Mobile or Desktop?

December 16, 2019
internet dental marketing, Local Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

It has long been an article of faith that consumers turn to their mobile devices first, when they do local online searches. Whether it’s a dental practice or a dry cleaner, we use smart phones and tablets to find them. But a new study is calling this conventional wisdom into question.

Woman Using ComputerThe study by Ignite Visibility, a digital marketing agency, said that fifty-nine percent of their respondents still prefer searching on their desktop computers over a mobile device. Only 17.9 percent would rather tap on their phones.

Those numbers drop even more when it comes to using a voice search, like Siri or Google Assistant. Ignite Visiblity reports that a scant six percent use that feature.

These are surprising numbers, since the use of mobile devices in organic search engine visits has risen steadily since at least 2013. Voice search, too, continues to grow in popularity. Why is the Ignite Visiblity study showing a preference for desktop search? The answer may be in its demographics.

About five hundred people took part their survey. Of those, about ninety percent  were over fifty-five. “Less than 2% of respondents [in the Ignite Visibility study] were under age 35,” reports SearchEngineLand, which reviewed the survey. “It’s safe to say there are material differences between user behaviors of different generations.”

The importance of mobile devices to local search and purchases remains strong. Local businesses, including dental practices, must create websites that are optimized for smartphones and tablets. This should not be considered a luxury.

Voice search, too, continues to improve and has growing influence.

The digital marketplace is complex and ever-changing. ProspectaMarketing is an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices. We use the tools of Internet search marketing to help you reach key prospects who are looking for what your practice has to offer. Our unique and thorough approach provides visibility, financial accountability, and ongoing refinement and improvement. You can find out more by contacting Lane Anderson toll-free at 1-877-322-4440 Ext 101, by email using the form on our Contact Us page, or online at ProspectaMarketing.com.

Encouraging Positive Reviews

November 15, 2019
internet dental marketing, Online Reviews, Search Engine Optimization

The online reviews of your dental patients are a critical factor in the profitability of your practice. The more you have, the higher your practice will rank in search engine results, and the higher you rank in search engine results, the more prospective patients will find out about you.

Dentist wearing mask holding medical equipment

Sounds simple enough. So, what can you do to encourage your current patients to leave you an online review?

Many small businesses take the direct approach. Retail outlets, in particular, are known for this. How many times have you been handed a receipt, with a URL highlighted in yellow? The clerk asks you to visit the site and leave your comments.

For a dental practice, it isn’t that simple, due to the nature of daily operations.

Positive Reviews

Survey after survey has  borne out the importance of positive online reviews. The vast majority of people responding to these surveys acknowledge that positive reviews influence their decision on whether to buy a certain product, eat at a certain restaurant – or visit a particular dental practice.

  • Ninety percent read them before visiting a business
  • Eighty-eight percent trust them as much as personal recommendations
  • Seventy-two percent are more likely to trust a business with positive reviews

But you can’t hand a patient a receipt with yellow highlights on it. Or can you?

Well, maybe not a receipt with yellow highlights. But whenever you finish an appointment, especially with one that has gone well, you can ask the patient to go online and leave a review.

If you don’t care for the direct approach (we don’t) then there are alternatives.

  • Followup Email. Send patients a post-apppointment email that asks how their experience was. Include a link to review sites, and ask them for their comments. The key here is to send this email within a day or so of the appointment.
  • Make the process easy. Even if it only takes a few minutes, you’re asking patients to take the time to go online and say nice things about you. Keep your post-appointment email short and to the point, and remember to say thank-you!
  • Choose wisely. There are tons of review sites out there. The inclincation may be to go straight to Yelp, but don’t forget Google My Business, Healthgrades, Zocdoc, or Dentistry.com.

All of this flows, of course, from the exceptional care you provide. That helps give your patients the incentive they need.

Don’t Fret

When you ask your patients for reviews, you always run the risk of a patient writing a negative one. Positive reviews are important, but as we have noted elsewhere on this blog, you can benefit from the occasional negative comment.

