SEO Tips for San Antonio Dentists to Increase Visibility [Bonus Tip Inside!]

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SEO for dentists is a rabbit hole! 

So many rules and 1000 ways to execute. What to do? 

If you are confused, worry not; we're here to help you. 

Now, you will have questions - like does SEO work for dentists? 

Will it bring me patients? And others.

The answer to all of them is yes. Dental SEO can take your visibility to a new level when done right. 

In this guide, we have listed the top dental SEO tips for dentists based in San Antonio. 

Let's get started. 

14 SEO Tips for Dentists to Outrank Your Competitors

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1. SEO Starts With A Great Website!

Great SEO starts with a website. If your website is not optimized, forget about ranking higher and getting patients. 

Here's how you can optimize your dental website to boost conversions: 

• Save the best designs for the most important pages. The landing page that conveys your unique selling points and services needs to be the most eye-catching for users to take action. Take a look at the below image with simple yet effective banner text, image, and CTA. 

• Follow the habits of your users. Visitors often have a similar pattern. For example, they know most contact links are in the footer, shopping carts are always in the top right corner, etc. Having them misplaced will confuse users and even cause them to abandon your site. 
• Top-notch copywriting matters. Most customers will not read the entire document. However, they will read the most important parts. Captivate their attention with catchy words, power phrases, and CTAs. 
• Navigation should be simple. Limit the menu to five to seven options.
• Provide scheduling options that are appropriate for each patient's personality. Some patients may prefer to call, while others prefer an online form, messaging, etc. 
• Ensure that the most critical call to action is always visible above the fold. 

2. Don't Forget To Add Location Pages

If you are a business with a physical address, which you are as a dental practice in San Antonio, not having a location page is a crime. 

They help your users find your dental practices, but they also serve a specific purpose in SEO. 

Here's how you can create and optimize your location page for a dental practice 

• Add city name in the title, URL slug, meta descriptions, and H1 and H2 tags.
• Add an embedded Google map with a pin in. Here’s a good example to show. 

• Link to your Google My Business listing. 
• A brief paragraph describing your dental services and staff at that location. 

3. You Need To Have Structured Links!

The importance of link strategy cannot be overstated regarding dental SEO. Now there are two types of links: Internal links and Backlinks. 

According to My Social Practice, inbound links (backlinks) are the most powerful source of ranking factors for your dental website. 

Google measures the value of backlinks by the quality of the website that your website is linking to. If the website is established, with lots of traffic and many reputable links, Google will consider it a quality backlink. 

Another important type of link is an internal link. An internal link is simply a link on your website linked with another page. For instance, a blog talks about dental implants and links to your dental implant service page. The internal links help your site appear in a beautiful structure on SERPs. 

Google doesn't know what type of patients you want to attract. As a result, you need first to structure your internal links to show the essential pages. 

Keep these tips in mind when building structured links for your dental practice: 

• Ensure all the links on your websites are interconnected. Search engines can index unlinked pages. 
• Only get backlinks from high-quality sources. Weak or spammy backlinks can do more harm to your ranking. 

4. Provide The Best User Experience 

Google has advanced a lot over the years, and it prioritizes experience above anything else. 

Mobile phones account for 50% of total traffic on the Internet. As a result, you can no longer ignore mobile optimization's importance.

Take a look at the below screenshot. The website receives a lot of traffic from mobile devices. 

If Google sees your site providing a bad user experience, they will stop ranking you at the top. 

Here's how you can improve the user experience.

• Mobile optimization is a must: In 2018, Google announced mobile-first indexing. This means Google uses a mobile version to index and rank your site. Unless your website is mobile optimized, your search engines won't index your site. 
• Site Speed Matters: 53% of users will abandon your site if your site takes more than 3 seconds to load. Google will recognize that users are experiencing issues and lower your search rankings. Use tools to check your loading speed. Ensure it loads within 3 seconds. 
• Use HTTPS: Security is of prime importance on the Internet. Google prefers the HTTPS version over the HTTP version. Add an SSL certificate to get your site secured from attacks. 

5. Social Signal Matters 

Most dentist practices forget that Google is not the only search engine. Social media are search engines too! 

When people search for a service, they don't directly go to Google. Some will search on Facebook, Instagram, or even Yelp, especially for local businesses like dental practices. 

As a result, search is all about the intent and not the platform. The more your dental practices appear on multiple search engines, including social media, the more likely patients will discover you. 

Now, simply creating social media pages won't benefit you. You need to create high-quality posts that people will engage with. 

Here are some tips for creating engagement worthy social media posts: 

• Use high-quality images to catch attention. Only text posts rarely get any attention. Here’s an example of a good post. 

• Make them relevant. Irrelevant content will lead to many users unfollowing you. E.g., Sharing funny videos as a dental practice that is not connected with the industry in any way. 
• Use CTA. CTAs tell the audience what action to take. Do you want to comment? Then simply ask, 'What are your thoughts? Comment below.

Read: Benefits of Social Media Marketing for Local Businesses

6. Ace Your Google My Business Listings

Your first step for reading your dental practice for local SEO is to set up Google My Business listings. 

