Online Reviews – Part 1: Key Findings

November 15, 2022
Dental Advertising, Internet Marketing, Online Reviews

At ProspectaMarketing, we offer our dental practices a robust SEO and digital marketing strategy in order to maximize their appeal and reach. Our number one priority is reaching, converting, and retaining new prospective leads for your dental team. In this mission, we make use of a host of digital tools to provide us with up-to-date research that helps us stay at the vanguard of online marketing and advertising.

One shining example – especially this year – are the folks at Moz Pro Reviews. Consisting of a useful digital tool that tracks online search engine rankings, Moz has always been an industry leader in SEO trends. This year, however, they have taken an extra step and published the findings from their first-ever local business reviews survey.

On this blog, we’ve talked at-length about the importance of fomenting, reading, and responding to reviews – even negative ones. Your dental practice simply can’t survive the digital landscape if it has no user feedback that potential patients can rely on. It seems that Moz agrees!

During the month of September, they surveyed over a thousand US residents, and asked 17 crucial questions. In order to keep our practices educated and on the cutting-edge of marketing knowledge, our team has compiled the list, along with a helpful explanation on how it affects you and your dental team. Check it out below!

17 Key Review Findings by Moz

  • What Moz Says: 96% of people read reviews.
  • What It Means: Reviews are at an all-time high when it comes to marketing potential. In a fast-changing digital environment, you can’t afford to have an empty or paltry review page.
  • What Moz Says: For gauging trust, 86% of consumers say reviews are either “the most” important or “somewhat” important factor.
  • What It Means: Consumers are making quick, review-based judgments about businesses before deciding to even engage with them. If reviews are such an important factor, it’s likely an inadequate amount will make a patient forgo your services outright and not even interact with your digital portal.
  • What Moz Says: Only 11% of consumers trust brand messaging over public sentiment.
  • What It Means: Impersonal marketing campaigns are dead and relatability lives. Reviews and user feedback are the easiest ways to convince your audience that you are approachable, relatable, and welcoming. When people speak for your dental practice, they manage your interpersonal, word-of-mouth marketing campaign for you; so let them. And, above all, encourage them. A follow-up text, e-mail, or call to ensure a satisfied patient reviews your practice goes a long way!
  • What Moz Says: 52% of respondents say their negative reviews stem from false or incorrect online information on assets like local business listings.
  • What It Means: Accuracy is everything. Ensure that all your product and business listings are accurate to the services offered at your practice, make sure outdated offers are removed from your website and digital hubs, and choose relevant images that match the information provided. Users are most likely to negatively review you if they feel you didn’t fulfill any part of your marketing promises, so don’t break them!
  • What Moz Says: 50% of consumers lose trust if it looks like owners or employees are reviewing their own business.
  • What It Means: There is no easy route, and “seeding” reviews by planting your own employees and practice members in the reviewer pool does nothing to boost your presence. In fact, if this finding is anything to go by, it actively hurts it.
  • What Moz Says: After reading reviews, 91% of consumers’ next steps occur in areas completely controlled by the business, such as the company’s website, premises, and direct contact options.
  • What It Means: The review is the hook; once the patient has seen it, their most likely next step is to enter a space, digital or otherwise, where they can interact directly with your business. In a sense, good reviews are the first step in turning an average internet search into a veritable lead; one you can then convert into a recurring patient through contact forms, e-mail subscriptions, or even physical appointments.
  • What Moz Says: 65% of respondents write negative reviews because of rude or poor customer service.
  • What It Means: Some things never change, and while the age of adages like “the customer is always right” might be long gone, respectful, empathetic customer service never seems to truly go out of style. Ensure your staff is trained in “chairside manner” and that they treat their patients, prospective or otherwise, like people. This will generate reviews without much effort. In the end, the best way to ensure a good review is to provide a good experience.
  • What Moz Says: Sharing experiences and gratitude drive the overwhelming majority of reviews.
  • What It Means: Following up with satisfied patients has never been more important. If they share their positive experiences, others will see your practice as a place where they can feel safe and appreciated.
  • What Moz Says: 40% of customers are being subjected to forbidden or illegal review requests.
  • What It Means: After a scheduled appointment, ensure that you have a customer’s written consent before you attempt to contact them again. Following up for a review is important, but not more important than privacy. Spamming a non-consenting patient is a surefire way to never see them again.
  • What Moz Says: 39% of review writers have not received a direct review request in the past 5 years.
  • What It Means: A substantial chunk of users will review your practice regardless of a follow-up; but a bigger chunk might need more motivation. Again, we stress that you only reach out for follow-ups once you have received consent from the patient.
  • What Moz Says: If asked, more than half of your customers will always or usually write a review.
  • What It Means: Simply asking at the end of the appointment is both an easy way to generate reviews, and a handy way to circumvent any awkward or unwanted follow-ups.
  • What Moz Says: The top reason customers don’t review your business is because they forget to do so.
  • What It Means: As we stated above, a simple reminder can go a long way toward generating a review from one of your satisfied patients.
  • What Moz Says: Over 90% of consumers are influenced to a moderate or extreme degree by owner responses to reviews.
  • What It Means: Ignoring bad reviews is not the best route. Instead, respond to them with facts, accuracy, and a lack of defensiveness. If the criticism levied at your practice is baseless, refute it thoroughly and trust that your reviewers will respond to your honesty. If the claims have some merit, apologize on behalf of the practice and promise to do better moving forward. Either one beats a scathing review with no response, as other potential patients will see it as apathetic and will not feel your practice is a caring, safe place to seek dental services.
  • What Moz Says: 62% of negative reviewers would give a local brand a second chance after an owner response solves their problem.
  • What It Means: A bad review is as much of an opportunity as a good one. It not only pushes your practice to be better, but it can turn an unsatisfied patient into a recurring one. Always respond with respect and offer alternatives that might fix the predicament.
  • What Moz Says: 63% of consumers will update their negative review or low-star rating once an owner response resolves their complaint.
  • What It Means: If you move quickly to repair any damage, a negative review can become a positive one, and potential patients will see that your practice doesn’t only provide effective services and listen to their patients, but also acts to remedy any mistakes. There’s nothing more relatable than that!

