Clearly, SEO is not optional anymore. However, to establish that, let’s start with the basics – What is marketing? The Oxford dictionary of the English language defines Marketing as “The action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising.” 

The definition that I learned at business school a long time back was perhaps more focused “Marketing is the task of creating demand for a product or service!”

Both definitions seem pretty innocuous, and what’s more, they seem to entirely be in line with the marketing actions you may be taking to promote your Dental practice.

Unfortunately, the very core of marketing has changed in the new digital world that we live in. The move towards this world of digital marketing was well underway even before COVID19 visited us. These nine months of COVID19 have pulled even the most diehard marketing laggards into the new world of digital marketing.

SEO is not optional anymore. So, what has changed, you ask! 

Here is a shortlist of things that you may be doing as a part of your marketing plan:

– Yellow pages 

– Local Newspaper

– Flyers delivered through Canada Post or other methods

– A mobile sign outside your plaza

– Billboard

– Website
– Facebook

There certainly would be a few dentists who would use Radio and TV as well. However, these routes are prohibitively expensive for most dentists. Only the big boys or gals would be able to afford Radio or TV.

With the exception of Website and Facebook, the traditional media on this list doesn’t work anymore, and if it does, it does so marginally, at best! The reasons why these marketing staples don’t work any longer will follow in the next few paragraphs.

There is an adage in marketing attributed to John Wannamaker, the Department store Mogul, who founded the eponymous John Wanamaker Department Store in 1861, one of the first department stores in the United States, which goes: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” 

What made this adage true until very recently was that the major part of your advertising or marketing dollars put your communication in front of people who didn’t care. This audience would be people who were not actively looking for your kind of product or service when they came across your message.

In essence, you are advertising to the wrong people at the wrong time. 

Remember this when your marketing agency tells you that a 2 – 3 % success rate is a good efficiency in a direct marketing campaign. What SEO does is that it makes your content available when a person is searching for something that you have to offer. Hence our claim, that SEO is not optional anymore.

Google and the changing playing field

What has changed is the arrival of the Internet, and then with Google’s arrival in 1998. Yes, that’s right! Google seems to have been around forever, but they have been around for just over 20 years.  

Google and search engines like Google have changed the world of marketing dramatically. 

What happens with a search engine like Google; is that people type in to search what they are looking for, exactly when they are looking for it.

And how does this work for you? If your brand shows up when people are searching, you can chalk that up as a win!

This focus away from mass marketing (the old way of marketing) to targeted marketing (the new digital way) is the reason behind the old marketing channels’ demise. 

Google has become a verb, and you know that you use it yourself when you ask someone to find some information by saying, “just google it”!

Even getting a friend’s referral has changed; to people checking reviews on specialized review websites or on Google itself. Yes, this is the new world of marketing. It may not be the Camelot you imagined, but this impersonal digital marketing world is a new reality. The new default for finding information is to search on Google. And it is for this reason above all that SEO is not optional anymore.

Let’s put some numbers in for perspective:

– There are over 3.5 BILLION searches per day on Google! That is 3.5 billion searches per day or 1.2 TRILLION searches per year worldwide!!! (Internet Live Stats)

– The Worldwide share of Google is 86.14%. (Statista)

– 92.96% of global traffic comes from Google search, Google Images, and Google Maps. (Sparktoro)

– 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine. (BrightEdge)

– Searches keep changing. Google sees 16% to 20% new searches every year. These are searches that they have never encountered previously (Internet Live Stats)

And last but by no means least statistic (in this blogpost)

– SEO drives 1000%+ more traffic than organic social media. (BrightEdge)

This method of online search is how people are looking for information and finding it. This trend will likely only accelerate further in the future. This is in fact the environment that makes the case that SEO is not optional anymore.

What Does This Mean For You?

It is self-evident that the people searching for a dentist are likely looking for a dentist now. Some people may indeed be researching a future requirement, but that fact is that their need is real, even if projected into the future.

How does an online search compare with a flyer mailed to people? There is a better than even chance that the people getting the flyer may already have a dentist that they have no intention of moving away from. Or maybe people who are just not interested in your services.

The fact is that the people who are searching on Google or on another search engine are looking for a dental service right now! 

The decision you face is how you come to the top of the search page on Google when a potential patient is looking for a dentist in your local area.

Simple. All you need to do is to get your Search engine optimization (SEO) right! SEO is not optional anymore. It’s, in fact, a survival imperative.

Let us share some statistics about the search for just the term “Dentist” on Google right now:

– The term Dentist was searched 1.6 Million times around the world last month. (semrush)

– The term Dentist was searched in Canada 110,000 times last month. (semrush)

– More impressive, the term Dentist has 212,000 variations that were searched for last month in Canada. (semrush)

– The total number of searches for (all 212K variations) was 1.8 Million searches last month in Canada. (semrush)

Therefore, let me ask again: Can you afford NOT to do SEO?

SEO by Experdent

Allow me to introduce to you Experdent Web Services. We are an exclusively dentist focused business. SEO for dentists is all that we do.

Let us show you how to thrive in the new world of SEO.

We can help put your business right at the TOP of page-1 of Google, to be found when people are searching for dental services in your local area.

Yes, we know that Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising can also get you some of this traffic. However, that traffic stays with you as long as you are on the treadmill of spending PPC dollars. The moment you stop spending those advertising dollars, your traffic falls right off as well.

The benefit of SEO is that your traffic from Google is free. And your traffic comes from well more than the one or two or three keywords that you are using in PPC advertising.

This efficiency is why savvy marketers consistently rank SEO as the marketing element that produces the highest marketing highest ROI.

This is also the reason why SEO should be the #1 marketing priority for your dental office business.

At Experdent Web Services, we put these very ideas into practice. We are results-driven, dentist focused, and experts in SEO for dental offices in North America. If you are a dental office and are looking for SEO or need advice on your digital strategy, call us for a free 30-minute consult.