SEO for doctors

One of the most important criteria for the Google ranking of a website is the existing content, i.e. primarily the textual content. A practice website that boasts many beautiful images but contains very little meaningful text will have a hard time with Google. It is important to know that texts stored in images cannot be read by search engines - so there must be "real" text on the website.

What is important for the text?
The texts on your practice website should initially be unique and only be found on your practice website. Duplicates, i.e. texts copied together from other homepages, are not only critical from a legal point of view, but in the worst case they are recognised as duplicates by Google (so-called duplicate content) and devalued.

The texts should be as relevant as possible and represent a benefit for your target group. For example, if you want to attract patients for an MRI scan, your website should also be primarily about MRI scans. Ask yourself what information is really of interest to your target group (What questions are frequently asked by patients? What characterises your practice?) and add this information to your website.

Your texts should also contain keywords that you want to be found via and that define the thematic focus of your website. However, these keywords should not be added at every conceivable opportunity just so that the keyword appears as often as possible. Instead, the content of the texts should be meaningful, coherent and easy to read, but with a comprehensible reference to the keyword.

Tips for good SEO texts

• Include keywords in as many text sections as possible
• Use keywords in headings if they make sense there
• Also use synonyms for keywords within a text
• Avoid keyword deserts and unreadable texts that only consist of 10% keywords
• Grammatical filler words are not a disadvantage (e.g. in the sentence "We are your dental practice in Munich"

Which search terms are frequently searched for on Google?
The Google Ads keyword planner can help you here, which you can find at https://adwords.google.de/KeywordPlanner reach. Here you can enter any search terms and analyse how often these terms are searched for (in which region).

For a good Google ranking, it is generally not enough to equip the website with optimised text once and then never touch the content again. The reason: your competitors are probably "not sleeping" and will also ask themselves what else could be done to improve their ranking.

This means that your current good Google ranking may not be quite as good in just a few weeks because your competitor(s) has/have published more and better content. Google rankings change daily because the framework conditions are also constantly changing. However, we know from our own experience that once you have made it to the top with really relevant content, you will usually stay there for a long time.

Nevertheless, you should not rest on your laurels. Regularly scrutinise your rankings and evaluate how they change over time. There are various free tools on the Internet that allow you to analyse your rankings, for example Ranking Spy.

Important: It is not enough to search Google yourself to find out where your own practice website is located. Depending on your browser settings, Google already knows your personal search behaviour and will show you different results than a "neutral" user. For example, if you regularly visit your website yourself, it will be favoured in the search results. This is of course completely different for a potential new patient.

If you notice a negative trend as part of your ranking monitoring, you can take timely countermeasures and, for example, update, expand or simply optimise your content.

Where does Google get the texts that are displayed in the search results (the so-called SERPs = Search Engine Result Pages) for your practice homepage? From various details that you can enter yourself - either via the content management system or directly in the source code. The "page title" and the "meta description" are taken into account. The page title is used by Google as the headline and the text in the meta description as the information text (see illustration).

You can (and should) enter this information for each individual page of your practice website and fill it with individual text that matches the page.

Observe the maximum number of characters
It is also important to pay attention to the amount of characters available so that the information is not cut off. There is also a free tool for this that helps you to prepare suitable meta information - the SERP Snippet Generator from Sistrix.

External links

Basically, it can be said that the more often your practice website is linked to other websites (= external links), the better it is for your Google ranking.

Not all links are the same:
You should never take advantage of offers on the Internet that promise, for example, 1,000 backlinks for 49 euros. On the one hand, such promotions are now ineffective, as Google takes into account the value of the "linking" website - and this is usually not particularly high for these sites. On the other hand, Google registers very quickly whether the increase in backlinks remains within a realistic framework or suddenly increases by leaps and bounds. The latter can lead to a penalty from Google.

Instead, make sure that your practice homepage is linked to from high-quality websites (e.g. review portals, advice websites for patients, the website of the regional daily newspaper, etc.) that are related to your services and your target group. In our experience, links from institutions such as universities or authorities are particularly valuable. For example, if you co-operate with a university (teaching practice, etc.), a link on the university's website can be worth its weight in gold.

Internal links

Internal links, i.e. links within your website, are also important, as they define and emphasise the content focus of your website (if they are placed wisely).

For example, if you present a certain service on one page (e.g. bleaching) and other pages also deal with this service (e.g. a blog article on the topic "10 tips for bright teeth" or a guide page "Frequently asked questions about teeth whitening"), it makes sense to link these pages to each other - e.g. under the headline "You might also be interested in this".

This also ensures that visitors stay longer on your website and are encouraged to find out more about a topic. The longer visitors stay on your website, the better it is for your ranking.

Make sure that the addresses of your practice homepage (the so-called URLs) are as comprehensible as possible and not too convoluted. The addresses should also contain relevant keywords if possible.

Bad example: www.zahnarztpraxis-mustermann.de/leistungen-neu/dent/12455.aspx

A good example: www.zahnarztpraxis-mustermann.de/bleaching-koeln/

Make sure that visitors stay on your website for as long as possible. For Google, this is a signal that your website contains relevant content and is therefore worth staying on it for longer.

You can achieve this in various ways, e.g. as follows:

• Integration of video clips that can be viewed directly on the website
• Integration of an online appointment that takes place on your website (without forwarding to the respective provider)
• Add frequently asked questions / answers
• Integrate texts or infographics worth reading

Simply ask yourself: What would encourage me to spend more time on a website? Simply observe your own behaviour and check when you like to spend more time on a particular website.

Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) are sponsored search results on Google and are labelled "Ad" in the list of search results. For many doctors, dentists and clinics, they are now part of the standard equipment of their practice marketing.

