The 10 Minute Dental Marketing Podcast

7 Ways to Compete As A High End Dental Practice

This is the audio version of the blog post at: 7 Ways to Compete As A High-End Dental Practice
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10 Types of Dental SEO Companies to Avoid

In this episode, Tyson talks about the 10 Types of Dental SEO Companies to Avoid
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Developing and Improving Your Marketing, Part IV

Developing & Improving Your Marketing, Part IV
What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “Happiness is the real sense of fulfillment that comes from hard work.” - Joseph Barbara Many people might think that social media doesn’t work for them or doesn’t generate customers for them, which isn’t the right attitude to have. If you’re just posting in an attempt to sell, sell, sell and get people to buy your products, or your posts are bland and boring, or you post once and then don’t post again for months, it’s no surprise that your social media marketing isn’t successful.
Talk To Your Audience
Be sure that you’re talking to your audience, not just selling to them. Think about what you’d like to see if you were searching for a local dentist. Maybe you’d like to see a virtual tour, or you’d like to see how welcoming the office was, or how goofy the dentist was. In a previous episode, we talked about developing your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). If you’re able to develop that USP and implement it on social media, your marketing campaign will be successful. It’s not because of the marketing medium itself; it’s because of how you’re doing it.
Choose Your Platforms
This depends on where most of your patients are. Generally, Facebook is one of the best platforms to be on. However, if you spend some time thinking about it, you might find that your patients pay attention to or are more responsive to different types of social media. For example, if you’re a dentist in Silicon Valley, maybe it’d be more beneficial for you to use LinkedIn as your number one platform. Positioning yourself where your potential or ideal patients are, creating content, being seen as an authority, and getting your USP out there are what’s going to get you patients.
Be Consistent
Make sure that you stick to your social media marketing for at least 6 months, ideally a year, just to see what you’re getting from it. You need to be consistently updating and consistently providing value. Value is extremely important in social media marketing. Don’t just put out statuses that say “Read our new blog post”, no one is going to want to read that and no one finds value in that. Give them a reason to click on that link.
Recruit Your Staff
A great way to do this is to recruit your staff into your marketing efforts. Have your staff tag your office and talk about some of the great stuff that you accomplish in your practice. Have them talk about their favorite patients or procedures (but always make sure this is done in a HIPAA compliant fashion). This will build up your presence a lot more if you have a team of people helping you do it.
Address Issues & Complaints
Patients might go to social media to complain or talk about an issue that they had at your practice and it’s important that you’re active on social media so that you can address these complaints. If you’re not on social media, you’d miss the opportunity to address the issue. If a lot of people are watching your page and your content and you decide to chew out the customer, people will see that. Alternatively, if you respond with empathy and do your best to take care of the patient, people will also see that and it’ll make you look good.
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Developing and Improving Your Marketing, Part III

Developing & Improving Your Marketing, Part III
What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “Remember to celebrate milestones as you prepare for the road ahead.” – Nelson Mandela Last episode, we spoke about creating relevant content that speaks to your audience. After creating content, you’ll want to start focusing on building links for on-page SEO.
What is a link?
You’ve probably read many sites that have highlighted blue text that takes you to another page when you click on it. The highlighted blue part is called a hyperlink and the website that the link went to received a “backlink” to the original site you were reading. When this happens, Google will notice. If a ton of sites are linking to a certain site, Google will include that in their search result calculations.
Why are links to your site important?
If you’re able to get links to your website that are relevant to your industry, geographically relevant to you, and are authoritative, you’ll be improving your online presence. For example, if you’re a member of your local Chamber of Commerce and they link to you, that’s relevant. If you had something happen in your local community and stepped into help and then CNN or a local news site linked to your site, that helps! When sites with established authority start linking to you, it helps your site establish authority, especially with Google. Keep reading for some more ways to increase the number of links to your site.
Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is a great way to build links with other reputable websites as it increases authority and helps you to be seen. Increasing authority will help you to increase your search rankings.
Claim Your Local Search Listings
Make sure that you’re listed on sites like Yelp, CitySearch, Bing, and HealthGrades. When you claim these search listings, be sure that all of the information is current, consistent, and correct. You want to make sure that Google sees that you’re on all of these different sites and the information is the same across the board. Most of these sites will allow you to leave a link to your main website, which is a great way to gain interested visitors.
Participate in Local Community Events
Getting involved in your community is a great way to get local businesses to link to your site. Try heading to the local library and offering to hold a workshop, sponsor a Little League team, get involved with local volunteering organizations. These are all great ways to get local communities to link to your site. For more information on this, check out this article by Dentistry iQ.
Optimize for Local Search
Be sure that you’re optimized for local search as it’s probably what’s going to matter most for local businesses and customers in the area. When optimizing for local search, make sure you utilize location-specific keywords. An example would be “dentist in Las Vegas, Nevada” and you’d include this in different parts of your website like your title, heading, content, URL, or any other spots on your site that are relevant. Be sure that your Google My Business account is set up properly and that you’ve claimed your listing (or have created your listing). Once you’ve done that, make sure that the information is current and correct. Make sure that the name of the practice is correct as well as Google sometimes messes up the listings, especially for dentists.
Compelling Offer
Every marketing strategy should have a compelling offer to get people in the door. If you’re a dentist, a great offer might be free X-Rays, teeth whitening, etc. for first time patients. For others, coupons off of services, iPad drawings, 50% of products for new patients, etc. Be sure that you’re tracking these offers and that your numbers are accurate. If you don’t track your offers, you won’t be able to tell what’s working and what’s not working.
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Developing and Improving Your Marketing, Part II

