Gone are the days of thumbing through the phone book for a new dentist.
Today, everyone uses the internet to discover anything, whether it’s a new dentist, doctor, or dog walker.
That is why online dental practices marketing is so important for expanding your business and gaining prospective patients.
When it comes to online dental practice marketing, there are two main players in the game: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and PPC campaigns.
Let’s look at how the two differentiate and how they might be combined to build a long term marketing strategy that outperforms the competition.
Dental SEO
SEO (search engine optimization) is the act of enhancing your website’s visibility in search results to increase organic traffic.
When people do a Google search, they’re more inclined to contact businesses that appear on the top page of search engines results.
People are less likely to discover your dental practice if you aren’t on the first page.
A recent study revealed that around 75% of individuals don’t even scroll past the first page of search results!
It’s much more difficult for people to find you if your website isn’t properly optimized for search engines.
Local SEO, the practice of optimizing your website for local traffic, is critical to both small and big enterprises.
According to research, approximately 72 percent of people who look for a dentist go within 5 miles of their desired location.
It’s critical to appear in these searches if you want to convert possible patients into loyal customers.
How SEO Works
An SEO audit is a systematic examination of your company’s current website and how it performs against competitors.
This process involves researching, analyzing, and documenting everything that impacts SEO to clearly understand the way search engines see your business now.
The majority of what you need to know about SEO is contained in this section.
While there’s a lot that goes into SEO, the most frequent approach to improve your site is through on-site search engine optimization.
This involves adding relevant keywords and material to your website so that the search engines rank it high for those words.
If your dental practices specializes in a particular procedure like teeth whitening or Invisalign, make sure your site includes those keywords and that you have content about them.
This will help your site rank higher in search results and provide visitors with useful information about the services you offer.
Pros of SEO for Dentists
- Dental SEO is a cost-effective strategy. There are no additional expenses after your site has been optimized, even though optimizing it is an investment.
- The ramifications of SEO are long-lasting. A well-optimized site may maintain a high ranking in search results for a long time than google ads.
- Leads from search results have a 14.2% failure rate, while leads generated through outbound (traditional marketing) efforts have an 86.3% success rate.
Cons of Dental SEO
- Long-term SEO takes weeks or months to work. You will not see immediate results.
- It’s an ongoing effort to optimize your site. A website will never be completely optimized, but it may always get better optimized.
- Search engines like websites that are updated regularly so consistently adding new content is a big part of SEO.
- This can be time-consuming, especially if you are doing it yourself.
Now that you understand how crucial SEO is for your dental practice, consider paid advertising or paid digital marketing.
Why pay for internet advertising if you can get to the top of the search results with SEO?
Pay-Per-Click Advertising for Dentists
Another method frequently utilized in dental practice marketing is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
Paid search advertisements display your clinic at the top of Google search results for relevant keywords.
The performance of your PPC campaigns is dependent on the target keywords you choose and the locations where they appear.
The best method to get the most out of your PPC campaigns is to employ a specialist, experienced PPC manager.
How PPC Works
You pay for each click to your site using the PPC model instead of paying a fixed amount to have your ad run for a set length of time.
You’re buying visits to your site rather than “earning” them through organic searches.
This is a complicated issu e, and there are various angles to consider.
Advertising money cannot simply be purchased by advertisers for them to appear next to search engine results or other search engines; this is against Google’s policies.
Instead, advertisers compete for target keywords in auctions that are entirely automated by search engines.
Your ad will appear in a certain position on the search results page, depending on keyword relevance and Ad Quality Score, if you successfully win an auction.
Pros of PPC for Dentists
- Your advertising will begin immediately, so you should start seeing results in a short time.
- You won’t have to worry as much about how you look in search engine results since your advertisements will appear at the top of the list.
- You control your ad spend, and it’s easy to scale your campaigns up or down.
Cons of Dental PPC
- You must invest to obtain decent results, and the more you play, the higher the quality.
- It might take a long time to find the best specific keywords and bid on them. It’s difficult to keep track of your expenses, evaluate results, modify how much you spend, and intelligently manage PPC while working full-time.
- PPC is like a faucet: if you turn it off, the calls stop coming.
How SEO & PPC Work Together for Your Dental Practice
SEO strategy and PPC strategy are a match made in heaven when it comes to dental practice marketing strategy.
SEO is a long-term marketing approach for your dental practice. You’ll get consistent benefits over time if you do it correctly and maintain it.
PPC advertising is an excellent approach to guarantee that your advertisements appear at the top of search results and thus be a great method to get phone calls from website visitors to potential patients right away.
Making use of both SEO and PPC in your dental marketing plan covers all of your bases, so to speak, and improves your chances of obtaining more patients.
PPC helps you get leads while you wait for your SEO efforts to take effect. Putting effort into SEO improves your chances of appearing at the top of search engine results and keeping there.
Allowing you to lower your PPC spend if necessary.