In present-day marketing, Search Engine Optimization or SEO is essential for business growth. No matter your business type and size, if you do not take the initiative to incorporate SEO in your marketing strategy, your business will miss out on many opportunities.
SEO has a high demand across the globe. In cities like Ottawa, where competition can be fierce, SEO is often very important. When implemented properly, this digital marketing technique can substantially improve the searchability and visibility of a brand.
In this blog, we will discuss an example of an Ottawa-based healthcare company that has seen a lot of success through the use of SEO tactics.
- Healthcare in Ottawa Search Query
- Meta Tags (Meta Title and Meta Description)
- Web Page Optimization
- Headers
- Image Alt Text
- Other Important SEO Factors
- Results
Healthcare in Ottawa Search Query
Our chosen healthcare search query will be related to dental services in Ottawa. For example, let’s search the term “Dentist in Ottawa” on Google.
This is a keyword that has a monthly search volume of approximately 3,600 and an SEO difficulty of approximately 26. The search volume refers to the average amount of times this search is conducted in Canada per month. The SEO difficulty refers to the difficulty for a business to rank highly for this specific search query. SEO difficulty is ranked from 0 to 100, from easiest to hardest. An SEO difficulty of 26 is relatively easy to rank for and is considered a low SEO difficulty.
Sounds pretty good right?
This makes “Dentist in Ottawa” a very achievable search query that many businesses could rank for with the proper SEO strategy. Ranking highly for this search term will allow your business to be ranked on a search query that is searched approximately 3,600 per month.
Trillium Dental
One of the very first companies that appeared on the first page of the Google search engine results page (SERP) is Trillium Dental.
Securing a high spot on the first page of Google searches takes a lot of effort and SEO expertise.
Let’s dig a little deeper to see what they did right and how they could improve.
Meta Tags (Meta Title and Meta Description)
What are Meta Tags (Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions)?
The meta title and description are sentences written by the business that describes the web page. This content is placed in the HTML of a web page and is used by search engines to display a web page’s title and description in the search rankings.
Now that we know what each of these terms means, let’s see what Trillium Dental dental did for each of them. To do this, we will analyze the character count and keywords used by Trillium. We will also be listing the use of Other related keywords since these also have an effect on the google search rankings.
Trillium Dental’s Meta Title
Full Meta Title: Trillium Dental – Visit Our Ottawa Dental Clinic For Teeth Cleaning, Invisalign & More
Character count: 86
Keywords from the search query: Dent, Ottawa
Other important keywords related to the search query: Dental, Clinic, Teeth
Title Tag Thoughts and Tips
This is a very well-written title tag. It includes important keywords, a call to action, and relevant information for the users.
On the other hand, according to many resources, a title tag of 86 is slightly longer than optimal. As we can see in the first screenshot of this article, the meta title for Trillium Dental is not entirely shown to Google users. This can be a drawback as users won’t be able to read the last few words of the title tag. A rule of thumb is to keep your title tag below 50 to 60 characters to optimize it. This said, having a title tag of 86 characters can still perform very well.
If we briefly look at the 4 competitor websites trailing right behind Trillium Dental, you’ll notice that they each have Title Tags that aren’t truncated. These title tags often perform better than those that are truncated.
Trillium Dental’s Meta Description
Full Meta Description: Trillium Dental offers a wide range of advanced oral-care services that are second to none. Our professional staff works diligently to make sure that your dental health and comfort comes first. Our services include teeth whitening, Invisalign®, oral surgery, and more. Contact us today to learn more!
Character count: 300
Keywords from the search query: dent
Other important keywords related to the search query: oral-care, dental, health, teeth
Meta Description Thoughts and Tips
Once again, Trillium Dental has exceeded the optimal character count for its meta description. According to many sources, the optimal character count for a meta description is generally between 150-160 characters. Trillium Dental practically doubled the suggested length. Having such a long meta description makes it impossible for search users to see the last few sentences at the end of the description.
Many marketers consider LinkedIn to be a powerful marketing platform. It allows businesses to post content, pictures, videos, links, advertisements to interact with their network and their target audience. By doing so, businesses can find partnerships, clients, employees and many other business opportunities.
Web Page Optimization
A first impression is just as important online than when your clients step foot in your business for the first time. Developing a spotless web page ensures you captivate the attention of the visitor and entice them to continue to navigate through your site.
When clicking on Trillium’s website, the dental service provider welcomes its visitors with relevant content and calls to action (CTA). The user experience and user interface features are optimal due to its ease of navigation and aesthetically pleasing design.
Once users scroll down the web page, they can find the various dentistry services offered by Trillium. The content on this page is of high quality and is user friendly. The titles and descriptions are relevant and concise and each service has a respective call to action.
Near the bottom of the page, there are calls to action to invite customers to be redirected to other sections of the website. These include About Us, Services, Blog and Book Online. Having internal links like this that encourage users to continue browsing your website is very good. It motivates the user to spend more time on the site and visit more web pages on the website. This has a direct positive effect on your site ranking.
Finally, at the bottom of the web page, there is a user-friendly footer including links to each page of the website, other locations and the company’s social media channels. Having these internal links helps users find their way to their desired web page or location with ease. As for the social media links, having these are useful as it encourages users to engage with you.
Web Page Thoughts and Tips
Overall, Trillium has succeeded to create a web page that brings organic traffic efficiently. Having a web page with favourable user experience is important for one main reason: it keeps the user on the website interested and wanting to learn more. When users spend lots of time reading content on a web page and engaging with the page by clicking any of the calls to actions or visiting many of the web pages, Google considers this a positive ranking signal.
Google’s main goal is to give users the website that is best based on their search query. This said, if most users spend a lot of time on Trillium Dental’s website and browse through many of the website’s pages, Google will know that this is what the user is looking for. Consequently, Google will rank that website higher in the search rankings.
