SEO for Oral Surgeons: Best Practices
As any successful oral surgeon knows, a thriving practice requires new patients. While referrals may have been the bread and butter of patient acquisition in the past, more potential patients are finding specialized dental providers through online searches. Oral surgeons face a unique challenge, competing with other specialist practices and family dentists offering minor oral surgery services.
The solution? SEO for oral surgeons! A robust strategy puts you at the top of search results for critical keywords and attracts new patients to your practice. SEO (search engine optimization) is one of the most valuable components of an effective oral surgery marketing plan.
However, knowing that SEO is crucial and launching a strategy are two totally different things. Luckily, the marketing experts at My Social Practice are here to help. In this article, we’ll explain seven powerful strategies that work together to drastically expand your online presence and harness the power of SEO for oral surgeons.
Table of Contents
- Optimize Your Google Business Profile and Dominate Maps
- Perfect User Experience with Technical SEO
- Make Sure Your Website is Mobile-Optimized
- Create New Content Through Blogging
- Use Linking to Boost Your Rankings
- Use Social Media to Improve SEO for Oral Surgeons
- Optimize for Oral Surgery-Related Keywords
- We Can Help With SEO for Oral Surgeons!
- FAQ
1. Optimize Your Google Business Profile and Dominate Maps
Your Google Business Profile (or GBP) is a listing that represents your practice in Google search results and Maps. If you’ve ever searched for a local Japanese restaurant or checked Google for the closest Target, you’re probably familiar with these profiles.
An optimized Google Business Profile is much more likely to rank in the coveted top three spots on Google Maps and allows you to manage your reputation by collecting reviews. An up-to-date profile is vital for oral surgeons because savvy general dentists with effective SEO strategies can knock you down the list in oral surgery-related keyword results.
If you haven’t created a Google Business Profile, there’s a good chance you’ll find an automatically generated existing listing for your business. Claiming this listing allows you to manage the information and perform some fancy SEO work. If you don’t already have a listing, you can create one to get started.
Once you’re managing your profile, your next task is to run a Google Maps Ranking Report to learn where your practice ranks in search results. Armed with information about how where your website lands, you can get started on the fun part: optimizing!
Start by checking your GBP categories and ensuring your primary listing is Oral Surgeon. You can then add a secondary category from the following available options:
Resist the urge to add more than 2-3 categories; more than this can damage your Google rankings. We recommend watching this webinar to learn more about choosing categories.
Once these basics are complete, you can finish optimizing the rest of your profile by adding service details, photos and videos, keyword optimizing your description, and more. To learn the best GMB optimization tips to boost local SEO for oral surgeons, check out this webinar.
2. Perfect User Experience with Technical SEO
Even if your Google Business Profile is optimized to perfection, a slow website will kill your efforts. Technical SEO for oral surgeons is focused on website tasks that improve the user experience, especially speed.
Your oral surgery website should respond almost instantly to a user action. Pages should load quickly, images display correctly, and links immediately direct you to their respective pages. Websites that don’t prioritize technical SEO don’t just frustrate users; they will receive a penalty from Google. Slower websites are penalized and rank lower than their faster counterparts.
A technical SEO audit identifies which pages on your website are slow and why. An audit will make sure your website:
- Has no dead links
- Is crawlable for search engines
- Has a site map
- Loads quickly
- Is SSL/HTTPS secure
- Includes structured data
- Has a robots.txt file
- Does not include duplicate content
If fixing these issues feels out of your depth, consider seeking the help of professionals who understand website optimization and SEO for oral surgeons.
3. Make Sure Your Website is Mobile-Optimized
Did you know that over 50% of all search traffic comes from mobile devices? Even more critical for oral surgeons, local search results are more likely to appear in mobile searches, with Google Maps listings ranking higher on mobile devices than desktops. This means your potential patients are more likely to find you while searching on their phones, so a mobile-friendly website is essential.
Technical SEO considerations for mobile browsing include all of those for the regular version of your website but also include:
- A simple design
- Fast mobile loading speed
- Large fonts and buttons
- Compressed images
- No pop-ups
If your website doesn’t meet these criteria, we can help! We create websites for oral surgeons that check every box for desktop and mobile optimization.
4. Create New Content Through Blogging
Google loves to see original, authoritative, and helpful content published regularly; a blog is one of the best ways to do this. An active dental blog indicates to the algorithm that you continually improve your website and add value. Blog posts also allow you to build up links and optimize for high-value keywords to enhance your ranking in search engine results pages.
In short, blogging is one of the most valuable strategies for improving SEO for oral surgeons.
Despite this, we know that blogging can take time busy oral surgeons don’t have. Some websites try to get around this problem by posting duplicate content, but this practice is counterintuitive. Search engines can detect duplicate or spammy content and penalize websites for posting it.
If you lack the time or resources to write posts in-house, consider hiring a dental marketing company to write for you. These specialists have in-depth SEO knowledge for oral surgeons and deliver quality content designed to appeal to Google’s algorithm.
