Please read on for more detail about how to implement this exceptionally powerful technique.

The use of video for dental marketing

Over the last 18 months, video has become a front-running tool for progressive practices looking to build their patient numbers. A professionally produced video, incorporating patient testimonials, is excellent for holding attention and encouraging your visitors to make an enquiry.

Shooting and using web video in a dental practice – key steps

• select a “pro” video team – this is much cheaper than you might imagine and the results will be very well worthwhile
• ensure the shoot covers three main elements; an overview of the practice, interviews with key staff members and the all-important patient testimonials
• ensure the video footage is delivered in formats that can be used on the website, dental blog, on the reception plasma screens and promo DVDs
• publish the footage to YouTube with appropriate keywords and tags for SEO
• use the footage in conjunction with your dental website SEO e.g. if you have a patient testimonial covering a smilemakeover using veneers and teeth whitening, make sure you use those keywords in your video testimonials page

Summary

The dental practice video is highly recommended as one of the main tools to assist an internet marketing campaign for a dental practice. Our client’s analytics results demonstrate that the number of new patient enquiries generated from video testimonial pages is much higher than from any other source. Video is also versatile – it can be used on the practice website and blog, to assist SEO via YouTube referrals, for promo DVDs and on waiting room screens.

You might be pleasantly surprised at just how cost-effective video really is – around 1/3 the price of a glossy practice brochure and with significantly better marketing reach. Video is versatile, cost-effective and proven to be a great conversion tool – three compelling reasons to place it near the top of you marketing “must have” list.

Next time out we will take a more detailed look at the mobile dental website and how hand-held devices now account for > 15% of all website traffic.

During the last few weeks, Google has made further changes to the algorithm it uses to determine where websites rank within its search index. In particular, Google has made significant changes aimed at demoting over-optimised sites. The effect of this has been quite dramatic across the dental sector with numerous sites being hit and sinking away in the rankings.

What did Google change and why?

Google is checking to see if websites are following its publishing guidelines and penalising those that don’t. Key areas for inspection are:

• numerous back-links from poor quality sources
• many back-links to one target page from one linking domain
• “exact-match” anchor text used too frequently
• duplicate content
• keyword stuffing
• “spammy” content below the the website footer
• generally unnatural content written for SEO rather than humans

Google is now much better at spotting these issues and penalising them accordingly. Many websites have been hit, with significant business implications as new patient enquiries dry up.

How do I avoid a Google over-optimisation penalty?

The first priority is to ensure your dental SEO team are up-to-speed and have shifted their practice in line with Google’s strict new policies. If they don’t, then you run the risk of being penalised, particularly if your site needs aggressive SEO for promotion in a competitive environment. Second, check against the above list and also look for any signs that your website may contravene any element of Google’s publishing guidelines.

What if I’ve already been hit and my rankings have slipped?

First off, don’t panic. Even though the situation is far from ideal, it is recoverable. Google will re-instate your previous ranking as long as you identify what has caused the issue and rectify it. This may involve cleaning up the back-link profile to you website, identifying and ceasing any practice that contravenes Google’s guidelines and checking your on-site content to improve the quality. Once all of this is done, then Google may lift the penalty automatically. However, in some case a “re-inclusion request” may be necessary, for example if you are unable to clean-up some of your back-links because you didn’t place them in the first place.

A professional SEO campaign is then recommended to recover the lost ground and to ensure no future damage.

If you need free guidance on this or any aspect of search engine optimisation for dental websites, please call our expert SEO team on 01332 672548 and we will be pleased to assist.

Now let’s take a look in a little more detail:

The Dental Blog

The dental blog is one of my favourite marketing tools due in main to its versatility. Not only can it be used to present all-important news and information updates to your readers but also as an excellent tool to support search optimisation. Several blog platforms are available but we recommend WordPress which is the accepted industry standard. Here are the key features to consider when launching your dental blog:

• integrate the blog with your website and in keeping with your main branding. There should be a seamless transition between your main website and blog pages
• update regularly – 1 to 2 articles per week is ideal
• keep it interesting, let information and news take precedence over selling
• write blog articles to support your SEO – support your headline website pages with associated blogging. For example, if you want to broaden your reach to patients in areas adjacent to your main location, write specific articles about dental treatments in those areas – your blog pages will soon be picked up by Google
• consider integrating the blog with your social media channels to cross-post selected excerpts – tools are available to do this automatically but be selective.
• keep the blog interesting by posting images and video

