Don’t let marketing frustrations get you down! Every business is ripe for successful promotion

There are certain big-name players in the web marketing world, but this month, we saw an appearance from someone that we never expected to turn to for marketing inspiration. As a partially government-funded entity and the unpopular alternative to airplane travel, Amtrak has never been the most glamorous institution on the block. They decided to combat this by focusing on what is appealing about their services: the long-held romantic tradition of train travel.

Amtrak found its opportunity to strike by paying close attention to social media. When writer Alexander Chee mentioned in an interview that there should be an Amtrak residency for writers, fellow writer Jessica Gross tweeted at Amtrak, asking them to make it a reality. Amtrak responded in the affirmative, sending Gross on the maiden residency. Their writer’s residency program is now underway, and this wallflower company has a young, creative, tastemaking audience listening, creating, and buzzing.

The Marketability of Your Dental Practice

There’s a lesson to be learned here. No matter how uncool a business may seem, it can always find an angle. Amtrak showed off its connections with its users, jumping on a tweet to create a new kind of camaraderie with train travelers and writers alike. Draw inspiration from this to do the same with your dental practice. While dental offices may not seem like the most exciting places, you can find a way to connect with patients and show them that your practice values them.

Making Marketing Fun – For Both Practice and Patient

Another great aspect of Amtrak’s interactions is the way the institution made their marketing entertaining – and even fun. Those behind the creation of the residency and those reaping its rewards enjoy the process. Your marketing doesn’t have to be all humdrum. Find and seize opportunities to make it more lively, and your current and prospective patients will appreciate your efforts. The simplest, most effective way to do so is to follow Amtrak’s example, and embrace social media.

Social Media Marketing for Dentists

Social media isn’t just the life of the party – is IS the party. It’s where everyone is hanging out online. If you want to break into a new group of patients, or build connections among existing ones, social media is the right route. Sharing content on social media is simple – it doesn’t even have to be something you created yourself. Posting a fun fact, dental graphic, blog post, cartoon, or educational tidbit will give your patients a moment of humor or reflection. They’ll appreciate that you put that content in their paths, and they will remember you for your online presence. Better yet, they could share that content with others.

Getting Patients Involved in Practice Promotion

You’ve provided superb dentistry – your patients will be happy to return the favor. Not by doing dental work (could get a bit messy), but by giving back to your practice. This is as simple as clicking “Share” on one of your Facebook posts, or pinning one of your photos on Pinterest. When your patients respect you and appreciate what you’ve done for them, they’re likely to blatantly and inadvertently help improve your web presence. Tapping into patients’ social groups offers you an entirely new group of prospective patients, and helps your practice continue to grow.

Whether you’re marketing long-distance train travel or dental crowns and root canals, the basic principles are the same. Find a way to connect with your audience, and you could be next month’s Amtrak.

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Web design is the darling of the Internet. No matter how great a site’s content is (whether it’s text, photographs, or videos), the site’s design facilitates and effects viewing. Unless they’re already invested in what that specific site has to offer, many first-time visitors will navigate away if they don’t gel with the site’s design. Design dictates a website’s appeal. Is yours convincing new patients to follow through and make a call? It may be time for an update.

Time for a Website Redesign?

Refreshing your website’s design is simple and a wise investment. With the constantly evolving face of the Internet, regular updates are necessary to stay in touch with what looks current. Redesigns also help you stay abreast of Google updates and keep your site search engine-friendly. If you struggle to look objectively at your website and decide what it needs, Doctor Web Solution can help. It’s always tough to mentally separate from something you’ve spent time building. We can offer that outsider’s perspective, aided by design expertise.

Why Your Website’s Design Should Be A Priority

Make your website a place patients want to spend their time

A website’s design speaks to visitors the moment they land on the page. This is more than can be said for the site’s content – depending on its format and on-page location, most visitors will never see its majority. Design stands out instantly, and determines the way patients view your entire site. Is the layout user-friendly? Is it clean and appealing? Is it action-oriented, providing patients with a clear route to contacting the practice? Your design should accomplish all these tasks, and more.

Is Your Current Website Design Working?

Unsure whether your website is in need of some work? Consider a few of the following criteria to decide whether it’s time for an upgrade.

• Is your website yielding new patients? This question is both straightforward and complex. How do you determine whether your dental practice’s website is doing its job? The proper solution lies in tackling some contact data. Consider how many appointment requests have come in via your web site, and which services those patients were seeking (were they preventive, cosmetic, restorative, etc). Use web analytics to determine the bounce rate of your home page. You’ll be able to decide whether people are interacting with your site in a way that is rewarding to both them and your practice.
• Do you like your website? You’re the most important benchmark of your website’s design success. If you just settled for a design and it’s not exactly what you’d like, chances are that design doesn’t really fit with your mission statement or your practice.
• Is your design consistent with your practice’s image? This applies to both visual branding and the site’s content. Does the appearance and layout of your website match paper promotional materials, the practice’s logo, and other representations of your office? It’s key that you establish a consistent brand, and your site design is a great place to start. Nearly everyone who searches for a new dentist online will pass through your site before making a call, and they’ll be evaluating the practice along the way. Make sure those patients draw conclusions that reflect the reality of your practice.

