Do you want more dental patients? Investing in search engine optimization (SEO) and digital marketing can make a world of difference and help you get them! Like compound interest, gains can be exponential.
The keys to successful SEO for dentists are consistency, creativity, and patience. If you stick to a plan and pay attention to keyword blogging, Google My Business, web design, backlinking, and online reviews, you are guaranteed to improve your pool of prospective patients.
If you’re unsure about any of the jargon associated with SEO, don’t worry. We’ve explained all the key concepts that dentists need to know in order to create a successful digital marketing campaign that will attract patients. Good SEO companies will use these strategies. Keep reading this complete guide to dental seo to learn more.
Before We Start, Let’s Establish Some Definitions
On-Site and Off-Site SEO
There are two main types of online marketing techniques: on-site and off-site SEO. On-site SEO refers to things that can be done on your website, while off-site SEO involves the actions of other websites.
On-site SEO includes optimizing your website for search engines through techniques like internal linking, metadata maintenance, and blogging. Off-site SEO involves promoting your website through activities like guest posting, article syndication, and backlinking.
SERPs
SERPs are the lists of results that search engines return when someone types in a query. The goal of all SEO efforts is to get as close to the top of the SERPs as possible.
Keywords
Keywords are the words and phrases that people type into search engines. They help to establish what the person is looking for, or the intent of their search. Popular keywords for dentists include:
Dentist in [insert area]
Benefits of dental care
Can a dentist help with pain?
Teeth whitening
Dental practices near me
SEO for Dentists: Building an SEO-Friendly Website
A website is essential for any online marketing campaign. It provides a place to promote and link to your products or services. However, it’s important to consider what your website says, how many pages it has, and how it balances user experience with search engine rankings.
Must Be Responsive
An SEO-friendly website must be responsive, meaning it must look good on any size screen, from a small phone to a large wall tv screen.
Home and Landing Pages
At a minimum, dentists should have five core pages on their websites.
Homepage
About page
Services page
Blog homepage
Contact page
It’s crucial to have a separate landing page for each service, with at least 500 words (though 1,000 or 2,000 is even better). For example, if you offer dental cleaning, teeth-whitening, cosmetic, and dental implant services, make sure you have a landing page for each one.
In our experience, dental websites with over 20 pages and weekly blog posts perform the best.
Custom Design and WordPress Development
Custom WordPress websites are ideal since the platform is well-supported and easy to use. By using WordPress, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. And, after a bit of instruction, most people can publish blog posts without help.
Building a website on WordPress has increased security advantages. WordPress is a popular platform that is constantly updated to keep users safe from cyber attacks. There are also several trusted security plugins available.
Every dentist should claim their business on search engines, industry websites, and map directories when launching an online marketing campaign.
Claim Your Search Engine Business Accounts
Google My Business is the first account you should set up for your business. Google is the most-used search engine in the United States, processing an estimated 5.6 billion searches a day. By claiming your territory on the platform, you can ensure that your business is visible to potential customers.
There are many benefits to optimizing your website for local search, including appearing higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords.
Remember, though, that while Google may be the biggest game in town, it’s not the only one. So claim your business accounts on other platforms like Bing and Yahoo!
Get Yourself on Directories
There are thousands of online directories, but not all of them are legitimate or helpful. Sign up for the ones that are relevant to your industry and will actually be beneficial for you.
You can use Yext and Synup to find good medical and dental directories, but both programs cost money to access fully. Harris & Ward is a professional online marketing team that maintains memberships with such services.
SEO for Dentists: Content Wins
Content creation is essential for any SEO campaign. The more articles, landing pages, and digital media you produce and publish, the more online visibility you will gain. This in turn will attract more links and traffic.
Service and Landing Pages
Your website should have a main landing page (homepage), a contact page, blog, and specific landing pages for each service offered. Each service page should be at least 500 words, but more is better, and well written.
Develop a Blogging Strategy
Blogging can help improve your website’s SEO. Fresh, weekly content is pleasing to search engine bots, and the more content you have, the more questions and issues you can address. In most cases, websites with more content tend to do better in search engine results, providing more opportunities to build your online presence.
