by AdminPosted on Posted in Advice

If you use Google Ads and/or Analytics, please read this and act now. Website changes are required!

Below is an extract from a recent email we sent to our marketing clients about important changes introduced by Google regarding data privacy and how this impacts websites and cookie control. Bottom line is that if you want to continue using Google Analytics and/or Ads and don’t want to risk account suspension, you need to act now if you haven’t done so already. So if you simpy host a website with us and use analytics and/or ads, we recommend reading on as important changes are required.

The background to Consent Mode V2 and what you need to do

Google is making significant changes to ads and analytics services which are being mandated in line with national and international privacy polices. This is known as Google Consent Mode V2.

You can read more at the link at the base of this update, but in summary, all services which Google provides such as Analytics and Ads must now offer a facility where users can opt out of tracking when they visit your website. Essentially this is a significant update to the old “cookies” policies which have been in place for some years. These were primarily informational and in most cases did not allow automatic opt out from tracking for website users; however the new systems default to “no tracking” and users have to opt-in.

When are the changes needed?

Google actually mandated this work from March of this year, however many providers in the UK held off to see if our independent status ex the EU would allow us to remain as-is. However, this is not the case and UK compliance has been confirmed.

When happens if I don’t update my website?

(more…)

by AdminPosted on Posted in Google

5 key things to know when setting up dental PPC ads

Whilst dental ads on Facebook and Instagram can still work very well if done properly, we are seeing a lot of new clients coming to us with requests to set up and manage Google Ads. This is typically where their existing agency has tried Facebook ads but not delivered the success the client hoped for.

More often than not, the lack of success was due to the incumbent agency using the ‘same-old’ generic ads that are so common these days, lacking any finesse and using stock images and phrases rather than carefully crafted video ads with compelling value propositions. So doomed to fail and understandable why the client would seek an alternative.

It’s well-understood that even the best social media ads tend to deliver quite a lot of highly-speculative enquiries which need rigorous filtering and this plus the need to generate the compelling content mentioned above, are the main reasons why some dentists are switching their advertising focus away from social media ads to Google Ads.

So whilst social media ads can reach a lot of people very quickly and are relatively cheap, they do need quite a lot more effort than Google Ads to deliver results. Google Ads are typically quite a lot more expensive to run but they tend to deliver higher-quality enquiries and hence they are still the technique of choice for a lot of dentists.

Basically social ads and Google Ads can be very effective and have their own pros and cons, but if you want more qualified enquiries and can afford it, dental focussed Google Ads may well be your best bet.

Let’s take a look at some key thing you need to consider before commencing your own dental practice Google Ads campaign in 2024.

Don’t do it yourself

Whilst Google has gone a long way to make the Google Ads set-up and admin interface easier to use, it’s still not for the faint-hearted and needs a lot of experience to do well. There are way more set-up and optimisation parameters than with Facebook ads and getting it wrong will cost you an awful lot of wasted ad spend.

You really do need to know how to set up and run an effective campaign(s) – from account structure and bid strategy to keyword selection and more. Given that you can waste a lot more money with a poorly constructed DIY campaign than you would paying an ads professional, it really makes sense to seek out someone who knows what they’re doing. Remember also that it’s not just about the cost of the campaign but the number and quality of leads it delivers as well.

Make sure your campaigns are granular

(more…)

by AdminPosted on Posted in Website

Can you afford the negative effects of an underperforming website?

If you take a close look at the current dental website landscape you will see that it is quite diverse, from very modern, high-functioning sites through to those which are 10 years old or more. Dentists hanging on with stale websites never fail to surprise me, particularly given that an excellent practice website with good Google search rankings delivers more new patient enquiries than any other method except word-of-mouth referral.

It’s easy to demonstrate that the return on a new practice website is usually very good indeed and we can also show that the disadvantages from an old, stale website are considerable.

Why then do some dentists persist with a dodgy old website which is clearly doing them a major disservice?

Lack of knowledge

Despite the number of marketers advising them about the benefits of a great website, it’s still very clear that many dentists still don’t realise the full implications and as such persevere with what they have; often for far too long.

Other priorities

Clearly priorities change in any business and dentistry is no exception. So we see projects being delayed whilst practices are refurbished, sold etc.  That’s completely understandable.

