SEO strategy breakdown for ‘dentists london’

How to rank in first position on Google for the competitive transactional keyword, “Dentist London”.

When targeting a keyword in SEO, it’s essential to analyse the SEO strategies of the top ranking websites. This way we can determine exactly what is needed to take the number one position.

With 3,600 monthly searches, “dentist London” is a highly competitive keyword sought after by dentists across the whole of London.

Ranking just behind the NHS website, London Dental Centre has secured the top spot. This makes them the highest ranked website among private dental practices in London.

In this analysis, I’ll look into the key elements that have helped The London Dental Centre reach such a prominent position in the search results. By understanding the SEO tactics driving their success, dental practices and other service providers can gain valuable insights into the SEO strategies required to compete within the London dental space.

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The brand

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Current SEO performance

The London Dental Centre website demonstrates a solid SEO performance, effectively capturing traffic from both brand and non-brand searches.

Estimated Traffic

• Estimated Monthly Traffic: 2.2k visits
• Estimated Traffic Value: £3.7k. This indicates the approximate cost of acquiring this traffic through paid ads.

Brand vs Non-Brand Traffic

• Brand Traffic: 48.1% of traffic comes from brand-related searches (9 keywords), showing strong brand recognition.
• Non-Brand Traffic: 51.9% of traffic comes from non-branded keywords (1,160 keywords). This indicates that while London Dental Centre benefits from brand searches, it also successfully captures users searching for general dental services, extending their reach beyond brand-aware visitors.

Keyword Performance

Total Organic Keywords Ranking: 1,169. They have a diverse keyword profile, capturing visibility across a broad spectrum of dental-related terms.

Brand Keywords

“London Dental Centre”: Ranking 1st with 720 monthly searches. Strong visibility for their brand name indicates a well-established brand presence and authority.

Notable High-Performing Keywords

• “Dentist London”: Ranking in the 2nd position with 3,600 searches per month.
• “Scale and polish”: Ranking 9th with 3,600 searches per month.
• “Private dental treatment price list”: Ranking 6th with 6,600 searches per month.

These keywords suggest that London Dental Centre has focused on high-intent service-related terms, targeting users searching for private dental services in London.

Underperforming Local Keywords

While the website is ranking well for “Dentist London”, their visibility for borough-specific keywords such as “Dentist Islington”, “Dentist Old Street”, “Dentist Shoreditch”, and “Dentist Farringdon” is currently underperforming.

• Dentist Islington: Position 31 (390 monthly searches)
• Dentist Old Street: Position 7 (210 monthly searches)
• Dentist Shoreditch: Position 29 (110 monthly searches)
• Dentist Farringdon: Position 50 (70 monthly searches)

Although these keywords have lower search volume than “Dentist London”, they are highly targeted and directly relevant to potential customers local to their clinic. Improving rankings for these terms would attract more patients in the immediate vicinity, increasing foot traffic and conversions.

The underperformance of these keywords suggest a potential gap in local SEO that warrants further investigation.

Underperforming Transactional Keywords

• “Teeth whitening London”: Ranked 15th (3,600 searches) – Close to a first-page ranking, indicating potential with additional content or backlink support.
• “Emergency dentist London”: Ranked 100th (2,900 searches) – Low visibility for close variant to dentist London. This suggests a lack of on-page mentions for the word ’emergency’.
• “Invisalign London”: Ranked 57th (1,300 searches) – Mid-level ranking, which could potentially be improved with more targeted optimisation.

Underperforming Informational Keywords

There are multiple high-traffic informational terms that London Dental Centre is not ranking for:

• “NHS dentists taking new patients” (12,100 searches)
• “tooth infection symptoms” (3,600 searches)
• “wisdom tooth pain” (14,800 searches)

These keywords are ranking outside the top 100, suggesting a lack of informational content on the website.

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Website assessment

The London Dental Centre’s website is visually clean, professional, and aligns well with the healthcare sector.

Above the Fold

The page opens with a strong, welcoming hero section, with the phrase “More than dentistry, from day one”, paired with a dentist at work. This combination effectively conveys a sense of care and expertise. The primary call-to-action (CTA), “Book Now”, is prominently displayed, making it easy for users to proceed directly to booking an appointment.

