Successful dental practices sign at least 20 new patients every single month. With so many options out there, how do you encourage prospective patients to choose your practice over your competition? Go to where they conduct their searches.
Since 97% of consumers use online search engines to look for a local business, your dental practice needs to appear in those search results. Learn how to improve your digital dental marketing strategy below to get more patients and keep your current patients coming back.
Take your dental marketing strategy to a new level with these 8 genius suggestions.
1. Build a Better Dental Website
Think about the last time you searched for a new doctor. Did you drive around town to physically check out all the clinics in your local area? Or did you conduct a search online and check out their website?
Chances are you did the latter. Potential patients most often form their first opinion of your practice when checking out your website. The look and quality of information on your website reflect how people will view your practice.
Since 75% of people judge a business’s credibility based on the website’s design, you need to take the time to build a great one.
The best dental websites offer features like online scheduling, bill pay, and prescription renewal.
This shows you care about your patients and want to make these important interactions as easy as possible. They also come with direct messaging options so your patients can quickly ask questions without needing to make an appointment.
Great dental websites should also load quickly to prevent users from bouncing. This applies to both the desktop and mobile versions of your website. As more people use their smartphones to look up services, you need to make sure you optimize your website for these mobile searches.
2. Start a Dental-Focused Blog
If you have not done so already, you need to start a blog focusing on all things dental. A dedicated business blog with relevant articles covering topics related to dentistry draws in more potential patients. When they search for an answer to a very specific dental question, blogs and articles containing keywords from the search pop up.
Be sure you are one of these websites that appear high up in search results by covering as many helpful subjects as possible in your blog. Consider writing a post that corrects a wrong assumption about dentistry. Or break down a recent trend in your industry, like using activated charcoal for whitening teeth.
3. Remember SEO
You must include search engine optimization, or SEO, techniques on both your website and in every single blog post. SEO means creating content that search engines easily understand to help your pages rank higher on the search engine results page.
Help search engine algorithms help you by including the following:
- Security certificates proving your pages are safe
- High-quality, relevant content on every page
- Alt tags for any uploaded images
- A solid social media presence.
- The correct schema markup for the dental industry
- Backlinks from reliable websites
- A mobile-friendly version of your page
Good SEO requires careful research and planning to get the best results. Interested in learning about great SEO for dentists? Read more here.
4. Create Images Patients Want to Share
When patients share images that relate back to your business on social media, it acts as free advertising. A viral image reveals your authority within the industry and creates many links back to your website. It also gets your brand name in front of people interested in your services.
People share images they believe will be entertaining or bring value to their social circle. They also share images to declare their individuality and define themselves to other people. Tap into these reasons for sharing to ensure your images reach as far as possible.
5. Include Video Marketing
The highest-ranking dental websites with successful conversion rates all use one very important type of media marketing, video. Modern consumers prefer to watch a video than read an article or webpage when learning new information. The same applies to learning about a new business.
Dental practices benefit from videos since almost every action take comes with a visual component, like using CAD-CAM machines to make crowns. Consider including a few of the following video types on your dental website:
- Educational videos covering frequently asked questions or basic dental hygiene
- Overviews of the various treatments and procedures offered
- Reviews from happy patients
- Introduction videos for each dentist to include in their profile
- A welcome video to introduce your dental practice to new, potential patients
Each of these videos offers a different benefit. So think about what action you want users to take when they watch the video to decide what will work best in what location.
6. Highlight Patient Reviews
People love looking at online reviews before making a purchasing decision. In fact, 84% of people in the United States trust an online review as much as they do a personal recommendation from a friend. They do the same thing when searching for a new service provider like a dentist.
No dental advertisement strategy would be complete without patient reviews. Feel free to ask your patients directly or offer an incentive for them to leave a review. You can ask in person or provide a link on your website to the main review websites: Facebook, Yelp, Google, and the dental directories listed below.
7. Join Dental Directories Online
Join a directory for an easy dental advertisement by getting high-authority backlinks to your website. Go beyond the typical Google My Business page and Yelp directories for more hits.
Claim your business on other dental directories on the ADA website, Smile Guide, The Dentist Hub, Dentists.com, ZocDoc, and more.
8. Invest in Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Your dental Internet marketing strategy should always include extensive keyword research. You want to include these keywords on your website for better SEO and a free pass to higher search engine results rankings.
You should also use these keywords when conducting paid advertising.
Pay-per-click advertising works well to attract customers because your dental promotions appear when someone searches for a specific keyword you know brings you business. You simply choose the keywords that trigger your ad to display and, when someone clicks on it, you pay a set amount of money.
Keywords with more competition cost less than those with narrower results.
Get More Great Advice for Superior Dental Marketing Strategy
Marketing experts incorporate all these creative strategies into their own digital advertising campaigns. As a dental practice, you must include the above suggestions in your online dental marketing strategy to succeed. But what else can you do to improve your business’s client base?
Check out these other awesome articles like tips on blog design to drive traffic and how to make a sitemap for better SEO. No matter your question, BloggingTips can help you find a workable solution fast.