Social Media for Dentists

Progressive businesses, including dentists, are using social media to great effect. When done correctly, your brand and service message can be broadcast and proliferated very quickly across the main social networks. The first step is to establish the correct networks and then push to reach the tipping point of “friends” and “followers” who will help to broadcast your message. The key steps:

• create your social media accounts. We recommend Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+
• link the accounts from your website and blog
• enhance and optimise the accounts so that they are inviting. Twitter and Facebook can and should be customised in keeping with your branding
• take some advice on the best ways to promote your business using social media. Understand the risks, rewards and resource needed to be successful
• start posting and tweeting! Keep the momentum.
• remember that the social channels are just that – social. First and foremost build trusting relationships on a friendly level and keep the “selling” low profile. Once the trust is established, the selling will look after itself.

So now we’ve covered three priority items for the tool-kit, the dental website, blog and the use of social media channels.

Next time out we’ll take a closer look at the power of referral using dental video and how this really can give a major boost to your client enquiries.

Welcome to part 1 in my series covering the essential components of the modern dental marketing tool-kit. Here we will look at the hub for all of the dental marketing activity, the dental website:

Key features:

Visually appealing with clear text and navigation

Dental websites should not just look great but also be skillfully structured to guide your visitors through to the contact form or to encourage them to pick up the phone. This is known as “conversion” and its the primary function of the website. Text should be clear and concise and the navigation intuitive and logical.

Consistent branding

Your branding should be carried through the website consistently – this includes your logo, colour scheme and strap line. Keep this consistent with your off-line branding so that your dental practice signage, literature and web properties all convey the same message.

Compelling calls-to-actions (CTA)

Our user experience testing (UX), shows us that website visitors scan web pages very quickly and are easily distracted unless something interesting catches their eye. Typically this reaction happens in just a few seconds so you don’t have much time to make that all-important impression. Carefully placed calls-to-action or “hot buttons” advertising special offers, links to your contact details, USPs etc are all critical to assist the conversion process.

Clear topic modelling

Your dental website should be structured with clear topic modelling. This means that information should be structured logically so its clear for visitors and for Google. For example, key treatments should have a dedicated page so that humans and search engines know exactly what its about. Google is easily confused if all your treatments are crammed into a single page and won’t rank it preferentially. This “granularity” of information is very important even within treatment categories – for example, if you want to write about ‘all on 4 implants’, try to give it a separate page and don’t be tempted to cram it in there with your other implant text. Your designer and dental SEO guy should discuss these issues with you when the site is being planned.

Good quality images

Go on, I’ll say it, ‘a picture paints a thousand words’. This is very true and it’s particularly important to ensure that you dental website makes the right impression. We encourage our clients to compile a library of ‘before and after’ patient images that can be added to the website to showcase their work. A ‘pro’ photo shoot covering the practice, team and patients is more cost-effective than you might think and the images can be used for the web and print.

Clear contact details

Your contact details should be prominent so that users don’t need to go looking for them. We recommend the use of ‘mini’ contact forms on key treatment pages to encourage potential clients to get in touch. A Google map, linked to your Places account and embedded in the website is also important. Telephone numbers should be “click-to-call” compatible for ease of use on mobile devices.

Dental video

Perhaps the most important tool for converting visitors to enquiries is video – both to provide an overview of the practice and team and for those critical patient testimonials. More about this in a later blog.

Treatment animations

Dental treatment animations are informative and help to make a web page ‘sticky’ i.e. grabbing the visitors attention. They are also good to help educate you patients about a wide range of treatment options. So treatment animations are great for new site visitors and a time saving reference point for your existing patients.

The e-newsletter sign-up form

Gaining new clients is important but holding on to existing clients is even more important. Many dentists fail to stay in touch with their client base other than sending out a 6 monthly check-up reminder. Modern e-newsletter tools are extremely convenient and should be used for regular communication with patients – news, offers etc. New sign-ups to your marketing list are easily captured via a simple form on your website.

