Back in April, Google officially re-branded Google Local Search as Google Places.

Why the rebrand? There are a couple of motivations as I see it: A) Google wants to dominate the local search wars, and B) Google is attempting to position their local search service to take advantage of ad revenue.

Regardless of their motivations for the name change, you need to take advantage of a number of really cool features Google introduced with Google Places.

Google Places: New Features

1) Service areas: Most dental practices won’t be interested in this feature, but if you travel to your customers for any reason, you can now list your service areas.

2) Simple Advertising: For just $25 per month, you can highlight your listing on Google.com and Google Maps with what they’re calling “Tags”. Tags are essentially yellow markers that allow you to promote important aspects of your businesses. Keep in mind that tags will not help your business listing to appear higher in the search results. However, tags do allow you to list more information about your business than those businesses who did not purchase tags.

3) Business photo shoots – In addition to uploading photos of your business, you can now sign up to have Google create a virtual photoshoot of the interior of your business. Oh, and the best part is that they’ll do this for free. This sort of transparency speaks volumes to customers – so if you live in the following cities – I’d sign up ASAP:

Atlanta, GA
Boston, MA
Chicago
Denver, CO
Detroit, MI
Houston, TX
Indianapolis, IN
Jersey City, NJ – Hoboken, NJ
Kansas City, KS
Las Vegas, NV
Los Angeles
Miami, FL
Minneapolis, MN
Nashville, TN
New York
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh, PA
Portland, OR
San Antonio, TX
San Diego, CA
San Francisco, CA
San Jose, CA
Seattle, WA
St. Louis, MO
Washington D.C.

If you live in one of these cities and would like to sign up for a free photo shoot you can Sign up here.

4) Customized QR (two-dimensional) barcodes – From the Google Places dashboard, you now have the opportunity to download a QR code that’s unique to your business. QR codes can be placed on business cards or other marketing materials, and customers can scan them with certain smartphones to be taken directly to the mobile version of the Place Page for your business.

5) Favorite Places – Google is mailing window decals to 50,000 businesses around the US. These decals include a QR code that can be scanned with a smartphone to directly view the mobile Place Page for the business to learn more about their great offerings.

6) Real-time Updates – You might want to promote a sale, a special event happening today or anything else that you want customers to know right now, and this feature lets you communicate that directly to your customers. You can also provide extra incentive by adding coupons, including ones specially formatted for mobile phones.

7) Analytics – To keep track of how your business listing is performing on Google, they’re now offering a personalized dashboard within Google Places that will show you how many times people have found your business on Google, what keywords they used to find it and even what areas people traveled from to visit your business. With the dashboard, you can see how your use of any of these new features affects interest in your business and make more informed decisions about how to be found on Google and interact with your customers.

Google Places: Official Video

Final Thoughts

If you run a dental practice, then you need to take advantage of Google Place’s powerful new features. Not only does your business stand to benefit from higher visibility in Google, but you may just see an increase in the number of patients coming through your doors as well.

Get Listed in Google Places Now (Free)

Stay Tuned

This is just the first post in a series of posts we’ll be dedicating to Google Places. In upcoming posts, we’ll break down the new features and provide some tips (that your competitors aren’t using) for maximizing your visibility in Google.

Your Thoughts

Have you already listed your business in Google Places? Have you seen an increase in the number of new patients walking through your doors as a result? Share your experiences in a comment below.

When dental practices take on the investment of savvy, effective marketing, rarely does the vision go beyond the goal of getting more new patients. The problem with this is if you are not prepared for the influx of new patients your marketing is going to bring, you risk those patients walking from the front door straight through the back door because your internal systems failed to reflect the external marketing you were sending out to the community.

So, how do you successfully bring these new patients into your practice and retain them in your patient family? Here are a few steps to start working on NOW to prepare for the wave of business your marketing efforts are going to bring.

1. Have an effective New Patient Experience in place

The New Patient Experience is multifold. It involves several systems in your practice: excellent telephone technique, gathering of necessary data, scheduling the new patient appointment, sending out a beautiful and accurate new patient packet, and executing a good new patient appointment and a successful case presentation. This may take hours of time, practice and preparation on the part of you and your team members. But, remember, all of this work will protect the investment you have made in your marketing. Otherwise, you risk losing your investment the moment you answer the telephone.

2. Get your schedule in order

Make sure you have a schedule that is organized and ready to take on new patients in an expedient manner. If you are offering a special on whitening, for example, make sure you have places blocked off in your schedule to hold those appointments. If a prospective patient calls in and you can’t see them for three months, chances are it doesn’t matter what you’re offering, they will look elsewhere for someone that can see them in a more convenient fashion.

3. Put an efficient follow-up system in place

In the introductory calls, make sure you gather the prospective new patient’s contact information. This way you can follow- up on a regular basis through marketing and you can also place these people on a call list when you have cancellations.

Above all, make sure your business systems are streamlined and your customer service skills are sharp so that you make a great first impression. All the marketing dollars in the world won’t get you that final goal of a patient saying yes to treatment. The YES comes when the care and the service match the image. Here’s to successful marketing – and ultimately – successful case acceptance!

Your Thoughts

What have you done within your practice to handle the aftermath of successful marketing efforts?

Creating a Web site is the single most important marketing tool you could and should have for your practice. It is no longer if you should have a Web site, but rather what you should put on your site. Web sites validate you as a “real” business.

Practices without Web sites are missing out on numerous opportunities to attract patients surfing on the Web in an effort to find a dentist. In addition, referrals from existing patients will often fall flat if the prospective patient goes to the Internet to find you and you are missing.

