One of the most important questions you need to ask yourself is whether you consider yourself a “big fish” or a “small fish,” geographically speaking.  What this means is taking an honest assessment of the time and resources you have at your disposal for SEO purposes.  Be realistic in this assessment: if you aim too low, you’ll likely have lackluster results; if you aim too high, you may not get anywhere at all.  Assuming that your practice is relatively new to online marketing, the safest best it to start off targeting potential new patients in your most local geographic area.

Tips for Local SEO Success

When choosing what keywords to incorporate into your content, targeting the ones with the highest search volume might be tempting, but it’s not always the best idea at the beginning of your online marketing strategy. If you live in a large metro area, perhaps your office is located in an area or neighborhood that is commonly named by locals. Make sure your website is visible in Google for those hyper-local dental keywords before you target the big city search terms. Zip codes are another way to target local dental searches in a big city. Keywords with one of these geographic modifiers will receive far less competition, and also be much more useful to the people searching for it – they will find your local practice, which just so happens to be in their back yard.

The importance of Google Places cannot be stressed enough for local SEO:

1. For many local searches, the Places/Maps listings are the first results at the top of Google’s first page.
2. More and more people are using smartphones now, and on a smartphone the local listings always show up prominently at the top of Google search results. Now people can search for a local dentist while on the bus, waiting in line at the store, from the couch at home or in a doctor’s office.
3. People expect to see what you and your office look like so don’t forget to add photos to your Places page.
4. Having reviews on your Google Places page is crucial, since it can also sway someone who has been on the fence about which dentist to visit. If two dentists are both within a mile of the web searcher, guess which one is going to get the new patient lead? The one with the most positive reviews.

Also note that Google looks at the distance between your practice and the geographic center of the location mentioned in a search query, which also affects the ranking of your local listing. If you are 8 miles from the city center but within city limits, don’t expect to show up at the top of Google Maps listings for your city.

A couple more ideas that can help you get listed higher in local searches:

• Consider submitting articles to local online directories that contain backlinks to your site and/or citations (mentions of your company name with address and phone number).
• You might also become familiar with local bloggers and ask them to mention you in one of their articles (you’ll need to give them something worth mentioning of course) or let you guest blog on their website. Not only does this make your practice more recognizable to people who read the content, but it also increases your search engine rankings.

You can achieve first page results, but don’t start off expecting to rank #1 for “dentist San Diego” in one month … or six months for that matter.  Remember to take things one step at a time, expanding to target a wider area only when you have achieved your previous, more local SEO goals. As a rule of thumb, only consider targeting larger areas when you have become the first and most recognizable practice in your local vicinity!

 1) The Google Panda Update

The first phase of the Panda update rolled out in February 2011 and has been the talk of the online marketing world ever since. Google’s goal with Panda was to improve the relevancy of search results, by helping quality sites with relevant content rank high, while penalizing sites with low-quality, and/or duplicate content. According to Google: “We added new signals to help us make better predictions about which of two similar web pages is the original.”

The Panda update was said to have impacted 12 percent of search results and several websites with poor quality content saw website visitors fall 60% or more, almost overnight. What this update really did was change search engine optimization (SEO) best practices forever. While it’s always been important, today having fresh, high quality, original content is critical.

Dentists need to beware of the cookie cutter dental website companies that use the identical website and blog content on dozens (or in some cases hundreds) of the dental websites they create.

What you need to do: Ensure that the content on your website is unique to you. If you are unsure whether your website content is unique, visit Copyscape.com and paste the URL of one of your services pages into the box at the top and click “Copyscape Search”. If other dentist’s websites show up, you’ll know that your website has duplicate content.

 2) Social Media “signals” play a bigger role in Search Engine Rankings

With Google making a huge push into the Social Media arena with Google Plus (a/k/a Google+ or G+), we have confirmation of what we’ve assumed for some time: Social Media is becoming a more important factor for ranking well in Google. In addition to links from other websites to yours, Google is also looking at your social presence: Tweets, Facebook Likes, +1s, etc.