Submit your website for a free design and SEO evaluation to get an idea of where you’re at. We’ll comment on what should be working well, potential changes you could make, and what the redesign process would entail. There’s no obligation involved, simply some professional advice. If you’re unsure about your design or your on-site SEO, we’d love to take a look.

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As a medical professional, marketing just isn’t within your purview. And it shouldn’t be! You have other things to focus on. Your patients’ well-being is your natural top priority.

The catch-22 is that without practice marketing, you won’t have patients to treat. For this reason, many dentists and doctors choose to hire outside forces to take care of their marketing. Even if you have hired a marketing firm, it’s important that you be a part of the process. No one can ever hope to understand your practice the way you and your office manager do, or decide how your practice should be presented to the world. So how do you place a few toes in the web marketing waters?

Easy Comprehension of Dental Marketing Basics

This blog post acts as a promotion primer to help you consider the basic factors of dental marketing as they apply to your office. Consider the factors detailed below to get a better idea of how to proceed, and what to emphasize in your marketing efforts. If you have any questions, Doctor Web Solution could offer some pointers. Just get in touch.

Taking Your First Dental Marketing Steps

• Determine what should be promoted – This is based on a number of factors. Spend some time with your office’s invoices to get a better idea of your top earners (within your services). Which ones typically aren’t covered by insurance? Which are more popular? Which treatments yield the highest net income? You’ll also need to consider the treatments that will appeal most to your patients. Your marketing needs to be a balance of what you want to promote and what patients are trying to find in order to be successful. If your entire website talks about root canals, but fails to mention cosmetic services, it’s not going to bring in new patients (endodontic therapy isn’t the most inviting treatment).
• Establish your target demographics – Your target demographics are determined by patients’ traits and their locations. You’ll want to appeal to different patients for different services, and tweak your marketing to correspond with whomever is likely to find that service appealing. You’ll also want to choose which neighboring cities, suburbs, or counties you’re interested in using as patient sources. These decisions will inform the Google pay per click and Facebook ad campaigns that your marketers implement.
• Decide on your web presence – This is a HUGE decision. Your “web presence” encompasses so much – the design of your website; your social media personalities; your ad campaigns; your practice’s branding and logo. You’ll want to work with a professional web designer to make sure that your choices are incorporated in an attractive, functional, and SEO-friendly manner.
• Build points of connection – These points of connection deepen relationships with existing patients, and bring in new patients in the process. Your web connections will be formed on social media, on your website, and through email. You’ll need to move your existing patient relationships to the web by encouraging individuals to connect with the practice. From those initial connections, new ones will grow, and your practice will flourish.
• Continue to develop your online presence – Your web marketing needs to evolve and endure to stay relevant. While your SEO consultant will take care of the necessary search engine-related changes, you will need to provide fresh content and office news yourself. Prospective patients are turned off when they see that your blog hasn’t been updated in 6 months, or that your Facebook page hasn’t seen activity in weeks. The web presence you build will require ongoing additions – it’s never “all set,” or ready to be left alone. Remain important to patients by remaining active.

These tips scratch the surface of your introduction to web marketing. Interested in learning more? Get in touch with Doctor Web Solution for dental marketing expertise.

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Staying up to date with your SEO doesn’t need to be overwhelming.

Keeping up with good search engine optimization practices can be a dizzying endeavor. With near-constant changes to Google’s algorithm, conflicting ideas from the experts as to what marketers should be doing, and the ever-evolving face of the Internet all at play, things get complicated pretty quickly. Avoid confusion by keeping your SEO simple. It’s possible to distill your SEO efforts to just a few areas of concentration.

What (Good) SEO Looks Like in 2014

Those new to the SEO world likely paused at that heading. How can an internet marketing practice have an alignment? The story of good vs. evil (at least in the search engine optimization realm) began long ago, when search engines first began crawling the burgeoning Internet. Those hoping to get their sites noticed took to practices that were eventually deemed obnoxious. At the time, this wasn’t “bad,” it was just what was done, and it showed results. Today, we call those practices black hat SEO, and our site rankings are ultimately penalized if we choose to employ them.

Part of the reason search engines continue to evolve is to kick those practices to the curb. As search engines become more sophisticated, they’re able to punish webmasters/marketers that choose to keyword stuff, link farm, or hide content. Suspect sites’ PageRanks lower, and they fall in search engine listings. Those using good SEO (aka “white hat” SEO) avoid these flash-in-the-pan practices and take more substantial courses of action.