Budget

There are numerous challenges for all business’s budget these days and so it’s unsurprising that projects get shelved from time-to-time. However, what I would say here is that it’s very important to understand the relative return-on-investment of projects and prioritise accordingly. Too often we see websites relegated in importance despite delivering exceptional returns.

Apathy

Unfortunately this also plays a part. Sometimes a dentist will completely understand the benefits that a new website can bring, have no other apparent reasons for failing to proceed, but still not progress with the project. When we check a year or so down the track, the old website is still in place. That’s probably the hardest one to explain.

Measuring the performance of a website

(more…)

by AdminPosted on Posted in seo

Is your practice website at risk?

Google recently announced a new round of ranking algorithm updates which are widely accepted to bring some significant changes to where websites rank in the search index. These types of updates are fairly frequent and have varying effects; some introduce quite large changes, others are quite niche and are targeted at certain types of websites. As a reminder, Google does this to improve how their search engine performs and to bring the best experience for users. Whether this always works as Google intended however, is debatable!

What’s so special about the latest changes and should you be worried?

The bottom line here is that unless you or your SEO team has been doing something outside of Google’s quality guidelines, then you shouldn’t really have too many concerns that you website will suffer too much in the search results. Many of Google’s updates are targeted at those websites which have used egregious methods to artificially promote websites e.g. artificial link-building, hidden pages etc.

It’s fair to say that in the competitive world of dentistry, lots of dentists’ websites have been penalised historically, primarily where the dentist trusted an SEO partner who subsequently operated outside of the Google quality guidelines and got caught. But if you or your SEO company has done the right things, then this shouldn’t apply to you.

However, some updates are not targeted at ‘dodgy’ SEO and instead look to promote websites which are technically excellent and provide good user experience. Where websites are old, perhaps with stale content and hence a poor user experience, then it is possible for such a site to fall away in the search results. So whilst it’s the websites which have been subject to egregious SEO which will receive the heavy penalties, old, poor-quality sites can also fall away over time too. Given that a great website with prominent Google positions is so important for new patient enquiries, this is an important thing to note when planning how to keep your website fresh and performing well.

The important thing to note about the latest changes, which started around March 5th and could take a month or so to complete, is that they incorporate a lot of what has been discussed above i.e. anti-spam (dodgy SEO) updates and additional updates that assess website quality and user-experience. Let’s take a quick look.

Updates targeting manipulative SEO

(more…)

by AdminPosted on Posted in Facial Aesthetics

Should you showcase facial aesthetics services on your dental website or separately?

More and more dentists are now providing facial aesthetics services and it’s understandable why. Not only are dentists skilled medical professionals used to the dexterity and types of instruments needed, they also work in a clean, clinical environment from which to provide the service. So a “win win” for the dentist and the client, particularly when compared to some of the “dodgy” high street services which unfortunately still exist.

Of course there is also the financial aspect too, with these types of services providing excellent revenue potential.

So as a dentist providing facial aesthetics services, how best do you showcase what you do to ensure you reach the maximum number of potential clients?

Using your dental website

The first and very popular option is to create a separate section on an existing dental practice website to leverage the Google traffic which already exists. Of course the new facial aesthetics content will need to be created and added to the website before this can happen, but you can start to get meaningful traffic and enquiries quite quickly by leveraging in this way. Although there used to be some concern that the GDC would frown on mixing dissimilar treatments like this, it has not proved to be a problem.

There are a lot of similarities between showcasing dental treatments and aesthetics treatments on a website and your current web provider should be able to assist. Here at Dental Media we do this for lots of our website clients and we can always help if you have any difficulties.

As with dental treatments, there are some key things to consider when publishing new content:

  • Be concise but informative. Remember that Google also needs to find meaningful, useful information if your new content is to stand a chance of ranking well – so don’t go minimalist
  • Personalise your content to ensure it’s very readable, interesting and engaging
  • Use compelling before/after case studies and images
  • Intersperse your content with patient testimonials and reviews
  • Avoid anything “gory”
  • Separate your key treatments so that each of them has a dedicated web page. This is important for optimisation and search engine ranking. For example, if Botox and fillers are your main treatments, ensure they have a page each on your website – less important treatments can be consolidated, particularly if you have a limited design budget.

Building a dedicated facial aesthetics website

(more…)

by AdminPosted on Posted in Invisalign

Is advertising on Facebook and Instagram still worthwhile?

