The 10 Minute Dental Marketing Podcast

Why Cheap SEO is Dangerous For Your Business

Why Cheap SEO is Dangerous For Your Business
What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “Hard work keeps the wrinkles out of the mind and the spirit.” – Helena Rubinstein
Three Types of SEO Companies:
1. Higher End SEO Companies
– $2500 to $10,000 range. These companies are generally reputable.
2. Middle of the road Companies
– $1000-$2500 range. These are companies you should be researching before hiring.
3. Lower-End SEO Companies
-- $1000 and under. These should pretty much be avoided. On rare occasions, you can do business with someone in this price range but generally it will be a slimmed down experience. When you choose a cheap SEO company over a reputable one, you end up paying for the cheap SEO originally and not getting anything in return. You’ll have to pay another company to help dig you out of the hole that the cheap SEO company put you in. Your rankings will also most likely drop when you use a cheap SEO company. Cheap SEO companies often use techniques that will drop your rankings instead of improve them. These techniques are referred to as Blackhat SEO. These tactics include stuffing keywords on your site in an unnatural way, including links from junky sites that you don’t want to be associated with, providing content on your website that doesn’t represent you and looks bad for your business, and other negative tactics. This also usually provides a bad user experience for your visitors in tandem with hurting your rankings. When hiring an SEO company, you need to find a company that does it right the first time around. They should be within your budget, but they should also understand the basics and best practices of SEO. You can find which companies are the best by asking a few simple questions when searching for your SEO company. For more information on finding the right SEO company, check out our free report. The report includes some questions that you can ask your SEO company to ensure they’re a quality company that is using best practices and also includes some basics about the SEO world that you should know as a business owner. If you’re interested in the report, head to titanwebagency.com/report. If you need assistance with SEO, contact us today so we can see if we're a good fit for each other.
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7 Qualities of Effective Websites

7 Qualities of Effective Websites
What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “Happiness is the real sense of fulfillment that comes from hard work.” – Joseph Barbara
1. An Effective Website Supports Your Brand & Looks Legit
When someone comes to your site, the website should look and feel professional. Your personal views on politics, religion, etc. should not be on the website. The font on the website should be easy to read and there should be proper grammar and no spelling mistakes. There are many other qualities that make up a professional website, but in general you’ll know when you see an unprofessional one versus a professional one.
2. Effective Websites Utilize Proper On Page Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
A good website uses SEO from the very beginning. SEO is extremely important to website success and the success of your online presence. An important point to understand is that getting your website redesigned by a professional web designer does not include SEO. Web designers design the look and functionality of your site, they do not include SEO in their redesign which can seriously tank your search engine rankings after you’ve had a redesigned site. If you’re looking to redesign your site, be sure to hire a full service online marketing company (like Titan Web Agency) that understands the importance of SEO. New websites need to have SEO considered from the very beginning of the website redesign.
3. An Effective Website Integrates Social Media
You need to be involved in social media and have it linked to your website. It’s expected that you’ll be on social media and link it to your site. Go to where your prospective customers and patients are and make sure that you have profiles on the sites they frequent. Understand your customer’s persona and appeal to it.
4. An Effective Website Uses Professional & High Quality Images
Images should be unique to you that are high quality and not pixelated. They shouldn’t look like run of the mill graphics that you see on every other website. They should be unique to your practice and should give an insight into what to expect when a new patient arrives at your office.
5. An Effective Website Has an Intuitive Layout & Design
The methodology that we like to use at Titan Web Agency is “Don’t Make ‘Em Think”. If a visitor comes to the page and can’t figure out where your menu is, how to contact you, where to set up an appointment, or the services you offer – they’ll be frustrated and much more likely to leave your site in a huff. Solve this by having an intuitive design that guides people on where to go next.
6. An Effective Website Has Easy to Spot Contact Information
The information that you have on your site as far as your phone number and contact form should be front and center. You don’t want someone to have to search for your contact information. Make it easy for them to fill out a form to contact you. There should usually be a contact link on your homepage as well as a contact number.
7. An Effective Website is “Responsive”
When someone comes to your website from a mobile phone, your website should be optimized for mobile display. If your website is not a responsive website, it will appear scrunched up on a mobile phone and in some cases won’t display at all. Your website should look great across all displays, ranging anywhere from a 21 inch monitor to a 4 inch phone. This is even more important because Google will start factoring whether or not you have a responsive website into your search result rankings. If you need assistance with website redesign, contact us today so we can see if we're a good fit for each other. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @TitanWebAgency if you enjoyed this podcast!
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·And on Facebook: Titan Web Agency Facebook Page
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What You Need to do Before Investing in Online Marketing

