Orthodontic Marketing

Whether you are an orthodontist wanting more patients or a general dentist who wants to focus more on orthodontics, it requires a different approach than marketing for general dentistry.

First of all, the language is a bit different because in most cases it is the parent of the patient, not the patient themselves who is doing the research. Secondly, because orthodontics is so specialized, there isn’t generally a lot of carryover from your general dentistry marketing efforts. In other words, while an ad or blog post about dental implants can also mention sedation dentistry – therefore targeting two separate keyword phrases, it is much more difficult to do this with orthodontics.

Also, the keyword phrases that are used by consumers searching for orthodontics are much narrower than someone searching for more general dental procedures.

Laying the Groundwork for an Effective Orthodontic Marketing Campaign

As with any online marketing effort, the first task is to perform keyword analysis to determine the number of searches being conducted for each keyword along with the number and strength of competitors in your market area.

For example, in one city “orthodontics” may get many more searches each month than “orthodontist”, in another city it may be the opposite. Also, in certain areas where more advertising has been done by manufacturers, specific brand names may be included in searches (Invisalgn, 6 Month Smiles, Damon Braces, etc.).

Additionally, competitive analysis is critical because, your area may have an unusually high number of general dentists who utilize a specific brand or type of orthodontic treatments. Let’s look at an example: You’re a dentist in Omaha and you have gone through the 6 Month Smiles training and have implemented that system in your practice – AND you’re the only dentist in Omaha who is using the system – it would not take too much effort to get your website to show up high in the search engines when someone did a Google search for “6 Month Smiles Omaha”.

Now, let’s assume there are 20 dentists in Omaha who utilize the 6 Month Smiles system – it will take more work to rank well for the keyword phrase “6 Month Smiles Omaha”. Keep in mind there are only 10 spots on the first page of Google (in the natural/organic/”free”) section and another 7 in the Google Maps listings on the first page. Therefore, it will take a lot more focus and effort to get your website to show up on the first page for that keyword.

This is why it is so important to have a thorough understanding of the competitiveness of the keywords you want to target.

Implementing Your Orthodontic Marketing Strategies

Once you’ve identified the keywords you want to go after and have an understanding of the competitiveness of those keywords, you’re ready to begin implementing your orthodontic marketing campaign.

There are several strategies you could implement – see a list of online dental marketing strategies here. But let’s look at two in particular:

  1. Optimizing your existing website for orthodontics. This would include things like:
    1. Proper page titles
    2. Including the right keywords in your page descriptions
    3. Using the keywords in the right proportion throughout the content of your website
    4. Properly tagging photos and images with your ortho targeted keywords
    5. Creating an inbound linking strategy that is focused on orthodontic phrases
    6. Etc.
  2. Creating a separate website (called a microsite) that is solely focused on orthodontics. This is an excellent way to either double your exposure (both your main website and your microsite ranking in the search engines) or quickly and efficiently getting ranked for your targeted phrases.

If you would like to discuss orthodontic marketing strategies and determine the best way to leverage the internet to get more ortho patients, give us a call at 800-506-9817.