queries from its index of web pages and sites. (70 percent of Google searches have never been run before. Results rankings and pages are just as unique as the questions being asked of a search engine.)
Content that is detailed, accurate, and relevant to a particular issue can help patients in making educated decisions and addressing their concerns or questions.
Search engines like Google do not rank content that is “thin” or “sparse” well, because users need to be able to find the appropriate information to make informed choices. Google’s main objective is to provide the best possible results to its users. Google’s ability to do this so well has allowed them to dominate the search engine market.
Your office’s web pages may come back in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) if they have high-quality content that is relevant to the query. Your potential patients can use this information to make better decisions about what their next steps are and how your practice can benefit them.
Keep in mind that what you see as “useful” may not be so useful to a potential patient. Be sure to write content that is targeted toward what your potential patient would want to know. Many dental practices find it very helpful to construct client(patient) personas in the process of developing a content strategy, and making sure you attract the right types of traffic to your website.
Dental Blog Posts Should Answer the Question Potential Patients Ask
The best resource you have to help you come up with content topic is your patients.
Each patient is an opportunity to discover a new content idea. Patients, both new and current, are always asking questions on a variety of topics. It is very likely that someone else is asking the very same question online, they may be searching for information about dentistry or asking dental related questions, and in any case, your practice’s website can be there to answer the questions and provide accurate information.
If you pay close attention to the questions that are asked by your current patients, they will spark ideas of even more subjects that you can address with your content. Every question is a potential blog post that can add value and authority to your website and your dental practice. Sometimes blog posts should address the questions your patients are asking more frequently, but they can also address questions your patients haven’t even thought of yet. No matter how often a question is asked, if it will add value to your site, blog about it!
High-quality content is one of the most effective ways a dentist can market their practice online, but diligence is important. Planning great content is crucial, if you write about topics that aren’t important to your potential patients, that can waste valuable time and resources, and won’t have the results you need.
Dentists should be deliberate about the planning of their content. The frequency of publishing as well as the topics you choose, can determine the success of a blog post. You website will be more likely to drive traffic if you are focusing on relevant content that addressed the needs of your patients, and posting consistently.
Give Potential Patients Multiple Ways to Consume Your Content
The first step in website development for your dentist practice is planning thoughtful, well-composed written content, but that is only one way that you can distribute information to your audience. Potential patients likely have different learning styles. Your goal should be to create an approachable and comfortable environment for potential patients to come and learn more about dentistry, and your specific practice. The more choices a potential patient has the more likely they are to engage with your content. You can engage with your potential patients by meeting their needs in a variety of different ways.
Some potential patients will read an article top to bottom, others may just want to skim the post, so your content should adapt to both those styles. You can do this by creating a highly readable post that is also easy to consume. Infographics, videos and podcasts can also be utilized to appeal to visual and auditory learners.
Videos can be especially helpful because patients can get to know what you are like as a person and a business, and this can help communicate the values of your practice. The saying says “People don’t care about what you know until they know how much you care.” Videos can make it much easier for patients to connect with you and your practice, along with showcasing your personality and expertise in the field.
Providing a variety of content options allows your practice to connect with potential patients in ways that are meaningful to them.
For more ideas: “Five things to think about before you publish the next blog post for your dentist practice”
AdInfusion Can Help Your Dental Practice Improve Their Content Marketing
Skilled content marketing is what draws potential patients to your practice’s website and helps convert them into new patients for your dental clinic. At AdInfusion, we know some dentists loathe writing content, some love it, and some simply don’t the have time. This is why we offer content marketing services.
Whether you’re starting from scratch or want us to add to existing content, we’re here to help. Our content marketing department provides impressive “evergreen” pages, blog content, and digital marketing collateral such as ebooks and email newsletters.
Contact Us today to discover how we can get your dental practice’s website generating the traffic and revenue it should be.
