Content Marketing for Dentists: A Guide on Everything to Know

You’ve got questions.

What is content marketing? Is it important for your dental practice? If so, why is it important and how do you get into it?

We have answers.

And the most important one right now is this: Yes. That is, yes, content marketing is an absolutely essential part of digital marketing for dentists. You’ll find all the other answers you’re looking for and more listed in the guide below.

Even better, we’re not going to explain it all in complicated marketing terms you’ll have to pass off to a third-party marketing team. We’ve kept it simple enough that anyone can understand. This way, you’ll know exactly how to proceed according to the size of your dental practice and your marketing budget.

Ready to learn more? Learn it all in this complete guide to content marketing for dentists.

What Is Content Marketing?

First, let’s go over some terms. Content marketing is the practice of producing/publishing online content to promote your brand and incite specific actions from your audience.

Here are some common examples of content marketing.

Blogs

Blogging is the most common form of content marketing, and for good reason. It’s effective and it’s easy and cheap to produce.

Furthermore, text is the easiest type of content for search engine algorithms to evaluate. Therefore, text is a great medium for earning your site a higher search rank on Google.

Videos

Videos are arguably as effective as blogs, and maybe more so. They, too, can be cheap and easy to produce. But they have the versatility to have a higher production value as well.

And videos show up often at the very top of the search results as “video cards.”

Images/Memes

Sites like Pinterest and 9GAG rely mostly on image content. Following their example, a content marketing campaign can hinge on this type of content as well.

Why Is Content Marketing Important?

The idea behind it is this. The more authoritative content you put out, the more your website, and, therefore, your practice, get seen.

Then more people will hear of your brand. And your brand becomes more established and reliable.

That’s the short answer. Here’s a more in-depth look at how content marketing is important for your dental practice.

It Helps Your SEO

Content marketing is part of your overall SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy. SEO is a conglomerate of strategies and practices that help your website rank higher in search engines. For businesses, it’s a form of marketing, sometimes referred to as SEM (Search Engine Marketing).

To get visitors to your website, people have to know it exists. The best way to get your site seen is to rank higher in search results relevant to dentistry.

That’s where content marketing fits in. Having a large volume of high-quality content makes the site look more favorable to search engines. Then, the site earns a better SEO rank overall, which, in turn, increases the rank of all its pages.

This results in more visitors to your site via search traffic. From your content, that search traffic will see how helpful, professional, and authoritative you are. And that, finally, leads to a high conversion rate (online traffic converting into patients).

In a nutshell: content marketing helps your SEO and ultimately increases conversion, which helps your bottom line.

It Increases Brand Awareness

By pumping out high-quality content, you’re dispersing (flattering) information about your brand throughout all the internet. Then, if this boosts the SEO of your site, the content is promoted to an even higher level of visibility. Content marketing leaves your mark all over the internet.

But, again, this only works with superb-quality, relevant, helpful content. In contrast, hastily-written, irrelevant content that’s full of typos won’t help you in the slightest. (We’ll help you with achieving quality further down.)

It Reaches the Right Audience

As you may have noticed, all this about reaching the whole internet is irrelevant. As a dentist, you only need to reach those in your area. And that’s fine because content marketing helps with that, too.

You can infuse all your marketing content with hyperlocal keywords. That means using language that is only relevant to your specific local audience. This includes naming your surrounding neighborhoods, local transit services, or nearby school districts.

Also, post content about all the services you provide. That way, people searching for these services in your area will find you.

It Reels In Business

Publishing content is like putting out bait. A click on your content is a bite on your hook. It reels in visitors to your site and incites them to take action.

Calls-To-Action

Another essential function of content marketing is to basically “herd” your audience in the direction you want them to go. The content lays out a pathway for them, tells them a story, leading them, guiding them toward the actions you want them to take.

Each piece of content should always include a specific call-to-action (CTA). Common CTAs in dental marketing content include joining an email list or setting up an appointment.

It Increases Brand Authority

Site traffic and conversions aren’t the only things you boost with content marketing. Perhaps best of all, proper content marketing is a huge boost to your reputation.

The best content for content marketing is that which is most informative and helpful to the reader. When you provide content that answers the reader’s questions and helps them make a decision, it doesn’t go unappreciated. You’ve then satisfied the patient before they’ve even done business with you.

This is a sure way to build a good name for yourself, both in your community and online. Locals, knowing how you’ve helped them online, now trust you to help them in person.