Several months ago I summarised the status of UK Invisalign marketing on this blog. This was against the backdrop of increasing competition, not just the dentists providing the treatment but also the large number of dental marketing companies jumping in to try to take advantage of the situation, many of them unscrupulously.

So what’s changed in the last 6-9 months and has the landscape become any easier to navigate? Or has it actually got worse, even to the point of saturation in some regions?

Let’s dive in and take a look at the latest state-of-play with Invisalign advertising in the UK; how to evaluate, how to choose an ads management partner, the input you will need to make and what to expect from your campaigns.

What’s happening right now?

In short, it’s all a bit frenzied, particularly in some areas. I commented on my last update that most practices now seem to have at least one clinician who offers Invisalign, not helped by the fact that you can seemingly do a very short training course and then start offering the treatment. Invisalign themselves are also actively encouraging practices to get on board. So as you’ll no doubt be aware, competition at the treatment provider level is generally quite intense.

Alongside this we also have more and more ads agencies jumping in, creating significant competition on the marketing side too. You’ll almost certainly have seen lots of ads on Facebook from agencies claiming that their system is the best and offering what seem to be “too good to be true” offers in terms of the leads and treatments they claim they can generate. As I illustrated in my last blog on this topic, much of what is being offered cannot be trusted – please take a look here to see why.

It’s actually been fascinating to watch the frenzy amongst the ad agencies as they’ve ported their offers and changed their own Facebook and Instagram ads to try to stay ahead. We’ve moved through the “guaranteed 20 leads a month” phase, to 40 guaranteed leads and more. We’re now at the stage where some agencies are offering to work for free unless they deliver leads, but as I mentioned above, you really need to look at their small print and what they expect from you, before you fall for such offers.

The latest ads I’ve seen are increasingly desperate and actually quite aggressive, suggesting that other agencies are just scamming dentists and the like – while this is close to the truth in some cases, it’s not really the sort of thing you’d broadcast on social media and tends to indicate just how frenzied the market has become.

Is it still worthwhile advertising on social media for Invisalign patients?

(more…)

by AdminPosted on Posted in seo

SEO and why you need to invest in it.

One of the most frequent types of ‘phone call we receive at Dental Media is from dentists wanting help with search engine optimisation. Very often they’ve had a new dental website built elsewhere but the influx of new patient enquiries they’d been promised had failed to materialise. Usually it’s the same story about how they’d been told that a new website would really boost search engine rankings, deliver a flood of new treatment enquiries, but then it didn’t happen.

Of course those promises were made simply to get the website sale and also help tie the client in to a long term maintenance contract. With that secured the marketing agency is then free to upsell the search engine optimisation service that the unsuspecting dentist thought they’d never need. Of course there was never any guarantee regarding search engine success and so the dentist is either left disillusioned with a website languishing in Google, or forking out for an expensive SEO service.

So what should you expect from a new website with respect to Google rankings?

The reality is that great dental websites built to latest standards will give you some advantage in Google. However, in the grand scheme of things, that advantage is relatively small and you should not expect the new site to go leaps and bounds straight to the top of Google. Of course there comes a point where all websites need to be renewed, both to provide the best foundation for ongoing optimisation but also, importantly, to help encourage website users to actually make contact.  A modern, engaging website will be much more effective at that conversion process than an old one.

However when it comes to search engine position, you must remember that in most locations these days, there will be four or five dentists who are already in the upper positions and very likely also have SEO campaigns underway. So to think that by having a new website built you will be able to leapfrog them in Google is highly unrealistic.

The role of SEO – search engine optimisation

(more…)

by AdminPosted on Posted in blogging

Here’s why an excellent practice blog is just as powerful as ever

In 2023, Google introduced what it called the “Helpful Content Update” which was aimed at promoting those websites which provide great content whilst demoting those which provide “thin”, copied or relatively worthless content.

This Google ranking update created quite some repercussions with a lot of websites being demoted and losing lots of traffic overnight, whilst others benefitted considerably. Some of the websites which were hit were huge blog sites which subsequently started a big discussion amongst SEOs as to whether blogging had become defunct and actually more risky than beneficial.

However, close inspection of the blogs which were penalised showed quite clearly that they were publishing unhelpful, often copied content with the sole objectives of supporting ads and spammy keywords. So they were penalised not simply because they were blogs, but absolutely due to the content they were publishing.