Now that you are moving forward and developing a practice Web site, here are 10 things we at Jameson believe you should consider when building your site:

10 Powerful Tips

1. Make the text “you” focused and action oriented instead of doctor oriented.

2. Use testimonials and photos of your own patients in lieu of stock photography.

3. Use non-retracted smile and portrait photos of your work.

4. Put your contact information on every page in an easy to find place.

5. Put photos of patients on the home page.

6. Place the doctor and team photos on the “Meet Your Team” page.

7. Showcase your practice with a photographic tour of your office. Create it so you can update it frequently.

8. Have a map to your location.

9. Develop the site so that it can be search engine optimized.

10. Have a tracking mechanism tied to your site so you can see the actual success of it.

Build, market, and track a great site so that you can take your practice to the next level! First focus on getting the site you want and need. Building an amazing site is an exciting experience and so rewarding when your patients rave about it. It will be even more rewarding when you see your new patient numbers and case acceptance rise because you have created the right message that you carry through your entire practice!

The following is a guest post by Jim Stratton. If you are interested in guest posting for Dental Heroes, please sign up here.

Welcome to 2010. Direct Mail, Newspaper Ads, and other traditional forms of advertising are continually becoming less effective. Gone are the ways of the past – consumers now have unlimited content available to them right at their fingertips, online.

A recent study found that 70% of internet users now search for local businesses online. So what are you doing to cash in on this rapidly increasing trend? Here is a quick guide on how to blow away your competition with local search, and tap into this all-important revenue stream.

You Need a Converting Website

The key to any powerful internet marketing campaign is having a website that turns online visitors into paying customers. The biggest trap most practice owners’ fall into is having a website that is nothing more than a digital practice brochure. It may be pretty to look at – have lots of content – but it fails to deliver a steady stream of high quality patients.

The only purpose of your website should be to get your visitor to schedule an appointment or request more information. One of the most effective methods for this is including a compelling, valuable offer that visitors can sign up for right on the spot – perhaps a “Free Consultation” or “Complimentary Exam”. Here is a great article with tips on how to create and promote a powerful offer: Lead Conversion

Making PPC Marketing Work

Pay-Per-Click marketing is a tricky area for many dental practices – some have tried and failed, others have just heard too many bad things, and many more simply have never heard of it or don’t know enough about it. What almost all of these practices have in common is that they are not aware they could be killing their online competition, instead of missing out on this golden opportunity.

For all of the internet users that now search for local business online, over 70% prefer using Google. If there is one search engine that you need to master when it comes to PPC, this is the one. If you do a search on Google for ‘(Your City) Dentist’, on the results page you will see a group of ‘Sponsored Links’ in yellow at the top, and another group of ‘Sponsored Links’ along the right. These links are PPC ads, and represent some of the first listings consumers find when searching for a new dentist online.

In order to run PPC ads for your practice on Google, you first need to make a Google AdWords account: Google Adwords

When first getting started, it is important to:

• Determine radius you want to geographically target (campaign settings)
• Identify relevant keywords to your practice (i.e. ‘Chicago Dentist’, or ‘Chicago Teeth Whitening’)
• Create well-organized structure with groupings for your keywords
• Create ads that tie in theme of their ad group’s keywords
• Install conversion tracking to track performance

This article has some more specific info for getting started and AdWords tips: Insanely Effective Adwords in Three Easy Steps

Tracking the performance of your AdWords account (with conversion tracking) is absolutely critical to being successful, and is where many practices fail to turn PPC into a profitable marketing channel. With conversion tracking, you have the ability to determine specific areas (goals) of your website that have a “perceived value” to your practice each time they are reached.

These values are so critical because they tie directly into the financial math of customer acquisition for your practice. For example – if you know your average patient is worth approximately $1,500 in lifetime value, and one of every five people that request a free consultation become a paying patient, then you can start to realize the value of these incoming online leads ($1,500 / 5 = $300). Now obviously there are a multitude of other factors that affect profitability (supplies, overhead expenses, etc.), but the key is to try to grasp the understanding of how much you can spend to profitably bring in a new patient. Armed with this information, you can optimize your PPC account to maximize profitability by slowing down or pausing parts of your account that are not working well, and spending more on areas of your account that have a great ROI and could use more volume.

Tying in Google Local Business Listings

The final step to dominating Google Local Search for your area is having a well-ranked Local Business Listing. These are the listings that show up on the results page for the same search as before (‘Your Area’ Dentist), next to the map with the pushpins in it. These listings are 100% free to create, and more importantly 100% free for clicks received. If you do not already have one for your practice, you can create it here: Google Local.

Just having a map listing is one thing, but the truly effective ones are those that rank well for the relevant terms in your area. There are quite a few factors that go into the ranking of these listings. Here are some great resources for the known factors, which can help you get to the top for all relevant listings:

Improve Google local listings through local SEO

Local search ranking factors

Final Thoughts

Dental practices are not immune to customer attrition. As with any localized business, people eventually move out of their area and can no longer be your patients. For some this is a harsh truth – but for others it presents an amazing opportunity, because there is also an ongoing flow of new potential patients moving into the area. By dominating Google local search now, you can move ahead your competition in the race to acquire these new patients, and cash in on the goldmine.

The following is a guest post by Henri Asseily, of Telnic. If you are interested in guest posting for Dental Heroes, please sign up here.

It will come as no surprise to dental professionals that people who have a good experience with a product or service will want to tell their friends and colleagues about it.

Word of Mouth is Critical

Word of mouth is a critical driver in generating new business, and the traditional methods of enabling this in the offline world are much slower than in the online world. The key is how to employ it in a way that can get the biggest bang for the buck.

A blend of social media and search engine optimization using free resources linked to your central online presence can work together to generate buzz, as well as drive curious or interested potential patients back to a central place where they can find out more and take action.

