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The Dental SEO 101 podcast is your ultimate resource for optimizing your dental practice's online presence! The host, Ross Dunn, simplifies the complex world of digital marketing, offering strategies explicitly tailored for dentists.
Each episode covers essential topics such as the fundamentals of SEO, local SEO strategies, and tips for enhancing your website's visibility. Learn actionable techniques to attract more patients and boost your revenue while maintaining exceptional customer service.
Whether you're a seasoned practitioner or just starting out, Dental SEO 101 equips you with the tools to thrive in today’s digital landscape. Subscribe now to ensure your practice is set for long-term success, and take the first step toward a profitable future!
Hello and welcome to the Dental SEO 101 Podcast
Episode No. 3 by First Dentist
my name is Ross Dunn
and I'm the director of SEO and co-founder of First Dentist
let's jump right into some general SEO news
the Google August 2024 Core Update is now complete
it takes forever it seems
but it's finally done
it started on August 15th and completed on September 3rd
according to Google this update has caused a lot of ranking movements
within the search results
and it's based on what Google says anyway
to feedback it received after the March 2024 core update
which was I'm sure less than positive
John Mueller our main contact at Google has announced that quote
this latest update takes into account the feedback
we've heard from some creators and others over the past few months
as always we aim to connect people with a range of high quality sites
including small or independent sites that are creating useful
original content on relevant searches
this is an area we'll continue to address in future updates
the August 2024 Core Update aims to better capture improvements
that sites may have made
so we can continue to surface the best of the web unquote
now first
first dentist clients don't have to worry about this
because we don't take chances with our content we're
frankly we want to sleep at night
so we make sure that our clients are well looked after
the content we use the optimization tactics we use
are all above board and aren't going to get you in any hot water
now for those of you who are seeing fluctuations that are
perhaps making your nights a little more sleepless
as always don't take any specific actions
there's really nothing you can do to recover right now
a negative impact signal
may not signal anything's wrong with your site
it could be that it was it's mistake on Google's part
which most of us wish in those situations
could be that you did make some mistakes
but recovery is not likely to occur
occur until after another core update
so you have to keep that in mind
it's going to take some time
that said
get to work on creating satisfying content that's meant for people
it's really really important that you're writing for your patients
your prospects
they have to understand that you are a company
or a practice that really cares for them
and is trying to educate them
and a stale website
well it's difficult to do that
it could be that you've got a lot of great content
and scale isn't such a bad thing then
but we do recommend having regular updates of content
just keeping it a flow out
there could be even announcements about your latest
charity benefit or perhaps a staff outing
really just showing that there's life and love in your business
and for your business
okay Google
Search has added the internet archives
Wayback Machine links to a little link on the side of search results
called about this page
when you perform any search to the right of the URL that comes up
and there's gonna be a whole bunch of them
one of the URLs
you'll see an ellipsis or three vertical dots by clicking this
you will bring up the about this page panel
which shares data about the source
links to share and more now
or at least
you will soon be able to see a link included here that says
internet archives Wayback Machine result
Google's official statement is we know that many people
including those in the research community
value being able to see previous versions of web pages when available
that's why we've added links to the Internet Archives Wayback Machine
to our about this page feature
to give people quick context
and make this helpful information easily accessible through search
what does this mean for dentists
it's the same for any business really
whatever you had in your past is now a little more visible
to interested viewers this could be good news
it could be bad news it's really subjective
now if you do a search
it's pretty easy to find out how to request the removal
removal of your content from archive.org
which is the Wayback Machine
that's archive.org but even on the page
they offer no guarantees that they're going to acquiesce to
your request
but if you put it out there and say this is why we want this gone
if you're really concerned about something you
there is a chance you could have it removed and
and that may be a viable course of action if you need so
next up Google Search is testing new display forum content
I'll get to why this is important for you in a sec
but essentially and this is an article from Search Engine Land
for specific results
called top answers have been around for 10 years
and whenever we do searches
we see these top answers in the results
however this change is providing more information than before