This list is the least of it. Moz’s results were then further divided into three categories: the habits of review readers, the habits of review writers, and the power of owner responses. Check out our next blog post for an extended breakdown of these categories, as well as how they can affect you and your dental practice.

If you are thinking of expanding your dental practice’s digital reach, we can help! ProspectaMarketing is an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices and the tools of Internet marketing. We 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.

Google Analytics: The Key To Improving Your Reach

October 28, 2022
Dental Advertising, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Websites

ProspectaMarketing makes use of a host of top-of-the-line marketing tools to ensure that our dental practices reach as many potential patients as possible. One of our most crucial allies is Google Analytics, and we have mentioned it several times within our blog articles. But why is it so special? What makes it so unique in comparison to other SEO tools? Our team realizes these questions can often pop up, especially if you are a practice who is just starting out in the world of internet marketing.

In order to keep you educated and ensure your practice is taking advantage of its marketing potential, our team has put together an easy-to-understand explanation, in two parts. Firstly, we will explain what Google Analytics is. Secondly, we will provide you with four insights you can gain from one simple look at your Google Analytics page.

What Is Google Analytics?

In the simplest terms, Google Analytics is an online service that keeps track of your website traffic. However, leaving it at that would be a massive understatement. Google Analytics not only keeps track of your numbers, it also lets you filter them in a myriad ways, analyze different aspects of your site usage, and apply insights to your marketing strategy.

Covering everything from demographic statistics to potential patient behavior, Google Analytics is simply the easiest way to monitor your site’s health and standing. But, is there an easy way for a beginner to apply this information? Or do you need to take a class to simply be able to log on?

How Can Google Analytics Help?

There are certain insights you can make with almost no experience in Google Analytics, and familiarizing yourself with the service is not complicated at all. The average marketing team can make use of this tool easily. In order to help, we have compiled three quick observations you can make early in your Analytics journey and how you can apply them to improve your practice’s reach.

  • The “Audience” tab is extremely useful in determining statistics like active users, page views, and session durations. These numbers can help you ensure your online ads and local listings are working to draw traffic to your site, or whether you need to increase your outreach through a more aggressive marketing plan.
  • The “Behavior” tab lets you view several aspects of your potential patients’ engagement with your site. You can view Landing Pages and analyze which of your written topics are receiving the most traffic from outside sources – i.e. which pages patients are “landing” on. You can also view your Exit Pages, to see where people who enter your site wind up, and whether they exit before your marketing effort can convert that lead into a call or an appointment request. This can be helpful as you can analyze who you are attracting, what they are looking for, and why they are leaving.
  • The “Acquisitions” tab breaks down ad traffic, search engine health, and even social media statistics, when relevant. It can be helpful in gauging whether your SEO is working and whether the digital ecosystem outside your own website is responding well to your content.

We remind dental practices that this is simply a basic primer. If you want a more in-depth education on Google Analytics, or are looking for a marketing team that will keep track of your page landings, keywords, and visibility for you, ProspectaMarketing is ready to help! We are an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices and the tools of Internet marketing. We 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.

Why Storytelling Remains An Engaging Strategy

October 14, 2022
Advertising Media, Blogging, Dental marketing

At ProspectaMarketing, we specialize in providing wide-reaching, impactful digital marketing for dental practices. One of the core tenets our blogging, local listing, and SEO specialists all share is an affinity for creative solutions. This is why today, we will be covering the power of storytelling in dental marketing!

Robert McKee, creative writing instructor and author of the bestseller Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting, claims that “Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.” So, how can you apply this? Is this advice even helpful for a dental practice looking for a viable online brand strategy?