What You Need to do Before Investing in Online Marketing
What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.” – Harry Golden The most important thing you can do before hiring an online marketing company is to fix your website. You don’t want to drive traffic to your site through online marketing (such as SEO or PPC) if you have a website that doesn’t properly communicate your brand, your message, and a good reason for why visitors should use you over someone else. If you’re just going to lose those visitors at the end of the process due to your site, then online marketing is a waste of your time and money. To fix this, you’ll need to have a website that accurately reflects your business. Don’t go out and get a website that was done with a DIY website builder (GoDaddy, VistaPrint). You need to find and hire an expert who understands all of the best practices that go along with creating a website. A good online marketing company should understand user experience, website design, web development, SEO, and standard practices. You want to ensure that you’re hiring an experienced and reliable company that’s able to deliver the kind of experience that you need. We’ve put together a free guide that can help you in the hiring process when looking for an online marketing company. It includes 6 of the most costly misconceptions that people have about online marketing, some of the greatest scams and lies that people will tell you, 7 mistakes that you need to avoid and a lot of other important things! To pick up this report, head to titanwebagency.com/report. If you need assistance with finding the right online marketing company, contact us today so we can see if we're a good fit for each other. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @TitanWebAgency if you enjoyed this podcast!
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4 Important Metrics for Doctors to Know

What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “You’re never a loser until you quit trying.” – Mike Ditka Even if you’re already working with an internet marketing agency, make sure to keep up to date on important metrics.
1. Know Your Traffic
You should know and understand your website traffic and who’s engaged. This is one of the most basic metrics that you should know. How many visitors are visiting your site? How many pages are they viewing? How did they get to your site? Are they returning to your site? How long are they staying on your site? You can use a free tool like Google Analytics to get this information but you need to know the answers to these questions. If you don’t know how people are getting to your website, how can you tell what’s working and what’s not?
2. Track Your Social Media
Take advantage of built-in features that your social media platforms have. Facebook, for example, will tell you your followers, their demographics, where they’re from, and they’re age. You can also use additional tools like Social Mention or HootSuite which will tell you additional information in an easier to view manner. Having this information about Social Media will tell you who is following you and who wants to engage with you.
3. Click Metrics
Clicks are one of the most concrete indicators that someone’s engaged with your business online. If you can see how many people have clicked on links in an ad (Facebook ads, Google Adwords ads), you’ll be able to trace back to the source of the traffic which will let you see how much return on investment (ROI) is. Your email campaign software might have different click metrics than your Facebook ads, but you can use free tools like bit.ly (URL shortener) and use that as a marketing test. Knowing who is clicking on what will help you tie that into Google Analytics and track your goals and conversions.
4. Understand Customer Feedback
If customers are rating you 4 out of 5 on average, that’s an opportunity to make small improvements or  changes to your business processes. Maybe the problem lies in the initial visit to your office or the way that they can book an appointment. You can use surveys and customer service calls to help reveal some of the smaller problems in your business. People are more likely to choose a business that has great reviews instead of decent reviews, so paying attention to what your customers are asking for is important!
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How Much Time Should You Spend on Social Media