The header includes contact details, such as a phone number and an option for online booking, providing multiple ways for users to reach out and engage.

Trust and Expertise Section

Directly below the hero section, the tagline “Where expertise meets elegance” is followed by a brief explanation of the centre’s values and commitment to personalised dental care. This is reinforced by a list of benefits or reasons to choose The London Dental Centre, such as their emphasis on personalised treatment and high-quality care.

This section effectively builds credibility, presenting The London Dental Centre as a trustworthy, patient-centred practice.

Promotional Banner for Invisalign

The page features a dedicated section promoting a “Black Friday Invisalign” offer. This is a strategic move to attract users looking for orthodontic treatments, especially those who may be motivated by cost savings.

The use of clear pricing and mention of free extras (e.g., free consultation, whitening) enhances the appeal of this offer. For users considering Invisalign, this section provides a clear incentive to choose London Dental Centre.

Testimonials

The page includes a testimonials section, showcasing patient reviews and star ratings. This user-generated content provides social proof, which is especially valuable for dental practices, as potential patients often rely on reviews when choosing healthcare providers. The positive feedback about the clinic’s friendly and professional atmosphere helps build trust and ease any concerns users may have about visiting a dentist.

Meet the Team

A section introduces the clinic’s dental team, with photos and names of the practitioners. This humanises the clinic, helping to establish a personal connection with prospective patients who can see the people behind the practice. This is also a huge signal for EEAT and will help aid as a trust symbol for Google.

Adding brief bios or highlighting each dentist’s expertise here could further enhance credibility and allow patients to feel more familiar with the team before their visit.

Insurance Information

A dedicated section addresses dental insurance, asking visitors if they’re making the most of their dental insurance benefits. This can appeal to users who are looking to reduce costs by using their insurance coverage, potentially increasing conversions. This section also lists recognised insurance providers, which gives patients peace of mind that their insurer may be accepted by the clinic.

Location and Directions

The page includes a “Click here to get directions” CTA and a map pinpointing the clinic’s location in London. For users searching for “Dentist London”, this helps reinforce the clinic’s geographic relevance and provides a practical tool for finding the clinic, which enhances user experience and local SEO.

On Page SEO

The page is clearly written for humans and not search engines as it’s missing some traditional on-page SEO techniques. The focus keyword ‘dentist London’ is not featured in the meta title or headings on the web page. The word dentist is mentioned 11 times, and London 7 times out of 497 words.

This is a classic case of Google understanding the relevance of the page to dentists in London, without having to explicitly state it in the form of keywords. The brand name and URL ‘London Dental Centre’ will be reinforcing this.

As a side note, they do have a dedicated page on the website for the keyword ‘Dentist London’, but this is offering little value and has less than 300 words. Google has decided rightly, that the home page is the best page to serve users who search for this particular keyword.

Internal Links

Internal links appear in the footer, linking to other parts of the site (e.g., specific services, about page).

Including more internal links within the body (e.g., linking to a dedicated Invisalign page or other service pages) could help improve on-page SEO by making it easier for users to explore other relevant areas.

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Content strategy

Content is the backbone of SEO, driving engagement, establishing authority, and building relevance with search engines.

High-quality content not only attracts users but also signals to search engines that a website provides valuable, trustworthy information.

Relevance

To rank well for competitive keywords like “Dentist London”, it’s essential for a website to demonstrate high relevance through strategic keyword placement in key elements such as titles, headers, and body text.

Indexed Pages

Approximately 113 pages are indexed on Google, which is a relatively small website.

On further analysis I discovered that not all of these pages are high value. This would give me encouragement if I were a competitor looking to take their coveted spot at the top of Google.

Keyword Placement in Titles

• The keyword “Dentist London” appears in five page titles, which is 4.42% of the total pages.
• The keyword “Dentist” is found in 28 titles, representing 24.78% of pages.
• The keyword “London” is present in 100% of page titles.

Titles are among the most important on-page SEO elements, as they provide a strong relevance signal to search engines. London Dental Centre has an advantage in this area, in that the keywords appear in their brand name, so it would make sense for every page to be relevant. They have also incorporated “Dentist” and “London” in a significant portion of their titles, helping establish even more relevance to the keyword.