Too many positive reviews may not seem right. For one thing, nobody’s perfect. For another, if you see nothing but positive reviews it could suggest the numbers are cooked.

Don’t fret the occasional bad review. They’re inevitable.

Does all this sound complicated? ProspectaMarketing is an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices. We use the tools of Internet search marketing to help you reach key prospects who are looking for what your practice has to offer. Our unique and thorough approach provides visibility, financial accountability, and ongoing refinement and improvement. You can find out more by contacting Lane Anderson toll-free at 1-877-322-4440 Ext 101, by email using the form on our Contact Us page, or online at ProspectaMarketing.com.

Responding to Negative Reviews

November 1, 2019
internet dental marketing, Local Internet Marketing, Online Reviews

Dentist wearing mask holding medical equipmentA negative online review can seem like a real slap in the face. You are a consumate professional committed to excellence, yet there it is for all the world to see: an unhappy patient griping about a bad experience while in your chair.

You might be tempted to shrug it off. You can’t please everyone, after all. But no one likes unfavorable comments, no matter how mild. Worse, negative reviews have the potential to damage your online reputation. They must not be ignored.

The New Word of Mouth

Online reviews have never been more important to the success of your practice, or to any small business, for that matter. They are the new word of mouth: most people turn to review sites before deciding how to part with their hard-earned dollars, and dental practices are not exempt.

Reputation management experts say that it’s important to reply to every online review you get. Needless to say, that can be very time-consuming, but you must consider the risk of not doing so.

Prompt Reply

Responding to online reviews shows your patients and potential patients that you are concerned, and that the experiences of your patients in your care matter. Replies do not need to be detailed: a simple thank-you to a positive comment is enough.

Negative reivews, on the other hand, need a little more thought. A prompt, reasoned reply to a harsh comment shows a willingness to address an issue. You can invite the reviewer to follow up with a private message, or even a phone call.

As we have said elsewhere on this blog, there can be benefits to negative reivews. Always keep in mind that your replies are there for anyone to see. Never take any negative review personally, and never respond in kind!

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ProspectaMarketing is an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices. We use the tools of Internet search marketing to help you reach key prospects who are looking for what your practice has to offer. Our unique and thorough approach provides visibility, financial accountability, and ongoing refinement and improvement. You can find out more by contacting Lane Anderson toll-free at 1-877-322-4440 Ext 101, by email using the form on our Contact Us page, or online at ProspectaMarketing.com.

Microsites: Your Showcase

November 1, 2019
Dental marketing, internet dental marketing, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

Your dental practice website offers a lot: everything from a detailed list of your available procedures to patient forms to biographical information on you and your dedicated staff. And let’s not forget the smile gallery, and contact information!

Happy senior citizen having a casual small talk with the friendly doctor

It is, in short, packed with content. You don’t want anything to get overlooked, especially your most important services. What to do? You can attach a microsite to your main site, and prominently feature those services.

A microsite is a sub-site to your main website, and it focuses on a single topic. The entire microsite is built around it – dental implants, for example. The microsite has its own URL, its own content, and its own interfaces.

Benefits

You might think: why would I want something like that?

A microsite showcases one of your specialties – the aforementioned dental implants, or maybe teeth whitening. These two examples are among the most in-demand cosmetic dentistry procedures. It might also feature a specialty, such as endodontics.

By focusing on one service or specialty, you are able to improve your search engine optimization results. People search for these terms, so they’ll find you faster and easier.

With a more focused presentation, your practice will rank higher in search results. Your would-be patients will get a clear and concise of what you have to offer.

Marketing your practice is not easy, but there is professional help. ProspectaMarketing is an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices. We use the tools of Internet search marketing to help you reach key prospects who are looking for what your practice has to offer. Our unique and thorough approach provides visibility, financial accountability, and ongoing refinement and improvement. You can find out more by contacting Lane Anderson toll-free at 1-877-322-4440 Ext 101, by email using the form on our Contact Us page, or online at ProspectaMarketing.com.

