by AdminPosted on Posted in Advice

Which techniques will deliver the most new patient enquiries in the year ahead?

I’m often asked for my opinion regarding which marketing techniques are likely to be most popular for securing new dental patient enquiries as we progress towards a new year. So today I thought I’d share my thoughts on this and how the events of 2020 have shaped how things will likely look in 2021.

Here are the top five areas where we expect to be putting in a lot of effort for clients, new and old, in the year ahead. Oh and one ‘dodgy’ thing you need to look out for!

Dental website upgrades

This is an ‘ever present’ and as the emphasis moves increasingly to online dealings, having a stand-out dental website is more important than ever. Not only will websites need all of the usual engaging features and be mobile-friendly, they will also need to focus on how the practice delivers patient safety in this new “Covid” world. Even with vaccines and better therapeutics rolling-out, this is just the start and Covid controls are likely to be with us for some time yet.

If you aren’t convinced about the important of this, please take a look at a few sets of patient reviews left for dentists on Google and see how many mention Covid safety features.

Google and SEO

When it comes to patients finding your website in Google, we expect 2021 to be a big year. Whilst Google updates all the time, they recently announced a significant ranking algorithm update being introduced in May. This will look closely at user experience on a website and how well the site meets user’s needs. Google can measure all sorts of factors such as how fast pages load, how easy the website navigation was to use, did the sites use intrusive pop-ups etc. So if your site isn’t technically sound in those key areas, then expect to see your Google positions suffer. We are already auditing lots of sites with this in mind to ensure client websites remain robust in the face of these big new SEO challenges.

Paid Advertising

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Advice

Why you need to take care to avoid Google penalties

I’m prompted to write this short blog in response to the number of dentists adding intrusive interstitials, overlays and pop-ups to their websites. They often do this in response to their marketer’s advice that such tools will enhance patient enquiries, but unfortunately they go-ahead without realising the harmful effect that this can have on their Google ranking.

Let’s take a closer look at what these tools are and why Google can seriously penalise your website unless you take great care in how you implement them.

The Interstitial

You can think of this as a dummy page that is presented to the user before they reach the content they were actually looking for. This is very intrusive and often prompts the user to hit the browser back button or worse, skip away from your website completely. The dummy page simply blocks the desired content either for a period of time or until the user clicks to dismiss it.

Marketers will often use this technique to show an ad or perhaps a sign-up form; hoping to grab the user’s attention or grab their email address before they continue.

The Overlay

This is similar to the full-blown interstitial in that it typically appears as soon as the desired web page loads; however not all of the underlying content is obscured. The overlay normally advertises something or prompts for a user sign-up before needing to be clicked to remove it. So the overlay appears within the same browser window.

The Pop-Up

This is perhaps the worst-case scenario and tends to occur unexpectedly, typically opening a new window with some unwelcome content. This really is bad for user experience and is immediately on Google’s radar for penalisation.

The Modal

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by AdminPosted on Posted in seo

Don’t pay for search engine optimisation which doesn’t perform

If you’ve read any of the SEO articles on our blog you’ll know just how important prominent website ranking in Google is. New patient enquiries from practice websites in the top three positions of page one in Google are 15 times greater than those for the websites at the bottom of the page. If you are on page two, then it’s pretty much useless.

It’s also worth reminding that the number of new patients coming from website enquiries is, on average, only second to the number coming via word-of-mouth referral.

Knowing the above, you might consider that most dentists would prioritise their website search optimisation to ensure that they reached those lucrative top positions? Of course some do, but many do not bother at all. Perhaps even worse is the huge number of dentists who pay large sums for SEO services but never actually achieve their goals. They may understand why it’s an essential marketing activity but don’t have the knowledge or experience to understand where they are being let down.

To give some additional insight into this and to help you avoid similar issues, here are the top five recurring SEO mistakes we encounter time after time.

Ignoring local SEO

It’s easy to assume that everyone knows what we mean by “local SEO” but that would be misguided. Relatively few dental professionals actually understand that page one of Google displays in separate sections, e.g. the paid ads, traditional organic results, knowledge panel and local/map results. The layout of page one is covered in more detail elsewhere in this blog.