Keyword Placement in H1 Headings

• The keyword “Dentist” appears in 11 H1 headings, covering 9.73% of pages.
• The keyword “Dentist London” is not present in any H1 headings (0% of pages).
• The keyword “London” is found in 36 H1 headings, which is 31.86% of pages.

The absence of “Dentist London” in H1 headings is a good thing, because it is a keyword and not a natural phrase. H1 headings are a major signal to both users and search engines about a page’s core topic. The fact that London is in the H1 of a third of the entire website is a strong signal which provides high relevance for the keyword “Dentist London”.

Keyword Placement in H2 Headings

• The keyword “Dentist London” is used in three H2 headings, which represents 2.65% of pages.
• The keyword “Dentist” appears in 37 H2 headings, covering 32.74% of pages.
• The keyword “London” is present in 27 H2 headings, or 23.89% of pages.

The frequent addition of keywords throughout H2s are adding even more weight to the website’s relevance to the keyword ‘Dentists London’.

Keyword Placement in Body Text

• The keyword “Dentist” appears 259 times in the body content, which is 0.59% of the total word count.
• The keyword “London” is found 541 times, making up 1.24% of the total word count.

The frequency of “Dentist” and “London” in the body text is relatively low, with “Dentist” only making up 0.59% and “London” 1.24% of the total word count. Considering the relevance in other areas such as titles and headings, this is probably a good thing, as it can help avoid being flagged for keyword stuffing or over optimisation.

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Types of content

London Dental Centre’s website currently offers a range of content aimed at meeting the needs of their existing customers.

Treatment Pages

The website includes dedicated pages for each treatment, which helps establish relevance for service-specific keywords. These pages likely contribute to their rankings for terms related to individual treatments, such as “Invisalign” or “teeth whitening.” However, enhancing these pages with more in-depth information or FAQs could further strengthen authority in competitive searches.

Company Pages

Standard company pages like About Us and Meet the Team provide users with essential information about the practice’s background and staff. These pages help build trust and give a human touch to the website. Adding team member bios, credentials, or personal statements about their approach to patient care could increase credibility and engage potential patients more effectively.

Customer Service Information

Pages dedicated to customer service, such as aftercare instructions and appointment details, are beneficial for existing clients and help reduce common inquiries. However, these pages are primarily functional and may not contribute significantly to SEO. Expanding this content to cover common patient concerns, such as preparing for a first visit or what to expect from various treatments, could attract more informational search traffic.

Blog

The blog currently has few informational posts, which limits its potential to rank for broader search terms and attract new visitors. By expanding their blog with well-researched, informational content on topics like “tooth infection symptoms” and “wisdom tooth pain,” London Dental Centre could capture additional traffic from users seeking dental advice. Targeting these kinds of queries would not only broaden their reach but also enhance their authority as a source of dental knowledge.

Test Pages with Placeholder Content

The website currently has test pages indexed that contain placeholder “lorem ipsum” text. These pages can harm SEO by creating a low-quality perception of the site. Removing these pages from the index immediately would improve the site’s quality score and streamline the user experience.

Multimedia Content

Videos

The website only features one video, which is placed on the homepage. Video content can significantly enhance engagement, support SEO, and improve user experience. Adding more videos, such as treatment walkthroughs, patient testimonials, or Q&A sessions with the dental team, could help capture and retain visitors.

Images

With a total of 676 images across the site, averaging 6 images per page, the website has a good visual presence. However, ensuring that all images are optimised with descriptive alt text could improve accessibility and provide additional relevance signals to search engines.

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E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness)

A strong E-E-A-T profile is essential for establishing credibility in competitive fields where users are seeking trustworthy information and services. The field of dentistry would most likely fall under the ‘Your Money or Your Life’ section that appears in the Search Quality Rater Guidelines. This means Google will be even stricter when it comes to the trust signals found within E-E-A-T.

Content Quality Signals

• Quality Terms in Content: The website includes 785 instances of quality-related words (e.g., “research,” “study,” “data”), making up 1.79% of the total word count. This indicates an attempt to provide informative, well-considered content.

Academic and Professional Credentials

• Credentials and Expertise: There are 1,383 instances of academic or professional credentials (e.g., “Dr,” “BDS,” “DDS”), which comprise 3.16% of the total word count. This strong representation of professional credentials helps establish London Dental Centre as a reputable source, signalling expertise and building patient trust.