Blogging

The blog is my personal favourite marketing tool. Google loves new content and broadly speaking, websites with bigger foot-prints and regularly updated content fare much better in Google. Oh, and patients like to see your news too! A customised blog integrated into your website and regularly updated is another key marketing tool. More about this in a later blog.

Social Media

This is a substantial topic and worthy of its own blog in the coming weeks where I’ll cover the ‘pros and cons’ and ‘hows and how nots’. Suffice to say at this point that anyone who is serious about their online marketing will be looking to integrate their website and blog with the main social media channels.

Regulatory compliance

Your dental website must be compliant with all relevant regulatory bodies including the GDC, CQC and ICO. Your designer should be fully conversant with all of these requirements and DDA accessibility laws.

Google prominence

This is essential! 60% of all traffic to websites is commanded by the top three positions in Google. Suffice to say at this point that the site must be optimised for Google prominence and then promoted to achieve a great ranking position. I will cover this is in greater detail soon.

Measuring the return on investment – Google Analytics

All dental websites should be integrated with Google Analytics from launch day. This simple, free tool will tell you all you need to know about your website visit statistics and how the site is performing overall.

Content management (CMS)

You may wish to consider a CMS to make your own updates to the website or optionally use your marketing partner to look after that for you. You should seek guidance on the cost/benefit provided by a CMS – it may be more cost-effective to go with this type of system if you think you will need lots of site updates. Alternatively, ‘pay-as-you-go’ support from your marketing partner may prove more cost effective.

The ‘techie’ bit – your website coding and hosting

A Ferrari with a Mini engine is not much use at all! Similarly, a nice looking website that is built on poor quality coding (the bit that makes it all work) will not perform well. So make sure your designer uses best practice coding techniques (check W3C compliance) to ensure that your website is future proof, works well in all browsers, loads quickly and performs well for Google ranking. Also check to make sure that your website hosting is ‘business class’, fast, secure and regularly backed-up. Don’t be tempted to skimp on cheap hosting deals.

Summary

The list above captures the key elements you need to consider when embarking on your dental marketing campaign and the development of your dental website. In the coming weeks I’ll be looking more closely at some of those elements including the dental blog, social media, search engine optimisation (SEO) and dental video marketing that complement the website hub and help drive more business to your practice.

One of the big questions we are frequently asked is “do I need pay-per-click ads to supplement my dental SEO campaign?”. Up until now, there was little definitive data to quantify the benefit of this. We can see from our own monitoring that paid ads certainly help, even when you have a great natural search position – however we now have Google verified data to help support and quantify this. The results are quite eye-opening….

Incremental clicks from PPC

The study worked like this. Websites who used PPC to support their natural listings selectively turned off their PPC campaigns and the effect on clicks was recorded. This was done for a wide range of websites and topic areas and we believe that the results are valid.

Conclusion – PPC gives great incremental clicks!

Websites which held the coveted number 1 natural ranking found that > 50% of clicks they received on their paid ads were not replaced by clicks on their natural listing. For websites in positions 2-4, 82% were lost and for sites lower than position 5, 96% of clicks were not replaced.

So whether we like it or not, its very clear that a carefully constructed PPC (Adwords) campaign can significantly increase your Google exposure. Without the ads, traffic will typically not be replaced by your organic listing – even if you’re on pole!

Recommendation

The benefit of being prominent in Google is obvious. However it is now clearer than ever that great organic dental SEO supported by a well-crafted pay-per-click campaign is the way to true Google dominance. Please call the Dental Media team on 01332 672548 for friendly advice about organic SEO and PPC for dental websites.

A quick preview of our new dental marketing series that will launch on our blog in April. We will publish an informative article about each of the recommended elements needed for a great dental marketing strategy to help you promote your brand online. Each article will be accompanied by a summary video and free check-list for you to download to help you make an informed choice about your marketing partner.

The series will cover the following key elements in the marketing tool-kit and will discuss what works, what doesn’t, what you should expect from your provider, ROI and typical investment.

• the dental website – your marketing hub
• blogging and social media – building your brand on-line
• dental video – the power of video referral
• the mobile website – capture increasing traffic from hand-held devices
• SEO and pay-per-click – why you need to be prominent in Google and how to do it
• measuring the results – Google Analytics, phone call tracking and targeting

We will publish the full schedule in the coming weeks so please check back for updates.

