Is WordPress a good choice for SEO?

SEO | DavidH. Khalili, Founder of DentalLabSupport.com

Powering over 30% of all the websites existing over the Internet, WordPress has certainly come a long way since its release on 27 May 2003, by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It’s 2018 and WordPress continues to grow, steadily yet magnificently.

And talking of the steady growth, the last decade has seen a surge in the importance that has been given to SEO. In order to make dental labs discoverable, and in a pursuit to stay at the top of the search engine result pages (SERPs), individuals and brands are relying on SEO-powered website-building platforms.

WordPress is definitely one of the favorite choices. But the question is whether it is a good choice for accomplishing the SEO goals that you are trying to achieve for your dental lab, so let’s find out what WordPress has to offer.

‘Snap-at-your finger’ optimization

What makes WordPress a great choice for your dental lab SEO goals is its quick setup and configuration. Also, when you are logged in with your site’s dashboard and are actually filling in the SEO-powering fields of your posts’ editor, you can stay assured that things will not take a lot of time off your schedule.

If you are new to blogging, you will definitely take your own time to get used to the fields that prompt you to add the ‘Meta description’, ‘Tags and Categories’, ‘Meta Data’, ‘Keywords’, ‘Excerpt’, etc. Once you are there, optimizing will truly be a ‘click-of-your finger’ thing.

If you are able to save some time there, you will create much better content which is always a step forward in your content optimization journey.

Search-engine friendly URL

Otherwise known as permalinks, the chosen URL for your website posts is a crucial determinant of how search engines will perceive your content.  If your URL carries the power keyword from your content, that is definitely an icing on the cake.

With WordPress, you can either choose to go with the generated permalink that is based on an ID number, or you can create your own URL. Just before you publish your post through your WordPress editor, you can choose to customize the permalink as per the summary of the post. This is a great SEO booster as the visitors as well as the search engines will be better able to understand what to expect before they even start going through the content of the post.

Super-powerful SEO plugins

If you know someone who is a WordPress fanatic, we bet that you have heard them rambling about how awesome WordPress plugins are. In the case of SEO, the development is similar.

The Yoast SEO plugin and the All-in-One SEO Pack plugin are the undisputed market leaders when it comes to WordPress SEO. Their premium versions offer a set of even more powerful features than the free ones. Here are some of the amazing features offered by the free versions of each of them.

Yoast SEO

• Lets you write killer content
• Full control over site breadcrumbs
• Snippet preview
• Google Preview
• Advanced XML Sitemaps functionality
• Canonical URLs
• Readability check.

All-in-One SEO

• Fine tune your SEO optimizations
• XML Sitemap support
• Image XML Sitemap for Image SEO
• Google AMP support and Google Analytics support
• Advanced Canonical URLs
• SEO Integration for e-Commerce sites, including WooCommerce
• Automatic META tags.

Optimization served on a generous platter

Another great thing about WordPress being an SEO facilitator is its generosity when you are using its powerful SEO plugins. If you are just a beginner, you can still nail it down all by yourself through directives and tutorials provided. You can review website builders offered by other platforms to make a comparative study of the complexity of the tasks involved.

The very descriptive plugin functions help you figure out what goes where. If you bump up a rock, you can always head to the WordPress Codex to know more.

Auto-sharing features and plugins

To complement your SEO efforts through the dashboard, you need to make sure that you are marketing your website updates well and in a timely manner. This involves sharing these updates through your social media channels so that your followers can stay in touch and have an idea of whatever’s happening with your website and business.

However, with the abundance of social channels, manual execution of these updates can take up a lot of time. Additional plugins from the WordPress repository can help you auto-share your site updates with the audience.

Some of these Social media sharing plugins are:

• Sassy Social Share
• Blog2Social: Social Media Auto Post & Scheduler
• Revive Old Posts
• Social Auto Poster – Premium WordPress Plugin.Tools to assist your SEO check-up

Speedy content turn-around

If you are a website owner or a blogger, you know that search engines rank websites that turn around content speedily or in a regular manner. WordPress has a simple yet powerful text editor that helps you to create killer content that is both engaging and informative. With plugins such as the Editorial Calendar you can schedule your content and SEO strategy well in advance.

Faster loading time

The most important element of an optimized website is its loading speed. If a website takes more than 2-3 seconds to load, a high percentage of visitors tend to abandon the site there and then. Even if you are doing everything as directed by your site’s SEO strategy and yet fail to take measures that make your website speedy, you are in for a huge loss. However, WordPress speed optimization plugins can help you resolve this.

SEO-friendly themes

WordPress also lets you download and configure SEO-friendly themes that have been optimized for speed and performance. Check out some of the best SEO-friendly themes for 2018.

Contact DentalLabSupport.com for more details.