So, before setting up Google My Business listings, ensure the listings do not already exist. If your practice has been around for a while, you may already have a listing. You need to claim it.

Here's how to create and optimize your GMB listings:

• Create a GMB account. Choose your primary category as ‘dentist’ or any other dentist specialty in the image.

• Add all the information, including contact number, address, name, etc. 
• After adding all the information, you need to verify your dental practice. Without verification, listings won't get published. The verification process can take up to one week. 
• Once you verify it, you will receive a postcard at your address asking whether it's your business. This will contain a verification code that you need to add to your listing. 
• You can optimize your listing by adding a detailed description, photos, and local keywords. 

7. Master Your On-Page SEO

The #1 result on Google SERPs receives 32% of all the clicks. As a result, you should be doing everything you can to rank in the first position. Building on-page SEO can improve your ranking and increase the number of appointments you receive. 

Here's how to optimize your dental site for on-page SEO:

• Optimize meta title and meta descriptions: Title and meta descriptions should be unique for each site page. Add proper keywords to your city—for example, Dental Practice in San Antonio. Keep page title under 60 characters and meta description under 156 characters. Take a look at the below screenshot showing the top 3 sites with perfectly optimized meta descriptions. 

• Insert schema markup: Mark-up is a piece of code that helps search engines understand what your site is all about. It's added directly to your website's code.
• Use short, descriptive URLs: Although not a huge factor in ranking, URLs can contribute to dental SEO in the long term. You can optimize your URL by adding keywords to it. Plus, short and catchy URLs are easier to remember for users. 
• Optimize your images: Compress images to reduce file size. Heavy images can slow down your site. Give a proper name. For example, 'teeth-whitening.jpg' instead of 'D200001.jpg'.

8. Proper Keyword Research Is Key 

One of the most common mistakes people make while doing dental SEO is targeting the wrong keywords. 

When searching for a dentist in San Antonio, 80% of people will most likely use the following combinations of keywords. 

• Dentist in San Antonio 
• San Antonio dentists
• Best dentists in San Antonio 
• Dentists near San Antonio 
• Emergency Dentist San Antonia 

Ensure you add these keywords to your website, local listings, and social media.

• Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or SEMrush to choose the most frequently searched keywords for dental search. Here’s how to explore more keywords on the Aherfs keyword tool.

• Focus on keyword search intent. Patients ready to get a dental checkup will often check different keywords than those just researching dental things. E.g., 'Emergency dental checkup near me' and 'What is root canal surgery?'. 

• Using the WordPress CMS, tools like Rankmath and Yoast SEO can guide you to optimize your article with keywords properly. 

9. List On Yelp

Sites like Yelp present huge opportunities for dental practices. However, according to research conducted by Rocking Dental Digital Marketing, only 53% of dentists and dental practices have pages on Yelp. Moreover, over 51% have left these profiles unverified. 

Here's how dentists and dental practices can optimize their pages on Yelp.

• Link your website to Yelp. You want your patients to find your information easily. This can be done by linking websites. Search engines show up yelp pages in their SERPs. The below image shows that several people are looking for dentists on Yelp.

• Verify your profile. Customers are not likely to trust unverified businesses on Yelp. Moreover, verifying your profile opens up new features like controlling business hours and information, responding to reviews, linking websites, tracking views, etc.
• Don't forget to add photos. Adding images of your practices will make you look more professional and trustworthy. 

10. Monitor And Respond To Reviews Actively

A patient looking for a dental practice does not want to see your business unless you are nearby. And Google knows this. That's why local search works differently from national and international search. 

When searchers look for a dentist practice in San Antonio, they look for more than just a quality website and business. Since algorithms cannot review the locations, they rely on customer reviews to show results.

Almost 95% of people say that positive or negative reviews can affect their purchasing decision. As a result, reviews are important. 

Here's how to get reviews for your dentist practice:

• Just Ask. It's that simple. You will be surprised just how many patients are receptive to feedback requests. It can be through any medium, verbal or text. 
• Make it easy to review. Where do you want them to review your practices? Share the link to the platform—for example, GMB listing, your website, Yelp, etc.
• Respond to complaints. You cannot make everyone happy. There will always be dissatisfied customers. If you see reviews complaining about service, resolve them. Let them know you care about them and are sorry for the inconvenience. Here’s an example that shows a dentist cares about their customers.

11. Utilize Online Forums 

Online forums are an underrated part of SEO. There are many dental forums online where people share their questions. These communities provide an excellent way to network with other professionals. As well as get up-to-date news that the media won't share. For example, Reddit is the most popular and used forum by billions of users; thus, interacting with the community boosts your online presence. 

Here's how to utilize a forum for your dentist practice: 

• Add a link to your dentist's website to the forum. Whenever someone finds you helpful, they will want to learn more about you. So, adding links can help. 
• Be a part of dentist forums like Health Board, Dentistry Subreddit, etc.
• Contribute genuinely. People visit forums to get answers to their questions and not get sold. To avoid promoting your business there. 

