If you are a dental practice owner, web design and Google search rankings may be the last thing on your mind. As more people embrace technology, however, you must take advantage of these marketing strategies to find new patients, expand your practice, and create more revenue. Leveraging web design and SEO in your business strategy can launch your dental practice toward greater success. 

At Dental Intelligence, an advanced patient management software provider, we want to help you grow your business using our local dental SEO tips and tricks. Below, we discuss everything you need to know about getting started with SEO and web design for high-quality digital marketing success. 

What Is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of adjusting your website to rank higher in search query results. For example, you may want your practice’s home page to appear first when anyone searches “dentist for fillings.” Local SEO refers to optimizing for local queries, like “best dentist in Austin, Texas.”

Optimizing web pages for search engines involves many complex ranking factors. Everything from your site construction to the keywords and images you use can impact how well you rank. 

Why Are Web Design and SEO Important for Your Dental Practice?

Leveraging web design and SEO in your dental practice can allow you to reap many benefits. You can:

• Expand your online visibility
• Gain more potential patients
• Increase your local authority
• Reach nationwide audiences
• Appear more modern, professional, and trustworthy with a high-quality website

How To Optimize Your Website in 5 Steps

Reaching the top of Google’s organic search results for your chosen terms will take time. You must satisfy each critical ranking factor for weeks to see results. Luckily, if you start with our steps now, you can begin seeing more traffic soon. 

1. Conduct an SEO Audit

First, to understand how well your website currently performs, you can use various SEO audit tools, like Google Analytics, to view the performance of each page. Such platforms will display visitors per page and site, the current terms you rank for, and any issues your website has that impact your ranking.

For example, you may discover broken pages or missing alternative texts. We’ll cover how you can fix these things in steps three and four. 

2. Research Keywords

Keywords are at the heart of all SEO strategies. Your keywords define when, where, and how your website appears and to whom. We recommend using a keyword research tool to find the best ones for your dental practice’s location. 

You may find that the popular terms with high monthly search volumes are the hardest to rank for. You can select one or two of these difficult terms plus a few easier, less popular phrases to support them. For example, your list may look like this:

• “Dentist near me” (hardest)
• “Best dentist near me” (difficult)
• “Best dentist in Austin, Texas” (hard)
• “Best dentist in Austin, Texas, for cavities” (easy)

3. Improve Your Technical SEO

Technical SEO refers to the behind-the-curtains factors of your website that impact its ranking, like the overall construction and navigation. We recommend reviewing the following items:

• Site loading speeds: You can increase speeds by compressing images and using HTML templates rather than custom designs. 
• Navigation: Ensure that visitors can easily access every website page from the header navigation menu and footer links. 
• XML sitemaps: Your sitemap should include every page. Be sure to submit the most up-to-date version to Google. 

You should also improve any issues you found in your site audit. For example, fix any broken pages or links so search engine crawlers can easily index your site. 

4. Improve Your On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is where your keyword research comes in. On-page refers to all of the visible content. Be sure to include keywords in the following items:

• HTML headings (H1, H2, H3, etc.)
• Body text, content, blog posts, etc.
• Metadata (title tags, meta descriptions, etc.)
• Calls-to-action
• Image alternative texts

The more unique, relevant, and helpful the information you write surrounding your keywords, the better your chances of ranking high. 

5. Analyze and Optimize

After publishing your changes, regularly check Google Analytics and other measuring tools to analyze your progress. Check your goal keywords to see how your rankings improve—and make changes accordingly. 

Review our measuring SEO ROI guide for more in-depth steps on analyzing SEO success. After generating traffic from your web design and SEO strategies, consider a new patient management platform for handling all your new patients. Request a demo from our Dental Intelligence team today to see how our comprehensive software works.