Here at Dental Media we actively encourage our clients to use regular blogging as a key part of their web marketing and patient acquisition strategies. What we saw as a result of the Helpful Content Update was that clients with excellent blogs actually benefitted quite considerably, vindicating our confidence in the technique.

It’s therefore clear to us that a dental practice blog was, is and continues to be a powerful tool. Let’s take a look at the main reasons why you should be blogging regularly.

The benefits of a dental practice blog

  • Provides an excellent source of information on your website to encourage patient engagement
  • Provides an excellent platform to publish information demonstrating your competence in a particular discipline or disciplines
  • Provides the “human element” – for example regular updates about new team members, practice events, charity support etc
  • Provides an excellent way to increase your website footprint and improve SEO. Optimised blogs full of informative treatment content are an ideal way to provide internal back-linking opportunities to headline pages, as well as for attracting links from third-party websites.

How should a dental blog post be structured for maximum impact?

(more…)

by AdminPosted on Posted in Invisalign

Don’t start advertising until you have these key elements in place

There is somewhat of a frenzy surrounding Invisalign advertising at the moment. Whether that’s dentists who are keen to sell teeth-straightening services to new patients, or marketing agencies trying to sell their ad services to dentists, everywhere you look there is a huge buzz of activity.

Whilst this is great for Invisalign, it’s not so good for dentists trying to sell the treatment. Hugely increased competition increases the pressure on price and the effort needed to stand out from the crowd to become the local supplier of choice.

It’s that latter element I want to discuss in this blog and also take a closer look at the elements you need in place to ensure that your Invisalign social ads campaigns stand some chance of success.

But first, let’s take a look at what’s happening in the current Invisalign advertising landscape and what we expect moving forwards.

The characteristics of Invisalign advertising in 2023 and into 2024

  • significantly increasing competition
  • the additional challenges of patients with financial constraints
  • window-shopping has increased and patient loyalty decreased
  • too many speculative enquiries
  • fewer and fewer practices are succeeding
  • agencies over-promising and under-delivering
  • dentists expecting full “done for you” services – unfortunately that just doesn’t work any more

Basically it’s a lot harder than ever before by some margin and whilst advertising for Invisalign patients can still be very successful, you need to go in with your eyes open. This is why I’m recommending that you don’t start advertising before you have all of the essential elements in place, so that when the enquiries start to come in, you stand the best chance of converting them to treatments.

Here are the basic elements which must be in place before you start.

High quality bespoke ad content

(more…)

by AdminPosted on Posted in Promotion

Promoting your practice successfully in the face of increasing competition and financial pressures

The last three and half years in dentistry have been very turbulent, starting with the arrival of the pandemic, closed practices and huge uncertainty. We then moved into the period immediately post the pandemic with the no shortage of patient demand, price increases and generally renewed confidence.

However, that confidence bubble now appears to be bursting with lots of dentists starting to experience gappy appointment books and patients shopping around for the more lucrative treatments such as Invisalign and dental implants.

This isn’t just anecdotal, we also see it in the data we collect from client’s marketing reports, and whilst this isn’t affecting everyone, there is a picture developing of a general slowing down.  So even where a dentist’s website is top of Google and traffic is still buoyant, the number of enquiries from that traffic is, in quite a few cases, reduced.

We’ve seen the cyclical nature of the dental business before of course and with significant peaks and troughs. However the current downturn arrives on the back of very bleak economic data, with real growth in the UK economy not predicted to happen until some way into 2025. So do we batten down the hatches or go on the front foot to keep ahead?

With that in mind, let’s take a look at our recommendations for progressive practices when it comes to their dental marketing strategies for the year ahead.

Stand out from the crowd with an excellent website

We’ve discussed in detail why your practice website should be your priority marketing asset, with better quality enquiries and return-on-investment than from any other channel over time. However we often see dentists resting on their laurels and failing to update their websites, even when it’s long overdue.

With increasing competition and switched on dentists updating their websites regularly, it’s very important to avoid being left behind. Whilst spending £4 – £5k on a dental website upgrade might seem like a huge expenditure, when compared to other practice spend, the investment potential is huge. Please speak to our team for an illustration of typical return-on-investment and how updating your website is something you certainly won’t regret.

Get your social channels in order and consider paid ads

(more…)