by AdminPosted on Posted in seo

Are defined keywords still critical? Yes and no….

Three or four years ago I wrote a well-received article regarding the gradual demise of keyword importance for dental SEO and why some of the tactics being used to sell SEO services to dentists had largely become obsolete.

Let’s recap briefly on what keywords are and their history before moving on to how the use of keywords has changed in the last 3 or 4 years since I wrote that original article. We’ll also see how some search engine optimisation agencies still persist with old, defunct techniques and how that ultimately fails their clients.

Keywords – the history

In the infancy of Google and more generally SEO, keywords were perhaps the most important marker which told Google what a searcher was looking for. This was very much for discrete searches such as “dental implants” and consequently optimisers would cram websites full of the exact term in as many places as possible. This often made web text read very badly as websites were configured more for Google rather than users.

Google started to tackle keyword spamming and “thin” website content using punitive search algorithm penalties such as the infamous “Panda” update around 10 years ago and this did reduce the amount of optimisation spamming quite considerably. However, those “blunt” tools were complemented by arguably more subtle search engine updates several years later such as the “Rankbrain” and “Bert” updates in 2015 and 2019 respectively. It is these updates which have moved us to less of a reliance on simple discrete keywords and more focus on the context of what is actually written on a web page.

Rankbrain and Bert were key steps in the evolution of Google where the search engine became far more capable at recognising what a searcher was looking for, rather than just zeroing in on a specific keyword search. As an example, this means that Google understands that someone who is searching for “lost tooth replacement” is actually very likely to be interested in services providing dental implants. So we can see that we now need to be far more subtle when optimising a web page, rather than simply adding recurring instances of the same keywords and phrases.

Keyword optimisation – how it should be done

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Website

Avoidable SEO errors when dentist’s websites are moved or consolidated

Over the last few years we’ve seen several clients taken over by larger dental groups as UK dentistry reorganises and consolidates. This is inevitable and something we expect to see periodically as clients retire or otherwise move on in their careers.

Part of the transfer involves a transfer of the seller’s website which usually starts with transfer of the domain name and within a few months, transfer of the website itself. It’s at this stage that our involvement in management of the website typically ceases and the new company takes over. Unfortunately it’s also at this stage that the mistakes begin and bad things start to happen, particularly with the search engine ranking of the website. But why is this and what happens to cause it? Let’s take a closer look.

Websites built here at Dental Media typically rank very well in search engines, particularly where we carry out ongoing SEO for the dentist. This optimisation is a continuous process whereby we use legitimate techniques to improve the search engine positions of the website for numerous search terms. The returns from this process are exceptional in terms of new patient enquiries and it’s something we encourage all of our clients to participate in. However, the process is quite technical and easily disrupted and it’s this disruption we tend to see when a new business takes over.

Common website take-over errors

In the example of a corporate of micro-corporate website take over, the main (and disastrous) error we often see is where the site is incorporated into the single website of the company taking over. This usually involves taking a multi-page website with excellent Google rankings and rationalising this down to a single “location” page on the corporate website.

This results in lots of great Google results essentially disappearing overnight as the overall website footprint for the business is drastically reduced. Even where some mitigation is completed e.g. page re-direction, the search engine traffic to a website which is rationalised in this way will be significantly reduced. It does beg the question as to whether the web/marketing representatives of the new business actually understand what they are doing, particularly in that the importance of Google for new patient acquisition is abundantly clear.

As a slight aside, we have also seen this quite recently in another scenario where a dentist moved his website to the control of a local company who had associations with his partner. The new company rebuilt it on a DIY platform known as Squarespace, failed to complete any optimisation and page re-directs etc. We still had access to the analytics data and we saw an instant 3 fold reduction in website traffic and Google ranking dropping dramatically over the following weeks. This also resulted in far fewer patient enquiries to the point where the dentist contacted us and requested that the old website be re-instated. This is quite an extreme case, but similar adverse effects often also occur in the corporate takeover scenario discussed above.

What should happen when a website is transferred?

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Website

Wondering why your new practice website isn’t paying back?

It’s widely acknowledged that a dentist’s website is the cornerstone of all marketing activities and that a high-quality site which ranks well in Google is essential, particularly in times of ever-increasing competition.

However, it’s not simply a case of “build it and they will come” and all too often, dentists and their practice managers are left bewildered when their posh new website doesn’t achieve the results they expected, or indeed what they were led to believe by their chosen designer.

Let’s take a look at the main reasons why some dental websites fail, the common pitfalls in the design process, and what you can do to avoid those issues.