Developing & Improving Your Marketing, Part II
What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “There is always room at the top.” – Daniel Webster
Mobile Compatibility
At one point, people would have a dedicated mobile website that looked quite a bit different than the regular website. Today, we’re seeing more of a shift what Google recommends which is a responsive site. A responsive site takes the site that you have and formats it so that it’s viewable better on a mobile device. Typically this makes the site longer since users will be scrolling a lot more as opposed to pinching and zooming. If someone comes to your site through Google search and realize that your site isn’t optimized, research has shown that they are 5 times as likely to just leave and abandon your site. They’d rather go to another site that’s optimized then spend time on your site trying to navigate it.
Fast Loading Site
People don’t like waiting and get impatient, especially when dealing with a site that takes too long to load. When they search for something online, they’ll generally get an answer within a few seconds. When we are used to getting information within seconds, it can cause us to just expect that everything else matches that speed. It’s been reported that up to 82% of visitors will leave the site if they have to wait more than 2 seconds for the page to load, so it’s extremely important that your site is up to speed! If you need some help with this, Google has a tool called Google Page Speed that runs your site and looks for errors that are preventing it from running quickly. Make sure your site is up to snuff and that you’re giving a great experience to folks that are visiting your site.
Update Your Links
When someone visits your site and clicks on a specific link, they’re looking for information. They see a link on your site that’s meaningful to them, that will answer a question that they have, and so they click on it. When they click on that link and it leads to a 404 page, or leads to the wrong page, or is just a broken link – they begin to lose trust with you. Broken links tell them that there’s a lack of attention to detail. Having broken links doesn’t reflect very good on you and tells the visitor that you don’t pay attention to your site or how users will experience your site. You can use Google Search Console to find the broken links on your site. Google will find all the broken links on your site and tell you which ones you need to fix.
Creating Relevant Content
Internet marketing isn’t just SEO, it’s about providing value to your audience and providing helpful information for your visitors. You can create a ton of different types of content like podcasts, blogs, images, infographics, and more. When you create relevant content, you’re providing useful and engaging information to your visitors that they’ll appreciate. Make sure you’re thinking of all of the different types of content you can provide, you don’t just have to blog. Try to get creative, do some research, and try out different types of content to see which ones resonate best with your visitors. If you need assistance with improving the user experience of your site, be sure to contact us today so we can see if we're a good fit for each other.
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Developing and Improving Your Marketing, Part I

Developing & Improving Your Marketing, Part I
What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “If you work hard, be kind, then amazing things will happen.” – Conan O’Brien With a marketing campaign, you need to have a goal of what you’d like to get out of it. The goal needs to be realistic and something that you can implement. When you have a goal set, you’ll need to focus on the following two things:
Competitive Advantage
Your competitive advantage is also known as your USP (Unique Selling Proposition). This is the thing that sets you apart from all the other businesses like yours, especially in your area. Why should people go to you and not your competitor?
User-Friendly Website
This is the second most important thing you need to have. If you’re driving tons of traffic to your site through paid marketing efforts and then people land on your site and are really disappointed – you’ll have wasted a lot of time and money. Your site needs to be easy to navigate and focused on user-friendliness. For example, there’s a company in the area called Wisdom Teeth Only. That’s the name of their site and the name of their company. Their entire company is focused on wisdom teeth and the fact that they’re experts in that field. 
That’s their niche! Your niche doesn’t have to be focused around a specific type of surgery, but it does need to be focused on something. You could have the highest luxury dental practice in the area, or something along those lines. Pin down why people should go to you and put it into practice. Once you identify your USP, you can use it in all of your different marketing methods. After developing your USP, be sure that you turn your attention to your website. Make sure that you’re looking at your site from the perspective of a visitor, not from the perspective of an owner. Here’s a few things to consider when looking at your website: •    Is it easy to navigate? •    Does it use clean, uncluttered design? •    Does it load quick? •    Is it mobile friendly? •    Does it have a blog? •    Does it adequately, appropriately, and accurately describe the services you offer? •    Is your USP clearly on your homepage? •    Does it prominently display your contact information? •    Does it have photos and bios of the dentists of the practice? •    Are there reviews & testimonials? •    Is it updated and kept up to date? •    Is there an on page call to action? Some of the great websites you’ll come across have a heavy focus on user experience. Outside of the marketing industry, very few people realize the impact that user experience can have on conversions. If your website has bright and loud menus, information all over the place, has animations or is slow to load, you’re most likely losing customers. If you need assistance with developing your USP or improving your website, be sure to contact us today so we can see if we're a good fit for each other.
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3 Things a Properly Optimized Landing Page Covers

