Dental Website Blog Tips for Great SEO Rankings

Do you have a dental website? A blog? If you’re a blogging dentist, you may already know the importance of SEO and building up backlinks through comments and link swapping. Sounds like Greek to you? It’s not! Here’s a little rundown, a Blogging 101 class, to get you started. I’ll define SEO, blog, blog comments, and backlinks, and I’ll also give you some practical tips for your online dental marketing strategy.

SEO
Search engine optimization, referred to as SEO, is the procedure of making a website or blog attractive to search engines, like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Blog
Blog is a word derived from web + log. Essentially, a blog is an online journal. However, in business, a blog is much more. Dental offices can rely on blogs to act as a practice newsletter. Blogs also get a lot of attention from search engine spiders because they are considered news. The bottom line is, blogs do great on search engines and are a practical, effective, and free way to promote your dental practice on the Internet. Read More

5 Excellent Dental Office Promotions for Dallas – Fort Worth Dentists… and a Bonus Marketing Tip for Cosmetic Dentists

Want to grow your dental practice?

Online advertising—a dental website, blog, listings, optimization, and all that stuff—is essential in any modern marketing plan. You must remember, though, the Web is world-wide (thus the www). Let’s take a step back for a minute and thing about who your patients are. They’re the folks who live in your neighborhood, go to the schools in your town, and shop at the same grocery stores you do. Not all of them are plugged into the Internet 24/7. There is life outside of the computer for some.

At Modern Dental Practice Marketing, we plan, promote, and manage events for dentists. Getting people to have fun in (or very near) your office is a great way to show the community that you care. If you have great events, even once or twice a year (if not quarterly), your name will be the buzz of the town! Here are 5 ideas for fun dental practice events that will grow your patient base:

  • Easter Bunny Photos – Offer free photos of the kiddos with a tooth-brush toting bunny who, of course, has sparkling choppers. Pass out brushing charts and set the kids up on a cavity-free program while they’re there.
  • Arbor Day Festival – Any number of cool presentations about gardening, composting, rainwater storage, etc., and a potting bench for the kiddos to plant seeds. If your office is “green,” let everyone know!
  • Costume Contest – Everyone loves a costume contest! Host a parade around a community park, and give the winner a big treat.
  • Halloween Candy Buyback – See www.halloweencandybuyback.com for details.
  • Christmas Wrapping – Provide custom gift wrapping for a set time and for a set number of gifts (ex. 4). Make sure the tag says “Wrapped with care by Dr. You” and that the folks you’re wrapping for have snacks, drinks, and fun Christmas stuff to do while they wait.

BONUS: Want more cosmetic cases? Realtors are very image-conscious people, and they network like crazy. Plan a realtor appreciation happy hour at your practice after hours. Invite about 25 local realtors, and offer a deep discount on take-home whitening kits. At the event, well stocked with bubbly and hors d’oeuvres, announce an awesome referral program, and provide attendees with welcome packages for their clients.

The goal is new patients for you. Let MDPM make it happen. Call us today at 972-781-8861, or email moderndentalmarketing@gmail.com.

When Dentists Should–and Should Not–Use Facebook

Building a beneficial social networking presence for your (Dallas or Fort Worth area) dental practice takes time. You’ll need to invest in your Facebook account or hire someone like MDPM to do it for you.

That said, many dentists have unrealistic expectations of what Facebook can do for their marketing program. Understand:

  • Facebook wil not have much return on investment (ROI).
  • Facebook posts are not read by search engines like Google and Yahoo.
  • Facebook posts do not help with your website’s search engine rankings.
  • You will not get many fans who are not already patients of your practice.

If that busted your bubble, don’t stop reading yet. Facebook can be beneficial to your dental practice marketing if you’re interested in building a unique culture—an inviting, friendly, personal, relationship-building reputation.

In a recent USA Today article, Jeff Livingston of the Irving, Texas practice, MacArthur OB-GYN, hit the nail on the head. He said:

“If you go back two generations, doctors came to your house. They lived in your community. They probably went to the same church…what we’re really doing is going back and creating a more personal experience with technology.” Read More

Hey, Dentist… Which is More Important: Web or Community Marketing?

Why do you have to choose? Truth is, both types of marketing could really boost your patient base—and retention—in the Dallas – Fort Worth area. And never forget, the whole point is to leave an impression! Tried and true, good ol’ boy advertising does not appeal to the younger generation…the technical gurus who invest money in their health and appearance.

So let’s look at the balancing act between Internet and community marketing for dentists:

Internet Marketing for Dentists

  • Web marketing should start with a website that ranks well on Google for the keywords your potential patients most often use.
  • Beyond that, social networking, like Facebook and Twitter can be beneficial. However, you and your team have to use these resources correctly. Just posting random thoughts on a Facebook Fan Page and Tweeting about an article you read won’t effectively promote your dental practice. At MDPM, we offer one-on-one coaching for you and your team, so you can learn how to fit social networking into your schedule and get the most pop for your posts. There’s a simple formula that’s easy to manage, and you’ll find it highly effective.
  • You’ll also need a blog that feeds onto your Facebook page. The blog should be updated with keyword-rich, relevant posts at least once a week. The MDPM dental copywriters can make posts on your behalf, or I can teach you and your team how to write solid blog posts that appeal to dental patients and search engine spiders.

That’s a synopsis of web marketing for dentists. But when you consider that the Internet is international and your practice is local, you can see that community promotions are a necessary component to an effective dental practice marketing strategy—particularly in North Texas towns, like Keller, Colleyville, Southlake, Grapevine, Murphy, and Frisco. We’re in Texas, and what rules Friday nights? Football. That’s right. Read More