What you need to do: Establish accounts and begin participating in Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.

 3) The Google Freshness Update

The online marketing world has always said “Content is King”, with this update that mantra should now be “Fresh Content is King”. The update rewards websites based on the freshness and relevance of the content. This is another modification of the formula to provide web searchers with more relevant content. In Google’s attempts to create that perfect search world, they’re holding website owner’s feet to the fire by requiring a constant flow of new, high-quality content.

In Google’s words: “This change impacts roughly 35 percent of total searches (around 6-10% of search results to a noticeable degree) and better determines the appropriate level of freshness for a given query.”

What you need to do: Establish a blog on your website and begin posting high-quality articles to it. This will keep your website fresh.

 4) Google makes a big push in Local 

In their never ending quest to provide relevant search results (and make money), Google has placed increasing emphasis on local search results – particularly Google Places (aka Maps). Mid-2011 Google made a major change to the way search results are displayed when they merged organic (website) rankings with Google Places listings. Prior to this change the Places listings stood on their own in the “7 Pack” at the top of the page, afterward the Places results were combined with the primary website rankings for the majority of search terms (keyword phrases).

Whereas in the past, optimizing your website had no affect on your Places listing & vice versa, today what happens on one affects the other. Therefore, it is more important than ever to ensure your Google Places listing is claimed, optimized, citations are built (your business information submitted to prominent listing directories) and that your business name, phone & address are consistent across these various listing websites.

What you need to do: Claim and complete your business listings on Google Places, Yahoo Local, Bing & Yelp. Then search for your business and see which additional directories you are listed on and ensure your name, address & phone are consistent across all.

 5) Online Reputation Management

2011 was the year of the empowered consumer (examples: the occupy movements across the country, the Netflix backlash, etc.) and dentistry wasn’t exempt. With the proliferation of online review websites, prospective patients are able to read dozens and in some cases hundreds of reviews for the typical dentist. There are currently over 17 million reviews on Yelp alone.

So, it is not surprising that online reviews can have a huge impact on new patient flow – positively or negatively. You may have heard the old saying: “a satisfied customer will tell 10 people, a dissatisfied one will tell 100” – on the web that dissatisfied patient could “tell” thousands.

Reviews from your existing patients tell your potential new patients the level of service you provide and whether you can be trusted with taking care of their pearly whites.  Unfortunately, this is a two way street: a bad review can cost you new patients and even if untrue, can potentially destroy your image in the eyes of the public.

What you need to do: Do a Google search for your name and your practice name. Visit the websites that come up on the first page. If any of them have negative reviews, see if you can submit a response. Here is an article with tips on how to respond to a negative patient review.  Then proactively begin collecting reviews from your satisfied patients. Additionally, try to own as much real estate on the first page of Google, Yahoo & Bing as possible for your name and your practice name.

6) Mobile Search

Smart phone ownership has more than doubled in the past two years. In 2009 only 18 percent of US mobile subscribers owned a smartphone. Currently the figure is 44 percent. Over 50% of Google Maps/Places traffic is from mobile devices. The percentage of web searches from mobile devices has grown 25% year-over-year, now accounting for 26% of total search volume. Google says 40% of its mobile searches are for local information.

And, as you know moms make a majority of the decisions regarding healthcare for their families, and they are always on the go. According to one recent study, 62% of moms access the internet from their mobile phones.

What you need to do: Visit your website from a smart phone and see if it is readable. If not, you’ll want to have a mobile version of your website built. Be sure and remove any flash as Apple products cannot read flash. Again, ensure that your listings on local directories are  claimed & optimized.

Call today to learn about our mobile dental website design services.

In the web programming world, “dynamic” describes any content that is able to “change.”  Most dynamic websites are connected to a database which tells each page what, where and how content will show on the page. Dynamic websites can deliver content based on the visitor’s preferences and changes made in the online database affect properties of the entire site.  “Static” websites are constructed of basic HTML pages and as “static” implies, not easily changed.  Each page is connected with hyperlinks and the content is coded into each page.  Changes to the site require special software and knowledge of the pages’ programming language.  Consequently, static websites are more likely to have programming and data errors.

