25 Tips to Dominate Google Search for Dental Offices in Houston Texas
For any dental practice out there, including those in Houston, Texas, the main need is to get more clients into the practice. As is revealed over at runrex.com, most people, about 90%, use search engines like Google to find local businesses in their area, and particularly when looking for important information and services such as dental services. This means that if searchers are unable to find your dental practice online, then you are losing money which means that you need to optimize your website and other online properties for search engines, and Google in particular, which is the biggest one. To help dental offices in Houston, Texas do just that and dominate Google search, here are 25 tips.
- Choose the right keywords
Keywords are the way people find pages on search engines, as is discussed in detail over at guttulus.com. If you want your dental office to show up for relevant searches, you must choose the right keywords. Use keyword tools to validate your list of keywords as well as to eliminate those that aren’t right for your practice.
- Don’t forget about long-tail keywords
When choosing keywords, you should also make sure that you choose long-tail keywords for each page. Such keywords are more specific, and the more specific you are, the less competition you will face on search results, which means that the higher you will rank for a particular keyword. These keywords are also likely to give you more qualified leads.
- Avoid dental jargon in your content
If you are to dominate on Google search, you must ensure that your content is easy to read. This means avoiding the use of dental jargon in said content, as if your content is not easy to understand, it will lead to poor User Experience, which will affect your Google search rankings.
- Include keywords in your URL
You should also ensure that you create memorable and keyword-rich URLs for your dental office if you want to dominate on Google search. Such URLs are easy to remember and will lead to more traffic to your site, and consequently improved rankings. Including local keywords in your URLs, such as including Houston in your URLs will also help massively.
- Craft an engaging title
The titles that you choose for your content will also determine how they perform on Google results. If you want to rank highly, the subject matter experts over at runrex.com recommend that you write titles that are engaging and key-word rich so that you can entice more users.
- Make sure your site is being indexed by Google
It is also important to ensure that your site is being indexed by Google, which you can achieve by using LSI, Latent Semantic Indexing, which helps Google’s bots to add context to your site. Remember, a simple keyword like “tooth whitening” could relate to not only a dental practice, but to a toothpaste manufacturer also, and so forth. This is why it is important to help Google index your site through LSI.
- Incorporate keywords in your headlines and subheadings
Keyword placement is just as important as choosing the right keywords, which is why you should ensure that you use keywords in your headlines and subheadings if you want to do well on Google search. This will help you rank higher on Google search results as it shows Google the importance of your keywords.
- Regularly put up new content
Google’s algorithms place huge importance on fresh and new content, which is why, if you want to rank higher on Google search results, then you should keep your site regularly updated with new content. This forces Google to re-index your page which could lead to improved rankings depending on the quality of the content.
- Don’t forget about alt tags for your images
It is also imperative that you use alt tags for your images every time you post a new image on your dental office’s website. According to discussions over at guttulus.com, an alt tag is a description of a photo that serves as an alternate text in case the image doesn’t download, or if the user is vision-impaired. Using keywords in the al tag as well as descriptive language is key here.
- Increase your site speed
Due to the low attention spans online, if your site has poor loading speeds, then people won’t wait around for it to load and will quickly exit your site. This will damage your rankings on Google search. Therefore, if you are to dominate Google search, make sure that your site is optimized for the fastest loading speeds possible.
- Incorporate internal links to your site
Internal links on your site are a must if you are to achieve success on Google search. This means that, in your blog posts, link to other blog posts and service pages using keyword-rich anchor text. Including internal links on your site is important as it builds your site’s architecture, making it easier for Google to index it, hence improved rankings.
- Don’t forget about rankings
Just as internal links are important, so are backlinks. High-quality backlinks to your dental office’s website will validate your site, build credibility, and is one of the biggest ranking factors as far as Google is concerned. This is without mentioning the fact that high-quality backlinks to your site drive even more traffic to it.
- Link out to authority sites
Sticking to links, the gurus over at runrex.com also stress out how important it is to ensure that in your content, you link out regularly to authority sites. Avoid linking to sites that have questionable connections and only link to sites whose authenticity is not in doubt, such as respected news outlets, dental journals, industry publications, and so forth.
- Use short page titles
It is important to point out that every page on your site should have a title tag as that is what displays on Google when somebody conducts a search that includes one of your keywords. However, you must keep your title short and sweet to avoid the title getting truncated, leading to a situation where users have to guess what the rest of the title is about.
- Incorporate schema code in your site heading
Schema code is a semantic language that feeds pieces of information about your site to Google for display. Inserting schema code into your site heading, which should include your dental practice’s name, location, and other important data will lead to it being displayed every time a page from your site shows up on Google.
- Ensure that your site is easy to navigate
It is also crucial that you ensure that visitors to your site can easily find whatever it is that they are looking for. You should, therefore, add menus either at the top of the page or on the left-hand side, a search box on the upper right-hand corner of the screen on each page, as well as an easy way to navigate back to the home page, like say making your dental office’s logo a clickable link to the home page. This will boost UX and your rankings with it.
- Have broken links fixed
As is outlined over at guttulus.com, it is also important that you do a thorough audit of all the external links on your site every few months and fix any that are broken. Broken links will frustrate users, which means that they will negatively impact on your rankings on Google search.
- Craft a compelling meta description
The meta description is a brief description of your page that shows up underneath the title on Google search results. Google will display up to 160 characters, which includes spaces, and, therefore, you must put our keywords at the front and make sure that your sentences are complete. This is what will convince users to click on your content so ensure that your meta description is compelling.
- Enable breadcrumbs on your site
Breadcrumbs are the snippets of information that show visitors where they are on your site. For example, if a user is reading a blog on your site about tips for brushing teeth, they may see a trail of breadcrumbs like Your Site > Blog > Tips for Brushing Teeth. Ensure that each breadcrumb is a clickable link for easy navigation.
- Try Guest-blogging
Guest-blogging will help you build an authority backlink to your site, which will invariably help improve your rankings on Google search results. It will also help build connections in the dental industry, as well as building your credibility among readers.
- Encourage client reviews
People take the opinions of others who have experienced a certain service or product very seriously, which is why you should encourage your patients to leave reviews of your dental practice. This will increase trust in your practice, not to mention that it will improve your rankings as well as discussed over at runrex.com.
- Optimize your NAP listings
NAP listings, which include your name, address, and phone number, are crucial, particularly when it comes to local SEO. If your NAP listings are inconsistent or inaccurate, then it will damage your online presence, which is why it is important to optimize and standardize your NAP listings if you want to dominate on Google search.
- Claim your page on review sites
It is important to point out that about 8.4% of your search rank will come from off-site reviews on sites such as Yelp. This is why it is important that your claim your listings on these review sites, make sure that your listing is optimized, and then respond to all reviews on these sites, positive and negative.
- Don’t buy backlinks
As already mentioned earlier on, backlinks are crucial to your prospects of success on Google search. However, regardless of how important they are, you should resist the temptation to buy backlinks at all costs. Focus on building organic backlinks through the creation of quality content that people will want to link to, and through connecting with influential sites in the dental industry. Buying backlinks will lead to you running foul of Google and will damage your rankings.
- Optimize for mobile
The majority of searches conducted on Google are done on mobile devices, as is revealed in discussions over at guttulus.com. Therefore, if your site is not optimized for mobile, not only will you be missing out on clients, your rankings on Google search will suffer too.
Remember, if you are looking for help for your dental practice as far as Google search is concerned, then look no further than the highly-rated runrex.com and guttulus.com, the best agencies for such services in Houston, Texas.