Why A New Website Doesn’t Mean Great Google Rankings

What you need to do to gain search engine prominence after a new website launch

So you’ve had a new dental practice website built and you’re wondering why your Google positions are no better than your old site? Or perhaps this is your first site and it’s somewhere on page 2 of the search results a month or so after launch? If this is the case, unfortunately it’s what you should expect, albeit a situation that maybe your web designer didn’t explain properly when they quoted for your job?

Let’s take a look at why many dental business owners enter into website projects expecting that the new site will instantly improve their search engine rankings and why unfortunately this often doesn’t happen, at least not to the degree they expect.

Why a new website won’t take you straight to the top of Google

Whilst it’s clear that a website which is built professionally and in compliance with the latest publishing standards should form a great platform on which to progressively build better ranking positions, it certainly does not guarantee a huge leap to the top of Google. Unfortunately lots of web designers are less than transparent about this as they simply want to get the job in the first place.

When it comes to ranking in search engines, there are many factors in play, not just the quality of the website. Of course it is very important to make sure that the new site has great content and is optimised correctly for what is known as “on-site” SEO, but there are numerous external factors, typically grouped together as “off-site” SEO, which also play a huge part. The success of a website is ultimately about how those off-site and on-site factors are optimised and developed.

What you need to do after your new website is published

Firstly let’s assume that your new site has been built correctly and all the relevant technical and aesthetic factors have been addressed. This is key and the subject of other articles in our regular blogs. Without a sound platform, your off-site optimsation potential will always be compromised so you must be confident that your designer can handle those issues and be able to demonstrate compliance.

What do you do next to start building your rankings in Google over time?

Your Google Business page

Set this up first if you don’t have one already. This is essential as it tells Google that you exist and where you are based. It also gives you a very important link back to your website. Your business page will also be the destination for patients who want to leave a review for your business – this is a very important factor for ranking in Google local searches so please don’t neglect it.

Load Google Analytics and Search Console

These are free Google tools which will show you how your website is performing in great detail. Websites are essential for new patient enquiries so if you’re serious about site performance, it makes sense to reference the data regularly. Analytics and Search Console will show up any technical performance issues as well as showing how your website traffic evolves over time and how many people actually contact you.

Start your off-site SEO project

When considering off-site SEO, your first thought should be back-links; the links that point to your website from another site. In the simplest sense, the more back-links your site has, the better off it will usually fare in Google, although this is not always the case as the quality of those back-links also matters. Good links are seen as a “vote of confidence” for your site whereas bad links from poor quality websites can actually be detrimental. So you have to be careful and not simply go all-out to get any link you can – careful judgment is required.

It’s also important to note that if you website is poor, lots of links may not help overcome that and so you have to get the on and off-site elements just right.

In locations where competition is significant i.e. most towns/cities in the UK, it is very likely you will need at least some degree of SEO to compete. Typically you will see that the websites at the top of Google have several hundred if not thousands of links pointing back to them.

No time to do your own SEO?

Whilst SEO does take quite a lot of experience, for example finding the right types of sites to try to get a back-link, it’s also very time-consuming as well. Very often dentists don’t have the time or resources within their teams to attempt this and hence they outsource to a professional SEO company like Dental Media. We have a team of specialist web marketers who carry out this type of activity for dentists across the UK and we’ll be pleased to help.

Summary

To exploit the full potential of a new dental website you first have to ensure that it is built to latest standards and also optimised to form an excellent platform in Google. However, this alone is unlikely to get you into the coveted top positions in Google and to do this you will need ongoing optimisation. This is particularly the case if your dental practice is in a competitive location and something you need to understand and budget for moving forwards. Indeed you should expect to pay as much on optimisation in the first few years as you do on the initial build of the website.

Need help with a new website or one that’s underperforming in the search engines? Please call the team at Dental Media on 01332 672548 for more information on how we can help.