by AdminPosted on Posted in Advice

Avoiding common lock-ins your marketing agency might try

mistake signRegular readers of this blog will know how frustrated we get with the questionable tactics used by some companies who offer marketing services for dentists. Whether it’s simply purchasing cheap £50 WordPress templates, adjusting them slightly and selling on for thousands, or onerous long-term contractual lock-ins, unfortunately it’s all out there and way too prevalent these days.

So in today’s blog we’ll take a quick look at some of the ways a marketing company will try to lock you in and make it very difficult for you if you want to transfer your business elsewhere. In effect this should serve as a handy check-list when you are considering signing up for new services.

The long-term contract

This is a simple one still used by many in the business. But why would you really need to sign up to something where you may get poor results and be unable to do anything about it for a long time? A prime case is SEO where companies will try to lock you into a twelve month contract with no results based components. If they don’t perform and you want to leave, then unless pay off the remainder of the fees, you’re likely stuck.

Non-portable website

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Content Management

Why you need to stay on top of WordPress security updates

WordPress hack riskWordPress is very popular for building cheap websites but also notoriously prone to security problems and hacking exploits; particularly so if you don’t spend a lot of time staying abreast of all of the security updates needed to try to keep it secure.

The fundamental problems are exacerbated because of all the third party “plugins” which can be used to extend the functionality of WordPress.

Most are free to use but come with varying degrees of robustness and support – so a plugin that works and is secure when your site is built, may not be secure when the developer abandons it 6 months down the track.

Given all of the maintenance and security issues, WordPress is now not our main tool of choice for business critical dental website applications; instead we prefer an alternative content management system which is considerably more secure and frankly easier for clients to use. However, we do still use WordPress for blogging where we can “lock it down” and ensure that it stays as secure as possible, minimising the use of vulnerable plugins and with no reliance on third-party scripts to make it work. Even so, we still invest a lot of time in keeping these streamlined blogging platforms updated and secure.

**STOP PRESS** – this blog was written just before a huge WordPress hack which happened in early February and which affected hundreds of thousands of websites. A couple of dental design companies were hit particularly hard with dozens of their client sites being defaced. Some are still down now, nearly two weeks later, demonstrating just how pertinent the advice in this blog actually is.

Why is WordPress popular?

Given the plethora of security problems and tiring updates, you have to wonder why WordPress is popular? The fact is that there are lots of resources available for WordPress which make it very cost-effective for developers. These are typically what we call “templates” which can be acquired for very little money; £30 or £40 and some even free.

The developers then add business specific images and text to the pre-built template and sell it on to their clients, often for thousands of pounds. More often than not, the client is led to believe that it’s a bespoke design when in fact it’s available for all to use for just a few pounds. This type of activity is rife in the dental web design community where some designers actually claim that the designs are bespoke and yet it’s easy to see that there is a commercial template underpinning it.

Failure to update – the consequences

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Website

The advantages of a website dedicated to a specific dental discipline

optimising website designThere is a huge range of dental websites online today, from lavish affairs with many pages to more modest publications of just a few pages which simply give a few contact details and not much else.

When it comes to Google searches, it is quite clear that websites with a good deal of high quality information and well-elaborated treatment pages, generally fare much better than those with flimsy content. So for example, where a dentist has a special interest in dental implants and dedicates several pages to this on the practice website, then this forms a great platform for Google optimisation.

So how do we take this to the next level for those dentists who are really interested in securing the best possible ranking results for a particular type of dental treatment? The way to do this is to publish a dedicated website specifically covering that discipline. So a site all about implants and the various associated techniques, or about orthodontics and the various types of braces and treatments which are available. Sedation too is another upcoming area worthy of a dedicated dental website and the opportunities in this particular niche are still significant.

Why does a dedicated treatment website work so well?

This is down to how Google works and how it identifies the most relevant and useful information for its users. So a website which is all about implants for example, will be better placed and more “authoritative” in Google’s eyes than another website which may only have a couple of pages covering implant disciplines. Even where a general website has a comprehensive implants section, a well-optimised site dedicated solely to implants will typically beat it in the Google results.

