If you have a website, you’ve created a landing page where searchers can find your business and read about your practice. If you have a blog, you take a giant step forward in establishing value and building credibility, as well as extending your reach beyond Google searches.

A known and trusted commodity is a preferred choice. If you demonstrate that you are an expert in your field, that patient care is most important and that you genuinely want to connect and help the community you practice in, clients will choose you over a dentist they know nothing about. When you solve your reader’s problems by answering questions or providing information, you become a resource they return to, talk about, link to, forward and share. Blogging serves the dual purpose of gaining client trust and increasing web traffic to the contact page of your website.

Increased website traffic translates to more new patients, and blogs can help facilitate this. Each post that you publish remains online as an additional searchable web page that links to your homepage and continues to drive traffic there. The more blog posts you have, the more content readers can link to and share across other platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Blog posts increase the scope of your web presence, improving your chances of being noticed. You need to be posting at least 6 times per month and no more than 8 times per month. Any less than 6 and you’re getting lost in the crowd or forgotten. Any more than 8 can be considered self-serving or even annoying. Plus, the ROI on posting more than 8 times per month isn’t there. Web traffic doesn’t change much when posting 12 or 15 times versus just 6. Make your information valuable and effective. Quality over quantity is a definite virtue in effective blogging.

Your content should give your readers answers they seek regarding dental issues, as well as relevant information they may not have searched for but find interesting. Avoid posts that are advertisements for your practice or overtly self-promotional. A share-worthy post is something informative, such as the benefits of using dental floss, but is not one that is promotional and tries to convince the reader to come to your location. Provide information to parents with regard to their children’s health. Explain, as simple as you can, some of the procedures that usually strike fear to the heart of your average patient. What is a root canal? What do I do if I lose a crown or chip a tooth? These can be educational and extremely helpful to a potential patient who is using Google before, during, and after a dental emergency.

How you post makes a difference. Be concise: Use short sentences and paragraphs with white space in between to make your content easy to scan. Post regularly, at least six times each month, so your readers return in anticipation of new content. Learn about keywords, search engine optimization and metadata. If time is an issue for you, hire someone to create dental marketing content on your behalf. Be prepared to wait for a return on your investment as increasing your online influence can take time. An online presence is vital in business today, and your website is your foundation. Extend your internet influence even further by entering the world of dental blogging, and watch your practice reap HUGE benefits.