Getting More Dental Patients Using Search Engine Optimization

Not more than a few days go by without a dentist asking someone in our office, “How are the web pages found from the Dental Practice Dashboard get listed in the top of Google and the other search engines so prospective patients can find them?”

In today’s article, I’m going to tell you what we tell them. More importantly, I’m going to tell you exactly… with no fluff or hype… what’s really required to get a dental practice website to the top of the Google and the other search engines.

Search Engine Optimization (otherwise known as SEO) is all the buzz these days.  Everyone’s doing it and everyone is the best and will get you on the first page of Google in 3 days.  You have probably heard this many times already from these marketing and SEO companies targeting dentists.

Quite frankly, with the vast amount of garbage information about SEO (search engine optimization) being circulated it makes me sick. Dentist are getting ripped off half the time and paying far too much money for something they don’t understand.  This article is long overdue and I can’t take it anymore.

So, here’s the truth about what it takes to get a dental practice website listed at the top of Google. It’s a little bit technical at points but, I promise you… if you hang with me until the end… you’ll understand exactly how to get your site to the top of Google (without falling for any of the nonsense or expensive fee’s out there).

Let’s start with a basic principle: web-pages get indexed and listed in Google. Not websites.

In other words, you don’t optimize a website for the search engines. You optimize the individual pages.

So, what that means for you is that you can get different web-pages on your website listed and indexed in Google for different terms and keywords.

Next…

Google, and the other search engines, look at two categories of factors to determine how high one of your web-pages should be indexed: On-page Factors and Off-Page Factors.

On-Page Factors are all of the things that can be done on a web-page to optimize it for the search engines.

On-Page Factors include things like: the title tag of a webpage, the Meta description, the Meta keywords, the H1 tag, the alternate text of images on the page, and the frequency of how often a keyword is used on the page.  And not only that, Google changes what they look at all the time, this is not just a static set of rules, it is ever changing like the internet.

These things are directly in our control and can be tweaked and adjusted for each page to ensure every page on your website gets listed for the correct phrases in Google.

In the case of the Dental Practice Dashboard, we customize the on-page factors for EACH DOCTOR so their web-pages are found when a prospective patient in their geographic area searches for a dentist (or related information) in their local area. For example, a dentist using the Dental Practice Dashboard based out of Pacific Beach, CA, would have phrases like “dentist in Pacific Beach, CA” in their different on-page factors. This ensures the different web-pages are optimized for the doctor, their name, their specific location, etc.

Now, truth be told… On-Page Factors are only half the game. The other half is in the Off-Page Factors.

Off-Page Factors include the quantity of in-bound links pointing to your web-pages, the quality of the pages where those links are found, and the exact phrase (anchor text) that is hyperlinked in the link.

Let me explain each:

An in-bound link is when another web-page out on the Internet has a link on it back to one of your web-pages. The more of these links any web-page on your website has, the more important Google feels it is. But, it doesn’t stop there…

An in-bound link from a quality web-page is better than a link from a poor web-page.

What determines whether a web-page is quality or poor?

Well, it’s simple…

The more in-bound links a particular web-page has, the higher it’s quality.

A web-page with thousands of in-bound links – other web-pages linking back to it – the higher the quality or authority it has to Google. And, if there’s a link on one of those high-quality, high-authority web-pages that links back to your web-page, it’s much more valuable.

For instance, having a link on CNN.com pointing to one of your web-pages is worth a heck of lot more than having a link pointing to one of your web-pages from theguynextdoorwithawebsite.com.

So, the more in-bound links you have, from high-quality web-pages, the better. In this case, the more of these links you have the more important Google will think you are and the higher your web-page will get indexed.

But, there’s still one more factor with these links.

What you ideally want is to have lots of high-quality links pointing back to your web-page… with the phrase you want your page indexed for as the text that is hyperlinked. In other words, you don’t just want your web address posted on another web-page. You want a specific phrase on these other web-pages to be linked back to your web-page. Using our above Pacific Beach example, we might want the phrase “dentist in Pacific Beach, CA” hyperlinked. So, when someone clicks on that phrase it brings them to your web-page.

What this does – the use of proper anchor text – is it tells Google that for that exact phrase your web-page is extremely important… especially since you have lots of high-quality links using that same phrase… and so it indexes your web-page higher and higher.

I can’t stress enough how important using proper anchor text really is. It’s one of the most important elements of getting any web-page listed high in Google.

Let Me Prove Just How Important…

Go to Google and do a search for the phrase “Click Here”.

What you’ll see is that the number one listing on Google is Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Why is that?

It’s certainly not because Adobe optimized all of their on-page factors with the phrase “click here”.

No. It’s because there are thousands, and thousands, and thousands of links out on the internet pointing back to that Adobe Acrobat page with anchor text that says “click here”. That’s the power of in-bound links with targeted anchor text.

Bottom Line Is This:

Getting, and keeping, a web-page at the top of Google requires optimization of both on-page and off-page factors.

Don’t get too involved with all the technical stuff, you are dentist but know that these are the real factors that make SEO work.  Years ago, on-page factors were the most important. Today, off-page factors are more important and in fact, video, with correct SEO is even better (a topic for another day).

Another powerful way to get FREE search engine optimization is by using a dental practice blog.

http://www.moredentalpracticepatients.com/ten-reasons-why-need-dental-practic...