Twitter Works

During the first week of March, the word ‘dentist’ was tweeted on Twitter, the short-form blogging platform where people share everyday experiences and recommendations (or negative comments), nearly 4,000 times, according to Topsy. In the past month, the word ‘dentist’ was mentioned nearly 21,000 times. There’s something about going to the dentist that brings out the emotion in people! Twitter can be an incredible resource to both search for new patients and reach out to them cost-effectively, and also a brilliant platform to get existing clients to tweet about their experience, post pictures and engage with their peers. Ask your patients whether they’re on Twitter, get on there yourself, and don’t forget to research potential customers thinking about whether or not to make a visit in your area.

Other Social Media Tools to Consider…

In addition to Twitter, other social media tools such as Facebook fan pages (which now come with analytics tools), free listings in social recommendation sites such as Yelp and free blogging platforms that can be updated by email or text messaging (such as Posterous) can provide your practice with multiple cost-effective sources to get your messages out and crucially engage with your patients, even if they change home addresses or telephone numbers. Updating this content provides good material for search engines to index, and therefore drive results in search – the number one entry point for Americans on the Web.

Link it up with a .tel page

Optimizing search results can be achieved by simply cross-linking all of these places to one simple-to-manage domain that you own. Previously, this may have been tricky and time-consuming. But with the new .tel domain, you can have a simple presence online that links to all of the above resources, and enable people to quickly access information about your practice on the Web. Perhaps more importantly, the .tel page is optimized for use on smartphones, so new and existing patients can direct dial or email your office to book an appointment wherever they are. There’s no coding or Web site building involved, and it can be managed from an iPhone and costs from around $20 per year all-in.

As busy professionals, investing your teams’ time in the above will help you engage with clients without having to commit to time-consuming and costly ventures. Let your service do the talking through your patients.

Your thoughts?

Which online marketing tools have you seen results with? Do you have a .tel page?

The following is a guest post by Millennium Dental. If you are interested in guest posting for Dental Heroes, please sign up here.

For medical and dental professionals, new patients are the lifeblood that keeps their practice running smoothly. Returning patients are, of course, a tremendous asset as well, but without a steady flow of new patients, most practices can’t afford to stay afloat – especially in today’s competitive and frequently oversaturated marketplace. The solution lies in generating referrals.

But what are the best practices for generating effective referrals without compromising your marketing budget? For most dental professionals, the best way to generate referrals and bolster business for any practice is through positive word of mouth. The hope is that if your patients are happy with your services, they will recommend you to their friends, loved ones, coworkers and acquaintances – but it’s not always that simple. You can’t afford to just sit back and wait for word of mouth recommendations to pick up! Here are a few simple techniques for generating referrals that really work:

1. Send Handwritten postcards, greeting cards or thank you notes

Show patients you care by sending handwritten postcards, greeting cards or thank you notes. Coming from their dental professional, this level of personal commitment may take many people by surprise – and that’s a good thing! Try sending these personalized notes to new patients after their first visit, as well as patients who have just started or finished a significant treatment or procedure. You may also want to get into the habit of reaching out to all of your patients during the holidays, to thank them for their loyalty. Keep your notes short, and always send them as quickly as possible after an appointment or meeting.

2. Establish a referral program

Establish a referral program for your practice. Print small flyers or brochures and display them in your waiting area, and be sure to mention specific incentives that patients could stand to receive if they send referrals your way. These incentives could take the form of anything from a discount on dental services to an unrelated “fun” item, like a gift certificate to a local restaurant.

3. Ask for referrals

Ask for referrals. Even if you follow the previous tips to a T, many of your patients may not “take the hint” and start referring people to your practice. Be proactive and train your staff to ask every patient if they have anyone they would like to refer to your practice. Make sure they leave with one of the aforementioned flyers or brochures, and give them the option of filling out a referral card in the office. Emphasize that their referrals won’t be required to buy anything or make an appointment – you’ll simply be reaching out.

4. Include referral cards with all mailings

Always include referral cards with any direct mail marketing materials you do send out. For example, if you mail a brochure or a newsletter to patients or area residents, include several tear-out referral cards inside.

5. Give away freebies

Give away freebies, such as pens, toothbrushes or magnets, with the name, street address, phone number and web address of your practice printed on them. These items can usually be printed in bulk at an affordable rate, and they can be a surprisingly effective way to generate new interest in your services.

6. Include a referral link on your website

Include a referral link on your website, where visitors can simply type in the names and contact information of individuals who may be interested in your services. Remember, the easier you make the referral process, the more likely your patients are to participate! Don’t forget to mention any incentives you may offer via your referral program.

7. Respond to inquiries quickly

Finally, respond to any inquiries you receive from interested parties as quickly as possible. People will appreciate the personal care and attention, and it may make them inclined to start referring their friends and family immediately – perhaps even before their first appointment has been scheduled!

With these tips in mind, generating referrals can be one of the easiest ways to revitalize your practice without spending a fortune on advertising.

Your Thoughts

Are you utilizing some of these ideas in your practice? Which do you find to be particularly successful? Do you have any tips to add to this list?

What’s the easiest way to bring in new patients? Referrals? Nope. Direct marketing? Nope. Believe it or not, the easiest way to bring in new patients is signage.

Why? Because signage requires very little overhead. You determine the optimal signage placement around your building, design the sign(s), have the sign(s) constructed, install the signs and your done. Not only are signs largely a one-off expense, but they can effortlessly bring in new patients if done correctly. You can’t say that about most of the other things you’re doing to bring in new patients.

I thought it would be fun to show you some examples of the creative dental signage designs for your inspiration.

So, without further ado…here are the signs…

5 Inspirational Examples of Dental Practice Signage

1. Victoria Square Dental

Source: brandingblog.com

2. Ed Montgomery Dental Surgery

Source: danthonia.com.au

3. Beech Lake Pediatric Dentistry

Source: springvalleydesigns.com

4. Deerfield Family Dentistry

Source: springvalleydesigns.com

5. Big Smile Dental

Source: bigsmiledental.com

Your Favorite?