Regardless of how well the practice website is positioned on Google, AdWords adverts can be used to achieve top rankings in Google search results virtually overnight. This is particularly interesting for new practices with a new practice website, as it can sometimes take weeks or months for a new practice website to "naturally" reach the top positions on Google. In addition, the target group for AdWords adverts can be defined very precisely. For example, if you only want people from Cologne who search for "implantologist" on Google to see your practice's advert, you can easily set this. The scatter loss of this marketing measure is therefore very low.

You can define the monthly costs yourself. For example, if you want to invest a maximum of EUR 300 per month in Google Ads, you can set this as a fixed amount (based on a daily budget). Google charges a certain amount per click on the advert and deducts this from the defined daily budget. How high this amount is depends on various settings, but usually ranges from 0.25 cents to several euros (for highly competitive keywords). However, you can also specify a limit here. If the daily budget is used up, the advert will not appear again until the following day and so on.

In the case of an existing website that does not achieve good rankings:

The first step here would be to clarify for which search terms the findability should be improved, what the local competitive situation is and what the status quo of the current practice homepage is (scope of content, technical implementation, current rankings).

In the best case scenario, your website is technically in order and developed with a CMS that is "favourable" for SEO (e.g. WordPress or Contao), but no attention was paid to Google requirements during implementation. In this case, major successes are often possible in a short time (3-6 months), especially if the competitive situation is manageable.

In the worst-case scenario, your current practice website is based on outdated technology, is not optimised for mobile devices and there are numerous competitors who have been investing in SEO for a long time. In such cases, you would first have to create the basis for better rankings by redeveloping the website and content. Quick successes are not to be expected here.

Irrespective of this, you will find real examples from practice in the exemplary ranking histories above, which show that you usually have to be prepared for a few months before major successes become apparent.

In the case of a completely new website with no previous history:

After your practice website goes live, it may take some time (weeks to months) before your practice website can be found on Google. It is therefore completely normal that you will not be able to find your website on Google just a few days after it goes live. How far your website will ultimately get to the top depends on countless factors. The rankings also change on a daily basis. However, the better your website is customised for Google from the outset (content, keywords, structure, links, etc.), the more likely you are to achieve good rankings. Created by us → Websites for doctors are always optimised for Google.

As with the previous question, this also depends heavily on the current circumstances.

If your website is technically in order and the competitive situation is manageable, it may be sufficient (at least temporarily) to optimise the content of the website once (i.e. to adapt the content and possibly structure it differently) in order to turn a 15th place ranking into a 3rd place ranking. However, it is difficult to give a lump sum for this, as each website really is a project in its own right. As a rule, we charge around EUR 800 to 1,200 for one-off optimisations.

If your website is technically in order and the competitive situation is difficult, a one-off optimisation is not enough. Most websites that play a major role in Google are characterised by continuous further development. This means that (meaningful, relevant) content is regularly added and the website is also kept technically up to date.

Competitors who invest in SEO usually also keep an eye on the competition (i.e. you) and use special SEO tools (either themselves or via agencies) to detect changes immediately and react quickly. It is therefore a competition that is never really over, as no Google ranking is set in stone.

So if you want to play a bigger role in Google in the long term, our collaboration would have to be planned for a longer period from the outset (although we do not bind any customers to fixed-term contracts). As a rule, we agree a monthly hourly quota with you in advance, which we can spend on ongoing SEO optimisation. We would have to determine how high this hourly quota should be in a preliminary discussion and a preliminary analysis.

In addition to the organic ranking on Google (i.e. the search results that come about due to the content of a website), there is also the possibility of gaining attention on Google virtually overnight with paid search results.

We are talking about Google Ads adverts here. These are labelled "Ad" in the search results and also stand out visually from the normal search results. Google Ads are a useful addition to SEO and can at least bridge the period until SEO measures take effect.

No agency in the world knows the Google algorithm (which is also constantly changing) down to the last detail. Just because a certain SEO measure has worked perfectly in two cases, the same SEO measure may be almost ineffective in a third case. Rankings also change daily because the conditions for Google also change daily. For example, if your competitor publishes new content on their website today, yesterday's ranking status is already outdated.

In this respect, it is not really possible to predict and guarantee a specific ranking - especially not in the long term. Unless you are targeting a keyword for which there are hardly any competitors (but then you wouldn't need an SEO agency either).

For example, if you are a dentist in Cologne and an agency promises to get you into the top 3 on Google within 4 weeks, you should ask for which keyword(s) the ranking is promised. Dubious agencies will then suggest keywords that nobody searches for and for which there is hardly any competition.

You can find out which keywords are really relevant for dentists or plastic surgeons, for example, in our blog posts → Google keywords for dentists and → Google keywords for plastic surgeons.

In short, we cannot guarantee any specific rankings. However, we guarantee that we will use our extensive SEO knowledge, acquired over many years, to bring you to the top of Google with the really relevant keywords and thus increase traffic and enquiries via your website. Of course, we also measure this and analyse ranking changes automatically (you will receive all this information from us in the form of monthly reports). We can prove that we understand our "craft" with various practical examples (some of which are listed above).

You need to give Google a reason why your website, of all things, should be found quickly. Google's aim is to offer its users (in your case, the patients) the content that matches the search query as quickly as possible.

So ask yourself what information your patients ask for most frequently or what concerns your patients. You can then, for example, use "Frequently asked questions" on the → Practice website publish. Or you can regularly report on interesting cases from your practice (anonymised, of course), which could also be of interest to other patients in order to draw conclusions for yourself. You could publish these cases in a news section (blog).

In principle, however, you should not "blindly" invest a lot of effort without at least having sought advice once.