Search engines like Google prefer dynamic websites. Why? Dynamic websites are consistent.  They have the same navigation and data structure across all the pages of the site. They are less prone to errors like broken links, outdated code and inconsistent display.  And because the structure of the site allows for easy changes and updates, this means dynamic sites have fresher, up-to-date content.

At Bullseye Media we build sites using the popular WordPress platform.  This content management system (CMS) allows us to rapidly deploy beautiful, functional and dynamic websites.

2. Successful dental websites are informative.

Websites with sparse content or irrelevant information are never promoted by the search engines.  It is suggested that websites have at least 250 words of relevant information on each page.  Photos, videos, and links related directly to targeted keywords also solicit positive positioning.   We recommend that websites have at least one complete page for each keyword phrase they target.  In addition to pages on procedures and services, we also write original blog content for dentists. This further solidifies the impression of the site as a valid source of information.

But information is not limited to services and procedures. Winning dental sites also include interesting, informative “About Us” pages and accurate “Contact Us” pages.  Names, phone numbers and addresses are information, too. Make sure that your site includes these details on every page in a consistent location.

3. Successful dental websites are optimized.

Optimized websites are designed to load fast, efficiently connect to internal resources and display relevant content in acceptable structures. Optimized websites have convenient navigation including sitemaps, deep links and search features.  In short, a well-optimized site is structured in such a way that Google is able to look at the site (and the individual pages) and know exactly what the website is about.  That is, it is trustworthy.  We’ve written extensively about on-page optimization in other posts.

4. Successful dental websites are attractive.

Like it or not, patients judge you by your site.  An outdated website gives the appearance of an outdated practice.  Likewise, beautiful sites are reflective of the dentist’s attention to detail and esthetics.  But what constitutes an “attractive” site?

• Clean, modern structure with plenty of “white” space.  Sites that are structured properly with large fonts and plenty of space look elegant and are easy to read.
• Classic graphic elements.  No blinking lines and animated clip-art.
• Contemporary photographs and content.  Sites must never have pictures and content from the 1990’s.
• Appropriate use of colors and textures.  Colors are powerful communicators. Used properly, they can convey trust, warmth, cleanliness, technology or fun.  Textures can add visual interest to otherwise bland landscapes.
• Attention to details.  Visitors can tell whether a site has been just thrown together.  Beautiful sites have small details that say, “We took a lot of time to get this right.”

You may be thinking “oh no, he’s telling me I need to hire some expensive programmer to create an iPhone app for my practice”. I’m not inferring that at all, but you should be considering a mobile website and a mobile friendly search engine optimization strategy.

A few mobile statistics to consider:

• Google says 40% of its mobile searches are for local information
• Over 50% of Google Maps traffic is from mobile devices
• Mobile search usage grew 25% year-over-year with 26% penetration in September 2011
• Search is the top activity of mobile browser users. Social networking is second
• 88 million mobile subscribers access local content on a mobile device, up 28% from a year ago

Moms are mobile

Moms make a majority of the decisions regarding healthcare for their families, and they are always on the go. According to one recent study, 62% of moms access the internet from their mobile phones.

Where mobile usage is hottest

A recent report from the IAB showed the mobile consumer hot spots around the US:

If you haven’t considered adding mobile marketing to your 2012 marketing plan, you really should. Give us a call to learn how we’re positioning our dental marketing clients to take advantage of the increasing trend toward mobile.. 

Once a website is designed, launched and optimized,  it becomes just like a house on the market.  (Big “Open House” sign on the front lawn included.)  But unlike Open Houses where owners and realtors show the house to prospective buyers during limited showings, a website is open 24/7 and the prospective buyers are perusing your site unattended.  It’s like having having a visitor walk around your house while you’re gone, looking at whatever and wherever might suit their fancy. A little spooky, I know.  What would a visitor to your home look at?  What rooms would they look in?  Would they like the wall color? Would they like the layout?  Which room would be most popular? Or would they walk into the front entryway and promptly march back outside?