Thanks for reading.

Vanessa

A quick reminder regarding the GDC guidelines for dental websites. Compliance date was 1st March so please contact us if you have not already updated. In summary, all dental websites must include:

• Details of the practice’s complaints procedure and who to contact if the patient is not satisfied with the response
• The date the website was last updated
• Staff GDC numbers where relevant
• A link to the GDC website
• Details of staff professional qualifications and the country from which the qualification is derived

We have full details of the requirements and will be happy to check if your website is compliant free of charge. Please contact us on 01332 672548 or use the contact form for free advice and help with making sure you are compliant.

For many dentists, times are getting harder and the need to control costs is more important than ever before. It is also widely acknowledged that effective dental marketing is becoming increasingly important as dentists compete for patients and in particular, “high end” treatments like dental implants and invisible braces.

Historically, dental marketing companies have rolled out “one-size-fits-all” monthly maintenance packages to their clients who arguably accepted without really knowing what it all meant. But just how effective are these dental marketing packages? Are they good value and do they return on the investment? Now, more than ever, it really is important to know what is being delivered….

A typical dental marketing package

The typical marketing package offered by dental design companies usually incorporates web hosting, a set number of site updates per year and, depending on what you are prepared to pay, some form of off-site SEO to build back-links to your website. Typical costs are anything from £75 -> £500 + per month. So what do you get for this? – Lets look at a couple of examples from clients who recently joined Dental Media from other dental marketing organisations:

Example 1 – a client previously paying £70 (+ vat) per month (> £1k per year inc vat):

This client was getting website hosting, some small website updates through the year and (he thought) some SEO work. Inspection showed that there was in fact no SEO work, that the site updates amounted to less than a couple of hours (<£100) and hosting on a “reseller” account worth < £100. Overall a spend > £1000 for real value < £200.

Example 2 – two clients previously paying £300 (+vat) per month, (£4320/year inc vat) plus £3000 per year on ineffective PPC

These clients were dissatisfied with their search ranking and asked us to review their monthly marketing spend and make recommendations. Inspection showed that both clients were receiving <£2300 worth of services, poor SEO, wasted PPC spend and unresponsive web support. Overall spend > £7300/yr, real value < £2300

In both cases, Dental Media re-worked the client’s marketing packages to provide services that were transparent, cost effective and delivered real results.

Summary – What You Should Expect From a Dental Marketing Package

As a minimum, expect the following from a dental marketing package:

• transparency – make sure your supplier can evidence the work they are contracted to perform. For example, get them to report on the SEO in detail, how the SEO keywords move from month to month, where back-links are placed and detail of the strategy they are employing on your behalf.
  Don’t just accept an automatically generated report from Google Analytics or similar.
• if your package involves PPC (Adwords) ensure you have access to your account and that you access it frequently to see what is going on. Look for good click-through-rates, high quality scores and evidence that the campaign is being pro-actively managed. I’ll be covering Adwords PPC in more detail in a forthcoming article at Dentinal Tubules in the coming weeks
• value-for-money – this really is critical. We see so many examples where dental clients are being charged for monthly packages and actually receive very little for it. Only now as dentists have to look even more closely at costs, are these charges being challenged.
• suitability – do you really need a marketing package? This is the first question you should ask; don’t just accept that you do. If you operate in a competitive environment, it is likely that you will need some form of ongoing SEO to ensure your site is prominent and competitive. This should be tailored to your site – not just an off-the-shelf package. Each site is unique.
  However, if you operate in a non-competitive environment (and many dentists do), pay-as-you-go services my be entirely appropriate and way more cost effective for you. As example 1 above shows, this client was wasting hundreds of pounds per year.
• expertise – please ensure that your provider really does have the expertise to deliver results. Don’t be confused by qualifications like “Google Adwords Professional” as these are simple “bottom rung” requirements. Make sure they have experience and can demonstrate results. Also remember that the promise of page one Google results is easy enough for lots of search terms – get them to evidence success for more generic terms in competitive environments.

Evidence suggests that many dentists are being disadvantaged by unsuitable, expensive marketing packages that offer very poor value. If you are concerned that you are paying too much for your dental web design, marketing and support, please contact us for a full, no obligation review. Please call 01332 672548 or use the website contact form , we’ll be pleased to assist and very likely save you a lot of money.