Trendy websites which don’t suit your audience

I’ve written previously about a current trend in the building of dental websites where one or two companies are churning out sites to a set formula with lots of glitzy images and other “bells and whistles”. Whilst these websites may well be suitable for certain types of dental practice, they are not suitable for everyone. They are also starting to look rather generic when compared to the “classy” websites which leverage on personalised images and a more welcoming feel.

If your website doesn’t properly represent what your business is all about and doesn’t resonate appropriately with the patient demographic you are trying to reach, then unfortunately you are setting up to fail.

My guidance here is to avoid design trends and assess very carefully before you step into the design process. Just because a website looks a little bit glitzy is absolutely no guarantee that it will work well in all circumstances. You’ll probably end up paying well over the odds for it too.

Your website is technically poor

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Content

Are you struggling for time to generate web content which works brilliantly for patients and Google?

The text writing team here at Dental Media is busier than ever generating lots of excellent web content, written to engage website users and help those sites power upwards in the Google rankings.

But what is it about great text that makes all the difference to the performance of dentist’s websites and blogs? Equally, how does poor text content work against you? Let’s take a look at the key factors.

Why good website content improves new patient enquiries

There is a misplaced notion in the world of dental websites that minimal content is best in that it doesn’t overwhelm the user. Indeed it is a theory espoused by a few dental coaches, albeit somewhat misguided and not really in their client’s best interests. The truth is that minimalist content tends to originate from design teams who simply want to knock out a few paragraphs quickly and move on to the next project.

In reality, you are selling services to a range of folk, not just those who are keen to simply get a quick overview of your treatments without wanting to delve too deeply. However, there are also those folk who want to look into the subject matter in detail, for example the older generation researching the pros and cons of dental implants. With this in mind, when we generate content for a dental website, we need to cater for the minimalists and indeed those who are looking for more – and everyone in between.

You may wonder how this can be done? Minimalist and comprehensive on the same page sounds mutually exclusive right? Well actually not, it is very possible to lay out the text on a web page to achieve just that. For example we can use a bullet-point list to showcase the pros and cons of a treatment succinctly at the head of the page, but support that with more information further down on the page, perhaps via an FAQ or similar.

If you aim for text that is minimalist, you may well miss out on patients who need to know that you are well-versed in your treatments and that your website is an authoritative source of information. Indeed, we know that websites with well-balanced, comprehensive information tend to work a lot better than those which simply focus on glossy visuals. That isn’t to say that good visuals aren’t important, they certainly are, but overall you need to seek a balance.

It’s not just the performance of your web page when it comes to engaging new patients, you also need the right content to engage with Google too and ensure that your site gains a great position in the search results. But what is it within your website text which dictates how it performs in Google?

Web text and how it contributes to an authoritative website

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Photography

Professional photography and video – taking websites to the next level!

We’ve commented previously about the power of high-quality visuals when it comes to building great dental websites which really stand out. If anything, those comments are even truer today than when we first made them.

When we talk about “visuals” we primarily mean photography and video, not the structural design of the website per se. Furthermore we also need to differentiate between “stock” visuals i.e. the pre-made photographs you often see being used to build dental sites, and the bespoke photographs generated when a professional photographer visits the practice for a bespoke shoot.

Dental photo shoot UK example 1

As we’ll see, the bespoke, personalised imagery works much better for patient engagement than the generic stock images that many agencies fall back on.

Stock images versus a personal photo shoot

Most design agencies will have membership of one or more images libraries where they can access a wide range of pre-shot photographs for use with their client’s website projects. This makes it easy and cheap to gather a selection of images to use. Whilst you can build a perfectly adequate website like this, what is clear is that too many dentists are following the same tack and ending up with websites which look quite generic i.e. just too similar to the competitor website from the practice down the road.

What we know from many years of experience working with dentists and securing new patient enquiries, is that websites which stand out from the crowd work much better than those which look “samey” or generic. Of course this has to be matched with excellent usability and great technical underpinnings as this will also affect performance, not just for the user but how well the website works in Google too.

Hence it really is essential these days to ensure that you website is top-grade and really does stand out above your competitors. One essential component to achieve this is to ensure that the visuals you use are bespoke and personalised, not generic stock versions which appear on numerous websites as well as your own.

Why personalised visuals work much better than stock images

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Advice

Tricks and tips to help steer clear of hackers and spammers

It rarely goes a week without the team here at Dental Media receiving a few calls or emails from dentists or their team members asking for advice where they have received a suspicious email, or worse, opened one, clicked a link and compromised their local IT system.

Whilst modern virus checkers are very good, not every business uses one or keeps it up-to-date, and this, coupled with employees who miss the signs of a suspect email, often results in problems.