The local (or map) results are the (typically) three business which are listed in the top half of the page together with additional information such as reviews and mapping. Recent research suggests that over 30% of all web traffic goes via the local results which is on a par with clicks on paid ads. So it makes sense to ensure that your website (more accurately your business), features prominently there. Unfortunately that is not the case for many dentists and so they miss out on this large tranche of local search traffic by default.

Featuring in the local results involves a range of techniques supplemental to “standard” SEO and so you need to ensure your marketing agency has got you covered for that. You’ll also need to play your own part in gaining business reviews, a significant part of the local SEO strategy.

Targeting irrelevant, low-traffic search terms

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Invisalign

Filling open day seats with Facebook & Instagram advertising, optimised landing pages and Acuity on-line booking

Over the last two years the team at Dental Media has developed and optimised a suite of techniques to secure low-cost open day bookings for dentists looking to promote their services. Using Facebook and Instagram advertising in conjunction with user-friendly tools to help users engage with the service and book easily online, excellent booking rates have been achieved at very attractive, low costs.

I thought it would be useful to share a short case study of how we achieved this for a dentist based in Bishop’s Stortford who was looking to enhance Invisalign bookings to increase the case load for a visiting orthodontist and also to achieve better utlilisation of expensive intra-oral scanning equipment.

Let’s take a look at how we exceeded expectations and how the campaign has been extended to cover additional open days. Please note that we also have a similar set of tools to achieve excellent results for implant bookings.

The challenge

The dentist we are working with is well-established but practices in a location with limited population density and hence limited scope to supply “high end” treatments such as Invisalign. So even with good organic Google rankings, his reach via the web was somewhat restricted.

We have seen this type of scenario on numerous occasions and invariably a strategy is required which complements standard organic Google searches and the limitations of localisation that this brings. The best way to extend the reach outside of the areas which can reasonably covered with Google results is to use paid advertising, either Google Ads, Facebook/Instagram, or a combination of both.

Which pay-per-click (PPC) methodology works best depends on the type of campaign and the treatment being promoted. For Invisalign, we find that Facebook/Instagram ads tend to work best and delivers enquiries at the lowest cost. That said, Google Ads also have a place and may also be deployed selectively.

How we do it

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Advice

What is it and why should dentists prioritise it?

Regular readers of this blog will know that we are extremely keen that dentists understand exactly how their marketing campaigns are working so that their return on investment is clear and that any maintenance can be done quickly to maximise effectiveness.

A key part of this is an understanding of where new patient enquiries came from, i.e. which channels actually delivered them. By ‘channels’ I mean the routes or paths the patient travelled along before they actually made contact with you. For example did they find you via a Google search, a paid advert on Facebook, an ad in the local paper or perhaps word-of-mouth?

Drilling down further (no pun intended!) we can also measure what we call ‘channel attribution’ which is where we work out just how much credit can be assigned to each touch-point within the conversion path. In basic terms, this means working out which bits of your marketing efforts worked best!

There are lots of studies on this type of work, some quite detailed and mathematical; however that is beyond the scope of this article. Today I’m simply trying to illustrate how important this type of channel analysis is and how you can get the basics in place without breaking the bank or studying for a degree.

Let’s take a look at the basic monitoring which allows this and which should be in place for any dentist using the web to promote dental services.

Google Analytics

This is a free tool which allows the comprehensive monitoring of website performance. It is hugely detailed if you want it to be, but on a more basic level it will allow you to easily see where your website traffic came from, when it came and how much there was. If you set up goals (conversions) it will also tell you how much of this traffic resulted in tangible enquiries.

Installing a small piece of tracking code on your website will allow the collection of huge amounts of valuable data which can be analysed and used to inform your marketing campaigns. You can also integrate your analytics with paid ad platforms so you can see how much traffic those campaigns are generating, and indeed if they are resulting in enquiries.

Oh, and very importantly, Google Analytics is free to use, so there really is no excuse for not using it.