Developing a blogging strategy can help you write relevant posts and publish them regularly. Most businesses with effective blogs use content calendars. Using one can help you save time.
As long as your writing relates to dental care or your practice, you should be fine. It can also be helpful to pick topics that conform to potential clients’ search intent. However, be sure to optimize your writing for conversions, or you’ll miss out on an opportunity.
When blogging, you should never:
Blog about religion or politics topics
Blog too often about terms unrelated to dental care
Write about your patients without gaining their permission
Badmouth other dentists or treatment methods
If you want to write your own dental blog posts, make sure you know how to use keywords and other SEO techniques like metadata, title tags, h1-h2 tags, and alt image text.
Article Syndication
Article syndication can help you get backlinks and name recognition, but be careful – if it’s not done correctly, it can harm your SERP ranking.
This is a process of publishing articles written by someone else under your name. Getting your name and practice out there online is great, but be careful of which websites you publish on. Algorithms may penalize you for duplicate content if not done correctly, which could negatively impact your ranking.
Guest Posts
Posting articles on your blog and guest posting on other blogs has three core benefits:
Expands your digital marketing footprint
Gives you brand name exposure
Provides quality backlinks to your businesses website
Working with a professional online marketing team that has already established a network of publications is the easiest way to secure guest posts. If you’re doing it alone, a good place to start is with affiliated professional organizations. For example, ask if your dentist’s association or local Chamber of Commerce has a publication that accepts articles from members. Also, dentists who aren’t competing for the same patients will sometimes collaborate on guest posting projects.
SEO for Dentists: Links Matter
To secure top spots on SERPs for desired keywords, you need to build a link portfolio. Without one, it is nearly impossible to land those coveted spots. So the question becomes: what types of links do you need to cultivate?
Foundational Backlinks
The value of a website’s backlinks depends on the website’s reputation. The more respected and established a website is, the more valuable its backlinks are.
Websites with .edu and .gov top-level domain suffixes offer the most valuable links. Links If you can get backlinks from established websites like Wikipedia and .org sites, do it! The same goes for .com backlinks from top industry sites.
Strategic internal links are a great way to link to other pages on your website. For example, this is an internal link to our blog post about the advantages of using WordPress. They are easy to implement and help both users and algorithm bots.
Backlinks and Mentions
Foundational backlinks come from websites with low authority, but they can provide a lot of “link juice” if you have enough of them. Guest post backlinks from high-authority websites are much more effective and can help improve your rankings quickly if done correctly. Mentioning your website on a local newspaper’s website is another good way to boost your local SEO.
Social media is essential for businesses today. Many people in their 20s and 30s rarely use search engines, instead relying on social media to find products and services. Therefore, it is important to have active accounts on multiple platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
In terms of social media content, every week you should:
Post links to any new blog entries and guest blog spots
Post links to evergreen landing pages
Highlight industry news
Comment on accounts that potential patients may also follow
Avoid controversial topics on social media, as you would when blogging. You want to attract clients, not drive them away.
Dentist SEO: Tools You Can Use
If you want to super-charge your SEO efforts like the pros, you’ll need a couple of tools.
Yoast: The Apple of WordPress SEO plugins, the free version of Yoast is fine for beginners, but if you want to unlock the plugin’s potential, you should upgrade to the premium version.
SEMrush and Ahrefs: The two leading standalone SEO platforms are SEMrush and Ahrefs. They both have dynamic keyword and backlink features that give account holders an edge.
SEO for Dentists: Good Reviews
Google, Facebook, and Yelp reviews can be very effective. For the best results, it is most important to establish a consistent flow of Google reviews. Positive Yelp posts can also be very helpful, and adding Facebook mentions often does the trick.
Paying for reviews can be considered unfair and deceptive marketing, which is punishable by the Federal Trade Commission. It may be better to hire a professional marketer to get testimonials and reviews.
Do not use a cookie-cutter dental digital marketing company. Your investment will be cannibalized if you do because the content and designs will be the same as your competitors.
To stand out, you need to cover similar topics and themes as other dentists, but in a way that is fresh and new. Algorithms and people are both drawn to what is new and different, so if you can find a way to stand out, you will be more successful.
