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Dental SEO FAQ
Answers to the most common dental SEO questions — from a dentist who's been doing this for more than 18 years.
Dr. David Wank has been providing dental SEO services since before "content marketing" was a buzzword. These are the questions he hears most often — answered plainly, without the fluff.
Has SEO changed for dentists?
SEO concepts and philosophies have changed tremendously since we started providing SEO services for our clients almost 14 years ago. Gone are the days of keyword stuffing, purchasing domains with your city or town in the title, and having a separate website for mobile. Modern SEO (per Google's webmaster guidelines) focuses on your ability to provide a visitor with high-quality, informative, and authoritative content about the subject matter in question.
At its core, has SEO really changed?
I've been doing this for a very long time and at its core — SEO still hasn't changed one bit. The overriding goal has always been — and remains — to provide website visitors with the most useful and informative content in a manner that's easily accessible.
Do I need Google Analytics 4 for dental SEO?
You simply cannot effectively evaluate the success of any marketing campaign without accurate, actionable data. Thus, you must have GA4 set up and configured properly so that you can measure conversion events on your website (contact form submissions, phone calls, etc.) and tie them into sources of traffic (organic, paid, GMB, etc.).
Is call tracking important for dental SEO?
Call tracking is fantastic. Because most people will call your office and not contact you via a form, call tracking is the most important tool we have in tying a website visitor to their traffic source and their ultimate production as a new patient. If you are going to be using call tracking, you must be using a HIPAA-compliant solution. Services such as our CallOwl product provide this service at an affordable $99/mo.
What are the most important dental SEO KPIs?
Your two most important Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are: (1) Number of new patients per marketing channel (organic, paid, etc.), and (2) Production generated from these new patients.
What KPIs should I track if I don't have call tracking?
If you don't use call tracking and thus can't directly tie phone calls to new patients and revenue, use the following secondary KPIs: (1) Number of phone calls from Google My Business, (2) Number of contact form submissions, and (3) Number of appointment form/widget submissions.
Do I need a review widget on my dental website?
Yes. You've done the hard part and now have a visitor on your website. They are going to want to learn more about you — and what other people have to say about you. Make sure you have a clean and modern review widget so your visitors can easily see how awesome you are. If you don't have a review widget, you can work with ours for only $15/mo.
What should my dental website's home page call-to-action say?
So many dental websites have a call to action such as "Make An Appointment." While this CTA is fine for existing patients, what about potential new patients? Assume that you are a new patient first landing on your home page. Are you going to click "Make An Appointment" or try to learn more about the practice first? You need a second CTA such as "Learn More" or "Get to Know Us" to give new visitors a tour of who you are.
How should my dental website pages be structured for SEO?
At the most basic level, a web page is HTML code written in an outline-type hierarchy. The top-most title of a web page should be an H1. Your secondary titles should be H2s and your other subheadings should be H3s. Make sure that you only have one H1 tag per web page.
How important are title tags for dental SEO?
The tab at the very top of your browser contains the text we call a title tag — it's the title of the web page and what visitors see in search engine listings. Don't make the mistake of having every page read like "John Doe, DDS - Dentist Your Town - Sealants." Instead, lead with your top keyword: "Affordable Dental Implants - John Doe, DDS - Dentist Your Town."
Where should I start with dental SEO?
Work on the low-hanging fruit first. Evaluate what pages on your website are already ranking on Google and figure out what you can do to improve those rankings (assuming the topic is relevant). It's much easier to improve your ranking for pages that are already indexed for a specific topic vs. writing entirely new content from scratch.
Should I just write more content for better dental SEO?
No. Writing content for the sake of having content is a waste of time and money. PLAN what content you need based on the services you want to provide (implants, root canals, etc.). Many companies recycle the same content on multiple client websites and call it SEO. Relevant, quality content is much more valuable than a large volume of broad content topics.
More to follow
Stay tuned for the rest of Dr. Wank's list.
If you have questions in the meantime, feel free to get in touch and schedule a complimentary consultation.
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