Common Local SEO Mistakes Dentists Make

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As digital marketing and SEO have evolved through the years, it has become a lot more complex. Today, there are more chances of making mistakes than earlier. This is especially true if you're not used to SEO strategies in recent times.

Competitive niches like dentists need the right SEO strategy to produce results. And since a majority of the dental niche is local, it needs a lot more attention than other niches. 

It is not uncommon to make mistakes during the execution of SEO pipelines. Let's look at the most common mistakes that people in dentistry make with their marketing pipeline.

12 Most Common Local SEO Mistakes Dentists Make

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1. Not Choosing The Right Dental-Specific Keywords

Many dentists overlook that they need a website that optimizes the local market. They focus on getting a keyword phrase that they think will help them land more patients. 

They don't realize that they should be focusing on the key phrases geared towards their practice. 

Focusing On The Right Local Keywords

This mistake is a big one. You must understand that the dentist competes against other dentists in the same area. When you're trying to rank for your targeted local search term, you want to focus on making sure your website stands out. 

The key to this is making sure you're ranking for the right terms. You won't get the leads and appointments you need if you're not.

• Google Keyword Planner is one of the most popular tools and is free.
• Platforms like SEMrush and Ahrefs have powerful keyword research tools.
• Also, draw insights from AnswerThePublic, a crowdsourced query platform.

2. Not Investing In Marketing And Lead Generation

It's no surprise that most dentists make at least one mistake regarding local SEO. Dentists commit the most common error not investing in marketing and lead generation. These are key components of any business' online marketing strategy. 

This is why a dentist needs to spend time on this critical aspect of marketing. This is especially true since there are so many options available for online lead generation these days.

Issues Caused By Lack Of Marketing And Lead Generation

Many dental offices overlook marketing and lead generation efforts. However, your local SEO will suffer if you're not taking a consistent marketing approach. 

Local SEO is about getting your practice seen in search results. It's a combination of several factors, including local directory listings, citations, online reviews, social media, and more. Here’s a survey by Brightlocal that supports why the dentists should focus here.

• In a competitive industry like dentistry, a lack of leads means lower ROI.
• AI-assisted tools like WooRank can help you with better-quality leads.
• Another effective alternative is HubSpot for local leads. 

3. Not Using Location-Specific Landing Pages

If you're a dentist, you need to make sure you're optimizing your website for the location where your patients live. Otherwise, you'll lose potential business to your competitors. 

For example, if you’re a dentist in Delaware, your web pages should offer answers to user queries in Delaware, as shown in the below image. 

Many local businesses that don't include their physical address on their website are losing out on leads because of this omission.

Strategies For Creating Powerful Landing Pages

What makes a website stand out from the rest? 

Location-specific landing pages. These landing pages attract new patients and ensure repeat check-ins. They also increase conversion rates because they're tailored to the location in which they appear. 

The essence of a landing page is to keep it short and compact. It shouldn't take more than two minutes to read through it. It also needs to have the right location-based keywords added to it naturally. 

• Focus on adding appropriate location keywords to the copy.
• Keep the landing page to less than two scrolls of the mouse wheel. 
• Invest in tools like Unbounce and LeadPages to improve landing page quality. 

4. Not Optimizing Websites For Mobile Users

This is a common mistake that dentists make. They forget about their mobile audience. People are getting used to reading online, using their phones to get to where they need to be. 

Mobile phones have become an essential tool in everyday life. More people access information on their phones rather than desktops. Dentists should realize this trend and make sure that their websites are optimized for mobile users.

Making Your Website Mobile-Friendly

As more and more consumers move from desktop to mobile, your website needs to be mobile-friendly to keep up. Here’s an example of a mobile-friendly healthcare website having easy navigation, quality content, and UX. 

This might take time to get done, but it's one you can't afford to ignore. 

• Cut down on needless content for your conversion pages.
• Work with a mobile-responsive template for your website.
• You shouldn't have pop-ups or ads covering your page.
• Optimize button placement and size.
• Google Mobile Site Test is a great way to test changes.

5. Not Tracking The Right Metrics

Dentists tend to focus on many different things to improve their site's performance. From an SEO standpoint, this includes the number of local citations, search volume, and traffic to their website. 

Those are all great ways to determine if your SEO efforts impact. They don't tell you whether or not your practice is making the most of its online marketing potential.

Finding The Right Metrics To Track For Business

There are lots of metrics dentists should be tracking. And they're all important. But only a few of them will tell you the true story of your practice's success. 

Dentists should focus on a handful of metrics, including new patient retention. Use Google Analytics to run through these vital metrics such as traffic acquisition, in-depth details, and more. 

• Total website traffic is something that needs to increase for more clientele. 
• Organic website traffic shows how effective your marketing is.
• The number of phone calls determines how many people took the initiative to connect.
• An appointment request denotes the number of people who wanted appointments.
• Local keyword rankings are how effective your SEO has been.

Read: Local SEO Tips for Dentists

6. Not Auditing Backlink Profile For Quality

We all make mistakes. And we all make them in business. The biggest mistake dentists can make is not checking backlinks. There's a reason why the number one thing dentists need to do to improve their SEO is to check their backlinks. 

Tips To Audit Your Backlink Profile

The first step is to determine what links your website is getting. There are many different ways to find out. One of the most popular is to use a link-building tool. It works quickly and helps you gain a lot of insights. 

Here’s an example of how you can do it using the Ahrefs tool. 

Another alternative is to look at your Google Search Console and determine which search engines you rank well for.

• Guest posting will get you a lot of valuable links.
• You might have to check each backlink for relevance initially.
• Ensure that you only have authority backlinks on your website.
• Use Majestic and Monitor Backlinks tools to get the most out of your audit.