For websites that have Google Analytics installed, the “Home Owners” are able to track just how visitors move through their website using a reporting feature of Analytics called “Visitor Flow.” Visitor Flow behaves like a security camera and tracks and records visitor interest and movement.  Visitor Flow answers questions like: What links do people click on when they land on my homepage?  What page on my site is most popular?  Is anyone reading my blog?  What do they do after they read an article?

All of the websites maintained by Bullseye Media, have Analytics installed and we regularly track visitor movement and interest.  After a recent comparison of the statistics of some of our client sites using Visitor Flow reporting, an surprising trend emerged: visitors first want to know their dentist.

Visitors are most interested in the dentist and their practice.

That’s right, the first priority of dental website visitors is to check out the dentist. They are not as interested in the procedures and services as they are in the person administering the services.  Statistically, visitors will seek out pages like About Us, Meet the Dentist, About the Practice or Meet the Staff before they will venture to other case-related pages.  While the graphic above may be difficult to decipher, the pages visited are clearly seen:  Our Doctors, Our Team and Contact Us.

Knowing this, here are seven ways to dramatically improve “About Us” and “Meet the Dentist” pages.

1. Go beyond professional accomplishments.  Degrees, accolades and experience provide a solid foundation for trust but make for dry reading.  Tell the reader why they will enjoy having you as their dentist, surgeon or orthodontist.

2. Update your personal photos. If the only photo on your “Meet the Doctor” page is a portrait from 15 years ago, the reader may perceive that you too are outdated.  Instead, use two or three contemporary, relaxed photos.

3. Better yet, include a video of the dentists in your practice. Creating casual, interview-style videos is simple and these videos establish rapport with your clients.

4. Add clear photos of your practice.  Highlight the best parts or your facility.  Visitors should be able to visualize an experience from the front door to the waiting room to the operatory.

5. Introduce your team and include photos of them, too.

6. Include one or two concise, personal testimonials about the dentist and provide links to the sources. i.e., Google Places or Yelp!.

7. Include a call to action.  Invite the reader to call you for an appointment and provide a link to the Contact Us page.

Contact Us is King

Perhaps you noticed on the Visitor Flow graphic above that the Contact Us page was the most visited page (after the Home page.)  The websites of healthy, thriving practices have high visitor traffic to their contact page.  This is where most visitors find practice addresses, phone numbers, directions, email addresses, maps and forms. Sparsely populated Contact Us pages give the same impression as neglected, impersonal Meet the Dentist pages: the practice is inaccessible and unapproachable.

Have a look at your Contact Us page:

• Does it have a clear address listing with directions?
• Does it have a map?
•  Is the phone number prominent?
• Does the page have a contact form or email address?
• Can you be reached via Facebook or Twitter?
• Lastly, does your Contact page include a noticeable call to action? Call Today!

Knowing which pages visitors find important is invaluable information.  And in the way you prepare for an Open House, be willing to make an impact with a facelift and a fresh look on those popular pages.

Google is constantly looking for ways to deliver the most relevant and useful content to its users. The quality, freshness, and uniqueness of the content will always be an important factor for rankings.

Just like word processing programs like Microsoft Word, Google is easily able to detect quality in regard to spelling and grammar.  Those are quantitative metrics that Google certainly uses; however, they don’t tell the whole story about the quality of the content.  Things like relevance, usefulness, and accuracy are somewhat more difficult for search engines like Google to determine without human input.

Aside from the relevancy signals like exact match phrases (e.g. someone searches for “dentist City” and results with “dentist City” in the Title or URL show up), Search Engines rely on internet users to build links to websites and share content using social media to determine the usefulness of the content.

With Google making a huge push into the Social Media arena with Google Plus (a/k/a Google+ or G+), we have confirmation of what we’ve assumed for some time: Social Media is becoming a more important factor for ranking well in Google. In addition to links from other websites to yours, Google is also looking at your social presence: Tweets, Facebook Likes, +1s, etc.