Connect with a Digital Marketer
Harris & Ward is a digital marketing team that can help you attract more clients. We have a track record for helping dentists rank highly on search engines, so you can be sure we know what we’re doing. If you’re ready to get more clients, contact us and we’ll get started.
We tailor our online marketing and promotional services to each individual client, ensuring that they stand out from the competition. We don’t use generic templates – every client is unique to us. Follow us on social media and check out our blog for more tips on seo for dentists.
Search Engine Optimization Services to Grow Your Dental Practice.
Online optimization gives every business a better chance to succeed.
If you own a dental practice, you might not have considered how your online presence affects the way your business runs. After all, you offer a service that’s absolutely fundamental to living in our part of the world.
However, it’s still cutthroat out there and other practices are always competing to get patients in their doors. That’s why you need to do your best to show those potential customers that you exist and that your practice is the best choice. At the end of the day, you are operating a business and you need customers to stay alive. Business SEO services will help you do this.
The Benefits of SEO for Orthodontists and Dentists
Using organic SEO will simply bring more awareness to the existence of your dental practice. Sure, you could run a perfectly successful one based on word of mouth and reputation, but you wouldn’t be giving yourself the best chance to succeed.
But how many dental practices have the time of day to focus on digital marketing? Chances are, you won’t have a marketing professional on your staff and you’d be remiss to do it yourself or have one of your office workers give it a shot.
Hiring an SEO expert takes away the agonizing work of optimizing your website yourself. Here’s what you can expect from these valuable services.
1. Focus on Local Search
Search engine optimization as we knew it was primarily focused on keywords and website performance to determine which sites were appropriate to display on a SERP for a given search term. Now, with local SEO for Orthodontists and Dentists, it’s taken a step or two farther.
Local SEO appeals to searches with local intent. So, if you’re someone looking for a dental practice in Fort Worth; when you type in your search terms, Google will take into account your location and display practices nearest you.
As a business that operates in a static location, local SEO has to be a main focus.
2. Your Website Structure
The structure and speed of your website are some of the more important facets in appealing to Google’s algorithms. A slow and poorly laid out site is going to fall in the search rankings.
It should be easy for customers to navigate your website and find what they’re looking for within a few clicks. Categories and subcategories featuring relevant information are a must. For a dental practice, the site should be simple with only a few landing pages (about me, contact, testimonials, blog, etc.).
When you fill your landing pages with large images and unnecessary widgets, you’ll slow them down considerably. 40% of people will abandon a website if a landing page takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
3. Google My Business
Filling out your Google My Business card will improve your local search standings. If you fill out all of your pertinent information, namely the business details, your address, and contact information, then all of that will appear on Google and in maps.
More and more local searches are being conducted through map applications, so appearing on them will increase your chances of being found by your potential customers.
4. Consistent Citations
Filling out your NAP (name, address, phone number) on multiple listing sites will improve your visibility as well, but only if you fill out identical information on every platform. Inconsistent citations, which includes any online press about your practice, will lead to confusion for your customers and Google will burn you for it.
When we say consistent, we mean it. If you write “7th Street” on one listing and “Seventh St.” on another, that’s considered inconsistent. Every minute detail has to be the same. To that end, we are proud to offer automatic citation submission services to our SEO clients . Utilizing the power of Yext, we will do the heavy lifting of listing management for you so you can focus on doing what you enjoy most—caring for your patients!
5. Mobile Search 52% of global internet traffic is through mobile devices. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile search and mobile viewing, then you’re letting a big piece of the market pass you by. Any SEO service will be aware of this fact and advise you to build a mobile-friendly site.
6. Customer Reviews
Your dental practice should take customer reviews very seriously for obvious reasons, but also acknowledge that reviews have a big effect on your SEO. A practice that has thousands of great reviews published through various listings sites is going to rank higher than one with a few hundred good reviews.
Always encourage your customers to leave you a rating and review on the listings site of their choice. You should also promote your best ones on social media and through a testimonials page on your site.