Which of these do you like best? Do you know of other inspirational examples of dental signage that we should know about? Point us to a photo if you can in a comment below.

Do you know what your patients are saying about your dental practice online? How about ex-employees or your competitors? Are they singing your praises or running your name through the mud? Either way, you probably want to know, right?

Thankfully, there are a number of quick and simple ways to monitor what people are saying about your practice online. I’ll get to those a little later in the post. Let’s first talk about why it’s important to manage your reputation online.

Why Online Reputation Management Matters

Good reputations are not built overnight. Chances are it took you a number of years and a lot of money to establish your dental practice’s good name. The frightening reality is that it’s comparatively simple for someone to destroy your reputation permanently online. Just one comment or bad review on a blog or website by a disgruntled former employee, ex-patient, or competitor can be enough to drive your reputation into a ditch.

So, if your online reputation matters to you(and it should), then you need to actively engage in the marketing practice commonly referred to as, Online Reputation Management (ORM).

What is Online Reputation Management (ORM)

The relatively new marketing construct know as Online Reputation Management (ORM) is, in simple terms, monitoring the status of your brand (or name), evaluating the online conversation about your brand, and taking deliberate steps to mitigate potential damage to your brand. You can think of ORM as a three-step process:

1. Monitor – Maintain an ongoing system for researching and keeping track of public perception.
2. Analyze – Consider individual feedback, as well as the source, outlet, reach and timing, to come to a decision about the risk.
3. Influence – Comment, rebut, draft a formal response or simply ignore what has been said, based on your evaluation (Alyssa Gregory, Sitepoint.com)

5 Tips for Effective Online Reputation Management

1. Assume that everything will find its way online – Don’t assume that anything you say or do will be kept private. Simply assume that it will be published somewhere online and potentially available to billions of people. ORM expert, Andy Beal, says that “the message you share behind closed doors should match the one you share with employees, customers, and investors.”

2. Set up Automatic Alerts – Set up automatic alerts to notify you when your practice is mentioned on a review site, social network, blog, etc. Google Alerts is my favorite FREE tool for this purpose. Google Alerts will e-mail you (at a frequency determined by you) anytime your practice is mentioned online. I personally use Google Alerts and highly recommend it. Sign up for Google Alerts FREE. Duct Tape Marketing has a nice list of 34 monitoring tools that you may find useful as well.

3. Maximize positive references to your practice online – The idea here is simple. The more positive references to your practice online, the more insignificant the negative references will become. A few examples of how you might increase your positive references online include: Engaging with patients and potential patients on social networks, submitting press releases, running contests, working with charities, etc. Doing any of these things will naturally create new positive references to you online.

4. Respond to positive & negative feedback – Whenever possible, and wherever it makes sense, make it a point to respond to both negative and positive feedback online. The goal in doing this is to show your commitment to patient satisfaction. However, be particularly careful when responding to negative feedback. Do evaluate the situation before responding, but be prompt when the situation warrants it. Remain calm, be honest and always take the high ground in all interactions with the offender. This should help you to diffuse the situation before it gets out of hand. Check out Yelp! for more tips on responding to positive and negative feedback online.

5. Don’t Mix Business and Personal profiles – Avoid mixing personal and practice profiles on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Social networking sites like these are great for building relationships with people. However, relationships can sour, and you don’t want to run the risk that someone will maliciously attack your practice’s reputation, when their beef is really just with you.

Set Up an ORM Plan

Establishing an ORM plan is critically important. Like anything else, not having a plan is a plan for disaster. So, where should you start? Elixir Interactive provides a number of helpful hints for crafting your own ORM plan:

A well-planned brand reputation management program requires the identification of communities that have the largest and most vocal membership, ongoing monitoring, and active participation in these communities in order to promote a positive brand image and suppress negative sentiment. The following questions should be addressed during the planning session:

1. What is the purpose of the program? Are you looking to gather feedback? Promote a new service? Educate customers about a product’s functionality? Address customer questions and concerns?

2. Where are we going to focus our efforts? You need to identify the blogs, forums, newsgroups and websites that are most relevant to the brand, have the largest and most engaged audience and are seen as “authorities” by the search engines.

3. How often will we be monitoring? Depending on the purpose of the program, the amount of time spent monitoring, posting comments, creating content, answering questions and linking could require multiple resources.

4. Who is going to manage the program? Brand reputation management is not something to be assigned to the “intern that knows how to Google.” Depending on the objective of the program (i.e. feedback solicitation, customer service, awareness) the intensity of the effort will vary and require resources that are qualified to respond in an appropriate manner (Elixir Interactive).

Further Reading

1. Ten Tactics That Could Save Your Online Reputation
2. Fighting a Bad Online Reputation and Keeping a Good One
3. The 18 Immutable Laws of Corporate Reputation… (Paperback)
4. Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online (Paperback)

Recommended Reputation Management Service

Your Thoughts

Does your practice have an established Online Reputation Management Plan? If not, are you considering it? Why, or why not?

I’ll have what she’s having

Imagine if you could create an experience that turns a patient into a raving fan, and the people she refers to the practice ask for the same experience. Now, you are creating a culture. The beauty of creating a culture of raving fans is that it is completely in your control, and for the most part – FREE!

Earn the Referral

I’ve always been kind of curious about the sign in dental offices that says something like, “We appreciate referrals.” I often wonder if a patient feels a disconnect between the sign and the experience. I’m usually asking myself, “What does this office do to earn the referral?” People typically are not out raving about their visit to the dentist over lunch with girlfriends, and if they are, it’s probably not positive. People are more
likely to complain than they are to brag. You may have heard that people don’t like going to the dentist, so to earn a patient referral, you have to be amazing.