What do you need to include on a dedicated treatment site?

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by AdminPosted on Posted in blogging

Get your practice blog on track with these handy hints

WordPressThose in the know about dental marketing, in particular how to make your presence felt in Google, will undoubtedly tell you how important blogging is for your business.

As we’ve covered elsewhere, a well-maintained blog is excellent for helping with website visitor engagement, demonstrating knowledge, building credibility and for building website traffic as part of a thorough SEO campaign. However, important as it is, too many practices go badly wrong with their blogging, with mistakes ranging from posting too infrequently through to writing decent content but then failing to optimise it.

In today’s blog we’ll take a quick look at 5 key elements which you must build into your dental blogging programme to keep it firmly on track.

Accept that blogging makes a difference

This is one of the biggest hurdles with some practice principals and/or managers simply refusing to believe that blogging does make a difference. Irrespective of the data, some just aren’t able to get on board with the concept and consequently don’t get behind it or only do so half-heartedly. Without commitment, the full benefits of blogging will not be realised and your digital campaigns will fall short. Even super busy business leaders like Richard Branson make time to contribute to their company blog and actively support it.

Write great content

Simple huh? Also pretty obvious. Whilst most of us aren’t literary geniuses, you don’t really need to be when it comes to creating good blog content. It needs to be professional enough, but the key feature is that it must be interesting and something that your users will be keen to read and share. Don’t just regurgitate what others are doing; try to build in some unique/personalised content about the practice which existing patients (and potential new ones) can relate to. If they find it interesting, they come back.

Maintain a degree of consistency

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by AdminPosted on Posted in seo

What is it and why does it matter for digital marketing and SEO?

clicking on mouseIf your digital marketing team is up-to-speed with the latest techniques to help promote your dental business in Google and other channels, then they have probably discussed “content marketing” with you and the important role it plays in digital strategies.

However, if you aren’t already aware, this blog will try to give you a working insight into why generating fresh and interesting content is so powerful to help build your digital foot-print, improve your search engine positions and ultimately, gain new patients for you. But first a little bit of history.

Before 2012, it was relatively easy to gain prominent search engine rankings by pointing lots of links at your website from 3rd party sites. The quality of the links didn’t matter too much and so it was a popular way of doing really well in Google without spending too much time and effort. Indeed, two or three of the large UK dental marketing companies built their reputation for being SEO “gurus” by outsourcing this type of work to cheap off-shore agencies whilst charging a handsome price to their clients.

Undoubtedly this worked initially and lots of dentists did very well out of it. However, some were a little more cautious and realised that Google would catch up on this “manipulation” at some point and the house of cards would come crashing down. And so it happened, when in the early part of 2012, Google introduced severe penalties for websites which abused this technique and as a result many dentists ended up with the website tanking from the top positions to complete obscurity. Suffice to say that the days of “easy” SEO were well and truly over.

Since 2012, promoting dental websites in Google has been a much more rigorous discipline, focused on quality and full compliance with the web publishing guidelines set out by Google. You can’t simply build your website, forget about it and hand the digital promotion to a cheap, third-party link-building company. You won’t get anywhere and worse, you are likely to have your website penalised as a result. Instead, you need to embark on an ethical and holistic marketing campaign which incorporates a variety of techniques, including content generation and broadcasting.

So what is content generation?

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by AdminPosted on Posted in seo

Optimising free traffic channels for new patient enquiries.

rising Google positionsThere are numerous ways to increase the volume of traffic to your practice website which fall into two main categories – free and paid. The paid traffic originates from advertising on social channels such as Facebook or via the Google AdWords system, whereas free traffic comes from sources such as free clicks on Google results or from clicks on links on third-party websites.

In this blog we will take a quick look at optimising organic search traffic, i.e. the traffic which originates directly from clicks on search engine results; in the UK primarily from Google.

Why is organic traffic so important?