Of course! After all, what is marketing if not a transmission of ideas? What is it, if not short-form storytelling? Every time a patient sees an ad, whether it be on television, online, or in a magazine, they are responding to a micro-story, complete with a beginning, a middle, and an ending.

But what about the other part of the question? How do you apply it? In order to fully grasp this, it is crucial to understand the potential of dentistry specifically as a storytelling medium. After all, how many of our outreach efforts begin with hypothetic anecdotes?

“If you have ever suffered a traumatic accident that knocked a tooth loose, you’re not alone! Visit our practice for a host of restorative dentistry options that can fix your smile in no time!” or “Do you find that your social life is suffering from yellowing teeth? Come to our practice for whitening services and regain your confidence!” Right there, we have solid story structure!

We begin with a potentially dangerous and inciting incident, like a bad fall or a social faux pas, transition to a journey, as seen in the request to visit our practice, and eventually arrive at the conclusion; a happy patient with perfect teeth!

By adhering to basic story structure, you can craft engaging ads, blog posts, marketing copy, and even brand social media updates! It applies to all avenues of digital marketing. Our team has put together a basic primer of marketing avenues that could be improved through engaging storytelling. Check it out below!

Marketing Options Where Storytelling Shines

  • Blogging: This is the most obvious option, but blogs are perfectly set up for story structure. They consist of large swaths of text and one or two associated images. This wealth of space provides an opportunity for a dental practice to really expand on an idea. Try starting a blog post with a quote (like we did) and see where the story takes you. Or begin with an anecdote based on a patient’s experiences. Just remember to omit personal or identifying information. Whatever your choice, make sure your micro-story has an introduction, a transition, and a conclusion. The three act format has worked for years to convey change, and in the end, this is what we want. Our patients are living with a specific situation – whether it be yellowing teeth or jaw issues – and our job is to encourage them to change this situation through effort. Thus, a structure wherein a problem is presented, discussed, then fixed, fits perfectly as a persuasive technique.
  • Advertising: Whether you’re getting your image out there through local listings, online ads, word of mouth, or a combination of all three, storytelling is a crucial part of your advertising efforts. Unlike a blog, most advertising avenues don’t actually give you a ton of space. In this case, we recommend compressing the story structure to one or two sentences. Practice condensing complex concepts to their core ideas. For example, if you want a patient to come in for TMJ pain, you can write marketing copy to the tune of: “Suffer from jaw pain? An oral appliance can set you free!” Here, the intro is condensed, but still presents the conflict, the transitionary section is almost nonexistent and consists of only the identification of the oral appliance, and the solution is a breezy, catchy “set you free.” And yet, the story structure still draws your attention to the situation, transitions to a new phase, and provides a satisfying conclusion!
  • Website Copy: A website consists of a whole group of stories, and the way you write your copy should adhere to the same storytelling standards we’ve been referring to so far. Your home page should have an easily visible title, tagline, and high-quality image. This trio of elements serves as your introduction, ensuring your patients know who you are and what you’re about. Your transitionary elements – ie, the second stage of story structure – consist of call outs and links, so ensure they are attractive and contain short, punchy keywords that will both attract readers and Google index bots. Your conclusion consists of the patient landing on a desired service page, then navigating to the appointment button. However, when they land on the aforementioned page, there must be a story there, too! To clarify, your website is your overall story, but your individual pages should tell their own stories as well. There’s nothing more damaging to site authority than a link that leads to a paltry amount of information – except maybe one that leads to an error page!

At ProspectaMarketing, we encourage all dental practices to consider how basic storytelling structure can improve their marketing outreach. If you are a dental practice looking for experienced marketing specialists that can spin your yarn of dental success, ProspectaMarketing can help!  We are an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices and the tools of Internet marketing. We 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.

Key Local Search Updates In 2022

September 30, 2022
Advertising Media, Dental Advertising, Dental marketing, Internet Marketing, Local Internet Marketing

At ProspectaMarketing, we endeavor to stay on the forefront of marketing research. This way, we can provide the most up-to-date analysis and advertising tools to the practices we represent. We believe that the Internet is still young and always changing. Due to this, it takes an active, dynamic advertising strategy to really take advantage of its web of chameleon-like opportunities.

As a dental practice, your team probably doesn’t have the expertise, time, and training to research marketing efforts and care for your patients. This is where we come in; by relying on cutting-edge materials, we use this blog and our other digital avenues to educate our clients and any practices that might be thinking about joining up. This way, you can focus on simply bringing high quality dental care to your patients, while we handle the rest!

One of our key sources of digital advertising and marketing news is BrightLocal, a hub and platform that has been an industry leader in SEO research for several years now. As recently as two days ago, they proved why so many marketing agencies trust their opinion. During the 2022 edition of Google’s “Search On” event, they compiled and shared several incoming search updates that have the potential to completely change the SEO landscape. Our team has picked the four that are most relevant to our dental practices and broken them down for you below. We’ve also included an explanation of how it affects you and your patients. Check it out!