Benefits to Bad Online Reviews?

October 14, 2019
Dental marketing, internet dental marketing, Local Internet Marketing, Online Reviews

The vast majority of people use online review sites when they’re looking for a new dentist, so it follows that the reviews they find carry a lot of weight. You might think  that positive reviews and five-star ratings are critical, and you wouldn’t be wrong. But you wouldn’te be entirely right, either.

Happy senior citizen having a casual small talk with the friendly doctor

Yes, when people go to Yelp, Google My Business, and similar review sites, they read the positive things your patients have to say. But they’re probably looking for negative reviews, too. Believe it or not, there are benefits to bad reviews.

Don’t Freak Out

If someone is checking you out online but doesn’t find any bad reviews in your profiles, it can be a real red flag. They are likely to wonder if all those good reviews genuine. We all know you can’t please everybody, and seeing a few bad reviews among the good ones presents a realistic overview.

It should be needless to say that you want good reviews to outweigh the bad ones. But a few bad reviews among the mostly favorable present a realistic, well-rounded image.

To put it another way: don’t freak out if you get a few negative online reviews!

Responding

It’s always tempting to respond to a negative review by telling the writer just how wrong he or she is. Do your best to avoid a shoot-from-the-hip response.

People actually like it when they see a reasoned response to a bad review: one that acknowledges the feedback and shows a desire to improve. A calm and thoughtful reply not only shows respect for the writer, it demonstrates your integrity.

None of this is easy, but you don’t have to go it alone. ProspectaMarketing is an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices. We use the tools of Internet search marketing to help you reach key prospects who are looking for what your practice has to offer. Our unique and thorough approach provides visibility, financial accountability, and ongoing refinement and improvement. You can find out more by contacting Lane Anderson toll-free at 1-877-322-4440 Ext 101, by email using the form on our Contact Us page, or online at ProspectaMarketing.com.

Your Online Presence

October 1, 2019
internet dental marketing, Local Internet Marketing

For a dental practice, as for any small business, nothing can ever replace an in-person meeting with a patient or potential patient. Establishing a personal, face-to-face connection cannot be beat.

dentist-evaluate-smileBut the world doesn’t always work that way. Most people rely on the Internet when they look for a dentist. Your website is the face of your practice, the first impression that anyone will see of what your have to offer.

In a digital economy, you need to drive as much new traffic to your site as possible. More website traffic means better local search engine results, and that means more patients.

It wasn’t so long ago that a commercial website wasn’t much different than an online flier. They had the name of a practice, location, contact information, and maybe a list of services.

Today, a website is much more than that. They are a networking tool, and the means by which you entrench your practice in your community. Your patients can get directions, schedule an appointment, interact with your office via instant messaging, and even call you from the Google Knowledge Panel.

That means your online presence is essential for business growth. Patients and would-be patients give great credence to online reviews and testimonials, as well as search engine rankings. These combine to form your online reputation.

You need to engage your target audience, and the principal means of doing that is through your dental practice website. It is where you present a refined marketing message that answers their needs.

It isn’t easy, but there is always help. ProspectaMarketing is an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices. We use the tools of Internet search marketing to help you reach key prospects who are looking for what your practice has to offer. Our unique and thorough approach provides visibility, financial accountability, and ongoing refinement and improvement. You can find out more by contacting Lane Anderson toll-free at 1-877-322-4440 Ext 101, by email using the form on our Contact Us page, or online at ProspectaMarketing.com.

What To Do With Negative Reviews

September 16, 2019
internet dental marketing, Local Internet Marketing, Online Reviews

Good reviews from your patients can really help the profitability of your practice, and the more you have, the merrier. Unfortunately, it’s the dissatisfied patients who, for whatever reason, are the most likely to jump online and write a bad review.