First off, it’s free! So good organic search results mean that you receive a lot of website visits without having to pay for it. Consequently increasing organic traffic is the primary goal of any SEO campaign and should also be a priority target for any dental business owner who is serious about acquiring new patients from the web. Although pay-per-click is very useful for certain circumstances, the mid to long term goal should always be to develop prominent and sustainable positions in the organic search results. So how can we do this?

Optimise your website content

A website is certainly not fire and forget and to rank well in Google you need to optimise it periodically. Firstly you need to define your target audience and then understand how those “personas” look for products and services in search engines. Ideally you should spend time with your marketing partner to define “buyer personas” which will from the basis for targeting your marketing systems. This research also needs to be built into your website when selecting the right type of content and how it is optimised for the user and for search engines – for example, if your primary target is dental implants for older people with suitable disposable income, then that type of content needs to be generated and added to the site. It also needs to be refined periodically based on usage data from tools such as Google Analytics.

Encourage links back to your website from elsewhere

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Tools

Accessible video for patient engagement and education.

1. Introduce yourself and your team to make website users feel welcome

viewing video on smartphoneIt’s no surprise that new patients are more likely to take up the services of a dentist who has a friendly and engaging website rather than one who’s website is generic and unappealing. One of the best ways to promote the instant attraction needed when web users lands on your page is through the use of dental practice video.

A 45 second clip introducing the practice is far more engaging that a couple of paragraphs of text and it really does encourage users to investigate what you are all about, rather than simply bounce back to Google and check out the next practice on the search listings. So a professionally crafted welcome video, carefully and prominently included on your website homepage, is really worthwhile.

2. Showcase existing patient testimonials

Whilst traditional written testimonials are still valid, you will make much more impact if you present video testimonials from four or five patients where their life really has been changed for the better and where they are keen to tell others what a great job you did for them. This type of third-party validation works extremely well and, as we all know, everybody really appreciates a recommendation when searching for products and services – dentistry included. So try to capture a selection of great video testimonials and let them work for you 24/7 on your website.

3. Differentiate yourself by demonstrating knowledge

Perhaps you’ve invested in training to place implants; to undertake a certain form of orthodontic treatment or some other service and you are keen to showcase and promote it? A few short videos explaining what these treatments are, how they can benefit patients and perhaps used in conjunction with a couple of testimonials, can really help to establish credibility and differentiate you from others offering similar.

4. Produce short dental education videos

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by AdminPosted on Posted in seo

Free dental SEO auditNo link-building in your monthly optimisation package? Then it isn’t SEO…..

Google isn’t usually too forthcoming about which factors are most important for improving search ranking results, but earlier this year, they declared their hand quite openly by stating the top three things which do make the difference. These were, in order of importance, back-links, high-quality content and “RankBrain”. We will discuss the latter two in future blog articles but today we are discussing the importance of “links” and in particular, why you need check that this critical aspect is covered in your monthly contract with your digital dental marketing company.

Unfortunately, as we’ve touched on elsewhere in the blog, some dental marketers can be quite sneaky and frugal with the truth when it comes to detailing what you actually get for your money. A key case in point is where they deliberately exclude link-building from their “SEO” packages unless you buy their most expensive version. That’s correct, even though we know that links are the most important factor for search ranking, several well-known dental marketing companies actually exclude it, but still label their offer “SEO”. If you think that doesn’t sound quite right, you’d be right.

Without at least some link-building, even if you are in a relatively non-competitive environment, then chances are that you won’t realise the Google ranking positions you’d hoped for. By then, you’ve already spent thousands of pounds and just end up being up-sold to the more expensive service which does include link-building. So what’s going on here?

The quest to tie you in to a monthly contract

Some marketers will do all they can to subscribe you to monthly services and will tailor what they have on offer to suit your budget. Once they have you, then they have more opportunity to sell additional services at a later date. The problem here is that they are not transparent about what they aren’t delivering and the “links” example above is a classic illustration. The marketer knows that most dentists and practice managers will have heard that SEO is important, but they also know that few of them will understand the relative importance of the various disciplines involved. Link building is hard work and time consuming; hence why marketing companies will try to avoid it.