Four Key Updates

  1. Multi-Search – Near Me: Multi-search itself is an update to Google that has been around for a while now. It allows users to capture images and video as search inputs, as opposed to simply words. But with this next update, your camera has officially become your keyboard. The option will now include ‘near me’ terminology. But, what does this mean for you? It means that your potential patients will be able to use photos and images to search for a product or service, find the option they’re looking for, and search providers nearby that offer the service or product. By confirming the rollout of this new update across the U.S., Google is fully accepting that visual media is king; and so should you! Make sure to always have clear, crisp visual media on all your digital fronts, including an updated Google products page that potential patients can match to services or products they might photograph in the wild.
  2. Google Maps – Neighborhood Vibe: Another exciting update is one to Google Maps. Popular spots on Google Maps will burst with vibrancy and life as users explore the area. This affects your practice directly, as patients that browse Google Maps will be able to see user-uploaded photos and videos of the area, to get a real ‘vibe’ of your practice. In an obvious nod to the rise of social search that is prevalent across social media, Google has given your practice a reason to maintain a curated atmosphere that is pleasant to patients: their uploaded media has become your de facto supplemental marketing strategy! Just know that, as with everything, this can work for or against you. If the uploaded patient media is focused on your practice’s negatives, this will also be the first thing users see when they check the “Neighborhood Vibe” option.
  3. Google Maps – Live View: Another new addition to the expanding Google Maps toolbox, users can now explore nearby places by using a live view. They simply have to lift their phones to search and Maps will show them a digital overlay of businesses and practices around them, along with associated details like business hours and reviews. If your practice needed another incentive to ensure the information on your website and Google listings is accurate, the folks at BrightLocal have just given you one!
  4. Google Reviews – They Don’t Tell You Everything: It seems that Google is trending farther and farther away from written reviews. While reviews are still crucial for a lot of patients, the upcoming rollouts make it clear that other sources of site authority and consumer trust will start playing a larger role in the process. These changes include AI that will discern helpful insights from other sources, such as user-uploaded images, to help a patient evaluate a practice and make a decision. What This Means: your customer feedback is bound to come in through multiple avenues. Just like we have recommended publicizing reviews – with the author’s permission, of course – we would encourage using this new, visual feedback (i.e. user-uploaded images) as another route through which you can broaden your practice’s reach and visibility. What This Doesn’t Mean: Stop responding to reviews. Absolutely do not do this. Written reviews are still a great indicator of a practice’s online health. Just because they are not playing as large a role in search engine rankings as they used to, does not mean they don’t serve the greater purposes of showcasing your practice’s success stories and mitigating any complaints against it.

Keeping up with researchers like BrightLocal is just one of the many ways ProspectaMarketing stays at the vanguard of changing online trends. If you are a dental practice looking for an experienced firm specializing in dentistry and the tools of Internet marketing, look no further! We 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.

3 Easy SEO Optimization Tips

September 15, 2022
Search Engine Optimization, Websites

ProspectaMarketing helps dental practices with online marketing and advertising efforts and we have been at it for years! This means we know a thing or two about SEO optimization. If you are a relatively new practice, however, or even if you’ve been around for a while but have never made the jump to online advertising, you might be wondering what it’s all about.

After all, we mention it a lot on this blog and it is a term many online entities use when explaining their digital practices. In order to alleviate any confusion, our team has put together a primer to explain what SEO is, followed by three, easy-to-follow optimization tips that don’t require the creation of new content.

What Is SEO And Why Should You Care?

Let’s start with some basics for any newcomers out there. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it’s really a catch-all term. It includes any and all strategies applied to content that increase its likelihood of ranking higher on search engines like Google. SEO optimization is an importance practice for several key reasons, including but not limited to visibility, reach, and accessibility. Properly optimized web content has been vetted for relevant key words, has text that is unique enough to not be mistaken for another page, and displays to the intended target audience, whether that be location- or demographic-based.

  • Visibility: An optimized post ensures that readers who search your relevant keywords can find your service quickly and effectively.
  • Reach: An optimized post broadens your practice’s reach by displaying your content to new audiences that might be interested.
  • Accessibility: An optimized post is easy to navigate, generating more page landings and potential patients for you and your practice.

3 Easy-To-Follow Tips

One of the first solutions suggested for improving SEO is to create content. This is a great suggestion due to the relationship between fresh content and Google index bots. The more unique the content is, the more likely Google and other such search engines are to send out “crawler bots” to index your page. When they do, your content is added to a database of unique content, helping readers find it quickly and without any hassle.

