Part of a well-designed Internet dental marketing plan should include a link building strategy.

Over the past year Google has made even more changes to its search algorithm to offer up websites high in search that people have linked to and shared throughout the web. One of the ways Google decides how popular a website has become is to consider the type of links pointing to your dental website over your competition.

This is why it is important to create a dental marketing plan that includes a strong link building strategy to ensure that your dental practice website is ranking high in search.

But where do you start?

Here are 6 ways to improve your dental website link building:

1. Orthodontist, oral surgeons, prosthodontists and referral practices.
Do you refer business to other specialists? Consider asking for a reciprocal link in return for referring business. You could even recommend that they create a page dedicated to business they work with locally and recommend. Your dental practice could be listed under preferred dentists or dentists they recommend.

2. Friends and family.
Do you have family or friends who are active on the Internet? Do they have a blog or local website where they would be willing to link to your dental practice? Would you be willing to donate some money towards their hosting costs in return for a “Sponsored by” link?

3. Businesses you locally recommend.
Are there businesses in your community to which you regularly refer your dental patients? Have you thought about creating a referral webpage where you link to local businesses in exchange for a link back from their business website?

4. Social Media.
Make sure that you are creating regular dental SEO engagement on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google Plus that includes a link back to your dental practice website.

5. Contests.
Think about creating a contest on your dental practice blog once a month that involves something dental patients would love to have. Ask them to share a link to your contest for even more chances to win.

6. Press releases.
Writing newsworthy press releases with links back to your dental practice website and making sure that they are distributed across newswires can not only raise the interest of reporters looking for stories or interview quotes, but they can also provide your dental practice website with high-quality links.

Some of these link building ideas will work better for your dental practice website than others. It depends on how you run your dental practice and the other dental specialists and local businesses that you engage with on a regular basis. But with just a little bit of effort you can receive links to your dental practice website and improve your search ranking over that of your local competition.

Yes, it does require some work, but doesn’t your dental practice deserve to thrive both online and off?