How To Leverage Online Search Marketing To Deliver New Patients To Your Dental Practice Print E-mail
By Gen Wright

 Patients have traditionally found dentists by relying upon referrals from friends and family or by searching in phone books for dentists located in their town. While encouraging your current patients to refer others to you is important, it isn't nearly as effective as increasing your website's visibility on the major search engines of the Internet. In fact, patients are ditching their phone books and venturing online to search for dental services and information more than ever.


Online search marketing strategies are transforming the manner in which dental professionals acquire patients and grow their practices. Below, we'll explain how you can leverage online search marketing techniques to place your dental website in front of the competition and improve your case acquisition.

Position Your Practice With Search Engine Optimization

Millions of people visit Google and Yahoo! every day to find solutions for their medical problems. And many of these patients visit the search engines to look for dental services in their local area. Search engine optimization (SEO) involves using several techniques that work together to lift your dental website to the top positions of the search engine search results for your most important keywords. When implemented effectively, patients visiting Google to look for a dental specialist in their area will find your website.

The top positions in the search engines' organic (or natural) listings are reserved for those sites that are considered the most relevant for a given query. A unique ranking algorithm is used by each search engine to determine your site's relevance. The algorithm considers dozens of criteria, including your website's content, keyword implementation and link-building. A well-formulated SEO campaign that caters to the algorithm will help your site rise in the organic rankings, positioning your dental practice in front of potential patients.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising For Immediate Visibility

Like SEO, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising plays a vital role in your overall online search marketing efforts. While your website's positioning within the natural listings are controlled by the organic ranking algorithms and requires substantial time, PPC advertising allows you to bid for immediate exposure. Unlike SEO, PPC is based upon the amount of your bid for each keyword in your market, as well as the quality and effectiveness of your PPC campaign.

Pay-per-click advertising is a powerful strategy for acquiring new patients in your neighborhood and surrounding communities. It lets you define your budget, control the level of exposure your practice receives, and influence the amount of traffic sent to your dental website. When implemented properly, every component can be tracked, and each element can be tested and refined in order to continually improve your PPC campaign's performance.

Reach Local With Local Search Marketing

Local search marketing has allowed dental professionals to hone their online marketing efforts and target patients who live within a specific geographic area. You can integrate local search marketing techniques within your organic and paid campaigns. On the organic side, you can have your dental practice included within a listing of local businesses that cater to a user's given query. On the paid side, you can establish settings that limit your ads' exposure to those who live within a given proximity to a specific map point. By narrowing the scope of your search marketing campaign with local search tactics, you can reach the patients that are most likely to visit your office.

Taking A Comprehensive Approach

A search marketing campaign is most effective when the individual components - SEO, PPC, and local search - dovetail seamlessly with one another. As your search engine optimization efforts slowly push your site to the top spots, your pay-per-click advertising delivers near-immediate traffic. The exposure is invaluable. With the help of a professional dental web design company, online search marketing solutions can get your site front and center when patients are looking for dental care in your neighborhood. It allows you to educate prospective patients and generate new patient leads, and this translates to more business for your dental practice.

Sean Hartmen is the author for leading dental web design expert, Officite. Since 2002, Officite has designed and developed over 4,000 dental websites for doctors and dentists around the country.
 
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