the new look includes top comments and related content
as shown in a mockup that is on Search Engine Land
we do have a link to it in our our notes here
and pretty soon we're going to have a Show Notes newsletter for you
so you'll be able to click on that
but for now
if you want to go to Search Engine Land you can find it
it's literally the title we used
Google Search Testing New Display for forum content
now why does this matter well
even though Google says it's not only going to be servicing Reddit
they're going to be servicing a lot of different
platforms for of of our for platforms
Reddit is going to get a lot of exposure
and perhaps some of the other fors
where there's discussion about dental practices
which practice to choose experiences with different practices
all of that kind of thing and
and I personally believe Reddit's gonna be the most prominent one
because of Google's relationship with them
so my tip is that you ensure
that if there is any discussion about dental practices
that you're amidst them like you're
you're there to maybe answer questions really
professionally
to just even if they're not I
I should state this even if the patients aren't nearby
they could be in another country
they could be in another state far
far away if they're asking great questions
provide a great answer
and what it will show is that you are active and you're caring
and that this is again
something that
we'll provide a little bit more exposure for you
and it's a bit different
how form content could provide benefits to your rankings
and I say a bit different in that there are ways it can
and there are ways that may not
but either way it's such a good thing to do forum content
you know user generated content
which is essentially what forum content is
it's very powerful
sometimes a bit too powerful
if it's negative
so just you know get out there
when you think it's viable
be active there and it can be quite beneficial
especially if there's one area where
someone's talking about choosing a dentist
maybe they just arrived in a particular town
maybe your town or city and they're looking for a great dentist
that's an opportunity you don't wanna pass up
have a patient of yours if you've got a raving fan and say hey
you know this is happening
I noticed that you're a Reddit user or could you just ask
ask them are you a Reddit user or this forum user
if so would you mind putting a note in there
saying that you use us and you
you appreciate our service and
and you you don't plan on going anywhere else
that can lead to direct business
it's that simple it's
it's worked for many of my peers
we have oddly our own that seems to be working out there
we didn't put it out there but
someone kindly did and it's paying off in terms of leads
so keep it in mind
now this is a bit mind blowing
it's been discovered that there's a way to influence local rankings
with directions
in a way that my colleague and I were talking about the other day
we were just kind of mind blown by this
it just goes to show I'll get to you in a sec what I'm talking about
but it just goes to show that
black hat or people who are trying constantly to
for ways to find ways to manipulate Google will do just about anything
it's it's amazing and they test everything
they look for holes everywhere
it's astonishing anyway
there are companies now selling a service that will emulate
driving in your local area
and going to your location
or requesting directions to your location and then going there
just take that and just absorb that for a second
they're already at the point where they're providing a service
they're reaching out they're already doing marketing campaigns
and they're making money likely providing the service
and it's
wow anyway
another tip was to have your employees request
driving directions to your business
each day on their way to your office or their office
and why does this why is this even coming up
why would that matter well
apparently it's working
now
am I saying to use this no
I'm not
again
as I've mentioned earlier on
I like to do things above board
because I believe that's how you will stand the test of time
and you won't get affected
so negatively by these major updates from Google
but you know
some people are going to do this and it could be your competitor
it could be a friend of yours
competitor and they're doing something and it's just
it's totally misaligned the playing field
and it's sad when this happens
and I'd like to say that Google is going to fix this soon
but Google is
I just don't have words that are polite
they don't seem to care about local
fixing these local issues
there's so many ways to spam Google right now in local
and so many companies are taking advantage of it
and have been for years because Google hasn't done anything about it
so we're gonna see how this shakes out if this becomes a major issue
we're gonna have to push Google harder to make sure that they can
plug this hole cause it's mind blowingly
it's just mind blowing to me that it's even there
and that this could be done
cause manipulating Google signals is something that they hate
they they're once they're
they're completely against it and they usually plug the holes quickly
but not in local necessarily so
I've said my part my piece it if you try doing it
you know it you know now how you can do it
and you can now keep an eye out for why a
particular competitor might be doing better than you
I'll leave it at that
just do advise your SEO company if you do plan on doing it