Academic and Research Links

• External Links to Authoritative Sources: The site currently includes no external links to academic or governmental sources (e.g., .gov, .ac.uk, .edu). Adding links to high-authority sources, such as reputable dental research studies or healthcare guidelines, could improve the site’s trustworthiness, especially for informational content. This would reinforce their content’s credibility and support E-E-A-T standards by aligning the information with recognised authorities.

Professional Association Signals

• Industry Accreditations and Associations: There are 137 mentions of professional associations or accreditations, which is 0.31% of the total word count. While this indicates some reference to industry credentials, highlighting specific recognitions or memberships with prominent dental organisations (e.g., General Dental Council, British Dental Association) more prominently could further strengthen the site’s authority and reassure prospective patients of their professionalism.

Schema Markup

• Person Schema: Found on three pages, which is 2.65% of the total pages. While limited, person schema is beneficial for showcasing individual expertise, such as linking specific pages to the dental team. Expanding this schema to other pages, particularly those featuring dental professionals, would enhance credibility for Google.
• Organisation Schema: Used on 139 pages, accounting for 123.01% of total pages (over-indexed due to multiple schema types or repeated tags). Organisation schema is essential for establishing brand presence and authority, helping Google understand that the site represents a reputable dental practice.
• Review Schema: Present on 345 pages, amounting to 305.31% of pages (likely due to multiple reviews on single pages). Review schema is highly valuable for E-E-A-T, as it provides user-generated content that supports trustworthiness. The extensive use of review schema suggests a strong focus on social proof, an important factor for influencing new patients.

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Technical SEO

Technical SEO is essential for delivering a fast, stable, and user-friendly experience, which not only improves user satisfaction but also supports SEO.

Loading times

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): 2.9 seconds

LCP measures how long it takes for the largest content element to load on the page, ideally below 2.5 seconds. At 2.9 seconds, London Dental Centre’s LCP is slightly above the recommended threshold. Improving this metric could enhance user experience and boost SEO performance, as Google considers LCP a key factor in their page experience ranking system.

Optimising images, leveraging lazy loading, and minifying CSS and JavaScript could all help reduce LCP.

Interaction to Next Paint (INP): 128 milliseconds

INP represents the responsiveness of the page, with a good score generally being under 200 milliseconds. At 128ms, this score is excellent, indicating that the page is highly responsive to user interactions, which contributes to a smooth user experience.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0.02

CLS measures visual stability, with anything under 0.1 considered good. A score of 0.02 is excellent, indicating that elements on the page do not shift unexpectedly as it loads, ensuring a stable and user-friendly experience.

First Contentful Paint (FCP): 2.3 seconds

FCP measures the time taken for the first piece of content to appear, ideally below two seconds. At 2.3 seconds, London Dental Centre’s FCP is slightly above this target. Faster FCP can improve user engagement and perceived speed.

Reducing render-blocking resources and optimising server response time could help bring FCP closer to the 2-second goal.

Time to First Byte (TTFB): 1.2 seconds

TTFB measures the time it takes for the server to respond to the initial request, with anything below 0.8 seconds generally considered good. At 1.2 seconds, this is an area for potential optimisation, as faster server response times can improve loading speeds.

Server-side optimisations, such as using a CDN, caching, and minimising server response times, could reduce TTFB and improve overall page performance.

Other Issues

Beyond core web vitals, London Dental Centre’s technical SEO health is generally in good shape, with only a few minor issues identified.

132 pages have a low text-to-HTML ratio.

A low text-to-HTML ratio can indicate that pages contain relatively more code than content, which may impact load times and reduce content relevance for search engines. This has already been noted by the fact that some of their pages have thin content. While this isn’t a major issue, improving the text-to-HTML ratio on these pages by minimising excess code or adding more meaningful content could contribute to slight SEO improvements and enhance page relevance.

There is also a broken external link, which could lead to a poor user experience and reduce the site’s credibility in minor ways. Removing or replacing this broken link with a valid resource will maintain the site’s quality and ensure a seamless experience for users.

