By Anthony Bart
As we get further into 2020, it's a great idea to execute a strategic plan for success. Many dental practices struggle to find the right marketing mix that actually works, and there is a lot of noise out there when it comes to choosing the right ones.
Let's talk about what success looks like for your dental practice. While my dental clients have many different motivations, success in any business comes down to revenue. Attracting enough new clients is vital to your practice's success. In this article, I’ll discuss two things your private practice should improve upon.
Build a strong website
Your potential patients care about how your website looks. According to Stanford University, 75% of people judge the credibility of a company based on its website design, so having a strong website is of the utmost importance. Here is a self-evaluation, and if you answer “no” to any of these, it's time for a new website.
- Is my website mobile-friendly?
- Is my website ranking in Google when my potential clients search for important dental terms?
- Does my website generate new leads?
- Is my website as good or better than my competitors?
- Does my website load quickly?
- Am I proud to send my website link to patients and potential patients?
How did you do? Did you answer “no” to any of these? If you did, you should strongly consider adding dental web design services to the top of your to-do list.
Invest in SEO
Search engine optimization, SEO, is the process of ranking highly for search terms that are important to your patients. For example, if you're a cosmetic dentist in Miami who offers teeth whitening services, you want your practice’s website to rank for keywords such as "teeth whitening Miami."
How can you perform SEO at a high enough level to surpass what your competitors are doing? You can either spend a lot of time learning modern SEO strategies, or you can hire a dental SEO company. If you're going to build an SEO strategy, here are the main points you should focus on.
Map rankings
As a local business, your private practice absolutely needs to be ranked highly for the most important keywords in your area. For example, if you're a dentist in Coral Gables, you need to rank for "Dentist Coral Gables" and "Coral Gables Dentist." Here's a general plan you can follow.
- Build 20 to 30 citations each month. Having your business information on the most important citation sites is crucial to ranking on Google Maps.
- Repair five to 10 citations each month. Your business information often shows up differently on different websites. It's important to make them all consistent.
- Offer individual pages on your website for service keywords that you're trying to rank on Google Maps.
- Receive lots of positive reviews from your patients if possible. Remember, all you need to do is ask!
- Completely and correctly fill out your Google My Business page.
- Get Schema markup (a semantic vocabulary of tags you can add to your HTML to improve the way search engines read and represent your page) on your website for your name, address, and phone number (NAP) information.
Search rankings
In addition to map rankings, your local search rankings are critical to your business's success. You need to beat out your competition for local keywords that patients are searching for. To put it simply, you need to be ranked in the top 10 for keyword variations people are searching for on Google. Here are some things you should focus on.
- Build separate service pages on your website.
- Follow proper on-page SEO best practices.
- Make sure your website is fast.
- Write blogs that are pertinent to the services you offer.
- Write blogs for other websites that send valuable "link juice" back to your website.
Content strategy
Your content strategy can be as simple as writing a certain number of blogs on your website. For example, you can choose to write one blog each week, for a total of four blogs per month. Here are some key points about your blog strategy.
- Your blogs should be written about the main services you offer. For example, if you're a dentist who works with children, you should write content that answers patients’ questions, talks about treatment methods, and tells parents why your practice is the best option for their children.
- Your blog content is great for use on other channels, such as email, social media, and even videos.
- Your content will position you as an expert in your field.
- Your content will help your website rank for more keywords, which allows more potential patients to find you.
- Your blogs should link to important services on your website and include a way for readers to contact you.
I cannot stress enough the importance of creating a content strategy for your business. Content can separate your business from your competitors for the reasons I’ve discussed here. Content is a big part of SEO that is often overlooked.
Final thoughts about your marketing strategy
If you follow the strategies I’ve discussed here, you’ll see major benefits to your dental practice. The important thing to remember is to invest in your website foundation, and then be extremely consistent and follow these points every month. This includes creating blog content regularly, creating citations regularly, creating backlinks regularly, fixing incorrect citations, and making sure your website remains in Google's best light. Google makes the rules, so it's important to stay up to date with their changes, what they like to see, and how they rank websites. To a lesser extent, you should also consider following Bing and Yahoo!
If you need help with your practice's web design or marketing strategy, contact us and we'll be happy to discuss how we can propel your dental practice forward.
Anthony Bart is the owner of BartX Digital. The company helps dentists grow their practices through the power of the internet. If you or your practice need marketing guidance, contact him at [email protected].
