Choosing the Right Dental Keywords
In the digital world, choosing the right dental keywords can make the difference between successful practices and those that struggle to find patients. But how do you know which keywords attract visitors? And which are already overused by competitors?
Here’s how to handpick the right keywords to grow your practice by choosing the right dental keywords.
1. List Dental Keyword Phrases
Start with the basics. Make a list of keywords based on the services you offer. At this stage, the keywords can be broad, like “teeth whitening”, “plaque removal”, “children’s dentistry”, and “family dentistry”.
Take the time to make a comprehensive list. Generate plenty of ideas. Make sure the keywords are all relevant to your practice. Don’t include keywords for services you don’t offer.
2. Create Subcategories
Next, you want to refine your keywords and make them more specific where possible. For example, “laser bleaching” as a more specialized form of “teeth whitening.”
You can still use broader keywords like “teeth whitening” in your search engine optimization strategy. But the aim here is to create keyword subcategories for more targeted searches.
3. Add Your Location
Choosing the right dental keywords by adding your location to keywords makes them more relevant for local searches. Most dental searches have local intent—prospective patients are looking for practices in their area, not all over the state or country. Local keywords help Google and other search engines to localize your content.
Depending on where your practice is based, you can use broader or more specific location keywords. For a dental practice in a small town like Naples, you can use “teeth whitening Naples”.
In a city like Miami, you can be more specific about the area you are based in. For example, “teeth whitening downtown Miami” or even neighborhood-based keywords like “teeth whitening Upper East Side”.
4. Identify Long-Tail Keywords
When choosing the right dental keywords include long-tail. Long-tail keywords contain 3 or more keywords. People typing long key phrases are more likely to become your patients. That’s because they have a more focused search intent than those using broader keywords like “local dentist”. You want to include at least a few long-tail keywords in your list of keywords.
5. Research Keywords
Once you have a good list of keyword ideas, it’s time to filter them. Some of them will get more searches than others.
Type some of your basic keywords into the search engine box and look at the drop-down menu below. For example, for “laser whitening” you may get “laser whitening treatment” and “laser whitening cost”.
The keywords in the drop-down are popular. If some of them are relevant to your dental practice, note them down. You want to use them in your SEO strategy.
You can also check the number of results and what sites come up for your keywords. It will give you an idea about the competition and the difficulty of ranking for that keyword.
5. Check Keyword Volumes
If you want to go a step further with your keyword research, use keyword research tools, some of which are available for free.
These tools will show you how many searches a particular keyword gets and the level of competition. Some may also suggest related keywords.
If you have a limited budget for SEO or simply want to focus on the best-performing keywords, this type of data can help.
6. Focus on the User Experience
The days when marketers could stuff their content with keywords are long gone. Today, Google will penalize a website that adds too many keywords to its pages.
When choosing keywords, always keep your audience in mind. Keywords that read naturally and are easy to integrate into your content are the best.
Compare for example “treatment laser whitening” with “laser whitening treatment”. Even if we assume the first keyword has more searches, the second is so much more natural and easier to use.
Choosing the Right Dental Keywords – Summary
At the end of the day, keywords are only pointers guiding searchers in the right direction. Search engines are smart enough to figure out keyword variations, so focus on keywords that are natural and easy to read. Prospective customers will like you more for it.
- List Keyword Phrases
- Create Subcategories
- Add Your Location
- Identify Long-Tail Keywords
- Research Keywords
- Check Keyword Volumes
- Focus on User Experience