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Off-page SEO and link building

Backlinks are an important factor in SEO, as they act as endorsements from other websites, signalling to search engines that a site is credible, valuable, and worth ranking higher in search results. High-quality backlinks from authoritative sources help improve a website’s domain authority, drive organic traffic, and enhance trustworthiness in the eyes of both users and search engines.

Current Backlink Profile

London Dental Centre’s backlink profile is modest, with room for improvement to strengthen its authority and competitive standing in the search results.

• Authority Score: 12 – This is relatively low, suggesting limited influence and trust from backlinks. Increasing high-quality links from reputable sources would help boost this score and enhance SEO performance.
• Total Backlinks: 473
• Referring Domains: 163 – While the number of referring domains is reasonable, the quality of these domains is mixed, with a high proportion of low-value links.

Anchor Text Analysis

The anchor text used in their backlinks is primarily branded or generic, which is beneficial for maintaining a natural profile, but lacks relevance to target keywords. Incorporating some keyword-rich anchor text (while avoiding over-optimisation) could help reinforce their authority for key terms.

Types of Links

• Quality Links: They have a few valuable links from sites like dentistry.co.uk and invisalign.co.uk, which lend some credibility and industry relevance to their profile. Additionally, they’re listed on Groupon, which can drive traffic but doesn’t significantly impact SEO.
• Directory Links: The majority of their backlinks come from directories like Thompson and Yell, which are useful for foundational local SEO but generally low-impact in terms of authority.
• Spammy Links: A substantial portion of their links appear spammy, which could hinder their authority score and overall SEO potential. Cleaning up low-quality or irrelevant links through disavowal might improve their link profile and prevent potential penalties.

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Social media

Social media can play a valuable supporting role in SEO by increasing brand visibility, engaging with clients, and driving traffic back to the website. However, London Dental Centre’s social media presence is currently limited, with low engagement across platforms and infrequent updates.

Instagram: 454 followers

The account is rarely updated and has low engagement. Instagram offers a strong visual platform to showcase before-and-after images, patient testimonials, and team introductions. Increasing posting frequency and focusing on engaging content could help attract new followers and build stronger connections with potential clients.

Facebook: 1,000 followers

While Facebook has the largest following, the account is infrequently updated and sees minimal engagement. Regular posts, particularly those that offer value—such as dental tips, promotions, or community involvement—could help revitalise engagement on this platform.

LinkedIn: 259 followers

The LinkedIn profile also sees limited activity and engagement. For a professional service like dentistry, LinkedIn could be used more effectively to connect with local businesses, share industry news, and highlight team expertise, helping to build credibility and attract a local audience.

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Areas for improvement

Increase Visibility for Local Boroughs

The fact that London Dental Centre is ranking so well for dentists in London suggests they are highly trusted by Google and highly relevant to London. This means it should be relatively straightforward to dominate their local boroughs, specifically Islington, Old Street, Shoreditch and Farringdon.

They have dedicated pages for Islington, Old Street and Shoreditch, however these are relatively low value and there is definitely room for improvement. For example, these are no sitewide internal links and pages are not fully optimised with on-page SEO. They’ve already proved they can gain the top position by just having the largest volume of relevant content. The website with the most content relevant to Islington has 95 pages with Islington in the title. I would make a bet that if the London Dental Centre added 95 pages related to Islington, they would rank top for dentists in Islington too.

Fix Technical Issues

They have pages that contain placeholder text and I would suggest removing these ASAP. They won’t be helping SEO and look unprofessional if discovered by users. I would also look at optimising loading times on the website. Making pages load just a few hundreths of a second faster can still make a difference.

Expand Content

Overall the website is lacking in content of any significance. There are lots of opportunities to utillise their expertise in dentistry and create content that not only helps their existing customer base, but also new users. This type of content can help build authority for the domain and drive new users to the website, increasing brand awareness.

Utilise Social Media

Spending more time on social media can greatly increase their presence in the local community. You can guarantee that most of the residents in their catchment area of Islington will be on social media. By posting regular engaging content on both Instagram and Facebook, The London Dental Centre can expand their visibility in the local area and ultimately gain new customers.

London Dental Centre is in an excellent position ranking highly for a competitive London keyword, I would like to see them capitalise on this by dominating their local boroughs and gaining traffic on a national level.

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