Modern Dental Practice Marketing

A new year, in this generation, brings changes from Google, along with a landslide of projections about marketing trends. Last year, while Jill and I were at the Chicago Midwinter, Google rolled out Panda. This bulk of changes to Google’s algorithm prioritized original text, which only proved that MDPM’s approach to Internet marketing is on target.

Any time now, Google will launch it’s 2012 overhaul, Search Plus Your World. This article explains the changes in detail. If you prefer the short version, here you go.

When you’re logged into your Google account, Google is going to integrate your personal search preferences and trends with the results you see on SERPs (search engine results pages). If you shared a photo of your puppy with 10 people and you do a search for puppy photos, your shared photo will come up in the results with a note reminding you of how many times you shared it. Rest assured, Facebook and Twitter are not allowing Google to infiltrate personal data (or so we’re told), but Google+ is fair game. We’re promised that the results are personal to the user and won’t compromise privacy.

What will Google Plus Your World do for dentists? Maybe nothing. Or, if you play the Google game, maybe a lot! Read the rest of this entry →

You’ve heard about using Facebook for your dental office. You may have attended a seminar about social networking or read books on the subject. Perhaps you want to Tweet, post, blog, comment, and update, but you just don’t have time. How can you reap the benefits of social networking without squeezing time from your already hectic schedule? The answer is simple. Call MDPM.

What is Social Networking for Dentists?

“Social” has to do with friendly companionship, according to Dictionary.com. “Networking” relates to a group that shares information and services of a common interest. So, social networking for dentists involves a friendly sharing of information about health, wellness, dentistry, and your local community. It has to be personal; it has to be genuine; it has to be interesting to your patients.

Why Use Social Networking in Marketing?

To dominate search results for a variety of targeted keywords with the ultimate goal of increasing your patient base.

Social networking involves daily digital interaction with your current patients, as well as reaching potential patients with your brand. Done properly, social networking is part of an overall search engine optimization plan that includes website optimization, regularly posted blogs, as well as local listings and original videos, articles, and press releases.

The more places you are online, the more posts and articles are associated with your practice, the higher you’ll rank on Google. Read the rest of this entry →

When it comes to quality, oftentimes the original is your best bet. For instance, the carbonated beverages aisle of the grocery store boast brands like Kountry Mist, Citrus Drop, and Mountain Rush, but it was 7 Up that broke into the soda pop market with a lemon-lime soda in 1929. Other name brands, Mountain Dew and Sprite, gained momentum later. However, many competing lemon-lime beverages failed throughout the 20^th century. Why? Because 7 Up got it right and is the original un-cola. By 1940, 7 Up was the third on the list of top-selling soft drinks on the planet.

Consider for a moment what 7 Up had to do. This unfamiliar beverage had to win over loyal drinkers of ginger ale (1851), Dr. Pepper (1885), Coca-Cola 1886), and Pepsi-Cola (1898). For a century, people had been consuming tasty carbonated beverages. By 1940, there was staunch competition.

What does this have to do with dentistry?

The small world of dental blogging is an up-and-coming in the greater realm of dental marketing. While yellow pages advertising has dramatically fallen in popularity, many dentists don’t yet have a website. At MDPM, we have to convince dentists that blogging is important – it’s good and valuable – it will endure the test of time. While this sounds like a daunting task, the numbers speak volumes. A dentist blog with daily postings of original content can bring in more targeted traffic than a dentist website. Google Analytics does not lie!

Why should a dentist blog?

Six years ago, not many dentists blogged. Google’s algorithm was evolving as the Internet grew and people tried to trick search engines into ranking their website high on results pages. These black hat tactics, as they’re called, were booted by Google and other search engines. Today, we know for a fact that when it comes to ranking websites, Google places the greatest importance on original, informational web content. Read the rest of this entry →

A recent study by MerchantCircle/Reply.com surveyed 2500 small business and found that if owners could invest in just one type of marketing, it would be SEO. To dentists in private practice, this study sheds light on where to spend marketing dollars in 2012.

The Statistics

In the survey, nearly one-third of responding small business owners chose SEO as the number-one place to invest marketing dollars. Almost 20% selected traditional media, including newspaper, direct mail, radio, phone book, etc. Another 17% said “none of the above,” social media came in 16%, paid search got almost 10%, and mobile marketing and advertising claimed 3.7%.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization, a strategy intended to make websites rank high on search engines, like Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, etc. Google now holds over 90% of the search engine market, and over 95% of the mobile search market, so small business owners should aim their SEO strategy to please Google. Read the rest of this entry →

A study by HubSpot tells us that businesses with active blogs get 55% more website traffic, 434% more indexed pages, and 97% more inbound links than those without blogs. The study is based on 1531 HubSpot customers, of whom 795 blog and 736 do not blog.

These statistics make great headlines for marketers to attract new clients, but I want to go a little deeper. My clients are dentists, and they are smart. Dentists will want to know how the study applies to their industry, what factors are important, and how many blog posts are needed to optimize effectiveness.

MDPM’s Case Study on Blogging

How many times a month should a dentist blog? Will more blogs reward you with more traffic, and ultimately, more patients?

In comparing Google Analytics data, our clients who have us ghostwrite dental blogs 5 days a week, 4 weeks a month (20 blogs per month) have significantly more traffic than those who have us blog once a week. To determine what more blogging can accomplish, I randomly chose a client, a female family dentist in the Denver, CO area. Her blog was definitely drawing traffic, but not as much as I’d like. We had rewritten her website content with a solid SEO strategy about four months prior. That had helped with traffic, but not significantly (yet – these things do take time). I decided that, instead of blogging once a week for her, we would increase her blogging to daily throughout November.

When we went from 1 to 5 posts per week on this dentist’s blog, within a few weeks,

• blog traffic increased more than four times. The traffic wasn’t shabby to begin with, so this jump was significant.
• website traffic nearly doubled. Read the rest of this entry →