Create Promoters

I did a little research into customer loyalty and a customer’s willingness to refer people to your practice. I found out about Net Promoter Scores (NPS) from Harvard Business Review. To get an NPS number for your office you would ask your patients one simple question, “From 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this office to your friends and family?” NPS measures the difference between the percentage of customers who give high responses (“promoters”) and those who give low ones (“detractors”). Promoters are defined as customers who give the company 9 or 10, while detractors hand out “0″ through 6. Customers who log 7 or 8 are deemed “passively satisfied” and aren’t calculated in the final score.

More Promoters = More Revenue

For most of you, I would expect the majority of your patients to be in the 7-8 group. The article suggested there is a major connection between a company’s NPS score and revenue growth. A follow-up article debunks the hype around NPS because of people’s passiveness to brag or rave. Believers in the system argue there is a direct link. Once they started focusing on the scores, revenue grew. Why? It wasn’t the scores they were focused on; it was the customer. If they got anything less than a 9 on the review, they wanted to know why. Revenues grew because customer interaction improved, systems improved, and services were added. It was a new personal touch that made the difference.

How it’s Done

The big question is, how can we do this? I’ve spent some time on my blog talking about the first phone call. It’s critical to note that every member of your team has an impact on the culture of your practice, but it begins with you. I think creating a culture of raving fans starts with a mission statement, and a vision statement. To come up with these statements, think about who you are, and what you want to be. Once you are clear on your vision for the practice, focus on the patient’s experience. Make sure that these two parts are always in sync and up to date. If you are always looking for ways to get your 7′s and 8′s up to 9′s and 10′s, you will have a culture of raving fans.

Bonus: 5 points if you know what movie the title is from.

Your Thoughts

Are you creating a culture of raving fans within your dental practice? If yes, please elaborate in a comment below. Thanks.

An important component to any effective branding campaign is a great logo. You’ve probably noticed that most dental logos look alike – creating little or no differentiation from one practice to the next. Sure, the logo is only one way you can differentiate yourself from the competition. However, you have to consider that potential patients are likely to see your logo before they ever make contact with you. First impressions are everything. Don’t blow your opportunity to bring in new patients because your logo sucks.

The 8 jaw-dropping dental logos below stand out from the crowd and create a favorable first impression.

1. Country Living Dentistry

2. Robin Rutherford, DDS

3. Innovative Family Dental Health

4. Creative Dental Care, P.A.

5. City Dental

6. Huzur Oral & Dental Health Center

7. Garden City Dental

8. Dental Edge

Add to the List

Are you aware of any other jaw-dropping dental logos that should be added to the list? Let us know where we can see it in a comment below.

It’s no secret that the internet represents a great opportunity for dentists to capture new patients. As internet usage continues to increase, this opportunity will become even more lucrative. However, most dentists are unaware of how to properly position their website to capture these new patients.

Don’t Employ the “Wait & See” Approach

Most dentists take the “wait-and-see” approach. That is, they develop a website, publish it to the web, and wait…and wait…and wait for new patients to line up outside their doors. Sadly, new patients never come. Why? Because your website is nowhere to be found in the search engine results pages (SERPS).

Thankfully, there are many techniques that you can employ to increase your position in the SERPS, and be found by patients seeking a new dentist.

Local Business Directories Are Effective

One highly effective technique for generating traffic, and the focus of this post, is submitting your dental practice website to local business directories. Submitting your site to local business directories requires very little time, but has significant upside potential.

Why? Because many of the local business directories that I’ve listed below appear on the first page of the SERPS for local searches.

Here’s Proof

To see what I mean, give this a try: go to Google.com. Once there, search using the following query: “saint louis dentists”(minus quotes). You’ll notice on the first page of the SERPS that several business directories came up, such as: Google local business, Superpages and Citysearch. You can see how a listing in any of these directories would improve your visibility with potential new patients.

I compiled a list below of my 10 favorite FREE local business directories that you should submit your site to in order to increase your online visibility and capture new patients. Without further ado, here’s the list…

Top 3

1. Google Local Business Center

Listing your website in the Google Local Business Center is a must. Your local business listing can include: your business address, website url, maps, location photos, business description, directions, business categories, etc. Your local search listing appears before regular(organic) search listings in the SERPS.

2. Yahoo Local

Submitting your site to Yahoo Local is also very important. Your listing options with Yahoo Local are similar to those in the Google Local Business Center. You shouldn’t expect as much traffic from Yahoo Local as with the Google Local Business Center, but it can be substantial nonetheless.

3. Bing Local Listing Center

Rounding out my top 3 recommendations is the Bing Local Listing Center. Although the Bing Local Listing Center is still in its infancy, people are already receiving significant traffic from it.

Also Recommended

4. Superpages.com

5. YellowPages.com

6. YellowBook.com

7. Yelp

8. Localeze

9. Local.com

10. Hotfrog.com

Stay tuned for future posts highlighting additional powerful tips for positioning your website in the search engines to capture new patients.

Add to the List

Have you found a great free business directory that’s not in my list? Please leave it in a comment below for everyone’s benefit

Back in early September I put together a list of 30 dental pros I follow on Twitter (Part I). I’ve found following and interacting with these wonderful dental minds to be quite fruitful, and hope that you’ve had a chance to develop a relationship with some of them as well. Since I released that post, I’ve had the pleasure of discovering a number of additional dental folks that you should consider following on Twitter.