Facebook Analytics (Page and Audience Insights)

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Techniques

Key cornerstones of implant and ortho marketing

During Covid-19 restrictions, some dental practices have struggled to survive whilst others continued to thrive. Of course there was a significant lull during full lock-down but what became clear was that those practices who were on-the-ball pre-covid, were similarly mobilised and active during the crisis.

Now as we start accelerating back to some form of normality, it is clear that those practices who “get it” are continuing to do well; indeed they are prospering even more as other practices fall by the wayside.

So what are the key marketing characteristics which those successful practices exhibit? Let’s take a closer look.

An effective, ethical sales process

Leading practices understand the need for a finely-tuned sales process which turns leads into treatments. All too often, marketers deliver great leads to dentists but half-hearted response from the practice team means that those leads don’t convert. Effective tools and procedures must exist to capture those leads and allow follow-up in a prompt and well-defined manner. Do this too late and/or half-heartedly means that the lead will evaporate. Potentially worse is that your local competitor will likely benefit. The patient journey, right from the start through to treatment and after-care, needs to be exceptional and with the whole team on board.

Similarly your team needs to be able to filter those enquiries which will likely lead to nothing. Whilst we can target marketing efforts to those most likely to take up treatments, some channels will still deliver a lot of speculative enquiries. Some of these will be “golden nuggets” but others will need to be offloaded as the enquirer may be unsuitable for treatment or perhaps have no way of paying. This needs to be done before the valuable time of a TCO or clinician gets wasted.

Creation of compelling content

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Website

Doubling new patient contacts with web page layout and content optimisation

Have you ever wondered how many people who visit your website actually go on to contact you and enquire about treatment? We call this action a conversion which can be a ‘phone call or completion of an online contact form.

Improving the rate at which website visitors get in touch is known as conversion optimisation and is a fundamental activity when ensuring that your practice website is working as hard as possible on your behalf.

What might surprise you is that most dental websites have sub-optimal levels of conversion optimisation, ranging from dire to barely adequate. So there are usually some good improvement opportunities to be had at relatively low cost.

But why are so many dental websites inadequate when it comes to onsite conversion; even new ones which have only recently been launched? Surely all designers know the requirements and follow a set of core standards to ensure at least a good level of conversion optimisation? Unfortunately this is not the case at all, often far from it. You see, most designers are not well-versed in optimisation techniques and whilst they may have an eye on aesthetics, they miss key layout and content elements which encourage users to get in touch.

So what are the key conversion elements of a dental website – let’s take a quick look.

Clear contact details in the header and footer of the website

It may sound obvious that you need to include the practice contact details in prominent positions on your website, but many still don’t. Clear navigation is critical to ensure that website users can reach all of your information quickly and efficiently, and perhaps at the top of this list should be your contact details. Remembers that users are quite fickle, so you must have your telephone number and links to your contact page easily accessible from all parts of your website, typically in the header and footer sections but also at key points within the body content.

Also make sure that your contact information is mobile-friendly; for example that your ‘phone number is configured to be click-to-call from mobile screens and that when your content rearranges for mobile viewing, that the contact details remain prominent.

Replace stock images with bespoke practice photographs

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Branding

It’s probably time to re-consider your brand investment….

More often than you might imagine, we have new dental website clients get in touch who already have a logo they’d like us to use with their project. Whilst some of these logos are designed by professional graphic designers, many aren’t and are a combination of DIY productions or “cheap and cheerful” creations made by their local copy shop or a generic internet service.

Whilst it’s understandable that people want best value from their investments, skimping on a logo really isn’t a good idea and you may come to regret it if you do. Sadly we see this quite regularly and there are a number of pitfalls you will likely experience if and when you realise that your logo isn’t actually serving its intended purpose. It is worth remembering that your logo is the fundamental foundation of your brand identity and you build everything upon it – so changes down the track can be pretty horrendous if you get it wrong. Here are just a few examples:

  • signage changes – this can be extremely expensive!
  • practice stationery obsolete
  • promotional material obsolete
  • all of your web assets need updating and possibly re-designing

Perhaps worse than all of the above is that the fundamental function for your logo has been undermined i.e. the familiarity is gone and people simply get confused when you launch the new version. None of these issues are insurmountable, but much of it can be avoided if you get it right first time.