7. Blogging
Content creation on your dental practice website is a huge part of SEO. You can use your blog to give your audience interesting and informative articles on all things dentistry, but also to toss in relevant keywords and phrases to appeal to search. Link building for dentists provides a boost in domain authority.
Offering up dental guides and how-tos will establish you as an authority in your field. Don’t overstuff your posts with keywords; the information and writing should always come first. A good blog can allow your practice to transcend your local area and give you clicks from all over.
8. Social Media
You may not like it, but people’s awareness of you is heavily predicated on your social media presence. People use Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to find almost everything these days, including their new dentist.
Simply being on these platforms won’t do it though. Formulating a content and posting strategy with your digital marketing campaign will get you more followers and create more awareness around your brand. When you’ve got a great social media presence, your Google rankings will increase.
DENTAL SEO IS THE WAY TO GO
Being a dentist doesn’t mean that you can’t bolster your business online like everyone else. Great business SEO services will take all of these methods into account and help you make the most out of your online presence.
With a defined SEO strategy and well-executed implementation, you can see an increase in your search rankings, an increase of organic traffic to your site, and ultimately begin growing your practice and revenue. We specialize in SEO for Orthodontists and Dentists.
LET US HELP YOU WITH YOUR BUSINESS SEO SERVICES
At Harris & Ward, our motto is all about helping you connect with your audience, no matter the field you’re in. Visit our page today to look at the different services that we offer and choose the one that’s right for you and the future of your dental practice.
For more dental marketing ideas, check out our blog.
Healthcare marketing is a nuanced and competitive space. We’re currently at the crossroads of escalated consolidation and private practice stabilization. As Digital Marketers, this puts us in a challenging place because dentists are choosing to join a corporate entity (DSO) or claim their local territory by same-store growth, expansion, or partnering with other practices. To patients, however, this may all look the same to them. Choosing the best dental marketing company is a important first step.
Should I be doing SEO or PPC?
The short answer is both. It’s important to know where to start though. Prioritizing your local presence starts with a high powered SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plan. Marketing budgets aren’t endless so we at Harris & Ward believe in building a strong foundation and that seo for dentists is a top priority. Once your dental website is optimized for user experience (UX) and personalized to your business, your marketing strategy should focus on Google’s organic ranking factors and local seo. Below, we’ve compiled some interesting data related to SEO and PPC from wonderful, credible, third party sources.
ORGANIC SEARCH STATISTICS
Google processes approximately 70,000 search queries every second.
53% of website traffic comes from organic search.
Almost a third of consumers search for local businesses on a daily basis.
Over 99% of all searchers click on one of the links in the first SERP.
Organic search drives over ten times more website traffic than organic social media.
The first result on a Google SERP has a 28.5% click-through rate. By the time you get to the 10th result, the CTR has fallen to 2.5%.
95.88% of Google searches are four words or more.
Google owns 96% of all mobile searches and 92% of all desktop searches.
PAID SEARCH STATISTICS
27% of website traffic comes from paid search.
In 2020, Google’s ad revenue amounted to $146.92 billion US dollars.
Advertising accounts for about 81% of Google’s total revenue.
Advertisers are predicted to spend $99.22 billion on search annually by 2024.
People encounter approximately 6,000 to 10,000 ads every day, on average.
The Google Display Network reaches over 90% of internet users.
Google Ads display network consists of over 650,000 apps.
Average cost per click (CPC) is a simple measure of how much an advertiser is paying each time a user clicks one of their ads. Many factors, including your industry and the competition level of the keywords you’re bidding on, can affect your CPC. You can learn how cost per click is determined in Google Ads specifically with this infographic.
Search Advertising Benchmarks
Average Cost Per Click The average cost-per-click for a search ads in 2022 is in the range of $2 to $4. As has been the pattern in years past, industries with the highest average cost per click include Attorneys & Legal Services, Dentists & Dental Services, and Home & Home Improvement at $6-8 per click. This is not surprising as click-through rates for these industries tend to run lower than others, which can drive up CPCs. These are competitive industries with higher marketing costs and longer decision cycles, but also a higher value placed on each individual conversion, since these services tend to be more expensive.
