Your Website Footprint
What is it and why does a large web footprint help Google ranking?
If you are setting out on the journey to publish a new dental practice website or perhaps upgrading an existing one, then you may have come across the term “website footprint” during your research and discussions. This is important in that a website’s “footprint” can have a significant effect on how well it performs in search engines – simply put, larger websites i.e those with larger footprints, tend to perform better in Google searches. Whilst this is not always the case, for new websites in particular, it pays to publish as much useful information as you can from the outset and then build on this over time.
Why larger websites work better
When I say “work better”, for the purposes of this article I’m specifically referring to the performance in search engines. Other factors will come into play when measuring how well a website converts a user’s visit into an actual enquiry, but unless you can get users to the site in the first place, then no conversion potential exists anyway. It is also important to note that websites which do convert well also tend to rank better too. Where a website holds a user’s attention, perhaps ultimately resulting in a contact form submission, Google can measure this and will tend to promote such sites higher than ones which are dull and unengaging.
So we have to make sure both elements are right – the overall size of the website and the structure and quality of the information presented. Both elements are important; for search ranking and user experience too.
Number of pages indexed by Google
This is a primary consideration for understanding why larger new websites tend to bring more traffic than smaller ones. Google indexes all of the pages of a website so those with more pages simply have more entries in the search index and consequently more chance of being found. Whilst many people will search for general terms such as “dentist” or “cosmetic dentist”, lots of traffic to websites also comes from users with more specific intent i.e. those looking for definite treatments e.g. dental implants or even down to the trade name of certain orthodontic treatments e.g. Invisalign or Cfast. The useful feature about more specific searches, is that they often convert better – this is because the searchers have already done some research and are further down the purchasing funnel.
So where budget allows, it really does make sense to build in a broad range of treatments with their own specific pages, into your dental website architecture.
Building your website footprint over time
Good search engine prominence relies on a number of factors and takes time to establish. There are “off-site” elements (e.g. the number and quality of links from other sites pointing to yours) as well as the “on-site” factors we touched on above. Both of these areas need ongoing attention if a website is to deliver to its full potential. It used to be the case that relatively small websites with lots of back-links could rank very well and whilst you can still see some examples of this, these days Google has shifted the focus to the quality and scope of the on-site content.
So whilst back-links and other off-site factors are still very important, you also have to ensure that the on-site content is excellent too. A large part of this involves adding new material and ensuring that older content is updated periodically; particularly where it has become stale and outdated. Without this type of review and update, ranking results will tend to suffer.
Adding a blog and treatment sub-sections
Two relatively simple ways to build the overall relevance and authority of a website are through blogging and adding treatment sub-sections. You can find more about the benefits of blogging here. Rather than just have a single page on say dental implants, you can build the relevance and overall ranking of your pages by adding in appropriate sub-pages. So you may wish to add a page on full arch replacement, immediate loading, implant retained dentures etc etc. Similarly, it is easy enough to extend out from a single teeth straightening page to cover the specifics of the treatment techniques you use e.g. an Invisalign, Cfast, Inman page etc.
Summary
If you are publishing a new website for the practice, it is useful to understand how the size of it can have a significant influence on your search engine rankings. Also how adding to the website content over time using a blog and new useful information pages, can really benefit your Google positions. For sure you should not let your website stagnate – updating periodically with good quality material, will expand your overall web footprint and make your off-site SEO program even more effective.
If you’d like to know more about website structure and optimisation, please call the Dental Media digital marketing team on 01332 672548 for a no-obligation discussion.