Dentist Male_01Undoing the damage of negative reviews can be an uphill battle. Studies show that it takes about forty positive reviews to counteract a just one negative review!

Online Vendetta

There are known cases of orchestrated online attacks, in which a single user leaves a series of bad reviews in an effort to damage the online reputation of a business.

A writer described, on the SEMrush.com website, how he uncovered one such case. Using multiple profiles, this one user posted eighteen one-star Google My Business reviews of the same small business, all on the very same day.

For a while, it had the desired effect: within two weeks, the business’s GMB rating fell from a 4.5 rating to 2.8.

What To Do?

This was not an unprecedented situation, and if it happens to you there are ways of dealing with it.

In the case outlined above, the profiles and links to each negative review were documented and sent along to GMB Support. The names of the offending reviewers, links to profiles, and a note describing why it was being reported were included.

A GMB Product Expert looks at the negative reviews and determines whether further action is necessary. The entire process can take time and you’ll need to be patient. But persistence pays off, and fake negative reviews can successfully be removed.

It may be tempting to reply to negative reviews, but it isn’t a good idea. Chances are, replying would just escalate things. You’re much better off following procedure by flagging and reporting the fake reviews.

Need some help? ProspectaMarketing is an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices. We use the tools of Internet search marketing to help you reach key prospects who are looking for what your practice has to offer. Our unique and thorough approach provides visibility, financial accountability, and ongoing refinement and improvement. You can find out more by contacting Lane Anderson toll-free at 1-877-322-4440 Ext 101, by email using the form on our Contact Us page, or online at ProspectaMarketing.com.

More Pictures!

September 2, 2019
internet dental marketing, Local Internet Marketing, Social Media

A picture, we have always been told, is worth a thousand words. But new research is telling us that lots of pictures, posted to your Google My Business profile, are worth even more.

apple-diet-healthy-eating-41282A study by BrightLocal, an SEO and local citation company, found that the more images a business has on its GMB profile – not just photographs, but any images – result in that business attracing many more prospects than it would have with fewer images.

The study looked at the GMB Insights of 45,000 businesses in three dozen industries and four countries. “It’s clear,” wrote BrightLocal’s Jamie Pitman, “that it’s more important than ever to look your absolute best when consumers are searching for businesses like yours.”

In other words, don’t just tell ’em what you’ve got – show them.

The study found that businesses with more than 100 GMB images get:

  • 520% more calls than the average business
  • 1,065% more website clicks
  • 2,717% more directions requests

The authors of the study concede that their research does not necessarily indicate a cause-and-effect between GMB profile images and new business. But they stress that GMB images do have an influence on customer behavior. The more images there are suggests the greater likelihood of taking customers “from discovery to conversion.”

The study recommends finding creative ways to encourage patients to post their own pictures. One suggestion is to create an “Instagram wall.” By that, they mean an area in your office that clients would find irresistable for using in selfies, like a model or mural.

The takeaway? Post lots and lots of great pictures of your practice to your GMB profile! That includes pictures that your customers are willing to share.

Need some help? ProspectaMarketing is an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices. We use the tools of Internet search marketing to help you reach key prospects who are looking for what your practice has to offer. Our unique and thorough approach provides visibility, financial accountability, and ongoing refinement and improvement. You can find out more by contacting Lane Anderson toll-free at 1-877-322-4440 Ext 101, by email using the form on our Contact Us page, or online at ProspectaMarketing.com.

Get It Right: Your Dental Website

August 2, 2019
internet dental marketing, Internet Marketing, Local Internet Marketing, Websites

Your dental website is a reflection of your practice, and serves several important functions. It’s a showcase of your services, and tells people how to find you. It also allows you to share your expertise. But above all, your website is how you convert visitors into new patients.

Creating the best possible site is essential to the success of your practice, so it’s critical that you get it right. How do you create an effective dental website?

Keep It Simple

Generally speaking, simple things are easier to understand. That is as true for websites as it is for anything else.