20 More Great Dental Pros I Follow on Twitter

1. WealthyDentist
2. DentistIdentity
3. VisibleDentist
4. Madowgroup
5. GetDentistJobs
6. DentalOffice
7. DentalCPAS
8. DLPlive
9. ADANews
10. JoeNeedsDental
11. Etukee
12. Top3dentists
13. DentalTools
14. AAOrthodontists
15. Twentist
16. Dental_News
17. dentistsos
18. Sherryblues
19. DDSBrand
20. edokeefe_2009
31. Oh yeah, don’t forget to follow Dental Heroes as well. dentalheroes

Add to the List

I know there are many more dental pros out there using Twitter. Please leave the Twitter username of any dental pros not on this list in a comment below.

With over 5 years of experience as a web designer/developer, I’ve developed an intimate knowledge of web site “best practices”. Over the years, the most common mistake I see people make is thinking that simply having a web presence is enough. They take the “if you build it they will come” approach. Back in the 90′s that may have worked.

However, the game has changed dramatically since then – in terms of consumer demands, web technologies, and search engine algorithms. No longer can you launch a website and simply hope for the best. You need to constantly evolve your web offering with the changing consumer demands, web technologies and search algorithms to beat out your competition.

Certainly we can’t cover everything that you need to know about dominating your competition online, but I thought it would be a good idea to start with a post highlighting 5 quick, yet powerful tips for improving your existing website.

So, lets get to the tips, shall we?

1. Install Google Analytics

Do you have a counter at the bottom of your website pages? Get rid of it. Sure, it counts the number of visitors to your site. However, this is rarely a good thing. Not only are counters an eyesore, but often the numbers on the counter are embarrassingly low. How do you think that looks to your potential customers? Not good.

So, I recommend installing Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a very powerful and stealthy(unseen to visitors) web-based analytics package that tracks the number of unique visitors to your site, search terms visitors used to find your site, how long they were on your site, and much much more. Best of all, Google Analytics is FREE. If you’re only going to act on one of these tips today, make it this one.

Sign up for Google Analytics

2. Ditch The Flash Intros

If your website greets visitors with a Flash intro, get rid of it.

On its face, I can see why dentists like flash intros. After all, if done well, they can be stylish and captivating. Unfortunately, they’re also expensive, highly irritating, slow loading and scare visitors away. Just get rid of it.

3. Include a Contact Form on your “Contact” Page

Include a contact form on your contact page. The idea here is to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to contact you – accessibility is key. If you’re simply posting your e-mail address and forcing your visitors to e-mail you in order to make contact, you’re probably losing potential patients. Make it easy with a contact form.

There are many places on the web to find contact form scripts. I really like the contact forms available at Woofoo.com. They’re highly customizable, brandable, stylish, and easy to integrate into your site (simple cut n’ paste).

4. Feature Contact Information Prominently

Also important for accessibility is featuring your contact information prominently. I recommend posting your address and phone number(s) both at the top and bottom of each page. This ensures that no matter what part of a particular page your visitor is viewing, they’ll be able to see your contact information. Prominent contact information is also a good idea because it enhances your trust value in the eyes of your visitors.

5. Check for Broken Links

This may seem like a no-brainer, but many people neglect to check their site for broken links. Broken links are bad for a number of reasons – they leave your visitors frustrated and they’re frowned upon by search engines.

Thankfully, you don’t have to click through each link on your site to clean up your broken links. Instead, I use a free program called Xenu’s Link Sleuth. The program crawls your site looking for broken links. Once this process is complete, you will be given a report listing all of the broken links that the program encountered. You can then run down the list and fix or remove the broken links on your site.

Final Thoughts

These tips are by no means comprehensive. However, they’re quick, they’re actionable, and they’re powerful. Do you have disagree with any of my tips? Are you already doing these things on your site? Let us know in a comment below.

As a progressive dental professional, you need to take advantage of the communication and networking powers of Twitter. If you’re reading this post, chances are you know this already. What you might not know, however, is that there are a number of mistakes you may be making right now that are preventing your practice from realizing the benefits of Twitter .

The following are 5 mistakes dentists should avoid on Twitter:

1. Doing Nothing

Sounds obvious, right? Well, not to everyone. In fact, an estimated 20% of Twitter accounts held by dentists or other dental professionals are empty. This is clearly the most damaging mistake you can make if you want to use Twitter successfully. Beyond that, consider how this looks to your patients or potential patients. An empty Twitter account says to them, we’re lazy, uncommitted and unfocused. In short, if you’re not going to use Twitter, don’t sign up. Similarly, if you signed up already, and don’t tweet on a regular basis, you’re better off calling it quits and deleting your account.

2. Too Much Self-Promotion

A little self-promotion can go a long way. In fact, nothing will get you un-followed faster than constant self-promotion. Frankly, I don’t want to hear about your low pricing in every one of your tweets. I get it, you have good pricing. Now, tell me something I don’t know.

That’s the secret. If you truly want build a steady stream of new followers, focus on providing value. Engage with your followers by connecting with them on a personal level and providing them with information that can impact their lives in a positive way. Do this consistently, and you’re followers will return the favor many times over.

3. Failing to Connect with People

Many dentists perform a monologue instead of engaging in a dialogue with their followers. Get to know your followers. Show that you’re interested in what they have to say. Asking questions and utilizing the retweet function are great ways to do this.

4. Using One Twitter Account for Both Personal & Business Use

Do you want your friends and family to know when you’re brushing your teeth or bathing the dog? If so, then who am I to tell you to stop? But, do your patients or potential patients want to know about this? Probably not – wait, definitely not. I recommend creating separate Twitter accounts – one for personal use and one for business use.

5. Tweeting Too Much

Most dentists don’t have this problem, but enough do that it warrants mention. Tweeting too much, even if you’re following the above recommendations is not a good thing. Not only does too much tweeting dilute your message, but it’s downright annoying for your followers to see your avatar every time they sign into Twitter. Like most things in life, moderation is key.

Your Thoughts

Do you agree with these tips? What would you add to the list?