3 Things a Properly Optimized Landing Page Covers
What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “Step by step and the thing is done.” - Charles Atlas In Google Ad campaigns or Facebook campaigns, you should be sending people to a landing page (and definitely not your homepage). If you haven’t already, check out Episode 61 that covers improving your Google Ads landing pages. Here are three things your landing page should do:
1. Explains Who You Are
Let’s start with an example. Let’s say you’re searching for a house, and you click on an ad in Google. When you click on that ad, you want to know who you’re dealing with immediately, because you want to make sure you can trust them. Your Landing Page should accomplish this! You need to tell visitors who you are, what you value, and how you can help them.
2. Explains What You Do
Landing pages should be straightforward and should encourage visitors to submit a form or call your office to make an appointment. They should also provide visitors with useful and valuable information related to what they were initially searching for. For example, if you’re a plumber and you are sending people who are searching for “problem with a leaky faucet” or “how do I fix a leaky faucet” to a page that just has a list of services, that won’t be of use to them and they’ll probably leave your site. If you provide useful information for those people, you’ll have a much higher conversion rate.
3. Why You?
Tell the visitor what makes you unique, how you can help them, who you are, and what you’re about. Tell them about how awesome your service is, how the unique services you offer are going to help them and include testimonials! This is a spot for you to brag about your services and your office. Be proud and show them why they should choose you. This page should include your Unique Selling Proposition.  How Can A Dentist Develop A Unique Selling Proposition? If you need assistance with creating an effective landing page, be sure to contact us today so we can see if we're a good fit for each other.
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Does website speed matter?

Does website speed matter?
Quote of the day: “Even if you fall on your face, you’re still moving forward.” - Victor Kiam Website speed absolutely matters, but today we’ll talk about how it matters. Technology has come so far that many people have high expectations when it comes to the speed of websites they visit. If something doesn’t work like it should in today’s technical society, people get upset and impatient. It’s been reported that 50% of people expect a website to load in 2 seconds or less. If your site doesn’t load fast enough, they could leave and go to the next result without a second thought. When this happens, you lose a visitor and Google sees that someone visited your site for not that long, left, and stayed at the second site they went to for much longer. To Google, this could mean that the second site they visited might be better than your site. These are definitely things to consider as your site could be losing you visitors and Google rankings. You can get your website speed tested at a few different sites such as Pingdom.com. Pingdom will tell you the response time of your site and will come up with some suggestions to improve your site’s speed. Another site is Google Page Speed Insights which will give you mobile and desktop results and also includes suggestions on how to improve your site’s speed. Google has also started to implement AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) which is a standardized code that helps pages load faster on a mobile site. This isn’t too prevalent in the small business world, but if you do you’ll be light-years ahead of the competition. Website speed absolutely, positively matters and can help you rank better and increase your conversions. The last thing you want is to lose a visitor because your site took half a second too long to load. If you need assistance with increasing your website’s speed, be sure to contact us today so we can see if we're a good fit for each other.
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Your Questions Answered Concerning Review Sites

