It is a Proven Fact That an Exceptional, Content-Based Approach to Digital Marketing Works For Dental Clinics.
When it comes to digital marketing success for dentist offices, marketing high-quality, relevant content is more effective than any other approach to search engine optimization (SEO). When executed correctly, content marketing is effective, sustainable, and profitable. Planning an effective digital marketing strategy for your dental office will save you from wasting valuable time and money on methods that do not generate revenue nor attract qualified potential patients.
The pressing question is: “What is quality content for dentists?” — that is, content that attracts prospective patients, grows your business, and keeps search engines appeased. A positive result from your online marketing efforts is directly relative to the value and quality of the content on your dental practice’s website.
Usually we get questions about “thin content,” since many dentists have heard the phrase, and they are eager to learn what sort of impact it can have on their practice and what the term actually means.
What is “Thin Content?”
“Thin” content is of inadequate quality — it offers little value to the user who reads it, and may be lacking depth or detail. For your dental clinic’s website, perhaps the content isn’t detailed enough to comprehensively explain a particular oral disorder, or to address the array of treatment options. It may not be individualized enough to differentiate your dental clinic’s content from another dental office’s content on relatable topics. (And, if you’ve plagiarized content from another clinic’s site, there’s a high probability that the content will be identified as “thin.”)
One type of Thin Content are Doorway Pages
Doorway pages are various, unique pages for phrases or keywords that are only slightly different from each other. An example could be a page dedicated to each city in a state that you are located in, and the content is indistinguishable for each page except for the location references.
As Matt Cutts of Google articulated,
“If you were to land on that page, it might look relatively reasonable. But if you were to look at four or five or those pages, you’d quickly see the only difference between them is the city, and that’s something we’d consider a doorway, and not as useful.”
Thin Syndication is another type of Thin Content
Another type of thin content is called “thin syndication.” This is defined as when a dental clinic gathers content from elsewhere–most likely a site deficient in quality–and then inserts that identical content onto their own website. Inferior, article-farm content will not provide any real depth or value to potential patients. Vague sites or sites that publish plagiarized content are usually ranked poorly in the SERPs and risk violating Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
How can Thin Content Affect Dentist’s websites?
Google’s purpose is to map the world’s digital information in its index, and provide the best possible results to each search inquiry it receives. In order to do this, Google has to be able to review websites’ content, and prevent sites with deficient, or “thin” content from ranking highly in search results.
In 2011, Google released the Panda algorithm, and fine-tuned their process for that. This algorithm was developed to identify deficient-quality, or thin content on websites and downgrade those sites in a search engine’s rankings.
We always recommend dentists educate themselves about Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, and ensure they are up-to-date about what methods and practices Google deems inappropriate. It is commonly stated that inclusion in a search engine’s results is a privilege, not a right.
What To Do if Your Dental Clinic’s Website Content is “Thin”
The best way to avoid thin content is to establish your online presence with a unique, content-based approach that thoroughly addresses the questions patients pose about their symptoms or treatments, and provides great value to your potential patients.
If you suspect the you may have thin content on your site that fails to provide much information to potential patients, consider how you can improve the quality of the content to be more impactful, informational, and distinctive for your potential patients. Begin by getting rid any content that you’ve plagiarized from other sites. Unique, authentic content is an integral component of how Google judges quality. Provide accurate information and detail. Consider developing a frequently asked questions page that covers frequent questions that your staff or dentist office hear from patients.
At AdInfusion, we are aware that a successful digital marketing campaigns for a dental clinic require great content. We can teach dentists how to reliably expand their dental practice and business through content-based marketing while rescuing them from the costs of wasted resources – including time and money – on methods that don’t translate into results for their dental practice.
There is no “top” of Google, but there are countless potential patients with problems your dentist office can assist with. When you reach out to those people, you will be supplying them with valuable information to increase the likelihood of them setting up their next appointment with you.
There are no shortcuts or quick tricks that will dependably strengthen your rankings in a search engine’s results. “Overnight success” is a busted myth. If you are unsure about what is a scam — and what really is successful for marketing dental clinics — let’s talk about how to build on your dental clinic’s digital presence. Contact us today! 916-798-5707
