Nowadays, online presence might be the determining factor in the success of any business, and dental offices are no exception.
If you want your practice to really take off, you’ll need to work on your online marketing strategies. Fortunately, it’s not as complicated as it might sound. These dental marketing ideas might be a good place for you to start growing your business.
From a quick review of SEO for dentists to social media, we will explore the basics of online dental marketing. These suggestions will most certainly help your dental office attract more patients and therefore gain more profit. They can be applied to other types of business as well, but this text will be primarily focusing on dentistry.
Table of Contents
Digital Marketing for Dentists 101
First and foremost, you should know who your clients are. It would be good to invest in some tools to help you keep track of your metrics. That way, you can learn the typical habits of your visitors and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly. For instance, you’ll know what kind of content they enjoy and engage with the most.
And in order to reach a larger audience, you should branch out as much as possible, catering to both younger and older users. So, for example, to reach a younger audience, you might want to consider social media marketing.
However, reach is not the only important aspect. In order to achieve your marketing goal, which is to convert more interest into actual customers, you need to do a lot more. Here are some ideas:
Upgrading Your Website
First of all, if your website is outdated, you should definitely give it an upgrade. Think of it as your online reception desk – it’s the first thing that customers come across. Therefore, to leave them with a good impression, you should make your website look professional and work seamlessly.
Furthermore, you should learn the basics of SEO to ensure that your website ranks as high as possible on the results page of search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.). After all, about 90% of Google searches end on page one.
On-page SEO represents the user experience – the speed and functionality of your website, but also the content. Obviously, aside from being secure, fast, and available on multiple platforms, your website should look fresh and feel intuitive. