However, I wanted to put another plug in for the blog because of its uncanny ability to breathe life into a website and  increase your search engine rankings almost immediately.

I don’t know if you have noticed but I have taken a sabbatical from this blog for a few weeks to work on some other projects and my traffic has really died down since I have stopped posting.  Google loves blogs and Google loves bloggers that keep up their blogs.

A website that is not being updated is the equivalent of a building on a main thoroughfare that is not being well kept.  It signals to Google and the others that the site is aging and thus the content on it may be out of date.  In fact, the entire dental practice could be defunct for all they know.  After all, they haven’t seen or heard anything from you in a while.  In most cases Google will decide to move your website off of that main thoroughfare (its search results for those following along at home) and replace it with something that is better kept.

Bottom line — to be a real dentist you have to go to graduate dental school.  But, if you want to watch your website rocket to the top of the search results pages – update it a couple of times a month at the minimum to let those search engines know you are still alive and kicking.

Make it informative

There are numerous reasons for making your blog informative, not the least of which is that you will want those that land on your blog to find it useful.  This will increase the chance that they will subscribe to your blog, bookmark it, or otherwise become regular readers.

Another, less obvious, reason for making your blog informative is that it will attract links.  Remember that links are the currency of the internet search engine.  Search engines count each link that comes to your site from another site as an editorial vote for your site.  When you create informative and useful content, you are more likely to garner links for your site.  This will increase your search rankings.

Use Wordpress

I could write an entire post about why you should use Wordpress and perhaps I will in the future.  However, I will cast a vote for Wordpress in this post due to the “search engine friendliness” of the platform.  You can install the All-in-One SEO Pack on your blog and manipulate all of the tags you will need to create search engine friendly blog posts.  Other useful plug-ins are the Google Analyticator, and XML Sitemap plug-ins. Wordpress is free and has an enormous community of support built around it.

Install the All-in-One SEO Pack

I wanted to mention this plug-in a second time in this post for emphasis.  The All-in-One SEO Pack gives you the ability to manipulate your title, meta-keywords, and meta-description tags in the blog post.  This is extremely important as the title tag is the most valuable piece of keyword real estate on your web pages and the meta-description tag are important for improving the click-through rate in the organic search results pages.

Read more about title tags and meta tags for dental websites here.

Interlink Your Posts

Directly above the heading for this section I linked to another blog post on this blog with the link anchor text “title and meta-tags for dental websites.”  I did that for two reasons.  For one, I think that you will find the linked-to blog post very informative when it comes to best practices for building your website in a search engine friendly manner.  The second was to lend “relevance” for that page on my blog for the keywords ‘title tags for dental websites’ and ‘meta tags for dental websites.’  By interlinking from my own blog using keywords as the anchor text I can help to boost the ranking of the linked-to web page for the keywords I used in the link anchor text.

Install the blog on the same domain as our website

If it is possible to do so, it is advisable to install the blog in a sub-directory of the root of your website rather than on a sub-domain of the website.  For example:

blog.dentalwebsite.com (Good)

-or-

dentalwebsite.com/blog (Better)

Why?  It boils down to links, as most things do in the search engine optimization world.  It is hotly debated that links to a sub-domain (First example) may not pass as much “link authority” to the root domain as they would if the incoming links were pointed at a sub-directory on the root domain (Second Example.)

Do Some Keyword Research

You cannot hit your target if you don’t know what you are aiming at.  You need to do some keyword research.  Follow the steps in this article concerning how to do good keyword research.  Once you have finalized a list of keywords you can begin creating blog posts around those keywords.  Don’t shoot for the moon right away, start out going after 3 and 4 word keyword phrases and move on from there.  A blog is an excellent way to create lots of keyword rich content for your dental website.

Plan Your Posts

Sit down at your computer and, instead of writing a blog post, plan your next five.  This will ensure that your topics are of higher quality.  Set up a schedule and research the topics before you post.  Save the posts as drafts in your blogging platform and return to them often to make updates and add information.  Post on a regular schedule so that your audience becomes familiar with the days that you will add fresh content to the blog.

Share the Link Love

If you are a regular reader of this blog you know that there is nothing more important than garnering links to your dental website to improve your web presence in the search engines.  With that in mind, be sure that you link out to other blogs and authorities in the dental community when you write your blog posts.

Search engine’s like to see that you are linking out to others.  <– That link is a prime example .  It proves you are referencing others in your content.  I should caution you, however, that when you link out to others you are, in effect, endorsing that web page.  Investigate the site to ensure that it is “link-worthy” before you go casting a vote for their content.

Secondly, when others notice that you are linking to them, they will come check out your content.  This may generate links for your website.

If you need help installing a blog or have questions you can leave a comment below or contact me in person here.

Blogs are a simple way to create content that is: fresh, keyword rich, and informative to your users. Let’s look at each of these aspects of blog content and discuss why each is beneficial to your website.

Fresh Content

The search engines have a very difficult job, they have to choose from billions of web pages to decide what is most relevant and trustworthy for a particular keyphrase.

The operative words being relevant and trustworthy. Among the land mines that search engines must dodge to give the searcher good results are Spam sites and outdated sites.

Spammers tend to operate hundreds of websites at a time in order to scale their operation in an effort to make money. Fresh content is an indicator that you are not a Spam site. Spammers generally do not have time to create fresh content for their sites.

Search engines also face disgruntled searchers if they are displaying outdated sites. For instance, if the result that is shown first for the term ‘tooth decay treatment’ is an outdated method which was put on the web in 2001, the searcher will become aggravated and confused. Thus, the search engines are in constant search for fresh content.

Fresh content reassures the search engine that you have a trustworthy site that is being updated regularly with the latest information available for their searchers.

Keyword Rich Content

If you are interested in ranking for the keyphrase ‘porcelain veneers in new york’ it is advisable to use that keyphrase in the content on your website. When you take the time to do keyword research for your dental website you will find that there are tens, if not hundreds of keyphrases that you would like to rank for in the search engines.

Blogging creates an avenue for creating content that is centered around these keywords. Create informative blog posts that incorporate the keywords that you are targetting. For instance one of the keywords that I am interested in ranking for is ‘dental practice blogging.’ Notice the title of this post incorporates those keywords. In similar fashion you can create a blog post on your site with the title ‘Porcelain Veneers Gain Popularity in New York.’

Informative Content

Understand that many times your potential dental patients will be looking for information before they are looking for an appointment. Establish yourself as an expert on subjects such as cosmetic dentistry, invisalign braces, etc to increase your odds of getting that business when the patient chooses to go ahead with the procedure.

Secondly, but just as important is creating content that is link worthy. Remember in the opening of this post that I discussed the importance of building links to your dental website. Blogging gives you the outlet to create content that others will link to and this will build the overall trust for your site and boost your rankings in the search engines.

If you have questions or want to discuss other aspects of blogging please leave me a comment or contact me directly here.