How Dental Labs & Dentists Can Make Patients Happy

Dental laboratories and dentists have a symbiotic relationship. Without each other, neither would be able to reach their common goal of meeting dental patients’ needs. If you’re a dental lab owner who wants to keep dentists satisfied, keep reading. 

Relationships Between Dental Labs and Dentists

The relationship between dentists and labs is a notoriously delicate one. Whether you are a dentist or a dental lab owner, you surely realize that this relationship is extremely important. Without a solid dentist/lab relationship, running an efficient practice becomes difficult and is not nearly as enjoyable. A good working relationship makes the process smoother and more profitable for everyone.

Tough Times Create Tougher Competition 

In the hyper-competitive market that emerged with The Great Recession, there is increased pressure on both the dental practice and the dental lab to operate as efficiently as possible while still providing great service and a quality product. 

While an increase in dental labs and dental practices may signify an increasing need in the market for dental services, now more than ever it is difficult for both dental labs and dentists to differentiate and position themselves. This is yet another reason why dental labs and dentists need to take advantage of their symbiotic relationship and work together to provide dental patients with the dental services they so heavily rely on.

How Dental Labs & Dentists Can Keep Dental Patients Happy

In order for dental labs and dentists to keep patients satisfied, they need to keep dental patients’ needs at the forefront of everything they do. So how can dental labs work with dentists to keep dental patients happy? Make communication easy, honest and enjoyable.

Easy communication means not only making it easy for your dentists to contact your dental lab, but by taking the lead to ask important questions and actively listen to what your dentists say. Be upfront about which dental services your dental laboratory can and cannot provide, and within what time frame, otherwise your risk ruining your dentist’s relationship with their patient. Finally, keep communication enjoyable by checking in with your dentist about the quality of service received. Bonus: opening your dental laboratory to honest feedback will enable you to improve and continue satisfying your clients.

4 Tips to Get Your Dental Lab's Emails Mobile-Ready

By:  David H. Khalili,  Founder of DentalLabSupport.com

Email is and continues to be a vital part of dental lab digital marketing success. 

Especially small dental labs on a limited budget can use the concept to effectively communicate with their audience, slowly nudging them to become first-time and repeat customers.

At the same time, email marketing can only be successful if you design effective messages that resonate with your audience of your dental lab. One key consideration to keep in mind is the fact that an increasing percentage of that audience will view your messages on a mobile device; in fact, up to 70% of your audience will read your message on their smartphone or tablet. If you are looking to grow your dental lab with email marketing, keep these 4 best practices for mobile-friendly email creation in mind.

1) Keep them Short

Above all, your audience's attention span on mobile devices is shorter than on a desktop. Because they can see less of your email on their screens, they will be more quickly turned off by long emails that go into detail about a specific concept. 

One study suggests that for optimum results, your emails should be between 50 and 125 words long. For comparison, that's about the length of the introduction to this post. Anything longer, and you risk decreasing response rates as mobile recipients lose interest midway through reading your message.

2) Stay Away from Long Paragraphs

For the same reasons mentioned above, try to stay away from full paragraphs as much as possible. Avoid the dreaded 'wall of text,' which becomes especially noticeable on small screen sizes.

Instead, take advantage of email formatting options. Bullet points, numbered lists, and single-sentence paragraphs can go a long way toward making your email more readable on mobile devices, you may also want to consider using graphics and call to action buttons to break up your text.

3) Use Visuals to Enhance, not Distract

Speaking of graphics: including visuals in your email can go a long way toward increasing its effectiveness. Visual content marketing has been proven to be successful, increasing audience goodwill and message recall.

But for mobile devices, you should be careful to use visuals strategically. Much like long paragraphs, large images that prevent smartphone users to see any other part of the content tend to distract the audience, making it less likely that they will take action. Stay away from large banner images, and incorporate smaller, slimmer graphics into your email instead.

4) Test Your Emails

Finally, make sure to not send out any email to your audience without first testing how it looks on mobile devices. Most email clients now offer templates with responsive design, adjusting dynamically based on screen size. But that could mean the content of your email shifts around in ways that you didn't anticipate.

To ensure that your content does not begin to look undesirable, send yourself a test email to view it on your mobile devices. Most Customer Relationship Management software now allows you to do just that. If you are lucky and your CRM enables you to view a visual preview of the email in different email clients and screen sizes without even having to send it, you should absolutely take advantage of that feature.

Keeping Mobile In Mind at all Times

Audiences across industries and demographics are increasingly relying on mobile devices to complete internet-related tasks. Whether your brand markets to other dental labs or just dentist, keeping mobile in mind when communicating with your target audience has become absolutely crucial.  In fact, to effectively grow your dental, that emphasis should come even before you send out your first email marketing messages.  

To learn more about our services, and how it can accommodate your dental lab marketing needs, contact us today 1.888.715.9099 or visit DentalLabSupport.com.