Every day, prospective patients are searching for dental practices. It could be a family new to town, a person who perhaps did not have insurance and now does with a new job, or even someone unhappy with their current office. Now more than ever, the first step for any search is Google, Bing, or some other search engine which is why SEO is so important for a dental practice.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization and is a system or process to enhance your office’s online search results from Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines. More simply, SEO makes sure search engines can find your website so new patients can find you when searching for a new dentist. SEO encompasses both the technical and creative elements required to improve rankings, drive traffic, and increase awareness.
Marketing Expert Brad Schorr addresses some recent developments in internet marketing in his recent article on dentistryiq.com. Brad discusses how to take advantage of SEO and get more patients as recent changes are in favor of dental practices. According to Brad:
The big changes to leverage
The most important developments to consider are these:
- Mobile Internet use is exploding—it now exceeds desktop use, and the gap is widening rapidly.
- Google is working hard to promote local businesses in its search results and advertising.
How do these changes help dental practices?
- Mobile Internet users are apt to use their smartphones to search for dentists, book appointments and request information—it’s fast, convenient and increasingly familiar.
- Dental practices, local in nature, get a bigger “bang for the buck” for investments in SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay-per-click) advertising.
Capitalizing on SEO
Effective SEO is a huge part of the new patient process, but not the only piece of the puzzle. Once a patient finds your site, it needs to be convenient and clearly express the value of your office so they feel good about scheduling an appointment. Finally, once they decide to schedule, you need to make sure you do not miss that phone call.
SEO is a great tool, but it can only get you so far in the new patient acquisition process. Offices need to make sure there is a process in place so these marketing leads are not lost.
Looking for ways to increase your office’s availability and new patient production? Click here to contact us and learn how UIC Dental can help supplement your current phone answering process and grow new patient production. The value of the service is guaranteed as UIC Dental promises the service will create at least FOUR (4) times the cost in new patient production value.