Dave

Have you ever wondered what proportion of your patient enquiries come from telephone calls versus clicks through to your website contact form? Or which of your keywords prompted the user to pick up the phone? Or perhaps how effective your latest patient leaflet campaign has been? Well we can now offer a highly effective solution that allows you to track telephone calls as well as clicks on your website. The data is clearly presented in a user-friendly control panel that is fully integrated with Google Analytics. So how does it work…..?

The Call Tracking System

Our system uses state-of-the art dynamic number replacement to present a unique telephone number to all users of your website. This allows us to track exactly when the call was made and how it originated. The process is seamless – the calls are routed through our systems and forwarded to your existing phone system. So you don’t need to make any changes. You can also generate unique telephone numbers for use with your promotional stationery so its easy to track what worked and what didn’t.

User-Friendly Control Panel

Subscribers to the system get their own easy-to-use control panel which is fully integrated with Google Analytics. Data is presented very clearly and we can even supply recordings of the original phone calls; great for audit purposes and staff training.

Track Every Marketing Keyword That Makes Your Phone Ring!

It is important to understand exactly which of your marketing efforts are yielding results so that you can target and optimise. Similar studies in other industries show that this type of technology can yield significant marketing savings that easily outweigh the set-up costs. Now it is much easier to justify ad spend and identify ineffective advertising.

Next Steps

Our formal launch of the new system will happen early in January 2012 but if you would like to express an interest now, please contact us for more information and a walk-through of a demo account with one of our friendly team.

This is an exceptional step forward in user tracking and ad optimisation and we are determined to make it as cost-effective and accessible as possible. Please check our website regularly for the formal launch announcement or subscribe to our dental marketing newsletter for updates. Alternatively, please contact us now on 01332 672548 for a closer look.

Many dentists continue to waste money by failing to optimise their web marketing strategies. The two biggest culprits are a) payment for over-promised and under-delivered monthly support packages and b) poorly optimised and managed Adwords campaigns.

The latter element, Adwords, is a system whereby a dentist can secure high Google rankings using something called “pay-per-click” (PPC). Basically you pay Google to show your advert on page one and the more you pay (or bid) per click, the higher you advert appears. This mechanism can be useful in very competitive environments, for new websites or to advertise periodic special offers. Ideally you should consider investing in a solid organic (non-paid) SEO programme to reduce the reliance on PPC but Adwords does have a place and can be very useful if managed correctly.

However, way too many Adwords campaigns are not set-up correctly and then not managed ongoing. The potential to waste money is huge. To put this in perspective, dentists will typically be spending anything between £200 and £2000 per month on their Adwords campaigns depending on their location and competition. Experience shows that a properly managed dental Google Adwords campaign will cost 50% – 60% less than a poorly managed campaign. The savings potential is clear and significant.

At Dental Media we regularly step in to optimise dental Adwords campaigns that have been set up incorrectly either by the dentist or by a dental marketing agency. So what mistakes are being made?

Typical Errors in Dental Adwords Campaigns

• lack of “granularity” – this means that the campaign is way too broad and simply uses general keywords bundled into a single campaign and single ad group
• poor advert quality – i.e. too general and not targeted
• low keyword quality scores – several factors contribute to this but one of the main ones is failure to configure adverts that link to relevant landing pages on the website
• poor keyword selection
• failure to use correct keyword matching parameters – this is a massive waste of budget
• inappropriate campaign settings. Typically we see default settings used e.g. do you really want to waste money by advertising on the Google display network?

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Setting up an effective Adwords campaign and managing it ongoing is a time consuming task and not really for the inexperienced.

I Use Adwords, What Can I Do?

If you rely on Adwords and are unsure if it is being managed correctly, you have a couple of options. If time allows, there are a number of good tutorials on the internet which will give you a basic understanding of Adwords; at least sufficient to let you see if your campaign is being run effectively. Alternatively, you can contact an experienced Adwords practitioner who will assist you.

For a limited time, Dental Media are offering a free Adwords review complete with recommendations. If you would like to take advantage of this offer or just need some free and friendly advice, please call us on 01332 672548 or use our contact form. We will be pleased to assist.