What do we mean by simple? In the case of your dental website, it should have a simple design and be easy to navigate. Its menu should be clear and concise. Remember this important fact: most site visitors decide whether they will use a site’s services within the first ten seconds of landing there.

Content

Website content is any text, photograph, and the audio and video files published there: the stuff your site visitors are looking for.

The content on your dental website should be clean and well-organized – in short, user friendly.

  • Clear headings and sub-headings. Headings and sub-headings make site content stand out, and tells visitors that something is important.
  • Well-defined categories. Don’t clutter your site with excessive information; you’re likely to lose visitors (i.e. potential new patients) if you do. Make it easy for them to find the information they’re looking for.
  • Organized. There is no need to re-invent the wheel, or the website. Have a standard placement for titles, menus, buttons, and links. Use sans serif fonts – a type of font that doesn’t use little ornaments (serifs) at the ends of certain characters. Sans serif fonts like Helvetic and Arial are easier to read than serif fonts like Times New Roman and Palatino, especially on a website.
  • Optimized for SEO. SEO, or search engine optimization, is how Internet users find you. Optimizing site content is a strategy to drive traffic to your webiste by using certain words (keywords) and title tags, to name just two, that attract search engines.

Visibility and Improvment

Your dental website should be simple, but it should also reflect the personality of your practice. That’s how you convince visitors to use what you have to offer.

ProspectaMarketing is an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices. We use the tools of Internet search marketing to help you reach key prospects who are looking for what your practice has to offer. Our unique and thorough approach provides visibility, financial accountability, and ongoing refinement and improvement. You can find out more by contacting Lane Anderson toll-free at 1-877-322-4440 Ext 101, by email using the form on our Contact Us page, or online at ProspectaMarketing.com.

Still A Force: Your Dental Blog

July 15, 2019
Blogs, Dental marketing, internet dental marketing, Social Media

Commercial websites, like those for dental practices, have used blogs as a marketing tool for years: raising their profiles and getting online visibility. But some trend-watchers say the days of the blog are numbered, as people’s love of social media keeps growing.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

First, though, a sobering thought: there are more blogs out there than anyone could possibly count. Of course, they’ve tried. By one estimate there are 500 million blogs spread out over 1.6 billion (with a B) websites. Every day there are about two million new posts. (Glad you found this one!)

That’s a lot of stuff to read.

Your Corner of the Web

The majority of these millions of blogs, of course, are niche – like dental blogs. There is a ready market for them, too, because the number of people online is steadily growing.

Studies show that blogging as effective as ever. But you have to be smart about it; you have to offer your readers something of value. You should use your blog to answer their questions.

For dentists, a good example of this is dental implants. The market for dental implants in the United States is expected to reach $6.5 billion (again with a B!) over the next five years. You can bet there will be a lot of patients, and potential patients, asking questions about them. Take your answers to your dental website blog.

Other things to keep in mind:

  • smartphone_01Make your site mobile-ready! Your audience is everywhere. As we’ve reported elsewhere on this blog, the move toward mobile devices is probably unstoppable.
  • Blog content can co-exist with social media. If there’s a hot issue on social media, your blog is the place to really expand on it. Likewise, blog content can be itemized on different social channels.
  • Offer unique blog content. Share your dental expertise; answer your patients’ questions.
  • Try short-form content. Be concise. No need for exhaustive detail on every subject. (And yes, we’re trying to keep this post short!) Long-form posts, though, still have their place.
  • Plenty of visual content. Not just pictures, but  video and infographics. They’re all attention-grabbing.

Does any of this sound overwhelming? It doesn’t need to be.

ProspectaMarketing is an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices. We use all of the tools of Internet search marketing to help you reach key prospects who are looking for what your practice has to offer. Our unique and thorough approach provides visibility, financial accountability, and ongoing refinement and improvement. You can find out more by contacting Lane Anderson toll-free at 1-877-322-4440 Ext 101, by email using the form on our Contact Us page, or online at ProspectaMarketing.com.

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