Google catalogues 18,300 Your Dentist website pages

The popular internet search engine, Google, has now catalogued 18,300 pages of the Your Dentist website, resulting in visitor numbers to the find-a-dentist site located at www.dentist.com.au exceeding 600,000 a month.

"We are now actively working with Google to ensure Your Dentist is fully compatiable with their indexing system," said Joseph Allbeury, publisher of Your Dentist. "The fact that we now have 18,300 pages indexed [go to Google and type into the search field site:dentist.com.au] means that every individual practice and every individual dentist in Australia now has an indiviudal listing in Google. Now you don't get that with the Yellow Pages!

"The growing number of vistitors to the site also demonstrates that people who are visiting the popular generic search engines are finding it far more useful to click through to a dentist-specific search engine like Your Dentist. Trying to find the dentist you need amongst the 8,058,044,651 web pages¹ currently indexed on Google, for example, is a minefield.

"When you search on these sites, you get all kinds of irrelevant information returned. The optimisation strategy we are continuing to implement is designed to ensure Your Dentist is hopefully on the top of the list when people search on a variety of words relating to dentistry. Once people click through to Your Dentist, the information is delivered in a much more structured and useable format which also increases its popularity. It's a complex process, but so far so good."

As at June 30, Your Dentist had 82 first place rankings on various dental keyword searches across some of the most popular Australian search engines, including Google, Yahoo and NineMSN search. Combined with over 450 rankings in the top 10 results on these engines, Your Dentist is positioned to capitalise on the majority of search-based dental traffic in the country.

"The strategy in place will see these numbers continue to grow and our keyword penetration improves daily to include coverage of geographical search terms including regional dentists, specialist practices and genres such as cosmetic dentistry.

"If you now go to Google, for example, and type in the words 'dentists in drummoyne', or any other suburb, then typically we will be on the first page of results and in many cases in the number one position."

Mr Allbeury said Your Dentist employed a full time in-house web developer to work on the site plus employed a specialist search engine optimisation consultancy to advise on strategies to increase rankings.

"We are investing in increasing visitor traffic to Your Dentist as part of our commitment to everyone who has chosen one of the paid options on the website," he said.

Your Dentist is a free service for dental practices in Australia, however, there are also paid options on the site that allow the inclusion of more detailed information and improve the search ranking. If you're located in a major city where there are hundreds of practices, you can elevate yourself to the top section of the list for as little as $100 a year if you're a paid Australasian Dental Practice subscriber (normally $200).

Every practice in Australia and New Zealand is entitled to a free "Stage One" listing on Your Dentist that includes basic contact details of the practice and the dentists who work there. A paid Stage Two listing adds:

• Expanded information - treatment offered, opening hours, photos, email address, location, parking and more;
• Increased ranking in search results;
• A web address in the format www.dentist.com.au/yourpracticename
• A quarterly newsletter advising of marketing activities; and
• Your money back off any purchase of the Your Dentist patient newsletters.

See www.dentist.com.au/demo for an example and Stage Three, Four and Five packages are also available.

Mr Allbeury said that the revenue from the enhanced listings helps to fund the search engine optimization process and other marketing activities.

"Your Dentist has grown in popularity because the information it contains is displayed in a very organized manner. One of the major differences between Your Dentist and the Yellow Pages, for example, is that Your Dentist is specifically structured around physical dental practices, not telephone numbers and not individual dentists.

"If you search for a dentist in a particular suburb, you might get a list of a dozen practices. If you did the same search on the Yellow Pages, you might get a list of 40. This will include multiple entries for the same dentist based on different spellings of their name, multiple entries for the dentist at the same practice based on all the different telephone numbers and listings under the name of the practice. Your Dentist can simplify this because we didn't begin life as a telephone book. We list each practice once and we list each dentist once. A practice can have multiple dentists and a dentist can work at multiple practices, but each one is listed once and everything is related together in a very organized, high tech manner."

Mr Allbeury encouraged all dentists to firstly ensure they are listed on www.dentist.com.au and then to consider the advantages of upgrading.

"Even if you have a website already, Your Dentist will drive business your way. By listing and then upgrading, you may well be on the top of our list² and we're working very hard to ensure we're on the top of everyone else's."

References

1. Figure correct as at 6:32 pm on Monday 11 July 2005.
2. In search results, Your Dentist displays Stages Three, Four and Five listings first, then Stage Two and then Stage One. In each category, listings are displayed in alphabetical order based on practice name.