The dentistry industry has of course been among the most disrupted sectors following the coronavirus pandemic, and this in turn has meant that some businesses have had to drop their marketing budgets. However, there are some relatively straightforward ways that those in the industry can help their businesses become more visible within the search engines, so that they find themselves in the best possible position when lockdown ends.
As a digital marketing agency, we’ve worked with a few cosmetic dentists, and we’ve seen that in most cases, the overwhelming majority of website traffic comes from local searchers, so this is what we’ll optimise for.
Find out what phrases people are searching for
In order to make sure people can find your business when they’re searching in Google, you need to know what queries they’re actually using.
There are endless numbers of what are known as “keyword research” tools out there, but a free and accessible one, is Google’s own, as part of its Ads offering. Set up a free Google Ads account, or if you’ve already got one, log in and click on “get search volume and forecasts” to see how many people per month search for any given phrase. It will also provide you with other suggested keywords, similar to those you’ve typed in.
Optimise your website for these terms
When you’ve picked a couple of phrases that are relevant to what you do, and have a high number of searches each month, it’s time to make sure you’re using these phrases on your website. For example, if you’ve picked the terms “dental implants in Essex”, make sure this is mentioned a few times in the copy of your website.
You can also easily add this to some of the code behind your pages – for example, in your Dental Implants page, you might want to add your phrase, “dental implants in Essex” to your page title and description – this is what people see in the search listings when they search in Google, and you can access this easily by logging into the back end of your site, and editing the “page title” and “meta description” sections.
You may even wish to create new content for your landing page, or write a separate blog about this topic. There’s a great free tool online called Answer The Public, that allows you to see what questions people are asking about any given topic. If you type in “dental implants” you’ll see that consumers are asking questions around how much they cost, how long they last, which are the best kind, and can they be whitened. Not only does this allow you to tap into the psyche of your potential clients, it’s also something that Google loves, and can help you get more traffic to your website.
Claim your Google My Business listing
Your Google My Business listing is what you’ll often find on the right-hand side of your screen if you type a company name into Google. It’s free, and you can include information about what you do, the opening hours of your practice, photos of your practice, as well as links back to your site.
Simply “claim” your listing online, and Google will send a postcard to your practice with a verification code. Enter that code in, and begin filling in your account.
Encourage reviews
Good customer reviews are important for everyone, but especially local businesses, and dentists fall within this category. As well as being a vote of trust (which, less face it, is so important in this industry with so many nervous patients), it’s something Google favours too.
Sadly, it’s a fact of life that most people only think to write a review when they’ve had a bad experience, but in our experience, lots of people are more than happy to share their positive feedback – as long as your prompt them to do so. Have an email template ready, asking clients if they would be so kind as to leave you a review on Google, and make it as easy as possible for them, by linking directly to where they need to leave their comments.
It’s a strange time for all of us right now, but even if you’ve had to strip back on your marketing spend, concentrating on some of the above methods, can help you increase your exposure online.
By Danny Hall, FSE Digital.
FSE Digital is a marketing agency based in Great Baddow.