We’ve been anticipating and monitoring the growth of social media as a ranking factor for a while now. When Bullseye rolled out our Platinum Plus dental SEO package, we included a Twitter management program to help generate a social presence. We’ve since enhanced our packages and have been integrating more social media marketing into each of them.

How you can leverage social media without becoming consumed by it

If you’re looking to improve your social presence, a huge social media campaign isn’t necessary to yield benefits for your practice and reputation; just spending 5-10 minutes a couple of times a week to share insights, jokes, links to interesting online content, case studies, or experiences will go a long way for your reputation with both users and Google.  Also keep in mind that if you don’t have time, one of your staff members (or even family) can also do this.

Finally, don’t forget to add social media share buttons to your website(s).  Simply ask your staff, friends, and family to occasionally visit your site and Like, Retweet, Google +1, or share you on their social network of choice.  These minor tasks will help Google confirm that your website is a truly relevant, accurate, and a useful resource for searchers.

If you already have a Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn account setup and are actively adding content to your blogs, there is an excellent way to semi-automate some of the process, give us a call or drop us an email, we’d be happy to share some strategies we’ve been implementing.

Here are the highlights:

1. 37% of users rate a product, service or person. We recently discussed the effect online reviews can have on a dental practice.
2. 24% make a phone call after searching online – this is exactly what you want them to do – call and make an appointment
3. 92% use a search engine to find information (Google is the new Yellow Pages)
4. 83% look for health/medical info (including dentistry)

Are you properly positioned online so these people find you? If you’re not sure click the Audit My Website button to the right.

• Title tags
• Inbound links
• Blogging

Today, we’ll look at how a properly utilized blog can improve your search engine rankings, drive more prospective patients to your website and build trust and credibility.

Why you need a blog

1) Fresh Content is King – You may have heard the phrase “content is king”. Google and the other search engines are continually changing the formula they use to rank websites, however the one thing that has remained constant since they said it over a decade ago is the fact that they love fresh, relevant, original content. They do not like stagnant websites where nothing changes. A blog will prevent your website from getting stale.

2) Gain the trust of prospective patients – A blog can provide valuable content to both current and prospective patients.  In addition to educating them, it also gives them a feel for how you run your practice, the services you provide and what they can expect when entrusting you with their dental care.

3) Increases your website’s page count – if integrated properly, each article added to your blog will be treated as a separate page by the search engines (additional indexed pages), which improves your site ranking and increases your credibility and authority with the search engines.

4) Provides original, unique content – many dental website design companies utilize the verbatim copy across multiple dental websites. This leads to an issue called duplicate content which negatively affects your website’s ranking in the search engines. A blog provides content on your website that doesn’t exist elsewhere on the web.

5) Increased traffic to your website – good blog content will bring your website more visitors. When we review website analytics for our clients, in many cases, their blog articles are the most visited pages on their websites.

6) Creates content that can be repurposed – not only can the article be posted to your blog, but it can also be used as an update to your Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts. We have developed a process for automating this function so no extra steps are required.

7) Attracts links to your website – inbound links (other websites pointing to yours) are an important factor in search engine rankings. Often, other website owners will find your blog content and link to it, providing you with a valuable one-way link.

A properly executed blogging strategy has always been a key component to a successful  online marketing strategy, but with the recent round of updates by Google known as the Panda Update & the Freshness Update, having an active blog is more important than ever.

How to get started

Now that you know why blogs are a must-have, you’re probably wondering how to make all this happen. The first decision is whether you want to run a stand-along blog or integrate it into your existing website architecture. Without a doubt, you want it integrated into your website. Avoid the free, instant setup blogs such as Blogger.com.

Next is establishing a system for keeping your blog fresh. Ideally you’ll create an editorial calendar and regularly add good quality content. This can be done by you, assigned to someone in your office or outsourced.

