Have you ever wondered why certain websites popped up before others in search engine results? Wouldn’t it be great if your website came up on page one of the search engine when potential patients are searching for a dentist?

Acquiring backlinks is one way to improve your search engine ranking and ensure that patients find you. Here’s what you should know about backlinks.

What Is a Backlink?

In layman's terms, a backlink is simply a link from one website to another. Anytime another website links to yours, you have acquired a backlink. 

Search engines view these backlinks as a vote of confidence from other websites. Backlinks from websites relevant to your industry can give search engines important contextual information about your business. 

If many websites in your field or city link to your web page, search engines will assume that your content is worth displaying. Acquiring relevant and trustworthy backlinks is a great way to stand out from the competition and improve your rankings.

Not All Backlinks Are Relevant 

When you’re building backlinks for your dental practice, it is generally important to focus on quality over quantity. 

Many online tools will promise you hundreds of new backlinks for only a few dollars, but these links are not likely to have a positive impact on your rankings. Instead, you should focus on building links that are relevant to your industry or community. This process takes effort, but it also generates better results.  

How to Get High-Quality Backlinks

So how do you acquire those high-quality backlinks to your website? Here are a couple of quick tips.

Make Your Website Interesting and Engaging

Content is king in the world of SEO. So your first goal is to create content that is interesting and informative to your reader. When you create ‘link-worthy’ content, it keeps prospective patients interested in your website and dental practice. It could also result in getting backlinks from other websites that find your content valuable.

Some other ways to acquire backlinks with content might be:

• Link to your content on social media.
• Create content with ‘how-to’ posts, or lists, or videos. This type of information may promote sharing and result in backlinks.
• Use content creation tools to make infographics (Canva is free), which visually share information. Infographics are typically widely shared content.
• Write a guest post on someone else’s blog or website.

Look for Opportunities in Your Own Community

Backlinks from other websites in your community or network are great for local SEO. Consider these prospects for creating or asking for backlinks to your website:

• Scholarship programs that you offer
• Sponsor a local sports team
• Link to articles about you in the local media
• Connect with local charity events and participate when you can
• Reach out to your alumni association
• Links to research or continued education that you participate in

Some Final Thoughts

There is a lot to understand when it comes to optimising your website, and acquiring relevant backlinks to your website requires time and effort. If you are curious about your own backlink profile, there are several free tools like MOZ and SEMrush to help you get started.

If you have questions about backlinks, or how to improve your search engine ranking, an SEO professional can help you set goals for maximising those factors of your website.