However, sometimes it can be hard to come up with new content in a consistent fashion. If you represent a dental practice, you have other responsibilities; not the least of which is your mission to help your patients. With such a huge responsibility, it is understandable that creating new pages for your site would be a small priority. And while a blog helps in this regard, you still need the time and space to write the posts. For this reason, our team has come up with 3 easy to follow tips to help you optimize your existing content without needing to write new text:

  1. Keywords vs Keyphrases: Keywords are more than simple roadmaps to your content. They can also act as a billboard or a sign that loudly signals to your readers that your page is right for them. For this reason, think not just about what your potential reader might search, but how they might search for it. Then, rework existing content to reflect this. For example, “how are dental veneers placed” is a better keyphrase to work into your content than simply “dental veneers,” which is a single keyword and will most likely match with fewer search terms than its more robust alternative.
  2. Interesting Title Tags: An important statistic is the ratio of clicks on your link via Google. This is commonly known as the click-through rate, or CTR. And one of the main factors that affect the CTR is your title tag. After all, it is the first (and hopefully not the last) thing your potential reader sees. Make sure to use enticing and exciting title tags that will draw people’s attention. Avoid sensationalizing, but don’t be afraid to make a bold claim or ask an incisive question in your title tag. After all, once the potential patient has clicked on your page, you can further explain the statement with informational, clearly worded text.
  3. Listen To Google Analytics: We have talked at length about using Google Analytics on this blog, and for good reason. You can use the Page Landings section of this online tool to measure how many readers are drawn to your different website pages. This helps to gauge not only the good, but the bad. If you notice a post is stale and abandoned, it’s time to refresh it. Don’t be afraid to go back and change old content with new keyphrases, a new title, or even a new image. This way, you don’t have to create entirely new content. You can simply rephrase and rework old content to make it sound more relevant! This tactic will also give your original content a second chance at positive search engine placement.

At ProspectaMarketing, we can help you manage your website and SEO so you focus on what you love: being a trusted dentist in your community! We are an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices and the tools of Internet marketing. We 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.

Readability Matters!

August 26, 2022
Blogging, Dental Advertising, Dental marketing, internet dental marketing, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

ProspectaMarketing endeavors to meet our clients marketing needs and extend their reach through every possible medium. Audiovisual elements are absolutely crucial in this endeavor and if you haven’t read our article on the core tenets of visual media, check it out immediately! However, another vital element we have covered on this blog – one that is at least as important as audiovisual media – is written content.

If you have read our article on the importance of engaging website copy, then you already know the core elements of creating this text-based content. However, how are you supposed to check if that content is tracking well with readers and getting the correct message across? In an arena like dental advertising, it can be even more important to transmit your goals and information effectively and objectively, as patients are often looking for health-related facts that leave little room for subjective writing. Readability checkers are, at least partially, the answer.

What Is A Readability Checker?

You can infer what a readability checker entails pretty easily by the name: it’s a tool used by blog specialists, website copy writers, and content creators the web over to ensure that their content is grammatically and structurally correct. However, it’s more than just a glorified spell-checker. A properly designed readability checker will also test your content for proper flow, repetition of words, transition phrases, and a host of other fluency and syntax standards. In short, it will make sure your work sounds as professionally written as possible.

There are three types of spell-checkers our blog team recommends when creating written content.

  1. Yoast Plug-in: This particular spell-checker mainly applies to WordPress users. If you’re generating content for a blog, mailing list, forum, or media gallery, using the Yoast Plug-in is a good way to check your progress. When enabled, it will show a color-coded symbol to the right of your blog posts in your blog viewing window in WordPress. The color ranges from red to green, respectively indicating low to high readability levels. Red means your post needs work, yellow means it’s almost there, and green means you’re good to go. The plug-in also enables a similar column with identical symbols for SEO optimization, which means you can use it to both check the accessibility of your text and test how high it will rank on search engines. Yoast not only lets you know that you Readability or SEO are low; it gives you suggestions to help you fix it. All the steps you can take are arranged in an easy-to-access drop down menu so you can easily get your post in the green.
  2. Microsoft Word Readability Checker: What if your written content is not being generated via WordPress? Our best tip is to either create your text entirely on a blank document on Microsoft Word (or a similar, text-based application), or at least copy paste it into a blank document before posting it to your preferred back-end web service. Why? Microsoft itself has a hidden readability checker that few people know about. Making use of it is easy and free! While you’ve got your Word document open, search the top row of toolbar options for the “Review” tab. Then, find the category titled “Spelling & Grammar.” At this stage, you’ll be able to choose spell-check options, but, depending on your version of Word, there should also be a category or option titled “Readability Statistics.” With this pop-up page, you will be able to access statistics like your text’s Fleisch Reading Ease Score. Metrics like this can be helpful in examining whether your text flows well and is understood easily by your intended target audience.
  3. Grammarly: Though focused primarily on grammar and spelling, Grammarly is also great tool for ascertaining how to improve the clarity, fluency, cohesiveness, and vocabulary of written content. It offers real-time assistance and a host of tools. The only drawback to this robust readability system is that most of the features are locked behind a paywall. The only free features are grammar and spelling!

Why Is Readability Important?

In an ever-evolving online landscape, your practice’s potential patients will have no patience for improperly written walls of text riddled with mistakes. They have the ability to quickly click away to another page and come equipped with the increased online literacy of a generation raised on the internet. These standards make readable content an absolute cornerstone to your advertising campaign.