The following is guest post by Monica Cross, author of  UrgentDentalCareServices.com. Interested in guest posting on Dental Heroes? Have a look at our guidelines and sign up.

There is no doubt that today’s economy has had a profound effect on industries across the board. Consumer spending is way down due to heightened unemployment, salary cuts and the housing crisis. While the dental industry has proven to be recession-proof in the past, fears of losing jobs and/or insurance benefits have made many consumers reluctant to pay for dental treatments.

Don’t Cut Back

While common sense is telling many business owners to cut back during this time in order to manage costs, the recession actually presents a great opportunity for dental professionals to stand out from their competitors. Although things seem bleak now, everyone agrees that the economy is going to recover eventually and when it does, you want your practice to be in the best shape possible. By investing when your competitors are downsizing and cutting back, your money can go much further in improving your practice.

5 Recession-Busting Tips

There are several simple steps you can take not only to help your dental practice weather this economy, but also to move ahead of the competition:

1. Invest in New Equipment

Take advantage of the economy’s silver lining. Now is a great time to consider investing in new equipment or a bigger office. Interest rates are at an all-time low, making these types of investments much more affordable than they would have been a few years ago. Consider investing in the new dental imaging technology, which can help your procedures run much more quickly and efficiently. Moving to a new location can also help to improve your customers’ perception of your office.

2. Offer Flexible Financing Options

Losing health care benefits is just one problem facing consumers who have recently lost a job. But just because someone can’t afford a root canal, doesn’t mean they don’t need one. Offering customers a chance to finance procedures during this difficult time will not only help you retain business, but will also build customer loyalty when the economy turns around. Many dentists are working with local banks to develop payment plans and so far, these plans have a relatively low default rate.

3. Offer Referral Incentives

Now is a great time to rethink your office strategy, and looking at your customer base is the first step. Older customers, and those without children, are more likely to have discretionary income and view dental procedures as a necessary part of maintaining their health. Consider offering customers who fit this profile an incentive for new referrals. Not only will this help to stimulate your customer base and improve loyalty among existing customers, but it’s also likely that you’ll receive new customers who fit this profile.

4. Educate Patients

If patient bookings are down, use this as an opportunity to increase the business you are getting. Spend the extra open appointment time educating your current clients about their dental health. Really explain the benefit of the treatment plans you recommend for them. Your goal here is to help them see their oral health as a priority and understand that maintaining it is a necessity.

5. Market Your Practice Online

Pay attention to how your practice is marketing itself. Spending a little extra money here can go a long way to set you apart from your competition. The Internet is an excellent place to focus your efforts, because the majority of new potential clients use this route when looking for a dentist. Consider hiring an Internet marketing consultant to ensure your website looks professional and inviting. These consultants can also help push your practice’s page up in search results to increase the chances that new customers will find you. Investing in this area now can help to build a strong brand that will continue even as the economy climbs its way back up.

What do you think?

Are you employing any of these tips within your practice? Are you seeing significant results from doing so? Let us know in comment below.

More and more people (or Tweople, technically) are making the decision to engage in the Twitter conversation these days. Some people simply join to update friends regarding their daily activities, others use it as a social network, and another group utilizes Twitter for business purposes.

Whatever the reason may be, Twitter’s reach is undeniable. Some companies have replaced their corporate website address with their Twitter address on advertising materials. Major news networks are engaging with viewers via Twitter live on the air. I’ve even had a number of people provide their Twitter username in their e-mail signatures. I could go on and on.

If you have not yet taken the leap to join Twitter, I would caution you to evaluate whether doing so will be beneficial for you. Many people reluctantly sign up because everyone else is doing it. That’s not a good reason to get involved. You’ll just end up frustrated and abandon the service within a couple of days. Why waste your time?

However, for those of you who are already actively engaging with other people on Twitter, I’ve compiled a list(in no particular order) of 30 great dental pros I’m following on Twitter (You should too).

30 Great Dental Pros I Follow on Twitter

1. drbicuspid
2. SteffanyMohan
3. OralHealthcare
4. jablow
5. AnastasiaRDH
6. DentalProducts
7. DentistryIQ
8. Dentrix
9. practiceworks
10. DPRlive
11. Identalhub
12. TheAACD
13. nicedentist
14. webdental
15. Dentra
16. GetDentistJobs
17. markoborn
18. dentalcompare
19. therabreath
20. Dentistnet
21. dentalinsider
22. AboutDentistry
23. DenTek
24. teresaduncan
25. PERI_Educates
26. top3dentists
27. jflucke
28. kgh23
29. 1800DENTIST
30. dentaladvisor
31. Oh yeah, don’t forget to follow Dental Heroes as well. dentalheroes

Add to the List

I know there are many more dental pros out there using Twitter. Please leave the Twitter username of any dental pros not on this list that you think should be in a comment below.

What is the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Awareness Campaign?

Most of you are probably familiar by now with the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Awareness Campaign spearheaded by the Dental Trade Alliance in early July. If you’re not yet familiar, the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Awareness Campaign is an industry-wide initiative to warn consumers about the risks of postponing regular checkups and neglecting recommended treatments in this down economy. Furthermore, the campaign aims to encourage dental professionals to proactively educate their patients about the potential overall health problems that can develop as a result of avoiding the dentist.

There’s no doubt that this is a tall, but necessary task as most dentists report a drop in patient visits over the past 6-12 months. I’m not going to go into a whole lot of detail about theOral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Awareness Campaign because that information is already available on a number of sites. However, if you would like more information about the campaign, the sites/video listed below are great resources.

Website Resources
1. Official Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Website for Dental Professionals
2. Official Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Website for Dental Consumers
3. Dental Trade Alliance Website

Video Resource
Dental Economics managing editor Kevin Henry talks to Dental Trade Alliance CEO Gary Price about a new campaign aimed at dental teams, patients, and the dental trade.

