Whether they know it or not, many dentists struggle with a major problem that hinders their website marketing results: their content is thin. In other words, the content doesn’t offer any value to website visitors. When website content is thin, it actually affects your online visibility. Google takes one look at the thin content and determines that the website is less valuable and will, therefore, give it a lesser rank. Fixing or removing the thin content can increase SEO results and online visibility to bring in more new patients.

Writing Content On Laptop

What is Thin Content?

Thin content doesn’t offer good value to your website visitors. If they’re searching for a dental practice that offers braces but you only have a small paragraph of duplicate content about braces on your website, it’s unlikely this patient in search of braces will find you on Google. On the other hand, if you have a long page all about your braces treatment and several blog posts about the subject, the odds are more in your favor. Thin content can cost you new patients.

Some examples of thin content include:

Lacking Usefulness or Depth

Is the content written for a specific keyword? Does the page cover the topic and use the term throughout it? If the page barely skims the surface of a procedure, search engines won’t find your website valuable.

Duplicate Content

Duplicate content means unoriginal content. Even if you wrote something yourself but used another page as guidance, it’s possible that you duplicated something in the process. Search engines also view duplicate content as invaluable. The same is true for having too many pages targeting the same keyword. If pages cover the same topic over and over, this isn’t helpful to website visitors.

Too Many Ads

Don’t use your dental website to make money from ads. Use your website to make money from patients! If your website pages have more ads and calls to action than helpful and important content, you will likely trigger the thin content penalty from Google.

Doorway Pages

Doorway pages are low-quality pages designed to rank for specific keywords. They often lack value and instead serve the purpose of redirecting website viewers to unhelpful content on other websites or affiliate websites.

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How Thin Content Hurts Your Dental Website’s SEO

There are a few different ways that thin content on your dental website hurts your SEO.

No Backlinks

When your website content is thin, your website will stop getting backlinks. Backlinks are powerful for helping your website rank on search engines. You won’t get any backlinks because nobody will find a reason to link to you. You can also think of how frustrating it would be to see an enticing meta description and title tag about affordable cosmetic dentistry only to click on it to find a page with none of the information you wanted on it.

Higher Bounce Rate

If someone visits your website and finds no content of value, likely, they won’t stick around very long. This will result in a higher bounce rate on your website. When search engines see that you have a high bounce rate, they automatically assume your website doesn’t provide a good experience or value. This will force your rankings to take a steep decline.

Keywords Get Worn Out

If your website keeps rehashing the same topic over and over again, search engines will notice. It will dilute their trust with your website and hurt your search visibility even more.

“By fixing your thin content, you can improve your online visibility and get more patients in the door!”

What You Can Do to Fix Thin Content

If you determine your dental website contains thin content and your rankings aren’t doing so well, you can likely benefit from fixing your thin content issues. Fortunately, there are a few solutions.

1. Remove Content

You should only remove the content you can’t fix. For example, if you have pages that are off-brand or contain irrelevant keywords and topics, remove these. You should also remove any content that isn’t focused on driving conversions or focusing on specific keywords. It’s important to create 301 redirects on any URLs you remove, especially if any of these pages have backlinks pointing to them.

2. Consolidate Content

If you have several pages about the same topic, consolidate these into the same page. Instead of having several thin pages of content, it’s more powerful to offer one long and strong piece of content instead. Once again, don’t forget to include 301 redirects on the pages you remove.

3. Improve Content

For the pages, you don’t need to delete or consolidate, take your time to improve pages that could potentially offer value. Make sure each page focuses on keywords, covers the topic, fixes broken links, adds relevant links or stats to support the content, is visually appealing, and is optimized for SEO.

By fixing your thin content, you can improve your online visibility and get more patients in the door! If you need help fixing your thin content and want a content strategy that delivers results, please contact us at Pro Impressions Marketing to learn more.