At ProspectaMarketing, we can assign you a specialized blog writer and even help you iron out clunky marketing copy. We are an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices and the tools of Internet marketing. We 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.

SEO-Friendly Blog Posts: 5 Easy Steps

August 15, 2022
Blogging, Dental Advertising, internet dental marketing, Search Engine Optimization

So, you are a dental professional who keeps up with our blog posts and you have taken our advice on the importance of blogs in marketing. You have set up a solid website with appealing design, informative text blurbs, attractive images, and you have added a WordPress blog to it in order to generate fresh content. Now, you are staring at a blank page and wondering how to go about writing your first blog post. ProspectaMarketing can help!

If you haven’t followed all these steps yet, make sure to check out our previous articles covering topics like the power of the blog, engaging website copy, appealing visual media, local SEO tips, and Google indexing strategies. If you have, then you have likely already read these articles and are wondering how to go about crafting a blog post that will have a good chance of getting picked up by Google’s bots and wind up high on search engine results.

Our team has put together a list of tips to get you writing and to ensure you adhere to SEO-friendly parameters, in order to further maximize your visibility and the impact your dental practice can have.

5 Easy-To-Follow Guidelines

  1. Use Proper Headers, Footers, and Contact Info: Guiding your reader’s eye to accessible information about the practice is a crucial part of any blog post. Before you write any text content, ensure you have a good title and that contact info is available somewhere in the post. Your best bet is the bottom, so craft a footer with large, easy-to-read text that details your practices official name, address, phone number, website and/or e-mail. Make sure to place it at the bottom of any and all blog posts, to create a sense of uniformity and professionalism in your blog.
  2. Make Use of the Official Practice Name: We recommend using the name of the practice twice in every blog post; once at the beginning and once at the end. Doing it only once – or not at all – might mean it fails to stick in your reader’s mind. However, doing it too much will stink to a reader of generic SEO fodder.
  3. Include Unique Location Names: When it comes to creating content that is attractive to Google index bots and search engines, location-specific vocabulary is key. What better way to make your writing stand out than to mention uniquely-named locations that your practice serves? Do it at least once during the actual text, and consider adding it to the title, if applicable. “Quick Toothache Solutions” is a good title; “Quick Toothache Solutions in Silverton, CO” is better.
  4. Start With A Story Or A Quote: In the end, writing is all about story; even advertising copy. Pick a good quote about teeth or smiling and place it at the top of your post. Or start with an interesting patient anecdote – make sure to omit any names or personal details! This might kickstart some ideas and help you structure the rest of the blog post.
  5. Adhere To A Structure: A blog post is like a good essay; it presents a persuasive argument, offers supporting evidence for it, and wraps up with a conclusion on the general benefit of the position being argued. Anything you can write will follow these steps. Use sub-headers to separate each of these sections. Come up with an attractive title for each one. For example, if you’re stuck on a blog post about a new teeth whitening service your practice is offering, write a header like “Tooth Whitening News for Norfolk Residents,” then write two sub-headers like “Why Choose This New Method?” and “The Name of Practice Difference.” Just like that, you have the basic structure for a blog post, complete with an introduction to the idea, supporting arguments, and a conclusion that brings it all together.

Just Start Writing

The most important tip is to start creating content. In modern philosophy, there is a concept known as the infinite monkey theorem. It presents the idea that, if a monkey hits random keys on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time, it will eventually write the complete works of William Shakespeare. Many take this to mean that there is no way to be original, as random chance could produce the same result as an artist, given time. At ProspectaMarketing, we believe that, since this feat would take an infinite amount of time, it is also proof of all the unique permutations that exist between the random text and Hamlet.

This means you are very unlikely to write something stale, repetitive, and worded exactly the same as another blog post. You would have to sit in your chair for an infinite amount of time in order to achieve the same exact thoughts, worded the same exact same way, as someone else! So, just start writing! We guarantee that, as long as you come up with the text yourself, both your potential patients and, more importantly, the Google algorithm, will view it as unique copy and respond to it organically.

If you represent a dental practice that needs help writing blog posts, ProspectaMarketing offers a wide selection of blogging services, ranging from basic to fully customized. We are an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices and the tools of Internet marketing. We 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.

Visual Content vs Text: Establishing the Right Balance

July 20, 2022
Dental Advertising, internet dental marketing

At ProspectaMarketing, we help dental practices succeed by providing them with a customized team of SEO specialists, bloggers, and digital experts. Once we have assigned you a team, they will help manage all aspects of your digital advertising campaign. This includes training you and your team members to use specialized analysis tools and keep track of your website activity. Another core part of our process is optimizing websites through unique copy and visual media. However, too much of either of these can mean that your website is incomplete and fails to engage your audience.

So, how to balance these two core concepts of website design? That’s what this article focuses on! Our team has put together a list of tips and tricks that you can follow to ensure your visual media and website copy text complement each other and work well on their own.