Today I thought it would be useful to compile a short blog covering the main ways dentists and their teams can avoid being duped by malicious emails of this nature. We’ll also take a quick look at how to protect your dental website assets, such as contact forms, which spammers can potentially use to send you suspect content.

Install and maintain a high quality antivirus system

Whilst email servers, including our own, use robust systems to remove as much spam as possible at source, some malicious emails can still get through. To provide full protection, you should not just rely on remote systems, but also install top-grade local antivirus on your local systems. It goes without saying that you should keep this updated with the latest virus “definitions” to make sure that that your protection has the best chance of working.

Many modern anti-virus systems are also “intelligent” in that they can detect any unexpected changes to your file system and intervene accordingly. But please don’t trust that this will catch everything, you still need to exercise a good degree of care!

Learn to recognise a “phishing” email

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by AdminPosted on Posted in seo

Concluding our dental SEO mini-series

Today we conclude our mini-series for dentists which covers nine basic elements of “must-know” information when it comes to implementing successful SEO projects. Last time we looked at how to choose an effective SEO partner, key dental SEO techniques and how local SEO will be critical to your campaigns.

This blog concludes by looking at how to measure your campaigns, what SEO typically costs and also a final few things to look out for to avoid being duped by one of the many “dodgy” SEO agencies out there. Let’s get started.

Effective measurement of SEO campaigns

As with any investment, it makes sounds sense to measure the effectiveness of your dental optimisation campaigns and ultimately the return on the investment made. This means an accurate evaluation of how much it costs to bring in new patient treatments and which channels/techniques are most effective. Good management information in this sector is essential, particularly given the issues we’ve touched on with some web and optimisation companies offering poor value for money.

As a minimum you need to ensure that Google Analytics is installed on your website to track traffic and conversions; for example how many contact forms were completed during the reporting period. You should also link up to Google Search Console and potentially to Google Data Studio, a great tool for producing visual reporting data.

Please make sure that these tools are set up in your own account and not the account of the company providing the service. If you wish to move to a new supplier in the future, your data needs to be seamless and transportable. If it’s all set up in a third-party account, very likely you will lose access to it and need to start again. This is a scenario we’ve seen many times where clients have moved to us from other suppliers and where we’ve had to help start with new analytics accounts from scratch.

For social media advertising, please follow similar guidance by ensuring you have access to your data in your own accounts.

Most dentists don’t have time to trawl through rafts of analytics data regularly and this where an overview report is essential to inform the decisions which need to be made regarding the service. A good supplier will make reporting like this readily available and integrate the key elements of information from all of the channels used. For example, levels of website traffic, key landing page information, conversions (contact information), spend on paid advertising, cost per conversion and more. The objective should be to provide accurate information covering key measurements parameters but without becoming overwhelming. Reports like this would typically be provided on a monthly basis.

You also need to be careful that your supplier is providing meaningful statistics and not “fluff” which simply looks impressive but does little to add value to your business. A good example is providing information about keywords which are too obscure to be meaningful and hence easy to get to the top of Google. On paper it looks good, but adds no value. Another example is reliance on keyword positions – this is a useful marker of performance but the best SEOs moved to a focus on website traffic and conversions several years ago. This is much more meaningful and concentrates on the main elements which will really make a difference to your business.

What does SEO cost?

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by AdminPosted on Posted in seo

Continuing our mini-series on SEO for dentists

In last week’s blog we looked at why SEO for dental websites is important and laid out a list of 9 key areas where a dentist will benefit from a solid working knowledge of the process. We looked at what SEO actually is, why it makes great sense to do it and also the role of Google, the main force in search engines in the UK today.

Moving on, in today’s blog we’ll cover the next three elements; choosing your  dental SEO partner, the two main types of optimisation and the role of “local” SEO. Let’s get started.

How to choose a good SEO partner

In our blogs already, we’ve touched on various reasons why you need to take care when choosing someone to help with your SEO, but it’s certainly worth re-iterating again in this mini-series. Firstly it’s worth remembering the slightly “murky” reputation which SEO has gained and indeed why this has arisen. Whilst it takes hard work and experience to keep on top of Google’s regular updates and this should not be under-estimated; too many SEO companies fail far too often which has resulted in disenchantment amongst many dentists.

Sometimes optimisation teams step outside of Google’s publishing guidelines and cause their client’s websites to be penalised. This can be unrecoverable resulting in the dentist having to start again with a new website on a fresh domain – potentially thousands of pounds out-of-pocket and back at square one.

