In case you haven’t heard (although you probably have), the world of dental surgery websites is changing.
Not by too much, but there will be a shift in what is relevant to helping dental surgery websites attract new patients. Why? Because marketing trends are predicted to change, especially with the use of voice searches and social media becoming a more prominent part of a dental surgery’s SEO.
However, most of this means nothing, especially if your dental surgery page is already behind with its SEO. So, before you begin worrying about voice searches and AI, it is worth looking through your dental website to assess if there are any of the following issues that may be inhibiting its SEO.
Slow page loading speeds
The first thing to look at is the speed at which your dental surgery page loads.
Research has found that if this is longer than 3 seconds, you may be losing between 95 to 97% of those who visit your website.
A slow page loading speed can negatively impact dental SEO in a few ways. Firstly, it reduces the user experience, which can negatively affect user metrics like dwell time and bounce rate.
These user metrics are important ranking factors to Google, and a slow page loading speed can make users more likely to leave the page before even engaging with the content, thus reducing the relevance of the dental website to the user’s search query.
Furthermore, slow page loading speeds can also negatively impact the rankings of other web pages, as Google may penalise slow-loading websites, affecting their rankings in the SERPs.
No mobile optimisation
The next thing to consider is the optimisation of the web page for mobile phones.
If a dental web page is not mobile-optimised, it becomes much more difficult for potential patients to reach the site via search engine results. This reduces its chances of appearing in the top search rankings, which reduces the amount of organic traffic and overall website visibility.
Mobile optimisation also plays an important role in providing visitors with an optimal user experience. Poor page loading speed, poor navigation, unreadable content, and other mobile usability issues can result in a poor user experience, which can drive away potential patients.
Plagiarised content
Plagiarism can have a negative impact on dental SEO, because when a search engine scans content for keywords, it can detect when the same text is copied from multiple web pages. Search engines will then rank the duplicated pages lower, as it sees them as having lower-quality content.
Furthermore, if other websites have posted the same content, search engines may consider this as an attempt to manipulate rankings and penalise the page further.
Missing alt tags for images
Alt tags for images are important for SEO because they help search engines better index and categorise the images on your website. This makes it easier for customers to find your website when they search for related keywords in Google Images.
The alt tag also helps provide context to visually impaired users who are unable to understand what is on the image. So, if your page is missing these, then you may need to contact a marketing team for help.
Lack of backlinks
Backlinks are an important part of search engine optimisation (SEO) because they are a signal to search engines that your content is valuable, relevant, and useful. When other credible websites link to your website, it tells search engines that your content is worth displaying in search results for certain keywords. This ultimately helps improve your website’s ranking for those keywords.