  • Visual Content Is The Hook: As far as catering to a new generation of consumer – one that uses the internet often and expects quick, easy-to-access results – visual media is king. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive to strike the right balance between text and media; only that this perfect middle point between the two types of content has shifted over time. Though massive walls of information might have worked for print publications, and in spite of the practice still persisting and thriving in certain eras of the internet (think: e-mail newsletters), the balance has definitely skewed toward visual media in recent decades. We encourage you to view this as an opportunity. Employ the use of large, easy to see images to “hook” your website visitors. Place them above and behind headers to make them the centerpiece of the page. Make sure to keep the images diverse and varied, both in size, style, and content. For more information, check out our article on the core tenets of visual media.
  • Text Is What They Are Looking For: As ironic and contradictory as it sounds, those same consumers and digital travelers who flock to pretty pictures and immediately scatter at the sight of a large wall of information, are actually looking for information, not pretty pictures. However, they want that information to be short, accurate, and precise. So keep your copy short and to the point, making sure to fill the negative space on the page left by the images, but not going overboard. Focus on the accuracy of your content; is your copy relevant to your services? Finally, make sure to use precise language; the last thing you want is your message being muddled by awkward verbiage or inconsistencies in grammar. If you do all this, you have a higher chance of establishing authority in your digital community. Read our previous article to find out more about the importance of engaging website copy.
  • How Much Is Too Much?: It might seem like, based on what we have previously stated, you are better off filling every page on your website with hundreds and hundreds of images, right? Well, no. A barrage of textless images can still be overwhelming to a visitor, and it can be ultimately useless in terms of converting a lead into a patient. So, both with images and with text, the answer to this question varies. A website with 10 or 20 thumbnail images and a little flavor text might make sense for a smile gallery or a blog. However, for a landing page with important subject matter about your services, it might be more effective to limit yourself to 2-3 images and a few informative, easy-to-read paragraphs. The balance is different depending on what you want the focus of the specific page to be. It is also important to consider load speed. If your images are putting too much of a strain on it, it might mean your potential visitors leave before they see text OR images. The same applies to website copy. Make sure that the overall information on your page isn’t massive, and that your load speed stays between 1-2 seconds.
  • SEO and the Google Index: Optimizing your website for SEO is crucial. Make sure to use popular, relevant key words throughout your copy, purge any duplicate content (text or visual), and avoid generic content. These practices will ensure that your page remains unique and that the Google crawler bots find it and index it. If your page is indexed, it has a higher chance of showing up on search engines and being associated with the right keywords, whether those be location or service-based. For more information on concepts like the Google Index, read our article on advanced digital marketing strategies.

Striking the right balance between visual and text-based media has never been more important; and we can help! ProspectaMarketing manages the advertising campaigns of hundreds of dental practices the nation over. We are an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices and the tools of Internet marketing. We 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.

How To Guide Online Reviews

July 6, 2022
internet dental marketing, Online Reviews

At ProspectaMarketing, we handle all aspects of our clients’ online and digital marketing. If you’re a dental practice that needs to revamp their advertising approach, and are at a loss as to how to achieve this, we can provide a specific, customized team of SEO and tech specialists that fit your needs. Together with a group effort from your team members, they can help you achieve the reach you need for your practice to flourish.

One of the main avenues by which we increase awareness of a business is the strengthening of the connection between patient and practice. And the best way to do that? Online reviews.

However, since we’ve already focused on both the importance of online reviews and the effect of a review response on your marketing efforts, today’s article will instead describe the many steps you and your team can take to ensure your satisfied patients follow up their visit with a lengthy, descriptive review.

The Reason

You might be wondering: why are reviews something I need to foster? After all, if I perform my services successfully and the patients remain satisfied, shouldn’t reviews happen organically? Yes, in a perfect situation. Organic review growth that simply springs out of the ground is definitely favorable marketing windfall. But, in most cases, it’s going to take a little work to get your patients writing.

There’s also the question of the type of review they leave. If a review is a four- or five-star review, but doesn’t fit certain requirements, it might end up at the bottom of your Google profile and be essentially useless to you as a marketing tool. For these reasons, here are five steps you can take to ensure that your incoming reviews are bountiful and rank well according to your metrics.