Another recurring problem is where web design companies offer SEO but actually don’t do anything! This is particularly rife with companies who offer maintenance contracts which claim to include SEO but at best, do the bare minimum and certainly not enough to make meaningful improvements in Google. Yet many dentists and/or practice managers get caught out by this.

So with SEO, you do need to be very careful and make sure to choose a reputable practitioner with a solid track record. Check the results and also be sure to avoid signing up for long-term contracts where you’ll likely still have to pay up even if the expected results aren’t forthcoming. Also take care to treat recommendations cautiously – there are a couple of popular dental design companies in the UK who actively incentivise clients to recommend them, albeit if when you look closely at their results, the true picture becomes much clearer and it isn’t always what you’ve been led to believe.

On-site and off-site search engine optimisation

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by AdminPosted on Posted in seo

What you need to know in the murky world of search engine optimisation! Part 1

Perhaps one of the most contentious and least well understood areas of dental marketing is search engine optimisation, or SEO for short. Virtually every week I get asked questions by dentists or their practice managers about this important topic. Those questions often arise when lay people read or hear something that is out-of-date or worse, specifically attempting to pull the wool over their eyes! Unfortunately this is one of the main reasons why SEO is viewed with cynicism by some and indeed why it still has a murky reputation.

SEO can be quite hard to quantify and unscrupulous vendors still use this to draw a veil over their work – so where they fail, it can sometimes takes months for a client to actually realise, by which time the dentist is hundreds, potentially thousands of pounds, out-of-pocket.

This is unfortunate because whilst there are many more bad than good SEO practitioners out there, when done well, this type of website optimisation and the resultant improvement in Google rankings, can be hugely beneficial for new patients enquiries. You just need to make sure you get the right service and support.

With all of the above in mind, I thought it would be useful to compile a short mini-series covering the basics of SEO for dentists, including where Google has reached in its relentless evolution and what all of this means for your practice marketing programmes.

Contents

I’ll cover the following topics over the next series of blogs:

  • What is SEO?
  • Why do SEO for dental websites?
  • Google – how it changes and where are we now?
  • Choosing your SEO partner
  • On-site and Off-site optimisation techniques – what are they?
  • The influence of reviews and local SEO
  • Measuring your campaigns – why it’s not all about keywords any more
  • What does SEO cost and what might you expect in return?
  • Signs you’re being duped – (don’t hire these guys!)

I’ll try to cover these key aspects in my next few blogs. Let’s go with the first three in the list.

What is SEO?

Simply put, SEO is the process whereby various techniques are used to improve a website’s ranking in search engines. In the UK, where the large majority of web searches go via Google, we tend to talk about optimisation specifically for that particular search engine. Later in this article we’ll discuss the main optimisation techniques in more detail.

So why perform SEO on dental websites?

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Strategy

Do you have the right marketing plans in place to generate plentiful new patient enquiries?

I was recently invited to a Zoom call with a new practice to discuss the development of a suitable SEO strategy to generate new patient enquiries from Google. However what became evident right at the start of the meeting was that the practice believed that SEO ‘was’ their overall marketing strategy and that they considered that my team was solely responsible for it – i.e. a full remit for all of the practice marketing.

Whilst this was a compliment in itself and I thanked them for their trust in our services, I was duty bound to explain that ‘SEO’ alone does not constitute a marketing strategy and is only a functional aspect of a much broader plan.

So at that juncture the meeting changed from one about the ins and outs of search engine optimisation, to a more high-level understanding of what the practice needed to develop as their overall marketing plan, together with the component parts you would typically find within it. It struck me that the practice clearly had limited business experience outside of the day-to-day practice management and clinical expertise, but that’s actually not uncommon in a lot of UK dental practices unfortunately. However, what we discussed should help them to develop a usable and productive marketing plan and one where we can assist with its development and implementation ongoing.

So what elements would you typically find within a dental marketing strategy?

This is a very broad question and the answer will vary depending on individual circumstances and requirements. The elements within such a plan will also change over time and so regular review is required to make sure that current business needs are being addressed. So where do you start?

This really depends on the type of business you want and the mix of treatments and services you wish to offer. Will you be aiming for a ‘high-end’ niche, something middle-of-the-road, or perhaps more tailored to functional dentistry to process as much treatment volume as possible?

Once you’ve determined this, and this in itself may evolve with time, then you can decide what tools you need to start gaining momentum. In conjunction with that you’ll also need to evaluate the local competition to establish what type of businesses they are running, where there are hurdles to overcome and also niches to exploit. The best start-ups will of course do all of this ground work before they go ahead and set-up in a new location.

6 key areas

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