Average click-through rate for search ads by industry
Average click-through rate or CTR is an indicator of how relevant your ads are to the audience they’re reaching. Simply put, CTR is the ratio of ad clicks to ad impressions. A CTR of 1% means that 1 out of every 100 people who see your ad click it.
Dentists & Dental Services as a category has positives and negatives
Second highest Cost-Per-Click (CPC) – $7.10
Third lowest Click-Thru-Rate (CTR) – 5.03%
Third highest Conversion Rate – 13.33%
Google Ads for dentists is costly but effective
Organic Search offers the most trusted search results
52.5% of all search comes from the first three organic ranking spots.
Find the right Dental Marketing Agency.
Why Should You Take Our Word?
Here is an Orthodontic SEO Case Study
You can see what happened with this client’s orthodontics SEO after they decided to enroll in our Competitive SEO Plan. They came to us after spending five years with a company they met at American Association of Orthodontists (AAO) annual conference where they touted themselves as the best marketing dental practice company around.Small growth was being made but once we nailed down a specific, comprehensive SEO campaign run by an industry leading dental seo company, their traffic spiked from 25 to 165 visitors per month. Our team optimized their on-page SEO, web copy, and content, and we were excited to learn that their ranking keywords went from 50 to 595.These new ranking keywords were a big factor in boosting the client’s overall web traffic. And finally, after the many guest posts we created and published for the client, we increased their links from 10 to 37.That’s a 270% jump in backlinks!Check out the chart below: This Orthodontist has grown their dental practice by engaging in the 80:20 rule. Heavy emphasis on the search engine results page (SERP). Recognizing that page one of Google, including Google Maps should be the foundation of their marketing plan. They then supplement a structured set of target keywords through Google Ads.Google My Business (GMB), now known as Google Business Profile, is a crucial search engine optimization seo factor. People looking for “Teeth Whitening” or “Orthodontist Near Me” often get served listings from these profiles in the Map Pack of Google’s first page. It’s important to use all of Google’s tools to ensure you have the best chance to outrank your competition.
Takeaway
Individual SEO products can earn you more traffic or links, but in the long term, you need a comprehensive dental SEO strategy to jumpstart your site and maintain your gains. We work with dental offices across the country ensuring they have the top search engine results. Many of them had experienced some periods of mild growth before our fully managed SEO marketing program sent their metrics through the roof!Our experienced dental seo experts can take a look under your hood and find out exactly what your site needs to beat the competition.Would you like to learn more about H&W or how we can help your site?Book a call with an SEO expert and we can have a conversation about your goals.
With 199,486 dentists working in the dentistry field as of 2018, being competitive to attract more clients is a crucial responsibility of your dental practice. The average retirement age of dentists is increasing, which means more of your competition is sticking around longer.
1. Having a Weak Website
You need a dental website that looks visually pleasing and is functional. If the visuals are outdated, poor quality, or unappealing, potential clients may click away before they get past the first page. Making the website pretty only gets you so far if visitors can’t find the information they’re looking for.
A well-functioning website is one with easy navigation where patients can clearly find the info they want immediately. It also loads quickly and is secure.
Updating your website regularly also helps. If you haven’t changed anything in years, potential clients may wonder if your practice is reliable and current on other things, like dental techniques.
2. Not Understanding Your Target Audience
Who are your typical dental clients? Your marketing strategy should change depending on your target audience, whether you’re a pediatric dentist, orthodontist, or general dental practitioner. If you cater to low-income families, your marketing will look different than a cosmetic dentist targeting wealthier clients.
Fully understanding your target audience helps with your branding, which is the image you create through your graphics, wording, and all other portrayals of your business. Including your branding in your marketing to fit your audience makes it more effective. Your clients respond better to marketing when it appeals to them or addresses their pain points.
3. Missing Out on Social Media
Social media connects you with current and potential patients in ways you can’t achieve with a website alone. You interact directly with the people who follow your page, which builds a relationship that makes your dental practice different than the competition.
You can also use social media channels to have your loyal patients spread the word about your dental practice. Seeing engaged followers, likes on your post, and shares of what you post builds a positive image of your dental practice.