12. Add Videos To Your Context Mix

Online videos have surpassed all other forms of content available on the Internet. YouTube alone racks up billions of views every day. 

Moreover, most social media platforms are increasingly giving preference to videos over text posts. This is because many people prefer watching videos over reading written content. 

When you are busy writing strong content for your dental practice, it is best to direct some of these efforts to creating videos. 

Here's how to include video in your dental SEO strategy

• Create short informational videos. For example, you can create videos on the best oral hygiene methods, keeping the gums clean, etc. Take a look at the below screenshot that shows the number of views on these. It explains how well you can create brand awareness through videos.

• Show behind the scenes of your San Antonio-based dental practices. For example, you can show your teeth cleaning procedures. 
• Ensure the quality is high, the videos are short, and end with a powerful call to action. 

13. Establish YMYL Authority 

Google makes it difficult for medical sites to rank higher. There have been multiple instances where people got into trouble blindly following websites' medical advice. 

This medical site ranking higher on Google also paved a path for multiple litigations for search engine giants around the globe. 

Here's how you can ensure your dental site's authority:

• Follow the Google YMYL guidelines. Your Money, Your Life, and EAT stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. 
• Ensure each content on your website is correct. Don't forget to add authors' bios to every content you publish. 
• Also, have an about us page with awards and recognitions you have collected over several years to boost trust. 

14. Optimize Google Maps 

Did you know your dental practice can rank on Google Maps? 

If you have ever searched for local businesses on Google, you will see that the first search result is usually a map direction. 

In SEO, we call it local 3-Pack. Here’s an example:

As a result, you must set up Google Maps and optimize it. 

Verifying Google Maps is fairly straightforward if you have set up your Google My Business listings. 

Here's how you can use Google Maps for your dental practice. 

• Go to Google Maps. Search for your dental practice based in San Antonio.
• Once you find it, click on Claim this business > Manage Now.
• You will then be asked to choose a verification method. Steps will be listed on the screen. 
• Add as much information as you can about your practice.
• Use a local service number if possible.
• Add high-quality photos of your practices to improve trust. 

Read: Get to Know 15 Incredible Features of Google Maps

Three Bonus Tips for Dentist SEO

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1. Build Local Citation Links from Authoritative Websites

Citations can help you improve your rankings. Think of citations as building credibility for your dental practice. Citations can tell search engines that it is safe to trust your business. 

But citations are also good for customers since many customers will search local directories to search for local businesses. 

Here Is a List of Familiar Websites to Build Local Citation Links

• Yelp: Yelp is one of the largest local directory sites for businesses in the US. 
• Wellness: Wellness is a health site that lists various healthcare businesses such as dentists, yoga practitioners, eye doctors, etc. 
• eLocal: It is a local business directory for local businesses like dentists, lawyers, plumbers, etc. Listing on this site can help more users locate your dentist's practice. 
• Open Care: Open Care is a dentist-only online business directory in North America. 
• Dentists: One of the oldest business directories for dentists. People can easily find a dentist near them by zip code, city name, business name, etc.
• San Antonio Mag: San Antonio Mag is another popular local directory in San Antonio. It shares top news about the city regularly. 

2. Include Your Site in San Antonio Dental Directories

Many dental practices believe online business directories are online versions of the yellow pages. But that's far from true. 

Dental directories allow users to find dental practices easily. For example, when you submit your business details to these directories, your dental practice will be visible in search results since many of these directories create business listings automatically. 

Below we have shared the list of Top San Antonio Based Dental Directories, where you can get listed: 

• American Dental Association: This is one of the most trusted directories. Listing here can boost your visibility.
• Dentist in Town: Dentist in Town is a community vision to connect dentists with patients. 
• Sadds: It is an informational website designed to educate patients on dental procedures. 
• Care Dash: This directory helps patients review dentists and search for dentists near them. 
• Dentist Directory: It's the ultimate tool to find a dentist in a particular city. 

3. Publish High-Quality Shareable Content on Your Blog

It was enough to have content on websites to just include keywords in the past. But as user experience became important, Google stressed having high-quality content on websites. 

What exactly is high-quality content? 

High-quality content has three significant factors: trustworthiness, authority, and expertise. 

Almost 77% of users read blogs online. So if you want to improve their experience, you need to have trustworthy content on your dental site. Don't forget to make it engaging and, most importantly, relevant to users. 

The types of content you can add to dentist websites are how-to guides for oral hygiene, root canal treatment, etc. 

You can also look at popular San Antonio dentist blogs to understand what content users like. 

Following is the list of San Antonio Dentist Blogs:

• Preferred Dental Center
• Dental Care of SA
• Brook Hollow Family Dentistry
• South Texas Smiles
• Growing Smiles SA
• Texas Dental

Key Takeaways

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• Ensure you provide the best user experience on your website.
• Make use of social media and online forums to improve organic traffic. 
• Strictly abide by Google's YMYL guidelines to improve website authority. 
• Use Google My Business listings to improve local rankings.
• Create shareable, high-quality content on your blog. 
• Add videos to your content strategy. 
• Enlist your dental practice on online dental directories.