Good Content

Quality content has become more and more important as search engines have become more discerning. High-octane content is recognized and handled differently by web users, and search engines pick up on these signs. Writing quality content is as simple as taking the time to put it together. Ensure that you’re writing for someone, rather than just writing for your own marketing purposes. Consider your patients and their needs to determine what they would like to gain from your website and its blog. Oh, did we mention blogging? It’s absolutely necessary. Creating new content and producing it consistently will help your site rise in the rankings.

Inbound Links

Search engines monitor the way other websites interact with your own. When another site contains a link to your site, this improves your PageRank and authority. If that website is topically similar your own, even better – establishing relevancy with your keywords and links is a must. Gradually, carefully build these links to ensure that you’re rewarded.

Social Media

Every “like” is a step in the right direction.

This is the newest tenet of basic SEO. Social media marketing continues to boom, with each new platform changing the way users perceive and are exposed to marketing efforts. While only some social media links are “follow” (i.e. they count in building PageRank), all social media efforts help you connect with patients and prospective visitors. Your dental practice should take advantage of this – most of your patients are likely already on at least one of these platforms, and ready to engage.

How To Incorporate SEO Into Your Dental Marketing

• Get a blog – and use it! As we mentioned above, blogging is imperative. It’s the simplest, most effective way to continue growing your website and show patients an active web presence. If your website doesn’t already have a blog page, we guarantee that your CMS (content management system) offers an easy venue for setting one up.
• Spend time on social media. This is easy but requires some time. Build up social media presences on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, and LinkedIn. Post your content, fun stuff, practice news, or other dentistry-related articles to engage with patients.
• Set up a link building campaign. More so than the other SEO steps, this may require some outside help. If you’re looking for SEO expertise, get in touch with Doctor Web Solution. We’ll help you garner inbound links and rise in the rankings.

That’s SEO in 2014, in a nutshell. Need a hand with your web marketing? Contact us for some ideas.

2014 SEO | 2014 SEO Practices | 2014 SEO for Dentists

Every dental practice is unique. But how exactly does one translate what is special about their practice into a web presence? Determining how to market your dental practice takes time and thought. Evaluate your services to decide on the best areas of focus. Below, we’ve listed a few things to take into consideration when setting up your website. Incorporate them into your web marketing to see a site that both speaks volumes and draws in patients.

 Looking at Your Practice From A Marketing Point of View

1. Which services are profitable? – For most dentists, these are usually the cosmetic treatments. But it’s important to understand exactly which services are going to bring in the most revenue. Put together a list of the treatments that prove to be the most financially beneficial for your practice, and consider ways to work those into high-profile roles on your website.
2. Which services are appealing? – Sometimes, you need to step back and take an objective look at your own business. No one else views it the way you do – but they’re the ones you need to consider in your marketing. Appealing services are typically those low in cost and high in reward. Which ones do you most commonly get inquiries about? Make calls to action that highlight appealing treatments to see more follow-throughs from site visitors.
3. Which services are easily marketable? – Marketable services are different from appealing ones because they don’t have to be the most popular, just the easiest to promote. For example, everyone isn’t necessarily coming to your site to read up on teeth whitening, but they’re going to see a front-page ad for whitening (with dazzling “Before and After” photos) and get interested.

Seeking Dental Marketing Advice?

Looking for help setting up your web marketing campaign? Get in touch with Doctor Web Solution.

One of the trickiest aspects of web marketing is staying current. The Internet is constantly changing, and we have to doggy paddle to stay above its waters. How can you keep your dental website up-to-date in every possible way? While adding to your site’s service pages, Before and After gallery, and news section will show patients that you’re paying attention, there’s an even simpler way to maintain your site: by writing a regular blog. Better yet, blogging appeals not only to patients but also to search engines. A practice that pleases both people and robots? We think it must be a winner.

Setting Up Your Dental Blog

Your CMS (content management service, like WordPress) should make it simple for you to blog. Most have a blogging system in place on your site as soon as it’s created. From there, it’s easy to log on and get blogging.

…Or is it? Stumped as to what you should be blogging about? Read on for some ideas.

• Your practice’s services – Elaborate on what you have to offer to get patients more excited about treatment possibilities. This also serves as a valuable patient-dentist communication portal.
• Patient education – The more patients know about oral health and the right dental practices, the more engaged they’ll become with their dental care. Talk about oral hygiene, oral disease, and other dental concerns.
• Office specials – If you’re offering something special, why not talk the opportunity to blog about it? This will help increase practice/special visibility.
• Emerging technology – If your practice is keeping up with the technological times, it’s something you should be proud of. Discuss dental technology and the role your practice is playing within it.
• Dentistry-related news – This one is a little tougher. How often is dentistry in the news? Fact of the matter is, the news doesn’t even have to be dentistry-specific. If something catches your eye and applies even tangentially to your practice, bring it up on your blog (you’re sure to get visitors searching for the news item).

Need Blogging Help?

We’re happy to provide your practice with weekly posts. Learn more by contacting Dr. Web Solution online!