Social media also allows for stronger industry relationships and cross-promotional opportunities. If you specialize in pediatric dentistry, you might share information or a post made by a local orthodontist. Building those relationships and sharing referrals can help grow both businesses.
Trying to use all social media platforms takes too much effort and often isn’t effective. Choose social media platforms that match your target audience best to maximize your time. Master one or two platforms to avoid spreading yourself too thin.
4. Ignoring Local Search Potential
Your online presence is only effective if people can find you. Search engine optimization helps people find you through searches. SEO incorporates complex factors, including keyword usage, formatting, and quality of your content.
As a service provider, you want to attract local traffic. Massive web traffic doesn’t help grow your business if visitors aren’t local and won’t use your dental services.
Including local keywords and clearly incorporating contact information into your website helps Google figure out where you’re located. This allows you to show up when people search for local dentists.
5. Failing to Adapt Your Strategies
Dental marketing strategies change frequently. If you stick with the same dental and orthodontic marketing strategies, you’ll get left behind.
Incorporating several different marketing strategies helps broaden your appeal. Content marketing, such as blog with helpful dental information, can draw in more web traffic. Email marketing lets you communicate directly to current patients and prospects.
You don’t have to use every possible strategy, but being open to new options can make your marketing more effective. Working with a marketing company that specializes in helping dental practices can help you stay on top of the latest marketing techniques.
6. Not Managing Your Online Reputation
Word of mouth is changing from telling your neighbor about your experiences to blasting your opinions all over the internet. One unhappy patient can drag your dental practice’s online reputation through the mud. But online reviews also help SEO, which makes your dental practice easier to find.
Your online reputation can affect a potential patient’s decision on using your practice. Statistics show that 90% of people go online to look for reviews on businesses. Online reviews hold as much credibility as personal recommendations for 84% of consumers.
One or two negative reviews may not hurt your reputation too much, but be aware of repeated complaints and negative feedback. Monitoring your online reputation can alert you to issues you need to address in your practice.
Increasing the number of positive reviews you have can help overshadow one or two rogue negative reviewers. Providing the best customer service increases the chances of positive reviews. Don’t be afraid to ask satisfied patients to leave positive reviews for your practice.
If you decide to address negative reviews, keep in mind HIPAA regulations and patient privacy. You can’t reveal any personal information or anything related to the care received. You can post a general response acknowledging the situation, but word it carefully and avoid an emotional response or an escalated argument with the unhappy reviewer.
7. Ignoring Data
Trying all the latest trends in dental marketing doesn’t help your business if you don’t analyze its effectiveness. Not every strategy works the same for every dental practice. Simply using various strategies doesn’t mean you’re implementing them effectively.
Google Analytics helps you see your web traffic to see if your marketing campaigns are working. Looking at the sources of traffic and which pages on your site visitors use can help you focus on the most effective practices and improve those that aren’t as effective.
Effective Dental Marketing
Effective marketing makes your practice more visible with potential clients. When done well, it establishes you as a local expert in the dental field.
But simple marketing mistakes can turn away potential clients or make your practice difficult for prospects to find. Since your area of expertise is dentistry, you may not even realize you’re making common mistakes.
Improve your Digital Marketing Strategy Today
Strong dental marketing keeps your practice competitive and helps you attract new patients. Plan a well-rounded marketing strategy to reach prospects via different avenues. If you’re ready to improve your dental marketing, explore our services for more details of what we offer.
Drive Leads with Paid Search
Digital advertising, such as PPC, can be an excellent way to help your business stand out in a crowded marketplace. Contact us today to discuss how PPC can help small businesses like yours!
A poorly designed website can lead to a negative user experience in which the user clicks off your page. Not only might they go to your competitors, but these potential customers now have a negative impression of your company.
So no matter how good your content is, you need to focus just as much on the elements of web design so your site is easy to use and is pleasing to the eye.
To help you, we’ve compiled the top 6 elements that every well-designed website should include. Keep reading to learn everything you need to know to create a website your customers will love.
1. Bold colors and images
Your color palette is a vital component of making sure your business materials are cohesive and on-brand.