and when you start so that you can keep track of it
and if anything goes wrong
you're not you better not blame them can tell you that
cause if they're above board like we are
it can be quite a nasty surprise
as we work really hard to make sure that our
our patient our our clients I should say are
are showing well and and gaining new patients
alright
next up Google Maps is showing business photos on review sentiments
this isn't shocking but I guess it's happening more often
I thought I swear I saw it before but anyways
Google is showing business submitted photos in Google Local and maps
above related user submitted reviews
this is a Search Engine Roundtable article and
really all the only takeaway here is that
if you aren't updating your business photos
it could be a detriment
you may end up with photos that really don't show what you offer
may show old staff maybe
could be a whole number of different things that could happen
that will show up prominently in a review
so we do recommend as always to keep your business photos updated
and if we're if we're nagging you
if you're a client of ours and we're nagging you
we do that occasionally if we have to
to get additional photos and keep things moving in there
there's a reason for it and this is exactly one of those pieces
the example provided from Search Engine
Roundtable shows a review for Outback Steakhouse
that mentions rib eye steak
and in this case a submitted photo of steaks appears above the review
alright now John Mueller again
there's another podcast I do
I call it the Mueller Files
because he talks so much and
provides such great info that I felt it was necessary
so this is a Mueller file
and here he is talking about
when not to worry about traffic fluctuations
a Reddit user has expressed anxiety about their website's performance
reporting fluctuations in both clicks and impressions
this has caused some to worry that every
spike or drop in numbers is a cause for alarm
now this is from the Google Search Console
where you can see this information is Google provides us free
you need to be logged in you need to have claimed your website
and then you can see this information
and a lot of people monitor this a bit obsessively
so John had this to say quote as others mentioned
especially the clicks are just very small numbers
so any change by 1 or 2 will look like a huge spike
there's a somewhat humorous way to look at this
and he links to an
a Wikipedia page called Strong Law of Small Nbers
quote there aren't enough small numbers to meet the many demands
made of them unquote
he continues basically
you can't make a smooth graph if the individual steps are so big
you'll note this is much less visible in impressions
partly because you're looking at average values of 150 ish
where a handful more or less doesn't trigger a big spike
in short
small traffic numbers can cause exaggerated fluctuations in graphs
that was the end of his quote of course
but I wanted to state
give you a perhaps a simpler explanation and that is that
you know if you see a 50% drop in clicks
it can look alarming however
if that is because last month you had four clicks
and this month you had two
it's not such a shock
it's all about context percentages can be very deceiving and deceptive
so don't
yet too worried about these things
you have to dig deeper and it's a
yeah we've had some of those clients over the years
who have been very obsessed about these numbers
and they do get unnecessarily worried about these numbers
because they're not looking deeper into why they are caused
and whether or not they really matter
so don't panic over minor variations in website traffic
focus on long term trends rather than daily changes
now in terms of formatting
Google says fixing headings won't change rankings
this is a Search Engine Journal article
and it was a question posted to Reddit
and it's the question is quote
how harmful is it having non sequential heading tags
like having a H4 title and H1 tags below or having a H4
H3 H5 but not H2 tags unquote
John Mueller again responds quote
doing things properly right order headings is a good practice
it helps search engines lightly to better understand your content
note lightly I love that and it's good for accessibility
if you're setting up a new site
or making significant changes on your templates
or just bored
then why not take the extra 10 minutes to get this right
if you're an existing site
fixing this isn't going to change your site's rankings
I suspect you'll find much bigger value in terms of SEO
by looking for ways to significantly upvalue your site overall unquote
hundred percent agree
follow the best practices
heading 1 should be first heading 2 should be second
and then after that you may heading use heading twos again
you may using heading 3 as a breakdown
it's a very logical sequence of usage bad
bad English there but it's very logical how to use these
especially if you're doing design on a regular basis
now this cracks me up okay
so I've never been a big fan of Yelp and I'm obviously got
I've got many issues with Google Local
but this is just priceless
Yelp is suing Google alleging illegal dominance of local search
the lawsuit
alleges that Google's monopoly in search has allowed it to illegally
dominate the local search
and local search advertising markets
this quote from Search Engine Land says
Yelps antitrust lawsuit against Google addresses
how Google abuses its illegal
monopoly in general search to engage in anticompetitive conduct
including self referencing its own inferior local product
