What is SEO?
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is optimizing your website to be found on search engine, which is always a moving target. It’s an algorithm that’s constantly changing. Google’s goal is to show the most relevant search results. The first thing Darrell Evans encourages dental practice owners to do is get educated. Don’t just take someone’s word for it that you can get #1 on search engine results by paying for a service.
There’s a difference between content creation for organic search and local presence. For local searches there are three primary rules.
- The prominence of your website against that search. It’s a ranking contest. Is your website more prominent than your competitors? In order to become more prominent, you must be listed on certain directories like Yellow Pages.
- Relevance. Your website must have a certain amount of best practices SEO tactics executed.
- Distance. The physical distance the device that’s searching for your practice is from it. If they’re not close enough to the dental practice, it won’t show up in their search results. Unfortunately, we can’t manipulate this.
Be in Control of Your Online Presence
Always have a way for customers to leave reviews. You must be in control of your online reputation. An automated software to help you gain reviews. Read about how to get more online reviews here.
Write content around problems that proceed with the solution. Think about writing blogs that serve your customers when you’re not open. For example, what if they have a toothache in the middle of the night while you’re closed? Write about what they can do to ease their pain. This might drive people to your site who are out of your marketplace, which is a good thing. This will make your website more relevant which will drive your local business too. Host Jarod Johnson writes down what moms ask in his practice and works with Darrell from Yokel Local to write blog content around those questions.
Darrell suggests asking those who reach out to your dental practice claiming they can increase your SEO by asking them what their processes are to do that. If content creation isn’t one of those things, you know they aren’t a good fit. Also, be sure to ask about their backlinking strategy, or how they’re going to build your website’s authority over time. Remember, content and SEO work hand in hand together.
What is a Backlink?
It’s simply a link to your website from someone else’s website. They are essentially votes for your popularity, or prominence. It’s your earned reputation. It allows Google to know which websites are more authoritative. It’s a critical aspect of SEO but one of the hardest to obtain.
Does Social Media Factor Into SEO?
It doesn’t affect SEO at all. Very little of what you do on social media will show up on Google. However, social media adds to the social proof component. It gives you credibility. People want to do business with people they like, know, or trust. Social media assists the conversion to bring them into the office. It assists their decision to come into your office and brings a human element to your brand. It’s proof that someone else had a good experience with you.
Yokel Local
Yokel Local started working with brick and mortar businesses and have grown to work with worldwide companies and eCommerce companies. They strive to understand the psychology of your customer. Visit their website at yokellocal.com and search through their core service pages. From there you can choose to schedule a consultation, an appointment, or request a proposal. The Head of Operations will reach out for a 20-25-minute call and if it’s a good fit, Darrell will reach out for a 45-minute conversation to deep dive into strategy.