What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “You can’t expect to hit the jackpot if you don’t put a few nickles in the machine.” – Flip Wilson According to a recent study, 64% of marketers are on social media for 6 or more hours a day. Only 45% of marketers think that what they’re doing (at least on Facebook) is effective.
Set Some Goals
When you go into social media, you need to have goals in mind. Typical goals would be to earn new business, gain exposure, build relationships with other businesses or potential patients, generate leads, reduce your marketing expenses by ranking well in the search engines from those social profiles, increase traffic to your site or develop loyal fans!
Choose Your Platforms
After determining your goals, figure out your main platforms. Focus on a few platforms that you feel most comfortable with and know that your audience will be browsing.
Plan Your Posts
A study was put out (LINK) by Broadcast to World which talked about how often you should post on different social platforms that showed that Facebook posts should be around 5-10 posts a week (1 or 2 a day), LinkedIn is about 1 time per day, Twitter is 7-10 times per day, Google+ around 5-10 times a week, and Instagram 3-5 times per day.
Remember Your Customers
When you develop your social media plan, keep the customer service angle in mind. Failing to see complaints on social media can have serious consequences. You need to be sure that you’re addressing the issues and making the customer feel like their complaint was heard.
Distribute Your Time Equally
Make sure your time is well distributed and that you’re spending time on all of the platforms that you’re committed to. It’s unlikely that you’ll spend too much time on social media. As long as you’re working to expand your audience and engage with your current customers and fans, any time put towards that will help you reach your goals. How much time you’ll realistically be able to spend is a different animal.
Consider Getting Help
You’ll want to make sure that you’re checking in regularly on social media. If you’re doing it yourself, you’ll want to spend around 5-10 hours per week responding, interacting, engaging, creating posts, and scheduling posts. If that seems like way too much, consider hiring someone to manage your social media for you! If you feel like you can handle it alone, just make sure that you have your goals in mind and your plan and strategy set.       
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5 Tips to Increasing Your Practice Revenue

What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “Feeling blue? Change your color.”
1. Control Costs
Controlling your costs might seem obvious but they can easily get out of line if you aren’t careful. Upgrading your software, giving yearly raises, or hiring new staff are just a few ways that costs can sometimes sneak up on you. You have to take your costs seriously, even if some might criticize you or call you obsessive -- at the end of the day it’s your business and the costs do matter. Controlling costs should be a focus throughout the growth of your business. Medical office employees often fail to accurately verify recorded write offs and they fail to properly handle charge reconciliations. Ensure that your office staff doesn’t become complacent in these areas. Try to go through the books at least every other month, line by line, and check how much you’re spending.
2. Listen to your Patients
Listen to your patients and what they’re actually looking for from your practice. Take a look at your online reviews and see what your patients are saying about your practice. Often times a practice will receive a negative review not because of the practitioner, but because of the office staff. Complaints against your staff can impact patient volume and how often they’re coming back.
3. Offer Ancillary Services
Having a specialty is great but it’s extremely important to offer additional services that can grow your practice and help your patients. At least 31% of Anesthesiologists, 20% of Family Practitioners, 20% of Internists, 19% of OBGYNs, 33% of Orthopedic Surgeons and 18% of Pediatricians offer additional or complimentary services. Additional services include pharmacy services, physical therapy, toxicology tests, alternative treatments, allergy treatments, urgent care services, cosmetic services, and more.
4. Look at Benchmarks
Pay attention to your key metrics and compare them to regional and specialty providers in your area. Looking at medical practice benchmarks will help you determine how much other providers are charging, what they’re charging for, and how your own prices add up. If you’d like to find out more information on this topic, check out our blog post.
5. Use Smart Scheduling
Unfilled appointments and no-shows are inevitable, but need to be minimized as much as possible to maintain and increase revenue. Consider moving away from Wave Scheduling to Modified Wave Scheduling. Wave Scheduling is when appointments are scheduled at the top of the hour. Modified Wave Scheduling sets two appointments at the hour – one at quarter past and the other at half past. This allows doctors to use the last part of each hour for documentation and follow up calls. By optimizing the doctor’s time, patients experience better care and will be happier which will lead to better reviews and an increase in revenue. Try to take at least one or two items from this list to help you grow your revenue and your practice. Put them in place and see what kind of improvements they make! If you need assistance with increasing your revenue, contact us today so we can see if we’re a good fit for each other. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @TitanWebAgency if you enjoyed this podcast!
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·Follow us on Twitter: @titanwebagency
·And on Facebook: Titan Web Agency Facebook Page
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Why a Thank You Page is Important