to dominate the local search and local search advertising markets
unquote
it is a lot to unpack here in a way
first Google is a mess and yes
I'm sure it's being it's monopolizing these results however
of all businesses suing Google
I have no interest in Yelp winning this
I just can't stand Yelp
it's one of the worst companies ever to deal with
if you have any issues with your account
let's say and someone's done something
said something negatively
and let's say false or completely inaccurate
and it's just smearing your name
good luck getting Yelp to deal with it
they're just atrocious to work with so
they're just such a mess on their own
the fact that they're suing Google is just
it's so ironic
anyway
I guess it does serve to maybe give Google some more pause or at least
well it keeps their lawyers engaged right
alright let's move on to AI and search
half of Google AI's Google's AI overviews are linked
are overlapping with top search results
now the links within them are
so really what this comes down to is that out of the
the the organic links below AI overviews
what is it 21%
let me see here
no sorry
they looked at 11,163 queries in this exam
in this test by Rich Sang Sangior and Lawrence O'toole of Authoritas
this was a a bit of a work they did
they looked at those queries and that generated 2,358 AI overviews
that was the 21% of those AI overviews
they had 8.9 links on average within them
of those links 46.3% were taken from the top organic results
unpacking that quite simply
it's further confirmation that being a topped ranked
organic result will have a strong impact
a strong impact on AI at this time
so Google is sourcing that data in their AI
overviews from the top results
which makes perfect sense
because the only reason Google is showing you
as having a top result is because they believe you are worthy of it
so why wouldn't they show you in the AI overview
and those are links
so that is a good thing whether or not people click on it
that's highly suspect but at least it's there
we're going to finish up here with a question that came through
LinkedIn not to us
but just one of note it's another John Mueller
question but but Tinder Singh says I have a question
it's a common practice
among SEO's to believe that adding a total of two to five
internal links and around one to three external links
in a 1,000 word blog post is beneficial
they also think that adding more links could be harmful to their site
while adding fewer links might not provide much value
could you please clarify whether the quality of links
or quantity of links I should say
really matters unquote
I knowing John we've had him on other podcasts before
I've talked to him a few times and of course seen many
many many responses of him over the years
I was looking forward to his response and I
as I figured it would be good here says quote
nobody at Google counts the links or the words on your blog posts
and even if they did I'd still recommend writing for your audience
I don't know your audience
but I've yet to run across anyone who counts the words
before reading a piece of content
it's sometimes useful to have rules of thumb
it gives you a starting place
there are also numbers
which are generally helpful when making strategies
but blindly following numbers
when it comes to humans will lead you nowhere
one quote now
what he's referencing here is the two to five internal links
and around one to three external links
and a thousand word blog post
all these just little bit these little pieces of data they are
rough guidelines and and this is very important
all of the tips we provide in these shows any podcast really
unless they're really digging deep into a particular topic
are generalized
there's never a case where that's
you'd always use those rigid guidelines
they have to be generalized because every industry is a bit different
and perhaps the content you would like
for example if you were creating content for a legal firm
and it was a very lawyer centric
very legalese based piece of content
he may not have more than one internal link
or he may have a lot of them
if there's lots of sources
it's about providing great content
so don't don't get too worried about the stuff
you can get very obsessed and very waylaid by keeping putting too
much weight on tips like this just consider them great
general guidelines I don't know how else to put it
and
and we've had instances
in my other practice in the past where we've had clients
come to us quite heated saying why didn't you follow these guidelines
you yourself have said follow these guidelines on the podcast
again we provide generalized guidelines
when we're working on these particular client sites
we can get more specific we can do things at a
at a higher expert level
that don't necessarily mean we're going to follow the
the generalized guidelines we've suggested before
anyways it is it is important and I'm so glad someone posted this
even though it gave me a chuckle
which hey that's a good thing right
John's response was perfect as usual
I love it when he
he gets he gets to have some fun with some responses there
well on behalf of myself
Ross Dunn co founder of First Dentist
thank you for joining me today
if you have any questions you'd like answered
either on the podcast for free or on a more private consulting basis
please email info@firstdentist.com
thank you for listening and remember to tune into our next episode
where we will be sharing more
SEO 101 tips and news on dental
SEO take care