Think about what primary and secondary colors you’d like to use on your website. Then, think about whether they represent your brand. You can use the principles of color psychology to help you.
You can also use what’s called a hero image on your main page. A hero image is located at the top of your main page and acts as an oversized banner.
The hero image should be high resolution, add value, and reflect your company’s unique selling point (USP). The hero image can also be a short video.
Since all of the images of your website should reflect your brand, it’s a good idea to take your own photos instead of relying on stock images.
2. Clean and Eye-catching Typography
While you may love that new elegant, handwritten font you found, this type of font isn’t the best option for use on your entire website.
Think about the title/logo fonts of social media sites like Instagram and Twitter. Not only is their font easy to read, but you’d recognize it as their brand even without the logo.
Good web design uses fonts that are easy to read, catch your viewer’s eye, and also help establish your brand identity.
Some best practices when choosing your font are:
Black or gray typography
Text larger than 16 pixels
Enough space between the lines
Fonts that are standard for the web
If you want to add a handwritten font to add a more personalized and friendly touch to your site, use it sparingly. Make sure it fits with your brand story and use it in places like captions or when emphasizing certain words.
3. Search Bar
You might think that a search bar isn’t necessary if your menus are well-organized, but it’s a vital part of good web design.
While a potential customer may not need the search bar if they have no problems finding your contact information, they might need it when looking for a specific product, blog post, or any older information.
You also want to reduce the number of clicks that users need to make to get the information they’re looking for. This reduces the chances that they’ll click off your website and go to a competitor’s website instead.
The best design for a search bar is that it’s easy to use and find on the page without interfering with your content. You can add a magnifying glass icon to make the search bar even easier to find.
4. Mobile-Friendly
Over 2 billion people use their smartphones to access the Internet, and this number is only expected to grow.
So if your website looks bad on mobile, is difficult to navigate, or doesn’t load at all, you can expect that your viewers will click off the page and go to your competitors instead.
Since creating a mobile-friendly website is very difficult if you’re not a web developer, you’ll want to get a web design SEO agency to help you.
Don’t forget to test site speed both on mobile and desktop, as a slow website will only make users click off the page and be unlikely to return.
5. Powerful Calls to Action
If you don’t have a call to action, you’re missing out on sales and making it difficult for website visitors to contact you.
A call to action (CTA) is text that prompts your website viewer, customer or lead to take action. A few examples of common CTAs include:
Buy now!
Subscribe to our newsletter for 15% off
Learn more
Contact us
To create the right CTA for your website, first determine the purpose of your site. Then, create an easy-to-see action button that would make sense for your website.
For example, if you’re an e-commerce store, include a button for customers to sign up to your email list. If you’re a local mechanic, an essential CTA is a “contact me now” button.
6. Simple and Intuitive Navigation
Your website visitors shouldn’t have to click all around to find what they’re looking for, nor should they be confused when using your website.
One way to make your website navigation simple is to use minimal navigation menus. You also want to use a drop-down menu at the top of your website to reduce visual clutter.
The must-haves for navigation include:
Showing users where they are on your site
A “home” button
Directions or prompts, if needed
The best good website design examples are ones that let the user find what they are looking for without help.
If you’re not sure how usable your website is, think about conducting a usability test to see how users are navigating your website in real-time.
Include These Vital Elements of Web Design
Effective and clear web design not only makes it easy for users to navigate your site but builds trust by creating a positive impression of your brand.
Whether you have a website already or are looking to build one, include these important elements of web design to create a beautiful site that users will love.
Still have questions? Harris & Ward can help. Our skilled team of digital creatives specializes in seamless web design that facilitates growth for your brand and business.
Ready to create an eye-catching and easy-to-navigate website? Contact us today to get started.
Do you want to rank #1 on Google? It takes a carefully curated approach to SEO, content, products, marketing, and videos.
More than that, though, it takes a fierce sense of competition. You’ll need to understand what your competitors do, and then do it better. One way to do that is by leveraging videography services to create top-notch SEO content.
The world of content is changing these days. Once, blogs were king. Now, everyone wants entertaining, informative video content. After all, TikTok’s success didn’t occur in a bubble.