What was discussed?
Quote of the Day: “You create your own opportunities.” A Thank You page is a page that you redirect people to after they visit a landing page or fill out a form on your website.
Build Trust
According to survey from Demand Gem – 97% of B2B buyers said that they gave more credence to content that includes user generated feedback & peer reviews. The Thank You page is one of the best places for you to include your feedback and user reviews. You can include reviews from patients who have already been to your practice which helps to build trust with a client who has yet to come in. Building trust through reviews, testimonials, accreditations, awards you’ve won is really important. Including the reviews on your Thank You page is a great way to ensure that they get a chance to see the reviews and the awards you’ve earned. You can also try including a video of yourself giving the client an overview of what to expect next as videos are incredibly effective at building trust.
Talk About Your Services
Customize the Thank You page so that it is tailored toward what the lead has just contacted you about. For example, a lead fills out a form for some counseling services to help with some marriage issues at your office. On your Thank You page you can include a short message about the Top 10 reasons counseling works (or doesn’t work) or links to your most recent blog posts on that topic. You can provide additional value on the Thank You page that reinforces what they were just requesting information on.
Connect with Them
Thank You pages allow you to connect with clients who are requesting additional information. You can include links to your social media or prompt a visitor to subscribe to your newsletter. Including links to social media, relevant blog posts, or subscription prompts on the Thank You page is much more effective than placing those links on other areas of your site.
Allow them to Explore
 When they are redirected to the Thank You page, remember to include the navigation menu so that visitors can check out other areas of your site without having to type in your URL or cycle through the back button. Make it easy for them to get back to where they started.
Increase the ROI for Every Interaction
You could just say “Thanks for filling out our form!” but it doesn’t give the person who contacted you any further information about your business and it doesn’t build a relationship with them. Provide some social proof or some additional information by having an additional Call to Action (CTA). This could be in the form of a free report or even a coupon after they provide a little more information. It allows you to provide value to them and further establish a relationship with them. If you need assistance with creating a Thank You page, contact us today so we can see if we’re a good fit for each other. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @TitanWebAgency to keep up to date on all of our latest news!  
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·Follow us on Twitter: @titanwebagency
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How to get started with Content Marketing

What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting.” – Christopher Morley Content marketing is marketing your practice through content like blog posts, videos, and more.
Start Blogging
First, head to titanwebagency.com/blogging for some information on how to blog and why it’s so important to blog. We’ll help you figure out how to measure your blog’s traffic, promote it, and generate traffic. Blogging is a fantastic way for you create content and get people to your site. It’s a place on your website where you can write content that’s relevant to your practice. Here are some ways to leverage your blog: • Keyword Research: Determine what people are searching for and how to integrate those keywords into your blog posts. • Custom Graphics: You can create graphics for each blog post or you can create infographics that are unique and shareable. • Share Your Posts: Share your posts on social media and with others in your industry. • Call to Action: Request more information, ask visitors to leave their feedback, comments, and thoughts. Traffic doesn’t happen overnight. It takes consistent writing (at least 1-2 posts a week).
Repurpose Your Content
Take a blog post that you wrote and use it in a different way. Don’t just plagiarize somebody’s post, or use exact, word for word versions of your old posts, publishing them anywhere you can find.. Create a Slideshare or PowerPoint presentation that’s a summary of your blog posts. Maybe you created a beautifully researched white paper with some statistics, turn that into a blog post or even an infographic! Make sure that you are using stuff that will remain relevant and won’t be considered outdated. Common sites to share your infographics on include Pinterest and Scoop.it.
Show Some Personality
You don’t want your content to sound unhuman. Be shocking, controversial, or just share some of your personality! Try expressing a strong opinion, even an unpopular one. Remember that people don’t want to hear from robots. Humanize yourself, your content, and your practice. Don’t be extremely opinionated on political pieces or go on rants, but be sure to show who you are.
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Do Ugly Websites Work Better?