Headers
What are Headers?
The headers are the title and subheaders found within your web page. Just like the meta tags, this content is included in your web pages’ HTML and is used by search engines to rank your webpage.
Trillium Dental’s Header
Header 1 (H1): N/A
Header 2 (H2):
Ex: General Dentistry
Ex: Cosmetic Dentistry
Header Thoughts and Tips
Trillium Dental’s main header “Because your mouth says it all.” is not as optimized as it could be. It does not include any relevant keywords and it is also not shown as H1 in their HTML.
This is once again an opportunity missed for Trillium.
Having relevant keywords in your main header is very important when it comes to search rankings. Have you ever noticed that if you write “The 10 best….” in Google search, the webpages that rank highest often have these exact words in their main header? This is not a coincidence. It is because Google prioritizes main headers that are very relevant to the search query.
As for the subheaders, also known as H2s, Trillium has done a good job of optimizing these. They all include relevant keywords such as “Dentist” in well-placed subheadlines. This will help Trillium rank higher if a search query includes the words in the H2s of the web page.
Image Alt Text
What is Image Alt Text?
Image Alt Text refers to the written content used to describe images in the web page’s HTML. Having alt text allows the search engine to better understand your web page and therefore rank it more appropriately in the search rankings.
Trillium Dental’s Images Alt Text
Image 1: Trillium Dental
Image 2-20: N/A
Images Alt Text Thoughts and Tips
Of the 20 pictures on Trillium Dental’s web page, very few of them have the proper Alt text. Apart from the company’s logo, which has the alt text “Trillium Dental”, all other images do not have an explanation in the alt text.
This is once again a missed opportunity for Trillium Dental.
Let’s say the main image on the web page had a detailed explanation including relevant keywords in the HTML such as “Family with straight teeth smiling for a picture”. This would let Google know what the image is about and would help your web page rank for similar search queries accordingly.
Other Important SEO Factors
Mobile-Friendly: Yes
Having a secure website means a lot for Google Rankings. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that many users dislike websites that aren’t secure. This being the case, many will be tempted to leave when they notice that they are on an insecure web page. Google’s algorithms take into consideration this user behaviour and consequently lowers the website’s position in the Google rankings. The second reason is very simple, Google’s ranking algorithm views secure websites as a positive signal.
Approximate Loading Speed: 3.4 seconds
According to GTmetrix, this web page has a loading speed of 3.4 seconds. In general, this is considered a good loading speed. A study made by Machmetrics shows that the average time to fully load a web page is often around 8 and 10 seconds. This said, a good rule of thumb is to try to keep your loading speed below 3 seconds. According to research, the probability of bounce (users that leave a web site after only viewing a single page) increases by 32% as page load time goes from 1 second to 3 seconds.
Social Signals: 207 social shares
According to Ubersuggest, Trillium Dental’s URL www.trilliumdental.ca has been shared on social media 207 times. This makes it one of the web pages with the most social shares from those ranked in the top 10 for the search query “Dentist in Ottawa”. The only competitor surpassing them is stlaurentdental.com, with 567 social shares. Apart from St-Laurent Dental, all other competitors have fewer social shares and even as little as 1 social share for 5 of the top competitors. Although it is said that there is no direct correlation between the social signals and SEO ranking, the indirect correlation between both is known to be very high. Having a high number of social shares on a web page has a direct impact on the engagement and links of the given web page and therefore affects the page ranking.
Number of Backlinks: 94
A backlink is a link on another website that guides the users to a specific webpage. According to Ubersuggest, Trillium Dental has 94 backlinks for this web page. This is a significant number of backlinks in comparison to competitors. The average number of backlinks from the top 10 ranked web pages for this search query is 18. The web page with the second most backlinks is stlaurentdental.com which has 41 backlinks. Seven of the other competitors in the top 10 rankings for this search query have as little as 5 backlinks or less. It goes without saying that this is one of the strongest aspects of Trillium’s SEO rankings.
Domain Authority: 24
The domain authority is the overall ranking strength of a website on Google, the higher the strength the higher it ranks. According to Ubersuggest, Trillium dental has a relatively lower than average domain authority of 24 on 100. In general, a domain authority of 40 to 50 is considered average. For this specific search query, the average domain authority of the web pages that rank in the top 10 is 58. As you can see, this is twice as high as Trillium Dental’s domain authority. The reason Trillium’s domain authority is much less than its average competitors is because of the high profile directories that rank for this search query. Directories like Yelp, Yellow Pages, RateMDs and Opencare are all directories with a domain authority of 83 or more.
Domain Age (Creation Date): 2007-12-10
According to DupliChecker, Trillium Dental has had an active domain for over 12 years and 4 months. Having a domain that has been active for many years helps rank higher in the search rankings.
Results
With 3879 monthly organic visits, Trillium Dental undoubtedly is doing great with its SEO strategy. According to the reports made by Ubersuggest, Trillium has ranked for 3604 organic keywords with “Dentist in Ottawa” being just one of them. It proves that the company has used many excellent SEO tactics to stand out in the market.
However, As we have discussed throughout the blog, Trillium’s SEO strategy is not perfect. Just like any business, they should continuously optimize their SEO to prevent competitors from surpassing them.
Our Top Recommendations
After having done a brief site analysis of Trillium Dental, we’ve gathered our top recommendation on how to help them rank higher in the search rankings.
- Optimize Title Tag
- Optimize Meta Description
- Add Image Alt Text
- Optimize Headers
Implementing the above-mentioned recommendations will not only help Trillium avoid being surpassed by their competition, but it will also help them rank higher for other similar search queries.
If you would like to learn more about the implementation of these SEO tactics, connect with one of our experts at myMarketing.
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