by AdminPosted on Posted in Copywriting

Why unique content is important for your website and blog

I’m prompted to write this article in response to a number of recent cases where clients have provided what was claimed to be unique content for their new dental websites, in particular the treatment pages.

As a matter of course we always check a few extracts of any supplied content to make sure it is unique – a quick check in Google will tell all. Simply select a couple of sentences and let Google find any similar instances – if its out there on the web, it will almost certainly be in Google’s content cache.

So during a couple of recent checks of this type, it quickly became clear that the content which had been provided was “borrowed” from elsewhere and at best reworked to just change a few words. Unfortunately this is not good enough and aside from possible copyright issues, will get you into trouble with Google. So why is this……?

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Dental Video

The power of video referral – converting visits to enquiries

Website video has been around for several years and its ability to help drive new patient enquiries is accepted. However, what is less well understood is that website video and particularly patient video testimonials, drive more enquiries than any other web marketing tool. Google Analytics statistics from multiple accounts show that patient video testimonial pages are visited extensively just before the web contact form is completed. So why does this happen?

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Financial

Ensuring sensible return on investment for marketing spend

With competition in dentistry increasing year on year, progressive dentists are evaluating the best ways to market their services to ensure that they hang on to existing clients and continue to attract new ones. With financial pressures also increasing, diligent practice managers and principals are also scrutinising marketing costs to ensure that all aspects are targeted correctly and delivering good return on investment.

So what are the main areas to examine and what level of budget should be allocated for each of the key elements?

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Dental Website Design

Factors to consider when planning the scope of your site

This is another popular question we encounter when embarking on the planning phase for a new dental website project. So just how big should your website be and how will this contribute to its success?

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Content Management

Advantages and disadvantages of content management systems (CMS)

A CMS is a tool which allows a website owner to make updates to a website without referring back to the original designer. This is fine in principle, however, all is not quite as straightforward as it may seem and there are certain advantages and disadvantages to consider when deciding if you actually need a CMS for your dental website. We consider the pros and cons here:

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by AdminPosted on Posted in email marketing

Keep in touch with existing clients and new prospects

More often than not you will hear marketers advocating the use of web tools designed to attract new clients e.g. websites, blogs and social media channels. These are extremely important of course but some dental marketers neglect to identify other tools that are essential to help you keep in touch with your existing client base. One such tool is the e-newsletter system.

Whilst many dental practices have subscribed to the need to develop their website, blog and social channels, a surprising number are still failing to market effectively to their existing client base – arguably the most receptive target. As competition in dentistry becomes even fiercer, courting your existing client base needs to be made a clear priority.

Remarkably this basic rule is neglected by way too many practices whose patients, if they’re lucky, might receive a boring recall card every six months. During that period, other progressive practices will have actively marketed to your client and potentially lured them away.

So staying in touch with your dental clients is essential and one of the cheapest and most effective ways to achieve this is using an email newsletter system. So how does this work?

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Tools

Which web marketing channels will yield the best returns?

With just a few weeks to the start of 2013 it’s timely to pull together a quick overview of the tools and channels progressive dental practices should be using for online promotion in 2013.

2012 has seen a huge shift in web marketing, driven by a couple of key factors a) Google severely clamping down on the ability of SEO companies to manipulate search results and b) the launch of many new social media channels providing excellent opportunities for business promotion. Some doors have closed but many new ones have opened.

So what changed in 2012 and how will this impact on the way agile marketers will position strategy for 2013?

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Tools

Surprisingly, many dentists still lack the fundamentals of a basic web presence to support their marketing strategy

Dental practices are, for the most part, local businesses and historically when looking for a dentist potential patients would have turned to the phone book. These days however with internet access readily available and smart phones in abundance, the first place many will turn is the internet.

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Financial

Branding a dental practice – what’s involved and what can I expect to pay?

This is another very popular question and applies equally well to new projects and re-branding exercises. Like any project, the cost is entirely dependent on scope and also who you chose to carry out the work. Before we move on to typical costs, let’s consider the core elements you will likely need to address when looking to develop a brand for your dental practice:

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by AdminPosted on Posted in seo

Latest dental SEO updates

In 2011 Google started to move the SEO goalposts by introducing the “Panda” update. This targeted low quality sites which published content primarily for the purposes of SEO. One of the main link building sources for SEO’s, article sites, became defunct virtually overnight. Google followed this up with other sweeping changes in 2012, starting in April with its ‘Penguin’ update – aimed at ‘over-optimised’ sites and unnatural link-building patterns. Many sites, including marketing and dental practice sites, were hit and demoted. Some suffered significant reductions in enquiries as a result.

However, Google has not finished its purge on ‘forced’ SEO and more changes and penalties are on the horizon. So what does Google have in store next?

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