How to Start Building Backlinks

Being a dynamic business within your community means being a fantastic oral health professional is simply not enough. You have to create connections with your patients and other local businesses through sponsorships and community programs. 

Building relationships with your community beyond the practice establishes a level of trust that reverberates through families and local organizations that may be willing to promote your practice online, or simply by word of mouth.

Typically, when a business is willing to get involved and make a positive, lasting difference in any local community, they are more than willing to link to your website from theirs. Most organizations feature a list of community sponsors on their site.

Acquiring hyperlinks from other websites like your practice will not only naturally transition users to their website, but will also allow search engines to gather sufficient information about your website as well. Mutual linking is beneficial for both parties involved because it creates more traffic and better rankings.

How do search engines account for links?

When search engines like Google crawl a website they check not only the page content but the inbound and outbound links to conclude a site’s relevancy to keyword searches. 

Even though you may be the top provider of a service in your area, a doctor who has created a successful online campaign through link building with local community programs may rank better due to Google’s perception that they are the more “trusted & preferred brand”.

To assist your rankings and help out your community would you be willing to sponsor a 5k or do a presentation about oral hygiene at a local school? 

Below are a few examples of ways to get involved:

Ideas for potential link building:

·  Request links from charities your practice works with

·  Ask associations or organizations you work closely with

·  Check with local teams, clubs or schools if your practice is involved with them

·   Inquire about links with the local Better Business Bureau if your practice is a member

·   Reach out to the local chamber of commerce if your practice is a member

·  Ask online community newspapers that have mentioned your practice for links where the mentions occur.

 

Making sure that the content on your website is fresh and relates to the patients you serve supports positive backlink creation. 

By sharing photos and links to events you participated in within your community, you are giving your website a reason to be linked to. 

If you have any questions regarding link building, feel free to contact the Sesame SEO Team for more information. 

 

—Naomi Newell, Lead SEO Specialist, Sesame Communications