Your Questions Answered Concerning Review Sites
What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “I’d rather attempt to do something and fail, than to attempt nothing and succeed.” - Robert H. Schuller Around 70-80% of people will trust a review they read online as much as they would the recommendation of a friend. They’re extremely important! Much like product reviews play a huge role on sites like Amazon, patient reviews are becoming equally as important. Here are some commonly asked questions about reviews:
1. What sites do I need to get reviews on?
Google - Google is where more people search than anybody else and the first place most people will find your site. It’s highly recommended that you focus here first. Yelp – It’s extremely hard to get reviews to stick on Yelp due to the strict nature of Yelp’s reviewing rules, but it’s still an important place to get reviews. One of the best ways to do that is if you can get one of the Yelp window stickers that says “People love us on Yelp!” – after this, you can better get in contact with folks who visited and can review on Yelp. Facebook – Becoming more of a review site than ever before, really easy for visitors to review on. RealSelf – A lot of doctors have seen this site, useful to get reviews on. Vitals – Not seen that often, but still important. RateMD – seen occasionally, but are definitely on the rise. Healthgrades – Seen all the time these days! The top 4 sites you should be getting reviews on are Google, Yelp, Facebook, and Healthgrades. To increase your number of reviews, you need to have a review funnel. If you don’t have a review funnel.
2. How should I respond?
Respond to as many reviews as you can! If you’re not mentioning the patient or service specifically, you should be safe from HIPAA violations. Saying things like “Thank you so much for your feedback!” or another nice note are great. You can be more personal, but be sure that you are within HIPAA guidelines.
3. Should you respond to negative reviews?
Absolutely! Apologize to the patient that they had a bad experience. Be sure that you drive home the point that you’d like to resolve the issue, you’re owning the issue, you’re not taking it personally, and you’re taking care of the patient even after they’ve left the office.
4. How can I get more reviews?
Definitely be sure to check out the free report we put together on this subject. Make sure you have somewhere centralized that patients are being sent to. You’ll want to ensure that your front office staff is reminding them to leave reviews, that you’re sending review reminders in SMS and email forms, and that you have a message at the front desk that reminds patients to leave reviews. When they leave, it should be mentioned again as well. If you’re still stuck, be sure to ask for help! We can help to get a review funnel set up and in place for you. If you need assistance with increasing the amount of reviews you’re getting, be sure to contact us today so we can see if we're a good fit for each other.
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What is a Keyword? What Type of Keywords Should You Focus on?

What is a Keyword? What Type of Keywords Should You Focus on?
What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.” - Ralph Marston For SEO purposes, a keyword is simply a term that you’d like to show up for in the search results. For example, a dentist in Las Vegas would mostly likely want to show up for the short tail keyword “dentist in Las Vegas”. A long tail keyword would be something more specific, along the lines of “dentist in Las Vegas who takes Signa” or “dentist in East Las Vegas.” Someone that’s searching for specifics (examples: “dentist in Las Vegas that takes Signa,” or “dentist in East Las Vegas”) is often far more likely to call and book an appointment than someone who is just searching for “dentists in Las Vegas.” They’ve already defined what they need (dentists near them or someone who takes Signa) and aren’t just doing a general search. In the beginning, shorter keywords were highly valuable, but eventually, people realized that qualified buyers are often searching for specific terms. You’ll want to have a mix of keywords that your website is ranking for. Your website needs to be optimized in a way that it makes sense to those who are searching for keywords and redirected to your website. It should be optimized for readability by both the user and the search engines. This is important because: 1)    That’s how natural language will read and search engines are becoming smarter and smarter, and 2)    You want to satisfy both types of searchers. Optimizing your site for both long tail and short tail keywords doesn’t automatically mean you’ll rank for those keywords. Optimization of your website itself for on-page SEO is just one of the things you need to do to rank well in search results. If you’re focusing too much on the more specific keywords, you might not be getting enough traffic. Because of this, you won’t be getting as many visitors as opposed to if you were ranking for both short-tail and long-tail keywords. For example, let’s say you wanted to rank for “top plastic surgeon in San Diego.” To optimize your homepage to rank for this, you might include a header tag that said “Dr. Smith, recognized as the top plastic surgeon in San Diego,” or you could write a blog post that covered the top 10 plastic surgeons in San Diego. Then, when someone lands on that blog post, you can include a coupon or discount on that page. That way, you’ll be getting more traffic for broader keywords and you’ll be able to entice visitors with specifically targeted discounts. By optimizing your site to rank for more keywords, you’ll be showing up in more pages in the search results. As a best practice, you should have a main or a one or two phrase keyword and then a longer tail keyword for each page you’re optimizing for. Optimize your title tags (the main meta tag of the homepage, or whatever page you’re optimizing) and then throughout the text of that, put in your longer-tail keywords or variations of that keyword so that you can rank for that term. It’s important that your site reads naturally and that it makes sense why you put text where you did when someone is looking at it. Whatever SEO company you work with should already be doing this, so be sure to talk to about keywords you’re interested in ranking for. The company you’re working with should be open to hearing which keywords (short and long) you’d like to be ranking for and should be able to help you in that process. If you need assistance with optimizing your site, be sure to 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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