So by describing their “cheaper” packages as SEO, even where they are just very basic website maintenance packages, they “hook” the unsuspecting client into subscribing for something that isn’t actually what it purports to be. As time progresses, the marketer then up-sells the client to the next level package and so forth. Their primary objective is to get you to subscribe to something, even if it’s the low level package to begin with. Once you’re in, it can be very difficult to get back out again, particularly if the company designed your website using some form of convoluted system which isn’t portable.

What are your options?

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Advice

The good, the bad, the unchanged and what to expect in 2017.

website design and updatesIt’s the time of year to take stock and reflect on what happened in the previous twelve months in the field of dental marketing; what we can learn and what we can expect in the coming year ahead.

One thing that became clear as we progressed through the year was that more and more agencies were attracted to the sector and that competition intensified. I suspect that much of the influx was prompted by agencies who were already established but considered that the dental niche might be more lucrative than their usual dealings with regular SMEs.

However, the lack of real penetration other than from one or two newcomers, suggests that the “easy pickings” some of the new agencies may have envisaged, hasn’t materialised – at least yet. Those of us who have been in the business for pushing on twenty years understand that not all dentists are hugely wealthy and that most of them have a close eye on their budgets. So the barriers to entry are quite high for any new entrant, particularly in what is quite a specialised niche.

Downward pressure on prices

budget for marketingThat said, it is noticeable that a couple of the prominent dental marketing companies seem to have been affected, with rumours of consolidation and staff lay-offs, withdrawal from dental exhibitions and other cost-saving initiatives becoming apparent.

With more companies trying to gain a foot-hold and offering low prices (albeit often for work of questionable quality) there is inevitably a downward pressure on prices and those who set their business up to be “premier” suppliers with unrealistically high fees, were inevitably going to suffer. Those companies who maintained a close eye on costs, and continued to deliver high-quality services at sensible rates appear to have maintained/grown their market shares and prospered.

However, even with a large, loyal client base as we have built here at Dental Media, there is certainly no room for complacency – where dentists possibly only sought two or three quotations for a new website up until a few years ago, now they can easily reach out to six or seven agencies.

The erosion in quality of services

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Advice

Preparing your practice website and search optimisation for the year ahead.

basics for a dental web marketing planThe dental world is quite polarised when it comes to marketing and gaining new patients from the web; there are those practices which really stay up-to-date and reap the benefits, but actually quite a lot more which lag behind with out-of-date web properties and fail to realise the potential available to them. Today we’ll take a look at the minimum requirements you need in place if you want your own practice to be up there amongst the “web-enabled” minority who cream off 70% off new patients who find a new dentist via the web.

The first statistic to consider when validating the worth of this is that, after word-of-mouth, the second biggest source of new patients for dentists is the Internet. Of course this is an average figure and if you don’t utilise the various web channels which are available, then this may not apply to you. However, if you decide to up your game and compete, then this could be you and the rewards are certainly there. Let’s take a look at the basic requirements to “web-enable” your new patient acquisition for 2017.

A professional, mobile-friendly website

All projects start with the basic fundamentals and the key foundation for any business which is serious about their web presence, is a top-quality website which is optimised for use on mobile devices as well as desk-tops. Indeed, over 50% of website visits come from mobile devices and this trend is set to continue. So-much-so that Google has already announced experiments to switch the main search results to those based on mobile device content, rather than desk-top sites. You will see the potential problem here if you are stubbornly hanging on to a website which is not mobile friendly!

But it’s not just Google we have to consider, it clearly the user too. Lots of people only use their mobiles or tablets to access the web, so unless you provide a website which works well and is optimised for their device, then expect them to surf elsewhere; possibly to the website of the competitor dentist just down the road.

So your first review should be your website and ensuring that it meets all of the criteria needed to be truly mobile-friendly. This doesn’t just mean that someone built a design based on a WordPress template or similar to tick the “responsive” box. Your site also needs to meet lots of other mobile-friendly criteria such as load-speed, configuration of the navigation and many other elements too. There are approved tools to check this yourself, but if you need guidance, please get in touch and we’ll check your site free of charge.

Engaging, compelling content

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