Keywords are the words or phrases Internet users type into Google when searching for information.
Someone searching for your dental practice may type “Dentist in North Dallas” into Google Search, for example.
High Traffic Keywords = Big Competition
The most coveted keywords, which are also the most competitive, in dentistry are the word “dentist” and a city name or region. These terms are hard to rank high for in competitive areas, so many dentists often turn to paid advertising. However, the most popular keywords come with a high pay-per-click price tag, and there’s no guarantee that people who click will book appointments. You still need a great website to prompt conversion of site visitors to new patients.
While many potential patients will at first search for the city/dentist combination, not all will. Other high-traffic keywords include descriptive terms like cosmetic, implant, or TMJ dentist. Likewise, city/service combinations can rank high, depending upon demographics of the target patients. For instance, “Teeth Whitening Philadelphia” is a high-traffic keyword phrase.
If you’ve had poor success ranking on the first page of Google, or at the top of the first page, for a popular keyword combination, evaluate your website’s SEO strategy.
To rank higher in Google for top keyword phrases, you may need:
- To remove all duplicate content
- To add all original content
- To publish more pages of original content
- To re-optimize your existing text with metadata, links, H-tags, alt-image tags, etc.
- To add a blog at a frequency that will make your site competitive within your market
- A wider web presence overall, which can be accomplished by addressing name, address, place consistency; increasing local listings; publishing articles/blog posts on third-party sites
Low Traffic, Low Competition Keywords
Google has a keyword tool that can help you find lower traffic keywords for your area. If any of the lesser keyword phrases describe your services, they should be part of your SEO strategy – period. These keywords are low-hanging fruit. Simply optimize your site for them, and it will likely rank on page one, perhaps near the top, without much effort.
Of course, the difficulty of achieving page one, position one in Google Search for a particular phrase depends upon which sites currently rank for the term and what their SEO strategy looks like. We can evaluate competitive websites to determine what you’ll need to do to rank higher.
Long-Tail Keywords
This term describes keyword phrases that you may not intuitively add to a keyword list, if you were to brainstorm. For instance, “straighten top front teeth” seems like an odd phrase, but there’s a chance that some potential patients interested in cosmetic dentistry or orthodontics are typing this longer, unusual phrase into Google Search.
More popular long-tail keyword phrases might include questions, such as:
- What do dental implants cost? – Or – Can I afford dental implants?
- How long does Invisalign treatment take?
- Can teenagers get cosmetic dentistry?
- Is in office teeth whitening better than home whitening?
These questions make good titles for pages or blog posts.
The strategy for success with long-tail keywords is to publish a large quantity of original, well optimized, informative content on your website. This can be done by building out sections of your main site with subpages under headings, like this:
Main Page: Dental Implants
- What are dental implants?
- Is Dr. Smith qualified to place dental implants?
- What do dental implants cost?
- What does the dental implant procedure involve?
- Are implants better than dentures?
- Prerequisite Procedures for Dental Implants
- Am I candidate for dental implants?
- Dental Implants Post-Procedure Guide
- Dental Implants Care and Maintenance
Blogs and Web Pages
The other option, or something to do in combination with site expansion, is adding a blog.
Blogs are seen as news by Google. They rank quickly, because of this, but they don’t necessarily have staying power. The value of blogs is found in their long-tail keywords; the fact that they create many portals for visitors to enter a site; they continually add new content to a site, which Google values; and they include links to support the SEO value of main website pages.
Pages are not seen as news, but once the rank on page one, they tend to stay there for a while. Backlinks from blog posts help keep website pages ranking high. Other backlinks on the Internet also help a page retain or improve its position.
5 Musts for Keyword Integration in Blogs
If you plan to compose blogs for your website, instead of hiring Identiwrite Creative for copywriting, please keep in mind these 4 essential components:
- Keyword should appear in title and at least one subheading
- Keyword should appear in first paragraph, with city if possible
- Keyword should link just once to a related webpage (do not link the same word more than once; do not link to the same page more than once)
- Keyword should be used in meta description
- Keyword should be used in photo tag, blog tag, and/or category tag
Call Identiwrite Creative for Dental Blog Writing
If you don’t have the time or desire to manage your own copywriting, then you need a competent, experienced dental copywriter. At Identiwrite Creative, we have a team of such writers, ready to serve you. I’m Shauna Duty, the owner and operator of Identiwrite Creative, and I’d be happy to talk with you about your website, blog, and SEO strategy. Call me today at 940-395-5115 or email [email protected].