7. Not Spending Enough Time On Content Creation

Content is critical to any business's SEO, especially for dentistry. The reason is that people are looking for informative articles about the niche all the time. This is why you should focus on creating relevant content about your niche. 

If you aren’t aware of creating content regularly, then use tools like Buzzsumo or sign up Google Alerts using the keywords as in the image. 

Creating Quality Niche Relevant Articles

A very effective way of building your niche relevant content is to look for ideas. You can get inspiration from successful websites and blogs that share similar audiences. The key is to keep it relevant and informative. 

You can improve content quality through several aspects. Let's take a look at a few of them.

• Any content you publish should not be plagiarized. Check for duplicates with Copyscape.
• Use Grammarly or ProWritingAid to check for grammar and spelling.
• Fact checks your article with other journals and research papers.
• Include the right local dentist-related keywords in your copy.

Read: Top Tools to Create Great Content for SEO

8. Not Putting Effort Into Social Media

Social media has been a huge opportunity for businesses to expand their reach and connect with audiences. With over 3 billion people on social media, businesses are getting on the bandwagon. 

Dentist clinics can exhibit their creativity and get people interested in visits or appointments. Social media is also a critical part of local SEO. 

For example, take a look at the below screenshot. A dentist site has used only three social platforms, while people use several other platforms nowadays. So, don’t make the mistake of overlooking it.

Optimizing Social Media For Dentists

Social media is all about creating a dialogue between your dentist's website and social media platforms. Social media has grown into a powerful way for dentists to connect with their patients, but you have to optimize your social media presence for that dialogue. 

You have to make it easy for patients to share, comment, and engage with your brand. Doing this can help you relate with them better. It also provides improved word-of-mouth marketing through better social credibility. 

• Any social media toolkit is incomplete without BuzzSumo. It can help you with keyword and topic research.
• Full-service social media platforms like Hootsuite are also popular with dentists. 
• You can schedule social media updates with Buffer to keep your account active.

9. Not Measuring Customer Engagement

Engagement is one of the most important metrics in local SEO today. It measures how a visitor interacts with your content on your website, social media, or other platforms. The better it is, the more invested your visitors are with your practice.

Strategies For Improving Customer Engagement

In an increasingly online world, you cannot overlook the importance of customer experience. People expect a seamless and enjoyable experience. The goal is to deliver quality service and not just maximize profits.

The best way to increase customer engagement is to show them how the product can help solve their problems. 

• Opt for chatbots that are AI-assisted and interactive with visitors. Octane AI and Drift Chatbot are good examples. 

Take a look at this screenshot. The chatbot can quickly answer most user queries and connect with your audience if urgent. 

• Use social listening tools such as Brand24 and Mention to improve brand image.
• Customer churn tools like Adobe Target and Google AI Platform are worth investing in.

10. Not Making Sure Website Loads Quickly

Loading times are something that dentists and many other people don't focus on. How fast your website loads directly affects its ranking on the searches. So yes, it is a critical metric for a business regardless of the niche. 

Accelerating Loading Speed For Websites

The internet is a 24/7 business. If your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, you're going to lose a lot of customers. Google can penalize websites for slow loading times, so it's important to get it right from the start. 

Take a look at the below screenshot, the website loads in 0.8 seconds, which is very fast. 

Search engines appreciate such sites by ranking on top and users by engaging more with their web pages. Optimize your website by getting rid of unnecessary clutter on it. This can mean anything from unoptimized images to huge theme packages. 

Keep the website design simple enough to load quickly. 

• Streamline all assets to make the website fast-loading.
• Get rid of bloated themes, CSS, and website code.
• GTmetrix, Lighthouse, and Pingdom are great tools for checking loading speed.
• Optimize images with Adobe Photoshop or Imgur.

Read: Tips to Increase Page Loading Speed

11. Not Optimizing For The Voice Search

With the advent of voice assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant, voice searches have begun to grow. These VAs are accurate, and people prefer to search for their online needs. 

Using Voice Searches To Improve Business

According to a study done by Searchmetrics, 50% of all searches are made using voice search. This means that we should optimize the search queries that our audience makes. Check further interesting stats about voice search reported by Wecodefuture below. 

The Google search engine is trying to make it more accessible for users who use a computer instead of a smartphone or tablet to find things online. The number of people using voice search has grown from 10 million to 30 million in the last few years. 

• Use search terms that are part of natural speech when optimizing for voice. 
• Tools like Long Tail Pro and Wordstream can help you find the right keywords.
• FAQ pages are great for improving results to voice searches.
• Leverage your microdata to make it easy for Google to access your website. 

12. Not Using Video Or Visual Content

Many dentists and doctors assume that they don't need to use videos because the internet has images primarily. This is wrong. As a dentist, you can benefit greatly from video content. 

Videos are more likely to get shared and liked than static images, and they're great for telling stories or communicating key messages. 

Using Video To Get More Reach

Video is really useful for a niche such as dentists. It can give patients a view of how procedures are done. It can also dispel some of the myths associated with dentist clinics. Also, videos are one of the highest consumed content types in the world today. 

This is why the top and well-performing dental websites will have videos on its site.

Video is more than just a way to show off your products, services, and brands. It's a tool that can help you reach and engage your audience. 

• Take time to create your videos. Ensure you record in resolutions higher than 1080P.
• You can upload your video on platforms like YouTube and Facebook for the best results.
• Don't forget to add appropriate keywords along with the video. 

Key Takeaways

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• Choose dentist-related keywords for your campaign.
• Highlight the right metrics to track.
• Create location-specific landing pages to drive local business.
• Focus on quality content on your website or while guest posting.
• Increase traffic and customer engagement for your clinic for best results.
• Optimize your searches for voice assistants and more natural search queries.
• Create visual content to get more people interested.