Features of a great dental logo

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Mistakes

A recap on recurring dentist marketing pitfalls

2020 has certainly been an unusual year and not really in a good way! With the advent of Covid-19 and what looks like turmoil and uncertainty associated with Brexit and other world events, many businesses have been destabilised, dentists included.

That said, life goes on and whilst dentists have paused some of their marketing activities, particularly during the worst months of lock-down, the basics have, in main part, continued. So we’ve seen search engine optimisation initiatives and PPC campaigns continuing in spite of the current difficulties. Indeed we’ve seen a lot of interesting marketing developments as we’ve helped clients adapt to the “new normal” and implement novel ways of reaching and serving their patients.

Despite some good news amongst the more general global grief, unfortunately we are still seeing many of the same marketing mistakes dentists regularly make with their marketing initiatives, many of them costing substantial amounts of money. So we thought we’d recap on the main errors we’ve seen recently with the intention of helping you avoid similar! Let’s dive in….

Onerous contractual tie-ins

This is still a huge issue in the dental marketing arena with most agencies still pushing dentists to sign-up for long term contracts of at least a year or more. We’ve had several new clients contact us to ask if we can help them escape from these types of arrangements where they couldn’t quit, even where the supplier had demonstrably failed. Typical examples were Invisalign marketing campaigns which were hugely over-priced versus what was being delivered, bad PPC contracts where the dentist realised that the supplier was skimming the click budget, and of course the perennial issue of the monthly website maintenance and SEO contract which was being paid for but no work was being done on the site.

These types of very dodgy contracts are absolutely rife in the digital marketing sector and way too many dentists still fall for them. So as an absolute minimum, if you are tempted to sign up to something like this, please ensure that the contract has some form of performance element which allows you to quit if agreed standards are not met.

Please also remember that there is a much better alternative that all clients here at Dental Media enjoy i.e. absolutely zero contractual tie-ins for our marketing services.

SEO campaigns that don’t work

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by AdminPosted on Posted in blogging

Here’s why your blog is still great for patients and for Google too!

Blogging for dental practices first emerged in earnest 8 or 9 years ago when marketers realised that it was a great tool to help promote search engine rankings, primarily led by the SEO team here at Dental Media. Business coaches also started to promote the technique when they caught on to the fact that publishing great content online was an excellent way to show prospective new patients that you were an authority in your field and so a good choice for treatment. So blogging can be a clear differentiator in a few different ways.

But is blogging for dentists still as useful as it was back then and also how has it evolved of the last few years? The answer is an unequivocal “yes” – blogging is still an excellent tool to help with search engine optimisation and to help you stand out from your competitors when people visit your website. So let’s recap on why blogging still works so well and why you should get started for your own practice.

Blogging for patients

Some would say that this is the most important aspect, not SEO; but looking from a marketer’s perspective, I’d say that both elements are equally important. Those of us who have a long history of search optimisation understand that content which works well for humans, i.e. well written and interesting, will usually also work well for Google. The reason is simple in that Google wants to surface the best content for its users and hence tends to promote it to the top of the search results. So in essence, if you write a really useful blog article for your users, there is a good chance that it will also rank well in search engines. There are some subtleties as we’ll see later, but the above principle is a useful one to keep in mind when you do start on your blogging venture.

When a dental practice writes a blog, this serves as a great balance to the more technical type of articles that agencies write on their behalf. So for example, a team member might write an article to announce a new team member or perhaps the latest charity event, whereas the marketer might write about the benefits of dental implants for patients living in a specific location, still informative but certainly with SEO in mind.

The practice written article would typically have a more “human” feel and potentially be a little more engaging than the one written by the marketer, but both types are still important and a good balance between both is the ideal way to proceed.

Other examples of practice generate blogs might be to discuss a new Invisalign or implants open day, introducing staff members, publishing latest offers, discussing new technology and so on. There’s more opportunity than you may think, particularly when you get stuck in.

Blogging for SEO

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