Link building ideas for dentists?

[sferrino]

Business directories work wonders here.

[EGOL]

-- chamber of commerce and local service organizations (membership in these can be valuable for business reasons but their website often has a link to their members)

-- local business listings/directories

-- the landlord's website

-- websites of suppliers and service providers (do a testimonial for them, write an article)

-- professional societies for dentists (write an article for them)

-- dental schools attended. some of them link to the practice of successful graduates

-- local charities often link to companies who support them (friends of the library, habitat, religious groups, little league boosters)

-- local business initiatives (tourism association, "buy local", downtown merchant association)

-- local online newspaper (advertise, write an article or column)

-- trade association publications (advertise, write an article or column)

-- local and state license boards sometimes link to the websites of license holders

[SteveOllington]

Some crazy, lesser known facts about teeth... funny, interesting, surprising, and with imagery

[MarieHaynes]

What a great list!  Would work for many professions.

[DanielFreedman]

Agree on business directories. It's also worked wonders for my clients, mostly small and medium-sized businesses. We have a list of about 10 high quality business directories. We supplement with a few others, specific to the industry. We:

• never pay for listings or enhancements

• take the time and trouble to do it right, hand-crafting answers to all fields -- including photos, logos and special offers (if available)

It's all very labor intensive. And it's not something that can be off-shored or entrusted to the intern. It requires some intelligence to understand the client's business and how best to complete the profile.

This is all rather tedious, but the payoff is big. It's really low hanging fruit more people should pick.

[sferrino]

Wow, nice follow up Daniel. I posted it early in the morning while doing my rounds and should have given a more detailed post like you just did. Thank you for expanding on it for everyone.

I agree it is labor intensive, but as you mentioned it can pay off.

EGOL listed a few items that I tend to overlook because I am not doing as much content distribution as I should.

[AndrewMiller]

Good question, something I know a little bit about. In addition to the standard local business sites, there are lots of ways to share health-related content on topically relevant sites.

My wife's dental practice website is my fun little SEO side project. We have had great success building links by writing guest posts and columns for local parenting sites (she's a pediatric dentist). There are a lot of myths and old wives' tales about teeth and people LOVE to hear the truth. Sometimes the myths are true! This type of content marketing has even gotten her appearances on the local TV news as an expert on a recent issue with city water supplies.

We took the top "10 myths about children's teeth" and created a downloadable PDF (visible in the footer) and it is a great confidence builder for parents who are unsure about what to expect. It has attracted a few links from other dental and health-related websites.

Finally, she blogs regularly with a mix of community events (they sponsor a lot of kid-friendly and family events around town) and health-related info for parents and kids.

It's all free and has done wonders for their visibility.

[EdgySEO]

Thanks for all the useful tips. Very good answers

[EdgySEO]

Brilliant! Thanks for sharing.

[EdgySEO]

I second that. Very good list

[Czubmeister]

I have heard many people say "Never pay for a link". I only pay for those directories if it gets me a backlink. My rule is that if it's under 10 bucks, I'll do it. My dentists pay me good money every month and a $10 one time fee isn't going to break the bank especially if it gets you a lifetime backlink.

[Smileworks_Liverpool]

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