If you would like information on how to properly integrate a blog into your website or to learn how our team of professional dental writers can manage your blog for you, please contact us today.

Whom to entrust with providing dental care is something the general public at-large is particularly picky about, and not without reason – an unpleasant experience at the dentist isn’t soon forgotten.

Online reviews can have a huge impact on new patient flow – positively or negatively

You may have heard the old saying: “a satisfied customer will tell 10 people, a dissatisfied one will tell 100” – on the web that dissatisfied patient could “tell” thousands.

Reviews from your existing patients tell your potential new patients the level of service you provide and whether you can be trusted with taking care of their pearly whites.  Unfortunately, this is a two way street: a bad review can cost you new patients and even if untrue, can potentially destroy your image in the eyes of the public.

Good service and clear communication are the key factors in preventing negative reviews.  When a potential patient is considering coming to you, they will likely want to hear about what experiences other people have had – which is where the internet comes in.  With just a few clicks, a person can go from “I wonder which dentist to choose” to “this place seems great!”  Reading other people’s reviews often generates an opinion, before ever stepping foot in your office.

Be proactive in gathering reviews

Keeping this in mind, you want people who stumble upon reviews of your office to be overwhelmed by an irresistible temptation to become your patient.  This can easily be done by getting past and existing patients to advertise for you, so to speak.  If they’ve had a positive experience at your office, what harm is there in asking for a 2-3 sentence review of your services?  After every appointment, make it a point to ask for the review – soon enough, you’ll start to see your patient base grow.

Obviously, if your patients write positive reviews, you need them to be featured in places where others will actually see – and read – them.  Reviews scattered on multiple review sites will cover a lot of ground, but for maximum effectiveness, it’s imperative to put special emphasis on Google, since that’s where a majority of the population will begin their search for a new dentist. Reviews directly on Google Places are highlighted, and attract a lot more attention than reviews on other sites.

With the number of consumers searching for local businesses online, there’s no better time than the present to start using this to your benefit by ensuring that your practice is ahead of the rest with high quality, plentiful reviews.

Remember, it’s the reviews that tell people about the quality of your service, so the better they are, the higher the likelihood people will choose you as their next dentist.

Contact us to learn about our Reviews Accelerator program.

If you discover a negative review, read our blog post about how dentists should handle negative online reviews.

Google+ now allows dental offices to set up pages to engage patients and prospective patients on a variety of levels.

Why you want a Google+ Page

You may be thinking, we already have Facebook and Twitter, why should we try to keep up with another social media profile. The reason is simple – it’s Google and Google is the 800 pound guerrilla on the internet and they are going to do everything in their power to make Google+ succeed.

For example, the +1 button is already showing up on Google search results. That visual makes the website listing that it’s associate with stand out among the others listed on the page – thus increasing the number of people that click to visit that website.

Additionally, Google has recently admitted that they are using “social signals” (information from social networks) as a factor in their ranking formula, and this is expected to become even more important going forward.

You can read our previous post regarding Google+ benefits for dentists for additional insight into the impact you can expect Google+ to have.

Setting up your page

1) Establish a free Gmail account

One of the current shortcomings of Google+ is that a Google+ page can have only one owner, so even if you already have a personal Gmail account, we recommend establishing one for the practice. That way you don’t have to share your personal Gmail login with staff members or other contributors.

Click here to setup your Gmail account. When setting up the account ideally you’ll use your practice name/Dr’s name, for example: GentleCareDental@gmail.com.

2) Create your page

Building the page is straightforward. Visit https://plus.google.com/pages/create. As a dental practice you’ll want to choose the local business option so your address and phone number are listed. Then simply fill in your office information.

3) Customize your page’s public profile

This step is where you personalize the profile for your practice by adding your tagline, uploading photos of your team and your office and embedding any videos you have on Youtube or other video sharing sites.

You’re now ready to begin promoting your page by making your first update.

If you need help or want to discuss how to integrate Google+ with your other online marketing give us a call at 800-506-9817 or send us an email.