To get the scoop on how videography services will help boost your SEO rankings, keep reading! We’ve assembled a guide to the benefits of video SEO, and how you can leverage it to outrank your competitors.
Leverage Keywords
People search for content using keywords. These keywords are unique to their needs, wants, desires, and communication styles.
It’s important that you can map out the user journey, from keyword search to purchasing from your eCommerce site. This starts with keyword research.
This research may be time-consuming, but it’s necessary for effective video SEO optimization. These keywords will dictate your video script, the closed captioning, hashtags, video descriptions, and the social media copy you use to promote the completed video.
It will also control your video file name, video tags, titles, and so much more. When you know your keywords, you can use them at each point of your video’s journey from start to finish.
These keywords will help shove your video to the top of Google rankings. You know what your potential customers are searching for, and the keywords you use match their search terms.
This indicates to Google that you provide value to potential customers, and is able to match the search to results accurately. Sometimes, it may feel like Google is working against you. It’s not—instead, it’s working on behalf of the customer, which is what you should be doing, too.
Include A Transcript
What is your experience as a consumer, with closed captioning? No one speaks the English language perfectly. Everyone has nuanced speech, accents, mannerisms, and unique quirks of speech.
This is worsened by the fact that microphones don’t always pick up speech perfectly. All of this can translate to a ridiculous closed captioning experience.
When someone is matching the captions with the words actually said, the content could be quite different! That’s why it’s crucial for you to invest in video transcription.
This allows HOH people and members of the Deaf community to participate in consuming your content without accessibility barriers. In fact, Google has stepped up to the plate and started prioritizing accessibility.
Here’s how it works. When companies put in the extra effort to invest in high-quality videography services that prioritize accessibility, Google notices. Accessibility means more people can access and gain value from your content.
More people means more traffic and more value. Google prioritizes search results that deliver more value, and this will spike your numbers.
Accessibility is the right thing to do, in order to reduce barriers of entry for your potential customers. But when you’re looking to outrank your competitors on Google, focusing on accessibility and transcription can make all the difference.
What’s the Load Time?
For efficient video SEO, your content needs to load quickly. Here’s the thing—experts have told us that we are living in the goldfish generation. This means that people have the average attention span of a goldfish.
The most popular content on the Internet caters to this. It’s why viral videos are short clips, why there’s a time limit on TikTok reels, and why everything moves at such a rapid, overwhelming pace.
Attention spans are short, which means that companies need to either get to the point or get out. Research shows that if your video takes more than 3 seconds to load, a significant percentage of people will exit out and look for something else.
You’re not the only one delivering your product or service. Plenty of other people are doing it, too. While your angle is unique enough to deserve a customer’s attention, they don’t know that yet.
As a business, you need to leverage your video SEO to earn their trust. The best way to do that starts by respecting their time and their attention span.
Social Media Promotion
When engaging with top-notch video SEO services, you’ll receive a great end product. You should be proud of this representation of your brand—which means you should promote it on social media!
All of your videos should be published on your social media channels. There are two crucial reasons for this. To start with, there’s no reason to turn down publicity.
No one is refreshing your site every five minutes to see if your brand has published a new video. But when you promote it on the company’s Twitter channel, for instance, people will get notified.
With any luck, they’ll click on it, take a look, and engage with it. That’s the type of publicity that no brand will turn down.
It’s also important for backlinking purposes. As Google crawls through content and indexes it, it’s looking for backlinks.
When you publish a new video on your brand website, that’s where the video lives. That’s where the link is located. But when Google notices that Facebook and Twitter backlinked to it, the algorithm perks up and takes a closer look.
After all, backlinking indicates greater value. Greater value means content deserves a higher Google ranking, which can help you sail to the #1 spot.
Engaging with Videography Services
Whether you’re trying to boost your YouTube video SEO or looking for top-notch website brand videos, our videography services have you covered. Our knowledge and expertise can help your brand rise through Google’s rankings and attract attention.
If you need top-notch creative digital marketing services, we’ve got you covered. Contact us today to see how we can help!