Plus, the myriad of informative posts you create show readers and search engines you know what you’re talking about. This tells Google you’re a trustworthy authority on the matter, which earns you a higher search rank.

It Expands Your Business Network

Your content is a great basis for going social. Each post is a new discussion topic on your social media accounts.

As you and your audience discuss and engage, relationships are built. Through this, you may acquire new patients.

It Gives You a Competitive Edge

Do your competitors have blogs? They’re not as good as yours.

Or, rather, that’s the goal. Having the most helpful and informative dental blog out of all the dentists in your area is huge. If you’re number 1 online, that reputation will carry over to your physical location as well.

Specifically, the online converts in your patient base will carry it with them. Your good reputation will spread by their word-of-mouth.

How to Create A Content Marketing Campaign

Now, form your content marketing campaign with these step-by-step instructions.

Adopt the Right Mindset

Since you’re reading this article, you’ve obviously majored in dentistry and not business. It appears dentistry is your passion, your forte, or simply the skillset you chose to develop.

The bad news is, like it or not, you’re now also the marketing executive responsible for the success of your dental practice. That means you need to start viewing marketing as your second job.

Work out the details, set a budget, and delegate resources. Determine if it’s more worth it to staff a marketing/SEO/content team, to outsource, or to DIY.

Know Who To Target

For success in any marketing campaign, you have to aim at the right target. So start narrowing it down.

What types of customers do you have the most success with currently? Which types live closest to your location?

What services do you excel at? What services do you provide that your competitors don’t? Which demographics are ideal candidates for these services?

Questions like these help you close in on who your best target demographics are. Another way to do this, though, is to pay attention to your social media conversations.

What are some common questions your social media followers ask about? Answer them with content.

Decide What Type(s) of Content To Create

Now that you know who your target audience is, learn even more about them. Specifically, what types of content are they most into?

Do they like YouTube videos? What kind—product reviews, instructional videos, random comedy shorts?

Do they like informative blog posts—FAQs, dental news, infographics, case studies, resource lists, white papers, ebooks, in-depth guides? Or do they prefer opinion and entertainment, like quirky podcasts, humorous listicles, and memes?

Whatever your target’s preferred online content is, that’s the type you want to produce. It may seem strange to post humor articles and memes on your dentistry website. But, if that’s what your target audience is into, it would be stranger not to.

Determine Your Content Production Skillset

As stated, your forte is dentistry, not blogging or video production. Find out what skills you and your staff have for producing content. If the ideal content types aren’t within your abilities, strongly consider outsourcing.

Content that isn’t effective is worthless. Worse, actually: it’s a waste of resources.

If outsourcing is your only chance at an effective content marketing campaign, it’s worth the investment.

Create a High-Quality Blog

We’re not saying that you shouldn’t post videos or podcasts or whatever your target’s preferred media type is. But in addition to those, you must also provide valuable blog content.

Such blogs help all internet users in general. And that tells Google your site’s a helpful and authoritative resource for search engine users. Google will then reward you by boosting your site’s search ranking.

If you’re not an experienced blogger, get help from an SEO expert. They’ll help with things like keyword analysis and topic research.

Remember, quality and optimization are key to a profitable content marketing campaign.

Repurpose Content

Furthermore, producing multiple types of content is easy with repurposing. Here’s how it works.

Let’s say your audience prefers videos. With minimal adjustment, you can rework your latest video script into a written article.

So, whenever you post a video, translate the script into article form and post it on your blog. Then, discuss the content of the article out loud and make it a podcast.

Post Regularly

Determine a posting schedule and stick to it. Even if you can only post one piece per week, you’ll produce 52 each year. Figure the time/resources you can commit and do it.

But remember: if you have to choose between quality and production quota, choose quality.

Promote Your Content

Include content promotion as part of the above schedule. For each piece you post, promote 2 or 3 times.

Give a brief announcement about your new piece on your social media account the day you post it. Do this again maybe a week or a month later. But announce it differently the second time; don’t copy and paste.

Lastly, promote to bring attention to a past article. The best candidates are hit articles that have faded from view and articles that never got the attention they deserved.

Content Marketing For Dentists: Your Complete Guide

Few digital marketing strategies are as essential to your success as content marketing. It establishes and improves upon all other facets of your digital marketing efforts.

Therefore, don’t let all this valuable advice go to waste! Bookmark this guide on content marketing for dentists. Then, follow the steps herein to start your content marketing campaign.

Now, explore our guide on pay-per-click dental advertising.