What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door.” – Kyle Chandler 94% of first impressions are influenced by the design of a site – Research Gate Ask yourself: Is it better to be Fancy or Functional? You can have both but when you start adding a bunch of fancy add-on to your site, you risk the possibility of losing conversions. According to KissMetrics, a website that has even a 1 second delay can lose 7% of conversions or more.
Put User Experience First
Be focused on User Experience above everything else. How easily can someone find what they’re looking for when they come to your site? How clear is the message you’re trying to portray? If someone can find exactly what they need within a second, their chances of getting in contact are much higher. It’s important that that information is presented front and center.
Show Off
Let people know why they should do business with you. What separates you from other practices? Put your value proposition and social proof in an easily seen spot on your site. Social proof can be in the forms of awards you’ve won, recognition received, AAA rating with BBB, and reviews from patients.
Experiment Elsewhere
Your main practice’s website isn’t the place to try new and funky things. Your main website is where you want to have something that you’ve already proven works. Test out new themes, designs, and content on another site that is for experimenting!
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How to Build an Amazing Online Reputation

What was discussed?
Quote of the Day: “I’m not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” – Stephen Covey It is extremely important for a doctor or dentist to have an excellent online reputation, especially in today’s world. According to internet research, 80% of Americans will use the internet and search for health related information. About 80-85% will trust an online review as much as a recommendation of a friend.
Claim Your Profiles
Go to these sites and set up your profiles - Doctor.com, Healthgrades, Yelp, RateMDs, Zocdoc, etc. Make sure you’re on these sites so that you can get reviews! Make sure you have an updated profile and that it’s consistent across all sites. Complete your profiles and make sure that you include images on your profiles so that people can make connections with you. Images are important in building trust, authority, and a good user experience. A complete profile should include contact information, your URL, how long you’ve been in practice, a description, languages, images, and services.
Encourage Feedback
People aren’t just going to leave a review because you’re amazing. You need to specifically ask for feedback from patients. Ask them to leave their comments and a review for you on your websites. Put a review site badge on your site where people can click a link and people can easily leave reviews. Having a Review Portal on your site makes it easier for everyone to locate the places to leave the reviews.
Project a Friendly Image
You want to be approachable, warm, and caring. Ensure that this image is consistent both in person and online. Be sure to train your staff to embody this same caring and friendly image as they are the first face that patients see when visiting your practice.
Properly Manage Reviews
Most businesses aren’t going to get 100% positive reviews. If you’re confronted with a negative review, make sure that you respond positively and professionally to the review. If you can find the person who left the review, contact them personally and resolve the issue. People are more likely to give you a second chance if you personally reach out to them, let them know how important they are, and let them know that you care. (Warning: Be sure to comply with HIPAA policies. Make sure that you do not confirm/deny that someone is in fact a patient.) Follow these steps to successfully navigate a negative review: 1.    Thank the reviewer 2.    Write your response in a human voice 3.    Apologize if necessary 4.    Address the issue 5.    Consider future readers
Train Your Office Staff
A lot of reviews don’t have anything to do with the service you provide. A lot of reviews are about the experience they had with your office. That starts with your front office staff! Make sure that your staff is fully trained and is aware of the importance of your reviews.
Provide Old-Fashioned Care
We have social media and online presences, but it’s the old-fashioned bedside manner and listening skills that dictate a great patient experience. Patients want to feel cared for and respected, and this should be the priority in every interaction. It’s hard to please everyone, but it doesn’t hurt to try to make everybody happy! Be sure to follow us on Twitter @TitanWebAgency to keep up to date on all of our latest news!
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