Leveraging AI in dental marketing for Google’s E-E-A-T principle

AI-generated content was one of the most talked-about phenomena of 2023 among marketing professionals, and the craze isn’t likely to calm down soon. As Google and other search engines update their algorithms and as AI tools advance, nearly every field stands to benefit from the use of AI in some way.

For dental marketing, AI can be an amazing tool for creating content, generating ideas, sparking creativity, and optimizing dental SEO—as long as it’s used correctly. Find out here how AI in dental marketing can improve your practice’s efforts, and how these tools fit into Google’s latest E-E-A-T update.

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How does Google rank search results?

You need to understand how Google works, and why your practice should have its algorithm in mind when creating content. As the most used search engine in the world, Google is constantly working to improve search results to remain at the top of the pyramid. Their goal is to prioritize the best, most useful content, and rank it high on search results pages. By providing high-quality search results consistently, Google ensures that users continue to favor them as the preferred search engine.

To find and rank the best content, Google constantly crawls the internet and uses a highly sophisticated search algorithm (a system of rules and technologies to determine relevancy). This article about Google's PageRank demystified adds more helpful context into how the search engine judges content.

For nearly a decade, E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) has been the standard for Google’s search quality guidelines. Content that employed E-A-T was favored and ranked higher. In December 2022, Google added another E to the search rater guidelines: experience. This created the acronym E-E-A-T. Content also needs to show that the person who produced it has some actual firsthand experience with the topic. E-E-A-T, along with Google’s content update, aims to provide users with the best and most relevant content.

In a perfect world, everyone would simply create high-quality content that gets ranked solely based on who did it best. Unfortunately, the internet is full of bad actors creating bad content, while trying to trick Google into ranking them higher. Spammers attempt to game the system by crowding content with keywords and using other unsavory tactics just to sell something and reach the top of search results without putting in any actual work. Therefore, Google must create rules and guidelines to weed out bad content.

What do Google’s guidelines have to do with dental marketing?

For your dental practice to grow, you must devote at least some of your time and resources to marketing. If you’re aiming for revenue growth, you’ll be investing in SEO, and SEO for dentists relies on Google’s algorithm just like any other industry. Once your dental practice understands what Google is looking for and what to avoid, you can focus on creating content that fits the E-E-A-T principle and begin to rank higher in search results.

When Google first announced its content update, marketing professionals gleaned that the search engine would begin penalizing AI-generated content more seriously. The original release stated that Google would favor content created “by people, for people.” However, in September 2023, Google updated this release to remove the phrase “by people,” leaving more room for nuance with AI. In fact, Google has stated that the search engine approves of “appropriate use of AI-generated content,” as long as it’s not created solely to manipulate search rankings.

SEO blogging for dentists is all about E-E-A-T. When dentists write about their knowledge on a topic based on firsthand experiences, they demonstrate their expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. For example, a general dentist might decide to write a guest blog for their preferred endodontist about treatment for a failed root canal. This post would be featured on the endodontist’s website, and not only meet E-E-A-T but boost SEO as well. As any guide to dental SEO blogging states, guest blogging is a great way to improve search rankings by creating quality backlinks to your website.

Where AI comes into play

Because Google allows AI-generated content to be ranked, your practice should consider dental marketing with ChatGPT and the use of AI in graphic design. While you focus on writing content that’s authoritative and trustworthy, you can use AI to generate drafts and come up with new ideas. You can ask ChatGPT for a 700-word blog post about anesthetics in dentistry, run the results through a program such as Grammarly or Hemingway, and fine tune it to fit your brand.

Just remember not to copy and paste results blindly. While Google is AI-friendly, you’ll need to make sure your content is sound before posting. No matter how nice your website looks, there are 7 truths about dental websites that will bring your rankings down, and one of them is plagiarism. As always, search engines favor original content over amalgams of existing content.

Create high-quality content with a dental marketing agency

If your practice is ready to rank higher on Google and see real growth, it’s time to find a dental marketing company that works for you. My Social Practice is a great dental marketing company for E-E-A-T content because: years of experience with the dental industry proves expertise, they publish on authoritative sites like this one, and they’re trustworthy because their content is correct and error-free.

Dental marketing companies can help your practice with items such as how to write your bio and About Us pages, SEO efforts such as ranking higher on Google Maps, and big ideas like how to create relationship-driven marketing in an AI world.

Q&A

How can AI be used in dentistry?

AI is opening doors in every field, including dentistry. Along with technical aspects such as creating 3D models of patient jaws, AI can also aid in dental marketing. Dentists can use large language model (LLM) tools such as ChatGPT to generate content for a variety of things, like website copy, SEO blog posts, social media posts, and promotional materials. Visual AI tools can also be used in dental marketing to create interesting graphic design imagery.

What is the best AI tool for dental marketing? 

Many dental marketing professionals agree that ChatGPT is one of the best AI tools for dental marketing. ChatGPT is an LLM that users can chat with in order to generate a nearly unlimited array of responses. Dental professionals can use ChatGPT to ask for blog post ideas, social media captions, website copy, and more. As long as the output from ChatGPT is double checked and edited, this AI tool can be used to make dental marketing efforts much easier.

Is AI good or bad for dental marketing?

AI is a hot topic that is constantly being debated, especially among marketing professionals. Whether or not AI is damaging to your marketing strategy depends on the way you use it. For example, if a dental practice is using ChatGPT to copy and paste blog post content stuffed with keywords without checking the results, this practice will probably end up hurting their SEO strategy rather than helping it. On the other hand, using AI as a tool for ideation, drafting, and efficiency can help you create more content and rank higher on Google.

Adrian Lefler is the vice president of My Social Practice and manages the dental marketing team. If you would like to book him to speak at your event, you you may do so on the company’s dental marketing expert page.