Understand the difference for your dental website project

In another of our “understanding the basics” blogs, today we take a quick look at website domains and hosting. For lots of people this is already clear, but for those relatively new to the web and just starting out on the road to get a dental practice website established, these basic building blocks are essential to understand. So let’s dive in.

Web domains

You can think of your website domain name as a “sign-post” on the Internet for anyone searching for your website. This is linked to the IP address for the server where your website files live, 24/7/365. The IP address is another unique identifier which helps links everything together when someone searches for you on-line. You don’t have to worry too much about how all of these elements are linked together as your web designer will be able to do all of the “techy” stuff that is required. However, you do need to be involved in the selection of your domain name as this is the public-facing address which links to your overall business identity.

Domain names are made available through “registrars” i.e. companies who sell them. More accurately domains are actually rented, as you never really own then outright; more that you lease them for defined periods of time. This is why you have to be careful to ensure that you renew your domain(s) in good time to prevent them expiring and being picked up by someone else. There are numerous domain extensions, .com, .co.uk, .net etc but in the UK, the recognised variant is .co.uk. This is the type we recommend using unless you have aspirations to grow your business outside of the UK. There are some specific variants for various types of institutions, so please research those which are available. However, for a standard UK dental business, .co.uk should suffice.

You can register and look after a domain yourself but it may be simpler to let your designer do this on your behalf – but please ensure that they register it in your name and not theirs! With the latter, they are the formal “owner” and not you and this is not good practice. It is likely that you designer may charge a little more to cover the admin and renewals etc but this is usually worth it and then you don’t have the worry about the domain expiring. They will also look after the technical aspects of linking the domain to your website.

So when you’ve registered a suitable domain name for your business, you then need to consider the website hosting.

Website hosting – the basics

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A simple scheme to build new patient sign-ups for dentists

There are numerous techniques dentists can use to encourage new patients sign-ups by harnessing the power of the Internet. There is the “long game” whereby you build a great website and then invest in SEO to gain prominent ranking positions; along with faster methods, for example advertising via Google AdWords or on Facebook.

All of these methods have pros and cons as we’ve discussed earlier in our blog. For example, you tend to get higher quality traffic, i.e. patients ready to “convert” (sign up) when they find you in Google, when compared to the less-engaged traffic you might expect from a Facebook ad. However, Facebook can get your name out there much faster than the time it takes to build dominant Google results.

The best campaigns will use a combination of techniques, so typically a very solid foundation using SEO to build a steady and sustainable flow of enquiries, coupled with advertising via Facebook and AdWords to “top off” as required. Many are also still using the more traditional leaflet drops and even radio ads to supplement their online initiatives.

In today’s blog we will look at a technique dentists can use to gain new enquiries quickly, namely Facebook advertising with the use of e-newsletter follow-ups.

Facebook advertising

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Audit your dental marketing campaign to eliminate these common errors.

So you have a digital marketing campaign up-and-running for your dental practice? Perhaps most of it is ‘DIY’ on the back of advice you may have gleaned from the Internet, or perhaps picked up at a dental seminar or similar. Sometimes those types of overviews make it seem simple to do, so it can’t be too tricky can it?

Maybe you’ve seen good results in a couple of areas but not in others – and can’t really work out why some of your initiatives just don’t seem to get off the ground?

This is all too common and will invariably result in you losing time and money. Without experience of what works and what doesn’t and how to adjust and adapt when things go wrong, it’s easy to get bogged down and simply keep throwing good money after bad. In circumstances like this it’s worth biting the bullet and seeking guidance from an experienced dental marketing professional as what they will save you will easily outweigh their fees – their knowledge and experience should get you back on track quickly. With this in mind, here are six of the most common mistakes we see in home-spun digital dental marketing campaigns.

Failing to embrace “mobile-friendly”

It’s hard to understand why, but we still see dentists persevering with outdated websites which are not mobile friendly. Even with Google publicly announcing that you *need* a mobile optimised site for better search ranking as well as better user experience, some practices still persist with old technology. With over 50% of all web traffic coming from mobiles devices and users insisting on a seamless experience across all platforms, a mobile-friendly site is an absolute must. If you haven’t switched yet, then really you must.

Shouting into the wind with social media

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Top mistakes we’ve encountered during the dental GDPR update frenzy

This blog will be published on or around deadline day for GDPR – 25th May, and so you could say it’s a little late with its advice. However, given that the data police are unlikely to be storming the doors of small businesses immediately, there’s still time to give the new legislation the attention it deserves and get your business fully compliant.

Over the last three months we’ve updated hundreds of websites for dental clients, plus some where our competitors refused to update their own client’s websites unless they paid large fees over-and-above the huge monthly maintenance fees they were already paying! But that’s another story….

So what have we encountered in our many discussions with dentists over the last few months and what can you learn? This will not be specific advice about policies and procedures, more about observations and attitudes regarding the new (and important!) legislation.

Some practices are still not aware!

This might be hard to believe but even in the last few days, we’ve encountered quite a few instances where dentists are simply not aware of the pending legislation and consequently haven’t done anything. This suggests that they’ve ignored our advisory emails and probably countless others, over the last year or so. This is hard to fathom but it is happening. If this is you, the good news is that there is still time. It is unlikely that the data police will come calling immediately, so there is still chance to research and get the necessary systems, training and procedures in place. But don’t delay!

A number of principal dentists have delegated the responsibility

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Preparation at the practice before starting out with SEO, pay-per-click or social media marketing.

Dentists often ask us to undertake “fully outsourced” marketing for them because they have “no resources” at the practice to participate. Whilst we can cover most of the bases for this, it’s actually impossible to carry out fully outsourced marketing for several reasons, and where companies claim to do this, you need to be a little bit wary as follows.

Even where most of the activities are outsourced, there will always be some input from the local team as I’ll illustrate. In fact the most effective campaigns are typically those where activities are shared between the external dental marketer and nominated and trained members of the practice team. This balance of marketing “done for you” alongside marketing “done by you” always tends to work best.

The basics

Whilst a good dental marketer will be able to generate numerous high-quality leads for your business, if your business is not set up correctly to receive and process them, then the overall initiative has failed before it starts. Indeed we’ve recently paused two pay-per-click campaigns which were yielding good returns in terms of enquiries but the dentist’s reception team were not handling them professionally; so collectively we agreed to pause whilst the appropriate, proactive staffing was put in place.

So as a minimum, the front-desk team needs to be trained in and receptive to dealing with an influx of new enquiries. This does not simply mean booking new appointments but also being able to use recording systems to try to identify how the enquiries originated. This is essential to help determine how well the various aspects of the marketing campaigns are working, alongside the reporting from the external marketing team.

Additionally, if you’ve embarked on social media marketing, for example Facebook advertising, there must be proactive monitoring to ensure that new enquiries or questions are responded to promptly. Don’t leave it to your marketing team to do this for obvious reasons.

Proactive participation

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