There are two glaring mistakes we often see committed by the majority of doctors we work with. The first is that they try to do things all on their own. The second is that they demand fast results the moment they do finally hand over to reigns to us, the dental marketing experts.

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The thing about digital marketing is, it can’t possibly be handled by a single person. You are far too busy running your practice to focus on creating and managing a website, posting to your social media accounts, and everything else that goes into the marketing of your business online. Even if you hand off control of your marketing to a staff member, that person will most probably find themselves feeling overwhelmed within the span of a week, if not sooner.

To help you visualize the process of dental marketing, and to help you understand how involved the process of getting your business found and located online happens to be, here is a short description of the five basic steps of digital marketing.

The Five Basic Steps of Digital Dental Marketing

1. A Patient-Friendly Website
Your website will often be your patients’ first experience with your dental office. The graphics must be soothing and appealing to the eye, and the content populating each page should speak to the visitor in terms of problems and solutions. You need a root canal? Here’s where to go for relief. The website must be easy-to-navigate and contain all the information new patients might need to make a buying decision. Calls-to-action must also be present, with the dental practice’s name, address and phone number listed on every page, along with an easy-to-submit web form.

2. On and Off-Page SEO
Your website won’t be very effective if the search engines can’t find it. And if they can’t find it, new patients certainly won’t be able to. To enhance the visibility of your new online presence, we use what is called on-page SEO. This involves placing strategically placed keywords on every page. For example, a page about endodontics would include keywords like ‘root canal’ ‘diseased tooth’ and so on. In addition to visible keywords, meta keywords are embedded into the code of the website. This increases the chances the various pages will be ranked prominently and accurately within Google’s (and other engines’) search results.

Off-Page SEO is the method by which we will link back to your website from authority sites across the web. Google and the other search engines look favorably to websites that link from authority sites like the Better Business Bureau, the local Chamber of Commerce, Wikipedia and others.

Manual Citation Management

This is a crucial aspect of off-page SEO that deserves to be mentioned separately. Citation management describes the adding or repairing of your dental practice’s contact information across the web. Sites like YellowPages.com, Yelp.com, Yahoo Small Business and Google+ often glean your office information from each other. Google, for example, will create a business page describing your office even if you don’t create that page yourself. The search giant will instead pull your information from Yellow Pages, Insider Pages, Four Square and other similar sites. The trick is to go through every single online directory by hand. Each page must be claimed so that you control the information the page is showcasing, then you must add or correct your information as necessary. 

Once your website is considered to be search engine friendly, and with all the On-Page and Off-Page SEO in place, the search engines will begin to rank your web presence prominently and appropriately. Any time a person searches for “Dentist in [Your Area]” the idea is for your website to show up every single time.

3. Reputation Management
85% of internet users report to using online reviews to help them decide where to spend their money. This means that new patients landing on your website or hearing about you from a friend will most likely check Yelp, Google or other review sites for mention of your office. If those individuals like what they read, they’ll probably call to schedule an appointment. Alternatively, if your prospects read reviews that are less-than-favorable, your new patient acquisition rates may suffer.

Our job is to show your dental practice in the very best light online. This involves having your current and most loyal patients leaving their thoughts on today’s most popular online review sites. It also involves setting your website up with a dedicated Review Us page. This enables anyone to see your positive reviews and leave reviews of their own, thus improving your online reputation over time.

4. Email Marketing
Not everyone who lands on your website will call, walk-in or leave a message via your ubiquitous web form. To help you capture leads that don’t take action right away, we will set your website up with an email marketing opt-in form. This is a simple box that asks for your prospects’ name and email address. Once collected, this email address becomes a direct path to that prospect, and email marketing can help to turn that prospect into a lead, and ultimately a loyal patient.

Email marketing involves sending messages and newsletters on a semi-frequent basis. The contents of the email have several objectives; to inform, educate and entertain. The emails are also designed to help prospects and patients become more familiar with the office, boosting trust and loyalty.

5. Social Media
A web presence wouldn’t be complete without one or more social media accounts. At the very minimum, you should have an active Facebook page, Twitter account, and YouTube channel. These platforms should be linked to your website so that visitors can easily jump back and forth between channels. High-quality content should also be frequently posted so that people come to see your social profiles as authorities in your area. If someone sees a post on your Facebook page and they like what they read, and they happen to be looking for a dentist, they’ll probably call your office to schedule.

Videos should then be uploaded to YouTube. Studies show that websites containing video experience more prominent search rankings. And let’s be honest, nothing engages quite like video. With a doctor introductory video or a video explaining your most complicated procedures, you’ll enable prospects to become familiar with you before they ever step into your office. These videos can then be placed on your website, sent to your prospects via email and they can be distributed to all your other social media accounts.

Why Building Slowly Matters

As you can imagine, none of this can be ‘thrown together’. Each step must be meticulously carried out and every detail carefully considered. It’s just like the building your office resides in, which was erected on a careful plan and a solid foundation. This is how to correctly approach digital dental marketing. Build your infrastructure slowly and over time and you’ll get much better and longer lasting results.