Google realized it’s easy for people to manipulate the search engines with on-page factors. It’s not so easy to do that with off-page factors. Hence, the heavier weight and value on off-page factors (in-bound links, anchor text, quality of web-pages linked to).

Being found on a local search results for your keywords are extremely important in order for your dental practice to be found, but that is only half the battle anyway because most of the mistakes being made by 9 out of 10 dental practice websites happen on the website itself, which are things you have the power to change.
       

Barriers to Effective Private Practice Marketing in Health Services

By Dr Greg Mulhauser

In mental health and the caring professions, I believe the biggest barriers to effective marketing come from within individual practitioners' own perspectives, their assumptions and preconceptions. Some of these assumptions and preconceptions are entirely on target, while others are arguably less so. They come in at least two flavors:

    * factual matters, concerning what is true in the world
    * philosophical matters, concerning what is 'right'

The factual matters are easy to clear up because they depend on how the world really is. The philosophical matters are much more interesting and depend on individual people's views of themselves, their careers, and their lives.

Factual Matters and Marketing

As an example of a factual matter, some people believe (rightly or wrongly) that their respective professional organizations prohibit any kind of marketing or advertising activities. There is no actual debate about this kind of question. It's just a matter of checking it out: what exactly is a particular organization's policy? Although it is so easy to check out, a belief which hasn't been checked out yet but which is in fact wrong may greatly (and unnecessarily) impede effective marketing: if you believe you're prohibited from doing something, you're significantly less likely to do it!

As an example of something which might not be quite such a simple matter of fact, but which still doesn't come close to the philosophical subtlety of personal outlooks on life, some people think that marketing is the same as advertising. If you think this too, don't worry: you're in good company. In fact, while conducting some market research in preparation for a marketing guide I've been writing, I examined one recent book ostensibly about marketing which was actually overwhelmingly full of advice about advertising; so maybe even some of the people who write books on the subject don't really understand the difference! Advertising is just one part of marketing, the part that is specifically about ways of delivering a specific marketing message, usually to the potential customer of a product or service. In marketing parlance, it's the inside-out part (broadcasting your message), rather than the outside-in part (listening to customer needs and adapting to meet them). Here again, if you were to believe that marketing and advertising are the same thing, and you know (for example) that you don't like advertising, you might be unnecessarily dissuaded from doing any marketing!

Philosophical Questions About Marketing

Far more interesting than either of these two examples, however, is the question of how you, as an individual practitioner, view marketing and its position in your constellation of thoughts and feelings about your work, your clients, your broader life and your role in the commercial exchange of time and effort in return for money. These largely derive from your views about yourself and about what is the right way to be, rather than about matters of fact in the outside world.

20 Questions About Marketing

Some examples of these kinds of questions, the answers to which might influence how you apply basic ideas of marketing, include:

    * How do you feel about your own value in the work that you do?  
    * How do you feel about providing some of that value in exchange for money?
    * How should the amount of money you receive in exchange for the value you provide relate to the costs you incur to provide it?
    * How do you feel about articulating your value to other people?
    * How do you feel about making a profit?
    * How much of your reward in doing your job is psychological, as distinct from financial?
    * Would you be willing to work for free?
    * At what point will you need another source of income to augment the income you derive from your caring profession?
    * How would you feel about telling your colleagues that you've formulated a marketing strategy?
    * What does 'selling' mean to you?
    * What does financial exploitation mean to you?
    * Do you have a view about how those in your profession 'should' think or feel with regard to questions like these?
    * To whom do you feel your services should be provided? Everyone? Only those who can afford it? Only those who happen to be the sort of people you      particularly like working with?
    * What sorts of people do you particularly like working with?
    * If you had too many potential clients to see at a given time, and if it were entirely up to you, on what basis would you decide to work with some clients and not with others?
    * How do you feel about others in your profession who only see select groups of clients or those who see all kinds of clients?
    * How do you feel about those colleagues who receive more money for their services (or who have more clients) than you do? And those who receive less money (or who have fewer clients)?
    * What does competition mean to you?
    * How do you feel about capitalism?
    * How do you feel about learning about marketing?

And that's just a sample twenty questions -- there are plenty more where those came from, and more still awaiting from within your own individual perspective!

In the case of each one, your own particular views and your philosophy of life will influence how you might apply basic ideas of marketing. Unlike the factual examples from the start of this chapter, there are no 'right' or 'wrong' answers, and no one can teach you how to think or feel. They are ultimately about you and your relationship with the world around you.

Reflecting On Your Own Unique Position

In my own experience with small groups of counselors or students, very often these kinds of questions elicit a combination of discomfort, uncertainty, avoidance, and sometimes a desire to 'take a stand' (well considered or otherwise!) in one particular direction or another. But whatever the reaction, even just beginning to consider these questions makes an important start toward better understanding your own outlook on virtually unavoidable aspects of your profession.

By reflecting on your own views of marketing and some of the adjacent conceptual territory, you can become aware of your own potential strengths in marketing, your own weaknesses, and your own particular interests or areas you'd like to avoid. And importantly, you can overcome any barriers to your own success in marketing which are simply unnecessary -- such as barriers which might have been based upon something you'd never really thought about in detail before, or barriers which might just come from a lack of information.

By patiently continuing to explore, wondering, testing, hypothesizing, and reflecting, you can come to a better understanding of your best ally in marketing.