Dentists play a critical role in the health and wellness of Americans. Without them, we’d be at risk of a wide array of illnesses that could jeopardize not only our oral health but our overall health too. That’s why we encourage our patients to visit us every six months for the best in care. Yet, with nearly 186,000 dental practices and businesses in the U.S., how do you make your dental practice stand out from the crowd? This is where SEO and regular website updates come into play.

The Importance of SEO and Website Updates for Dental Practices

Let’s start by saying that if you are a dental practice and don’t have an informative website, it’s time to make a change. Further, if you are reading this and asking yourself what SEO even is, this article is meant for you.

SEO stands for search engine optimization and is the approach that any business needs to apply to their website to ensure your ideal clients find you easily. Gone are the days when just having a website was adequate. Today, there are about 1.13 billion websites out there, and the number is growing each and every day.

And while the quality and content purposes of these websites can vary, the point is that there are a lot of sites out there all vying for your patient’s attention. The practice of SEO is what ensures your website has the content necessary to inform and educate patients and prospective patients, and to help patients find your website.

If you’re still scratching your head a bit, don’t worry. The information that we share below will help to lay it out for you.

Key Elements of SEO for Your Dental Website

A website is not intended to be a set-it-and-forget-it type of project. The best websites, especially those that want to be found on Google and appear on the first page of search results, subscribe to Google’s EEAT philosophy (that’s experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) and regularly update their site with new and compelling information. Think of it this way—websites are all about continuous improvement, improving to serve their readers’ needs. And when you are able to meet your site visitors’ needs, they’re more likely to choose your practice as their dental home, instead of going to your competition.

Here are the ways you can update your website on a regular basis and outrank your competitors.

1. Enhancing the Header and Footer

The header and footer of your website are more than just bookends for your web content; they are integral to enhancing user experience and navigation. For dental practices, ensuring that these sections are optimized for search engine visibility can significantly improve your site’s overall SEO performance.

Regular updates to your header and footer can include streamlined navigation links, updated contact information, and inclusion of social media buttons, all of which enhance the user’s journey across your website. Additionally, including keyword-rich meta descriptions and titles in these sections can help search engines better understand your site’s content, thereby improving your rankings.

2. Visual Content: Hero Images, Photos, and Videos

A picture is worth a thousand words, especially regarding SEO and engaging your audience. Incorporating high-quality hero images, photos, and videos makes your dental practice’s site more engaging and informative. Video content is a powerhouse in the digital marketing world, offering a 50x higher chance of achieving organic ranking on search engines than text alone. Additionally, websites featuring video content can enjoy a 41% higher click-through rate.

By regularly updating your website with fresh visual content, you not only enhance its aesthetic appeal but also significantly boost its search engine performance. This approach ensures your website remains relevant, reflects the current state of your practice with up-to-date visual storytelling, and meets Google’s criteria for a dynamic and engaging user experience.

3. Security and Legalities

Website security and legal compliance are not just about protecting your practice and your patients; they’re also critical components of your SEO strategy. Ensuring your website is secure with HTTPS encryption and compliant with the latest data protection regulations can positively influence your search rankings.

Search engines favor secure and legally compliant websites because they provide a safe environment for users. Regular updates to your privacy policy, terms of service, and security certificates signal to search engines that your practice prioritizes user safety and trustworthiness.

4. Fresh Content

We can’t emphasize this next point enough. One of the cornerstones of effective SEO is the creation of fresh, relevant content. For dental practices, this means regularly updating your website with new blog posts, revising service pages to reflect the latest offerings, and ensuring that all information is current.

Fresh content helps with ranking for new keywords and keeps your audience engaged and informed. By consistently adding valuable content, your website becomes a dynamic resource for patients and prospective patients alike, improving your visibility and authority in search engine results pages (SERPs).

5. Responsiveness and Mobile Optimization

There’s a clear distinction between having a responsive website and one that’s truly optimized for mobile users. A responsive website adjusts its layout to fit any device’s screen size, from desktops to smartphones, ensuring that content looks good and is readable without needing to zoom in. Mobile optimization takes it a step further by tailoring mobile users’ website experiences. This means faster load times, easy-to-use menus, and straightforward content to interact with on a touchscreen.

Why is this so important? Because over half of our online activities are done on mobile phones. The convenience of mobile internet, boosted by wireless connections, has shaped how we use devices and has played a significant role in expanding internet access globally. By mid-2023, an astonishing 96% of people connected to the internet were doing so through mobile devices.

This massive shift toward mobile usage means that for your dental practice’s website to stand out and perform well in search rankings, it needs to be more than just mobile-compatible; it needs to be mobile-optimized. Search engines prioritize websites that provide a superior mobile experience, recognizing their alignment with user preferences.

Roll out your dental website updates and outrank your competitors

If you’ve bought into the need for an SEO-optimized website and are ready to stand out from the competition, there’s no time like the present to get started. But, with the need to stay laser-focused on patient care, sometimes website management can become too much to juggle. That’s where Jameson Management & Marketing comes in. We’ve got the experience it takes to help your website stand out above the rest. And all you need to do is pick your plan.

With our website via subscription offering, we provide you with a competitive advantage. We’ll manage the critical content development and website updates so that you can focus on what you do best—prioritizing the oral health of your patients.

Don’t have a website? We can help with that too. Our services include dental website design and everything you need to get started with an internet presence. Contact us today for a free evaluation.