Thank You Lanmark Group

The Lanmark Group, the dental industry’s largest advertising, marketing, and public relations agency, is graciously contributing their efforts to the campaign by developing the overall strategy, creative concepts, and tactical execution on a pro bono basis (dentaltradealliance.org).

One major benefit of the integrated marketing strategy employed by the Lanmark Group to promote this campaign is the number of marketing materials that they’ve made available for you to use in your own promotion of the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ initiative. Below, I’ve listed a number of materials that you can and should download for FREE and integrate into your marketing plan.

Free Marketing Materials to Download Now

• Press Release
• Letter to the Editor
• Newsletter Article
• Public Service Announcement (15 Second Spot)
• E-mail Template
• Patient Education Brochure
• Patient Education Posters
• Local Newspaper Ads
• Patient Recall Card
• Mailing/Postcard
• Official Campaign Logos A) PDF 2) Zip File

How Can You Effectively Market the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Awareness Campaign?

1. Get your team on board.
You MUST get your team on board if you want to effectively promote this campaign. You not only need to introduce your team to the campaign, but you also need to underscore your commitment to the campaign as a collective unit. Finally, it’s imperative that you ensure your team understands how this commitment will effect their day-to-day responsibilities.

2. Use these materials in your correspondence with patients.
Chances are, you’re already sending out recall cards, regular mailings and perhaps even e-mails to your patients. Try substituting your regular marketing materials with these. The key is to repeatedly and consistently get this message in front of your patients. If you want to customize these materials for your business, the Dental Trade Alliance has teamed up with PrintingForLess.com to do this for you quickly and at a fair price.

3. Discuss this initiative with your patients.
When patients come in for their appointments ask them if they saw your mailing, e-mail, recall card, etc. Regardless of their response, educate them about the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ campaign and reinforce your commitment to the initiative. No need to ram this down their throats. A short, informal discussion is all you can reasonably expect to have with most patients anyway.

4. Place patient education posters around your practice
Pick appropriate, highly trafficked spots to place patient education posters around your practice.

5. Embed the official Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Youtube video on your site or blog.
You can find the embed code on this video’s Youtube page. Below is what the official video looks like.

6. Write about the campaign online
Publish a post on your blog if you have one, create a Facebook update, create a tweet on Twitter, discuss the initiative in online forums, etc. Again, don’t go overboard here. Doing so will effectively diminish the odds that you will captivate you audience.

7. Place the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ logo on your site to show your support.
Download now:1)PDF 2) Zip File

8. Officially pledge your support to the campaign
To pledge your support, contact Dental Trade Alliance CEO Gary Price at 703-379-7755.

9. Engage with like-minded dental professionals on the campaign’s official Social Media sites

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Youtube

Final Thoughts

These 9 marketing tips cover the essentials for effectively marketing the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Awareness Campaign for your practice. However, as you’ve probably noticed, options are also available for those of you with larger budgets that seek greater involvement with the campaign. These options include: public service announcements, local newspaper ads, press releases, letters to the editor, etc. The marketing possibilities are really only bound by your creativity. See what you can come up with.

Your Tips

How is your practice marketing the Oral Healthcare Can’t Wait™ Awareness Campaign? Are you doing something unique that could benefit others? Please share in a comment below.

If you enjoy podcasts(or you’re obsessed like me), then you’re sure to love these great free dental care podcasts I recently downloaded to my trusty iPod Nano.

For those of you who aren’t sure what a podcast is, have a look at Wikipedia’s definition to get up to speed.

Note: The easiest way to download the following podcasts is to subscribe to them on itunes. If you don’t have iTunes installed, you can download it for free on the Apple Website. If you’re not sure how to proceed after downloading iTunes, check out this Youtube Video illustrating the process.

1. The Wealthy Dentist Podcast

Jim Du Molin, of The Wealthy Dentist, is known for his powerful, yet pragmatic methods of increasing dentists’ profitability. Jim has tapped into the power of podcasts to spread his message.

The Wealthy Dentist podcasts are free, and cover topics such as: dental practice management, dental continuing education, dental care issues, dental implants, cosmetic dentistry, dental marketing and several others.

Download The Wealthy Dentist Podcasts

2. American Dental Association(ADA) Podcast

The ADA has been developing podcasts since 2006. Since then, they’ve churned out 19 episodes focusing on topics ranging from reducing stress within your practice to identifying emerging trends in dental care.

Download ADA Podcasts

3. Dental Insider Podcast

DI and Associate Q(Speakers) boast 40+ years in the dental care industry and have worked in every facet of the industry from sales (wholesale and retail), marketing, dental equipment repair and consulting. Unfortunately, the pair made the tough decision to discontinue regular updates on The Dental Insider Blog, but don’t let that discourage you from checking out their timeless podcast episodes.

Download Dental Insider Podcasts

4. Henry Schein Podcast

Henry Schein podcasts feature “leading industry consultants and experts discussing the latest dental trends, clinical techniques and technologies. Current and future podcasts available through the Dental Podcast Center include Practice Design, Practice Marketing, Operatory Ergonomics, Cone Beam 3D Imaging, Laser Dentistry, Digital Radiography and more(dentalpodcastcenter.com).”

Download The Henry Schein Podcasts

5. DentalCast Podcast

The DentalCast Podcast strives to bring dental professionals the latest information about dental technology and clinical techniques.

Download The DentalCast Podcasts

Any Others We Should Know About?

I know there are a number of dental care podcasts out there that are not on this list, but the majority seem to be heavily promotional in nature and not as broadly applicable as those in this list.

However, if you know of a podcast that should be on this list, please leave the name and url where people can download episodes in a comment below.