5. Use Linking to Boost Your Rankings
When it comes to linking, both inbound and outbound links are essential. Let’s break it down:
Inbound Links
An inbound link is created when another website publishes a link to your oral surgery website. This is like a vote of confidence telling Google, “We trust this site enough to put them in our own content!” When Google determines rankings, inbound links tell the algorithm that a website is reputable, especially if the linking websites are highly authoritative themselves.
We could say a lot about them, but here’s the TLDR. Inbound links:
- Come from external websites and point to your own website
- Act as “votes of trust/confidence” from those external sites
- Give you the biggest boost to SEO and improve your website’s authority and ranking
- Are tricky to get because you don’t control who posts them
- Should prioritize quality over quantity. Fewer links from reputable websites are more valuable than many links from low-quality sites.
- Can be created through a citation on directories like Healthgrades or WebMD
Outbound Links
An outbound link is created when you link from your content to an external website, sending a user off your site. Outbound links can benefit SEO if you link to high-quality, authoritative websites by helping Google create an association with your site. Ensure these links open in another window or tab to keep users on your page.
A Note About Internal Linking
Links on your website that go to other pages within your site are called internal links. These help Google properly index your website and understand relevant information. The goal of internal linking is to help web crawlers discover, crawl, and index pages on your website while directing authority to the most important pages.
6. Use Social Media to Improve SEO for Oral Surgeons
Sometimes, oral surgeons neglect social media because they don’t think a specialty practice needs to engage with an online audience to rank well in search results. We’re here to bust that myth: social media is directly tied to SEO performance!
Whether you’re on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, or LinkedIn, social media engagement shows Google that you are a reputable source of information and value for users. So, how do you get that engagement?
Bland, generic posts generally create the least engagement in the form of social signals (likes, shares, comments, etc). Quality content is creative or connects with audiences. It educates and entertains your audience. It often highlights what makes a practice unique by highlighting staff or discussing locally relevant topics.
An ineffective social media post offers no real value and draws no engagement:
Meanwhile, a great social media post might have an attention-grabbing image that showcases the personality of a practice. The caption invites interaction and gives users a reason to engage with the post:
You don’t have to spend hours crafting new and original social media ideas. Check out the latest trends on your favorite platform, record a silly video, and try out some tried-and-true social media ideas for oral surgeons or dentists.
7. Optimize for Oral Surgery-Related Keywords
A keyword is a phrase or word that describes the content of your website or web page and matches what people search for online. Keyword research is a crucial and ongoing component of SEO for oral surgeons, determining which terms have the most searches in your area and are the most competitive.
You can use a free keyword generator like this one from Ahrefs to conduct basic research. A dental marketing company can give you a more in-depth analysis of keywords, insight into competitor rankings, and a strategy to boost your own rankings.
While the most effective keywords vary by region, some are always high-value (and often highly competitive in direct proportion to that value). For oral surgery, you can expect your list to look similar to this:
- Oral surgeon near me
- Emergency oral surgeon near me
- [Your city/area] oral surgeon
- Best oral surgeon in [your city/area]
- Dental implants near me
Once you know which keywords your potential patients are searching, incorporate them into your website and content. Use keywords in the body of blog posts, in page titles and headings, and metadata on your website. Keywords should fit into your content naturally; too much blatant “keyword stuffing” can hurt your SEO!
We Help With SEO for Oral Surgeons!
If you’re looking for SEO tips, the amount of information and advice available online can feel like an avalanche. We understand that most people need help figuring out where to start.
My Social Practice helps dental professionals like oral surgeons streamline their marketing approach. We are experts in effective SEO strategies. Our goal is to help you be found and chosen!
We’re here to help. Contact us for a personalized, no-obligation oral surgery SEO analysis to get started.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I optimize my oral surgery website for SEO?
SEO for oral surgeons is a powerful tool that helps them rank higher on search engine results pages. Best practices include keyword research to pinpoint relevant keywords and then creating high-quality content using these keywords. You can also optimize your website speed, ensure it is mobile-friendly, implement a linking strategy, create citations, and optimize your Google Business Profile.
Why are backlinks important for dental SEO?
Whether you’re a dentist or an oral surgeon, backlinks are an important part of an effective dental marketing strategy. Backlinks drive organic traffic to your website, indicate a “vote of trust” for your website, and tell Google that your site is relevant for user searches. You don’t have much control over which websites link to yours, but creating citations on directory websites is a great way to build up your backlinks.
How can I improve my SEO reach?
There are a lot of things you can do to boost your rankings. Here are some quick tips to improve SEO for oral surgeons:
- Create compelling title tags and meta descriptions
- Optimize your Google Business Profile to rank on Maps
- Make sure your website is super fast
- Improve user experience on your site
- Strategically implement keywords in your content
- Build backlinks and incorporate internal links
- Publish quality content regularly
- Optimize for mobile devices
About the Author: Megan Nielsen is an SEO strategist and the Grand Overlord of copywriting at My Social Practice. My Social Practice is a dental marketing company that offers a full suite of dental marketing services to thousands of dental practices throughout the United States and Canada.