The Solution

  1. Team Training: Setting up a short training course for your team members is often the way to go. Though the topic of fostering reviews is covered during our client orientation meetings, we encourage the practices we represent to continually remind their team members to ask for a review during their wrap-up consult with a client. Set up a sort of “script” with your assistants, hygienists, and receptionists; one that thanks the patient for their business, asks them if there was anything that could be improved about their experience, and inquires as to whether they would leave a review on your service of choice.
  2. Mailing Lists, Text Alerts, and Digital Notifications: If you’re clients are on a mailing list or a text-based alert system, it’s a great idea to follow up with a short and easy link that leads to your preferred review service.
  3. Guided Questions To Foster Descriptive Reviews: When setting up templates for the aforementioned “script,” or for any form that you might present to a potential reviewer, consider questions like “How have your dental implants changed your life?”; or “Why would you recommend us to someone seeking a dentist to do quality work?”; or even “Why would you recommend our sedation dentistry services to someone who struggles with dental anxiety?” With guided questions, you will ensure that your reviews are not simply star-based. Since services like Google Reviews rank entries based on relevance, it is very likely that a four- or five-star review that lacks keywords and written content will sink to the bottom of the list. This will almost ensure that potential clients miss it.
  4. Focus On Your Keywords: When crafting your guided questionnaire, make sure you focus on questions that cover your strengths. The best way to do this is to analyze your most popular keywords. If you focus on cosmetics, there’s no reason to be asking patients about your viability as a sleep apnea clinic. If, however, you have a wide range of services, make sure not to overwhelm the reviewer. Too many questions will quickly make someone regret agreeing to a review, and will most likely guarantee that they don’t review you again. What’s worse, they might exit the review process altogether. Instead, pick two or three main services that are relevant to the patient and to your practice, and write questions based on them.
  5. Keep It At Five: In the same vein as our previous entry, make sure your questionnaire is breezy, easy-to-read, and over quickly. All you need is a small bit of text, written by a satisfied patient, with one or two guided key words included. So, keep it at or under five questions. If you absolutely must include more, make them very short. After the patient has successfully submitted their review, don’t badger them – even if the result wasn’t a tasty SEO morsel of keywords and relevant services, it’s a step above an empty review, and that’s always a positive. Further follow-up might just result in the patient feeling overwhelmed or annoyed, which we never want.

Balancing the often uncomfortable work of requesting reviews with a tactful approach to practice-patient relations is one of our specialties at ProspectaMarketing. What’s best, it’s a team effort. We make sure to guide your dentists, assistants, hygienists, and receptionists on the best ways to manage and respond to reviews. We will even do it for you, if your specific situation benefits from this approach. ProspectaMarketing are an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices and the tools of Internet marketing. We 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.

Content-Specific Dental Marketing

June 17, 2022
Dental Advertising, Dental marketing, internet dental marketing

At ProspectaMarketing, we’ve spoken at-length about our unique, in-depth, all-points approach to digital dental marketing. This makes sense. For most of our practices, a marketing initiative that emphasizes a host of services is the right choice. After all, if your practice offers many general, restorative, and cosmetic dentistry options, you want to keep your patients informed of your status as an end all, be all source dental treatment.

But what if your practice requires a more content-specific approach? At ProspectaMarketing, we are versed in more than just generalized dental marketing. During our initial meeting with practices, we perform an in-depth analysis and interview the dental team in order to facilitate a mutual understanding of your areas of interest.

From there, we focus on creating treatment-specific content that highlights your practice as an authority on said treatments. This way, you can cut across the noise that most businesses make online, visual or otherwise, and set yourself apart in the eyes of your patients. For example, if you are a cosmetic dentistry practice, patients should see you as a practice that specializes in cosmetics, not a dental practice that forgot to add the rest of their dentistry landing pages!

In order to ensure the efficacy of your specialized marketing effort, we create:

  • Content-Specific Landing Pages: When it comes to your website, a singular, specific focus on a service shouldn’t translate to a singular, specific landing page. Many branches of dentistry and health services can be split up into several subject areas. If you’re a dental implant-only practice, we might consider designing a landing page like “Dental Implants.” Then, we would split that generalized page up into several other landing pages, like “Am I Eligible For A Dental Implant?”, or “Types of Dental Implants”, or even “What Are Dental Implants?” This way, we can generate a large enough amount of content from a single service.
  • Customized Copy: Though this is a service we provide for all our clients, it is even more crucial to have original copy when you’re trying to become the authority on a certain subject. At ProspectaMarketing, we can overhaul old, outdated copy and keep your website fresh for your new visitors, and reliable for your regulars.
  • Custom Blog Service: For most of our clients, we employ the use of Listpipe™, a blog service that provides our writers with fresh article ideas. Our writing team then customizes these articles for our clients. However, for a treatment- or service-specific practice, we encourage signing on to our custom blog service. This way, you can have content written from the ground, up. The content will be unique to your website and will go a long way toward keeping Google Index bots on it long enough for your pages to be archived. (You can learn more about Google Indexing by reading our previous blog post on the subject.)

ProspectaMarketing has helped advertise site-specific content for practices that focus on general, restorative, and cosmetic dentistry. But we’ve also advertised on behalf of more unique practices. To this day, we’ve worked on marketing initiatives for practices that focus on:

  • TMJ
  • Sleep Apnea
  • Orthodontics
  • Pediatric Dentistry
  • Denistry for Seniors
  • Emergency Dentistry

Whether you represent a general dentistry office, or a more content-specific practice, we are here to help! ProspectaMarketing are an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices and the tools of Internet marketing. We 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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