If you’re looking to showcase your business, hobby, or personal brand to the world, then you’ve probably considered (or even already built!) a new website. Presenting the products and services you offer, as well as the image and identity you’ve cultivated, on an attractive and modern website can be extremely rewarding and profitable for your business.
However, COVID-19 has shifted the conversations we have and the purchases we make towards online forums more than ever before. So, building a website and showcasing your line of work is only half the battle.
Ensuring that your website ranks well on Google and solicits the action that you’re seeking from others online can be difficult. This blog will outline the steps that website owners should take to consistently stand out within their fields online.
Talk About Your Area of Expertise in Detail Online
The most important thing that you can do as a website owner is consistently use it as a place to write about your field of expertise, or area of service, in the form of blogs. This will demonstrate your credibility and depth of knowledge to potential new customers, and will also help you rank well on Google for relevant searches.
It may be time consuming, and it may not lead to inquiries in the next few hours or days, but the importance of writing consistent, high quality content on your website should not be underestimated. This is particularly important for service-based businesses, but it applies just as well to any business looking to rank well on Google.
Specializing in a unique field and building a sustainable business requires significant education, experience, and ability to learn from past mistakes. Despite what a self-described technical expert might tell you, translating that expertise into a sustainable online presence involves consistency, effort, and time far more than it requires a specific ‘high-tech’ skill – so don’t let any perceived knowledge gap prevent you from getting started.
Consider a local dentist who’s looking to stand out online. The first thing she should do is focus on the content on core pages of their website. Once that’s taken care of, there are a few ways he or she could go about writing consistent content for their website to stand out online. Let’s take a look!
Combine Your Online Copy with Engaging Visuals & Interactive Elements
The most important thing for this dentist, first and foremost, is to do away with the ‘I can’t do it’ attitude. After that, it’s time to get started. In order to carve out a sustainable online niche, she needs to translate her knowledge into online content – individual blogs will do just fine.
Ideally, this content is engaging, understandable and visually appealing to the average Joe. This is where our dentist may grumble, “But my expertise is in teeth, that’s it, and no one gets excited about dental hygiene”. The good news is that in order to rank well on Google for dentistry-related searches, this dentist is only competing against those within the industry, not athletes or movie stars.
So, in practical terms, how should this content look? This is where our dentist’s knowledge can really shine: She can write all about the benefits and drawbacks of fluoride treatment, the newest advances in invisible braces, and the wonderful world of endodontics, for example. For once, this dentist doesn’t have to worry about a patient with multiple metal tools in their mouth offering a nervous smile, either!
To be successful, a blog centered around one specific keyword, ideally with high search volume that’s important for your business, hobby, or personal brand, is generally recommended. In the case of our dentist, she may be looking to expand her fluoride treatment service offering, or showcase her impressive line of invisible braces. So, a blog that speaks to these exciting topics is worth the time and effort.
Some Tips for Making These Blogs Engaging & Visually Appealing
- Pictures, videos, infographics, bulleted lists, rhetorical questions or other interactive elements engage readers. For example, a before and after graphic that the user can ‘swipe’ to overlay invisible braces onto a set of teeth would be a great feature for our dentist to utilize in his or her blog on invisible braces.
- Successful online content is understandable, which means that industry experts should lay off the technical jargon and use everyday terms instead. The average American reads at roughly an 8th grade level, and with other websites just one click away, getting a point across in simple English is more important than ever. For example, dentists don’t have to delve into the molecular properties of fluoride, they can focus instead on emphasizing the ways fluoride treatment will help give a healthy smile.
- Visually appealing content, from a dentist? But how? It’s more than possible! Dentists can simply focus on the end result of their services, which is generally a beautiful, white, healthy smile. Similarly, other technical experts can showcase the finished product, desired look or end result of what they have to offer.
Being able to speak to a particular topic in depth, and keep users who search for that topic engaged on your website once they get there, is the key goal. The websites that can do this successfully are the ones that Google ranks on page one of search results.
Furthermore, if these blogs can translate website visits into inquiries, phone calls or purchases, then they can also supplement a business. To aid this, dentists might consider including contact forms within the blogs they write so that interested visitors can submit questions or inquiries. Showcasing a phone number and office address alongside previous blogs also offers the site visitors further opportunities to engage with the website and business.
Online Copy Combined with Simple SEO Elements is a Recipe for Success
Once you have your website copy written and ready to go live, it’s important to remember to include some small technical elements as well. This ensures that the website is visible to Google and will achieve maximum visibility online. Although I previously mentioned that technical jargon should be avoided as much as possible, meta titles, meta descriptions, header tags, interlinks, and schema markup can be extremely helpful within blogs.
Luckily, our dentist does not need to become an SEO expert for his or her blogs to rank on page one of Google. You can rely on a website plugin like Yoast or Rank Math to lay out the requisite fields, and as long as those fields are completed (this is where you should further include the keyword that the blog was written to feature) then you’re all set.
Over time, dentists’ websites can rank on Google not just for the individual keywords that specific content was written about, but for other dentistry-related search terms as well. As a result, the website will generate consistent traffic and inquiries, and the blogs on niche topics will help the website carve out an online niche within the dentistry industry.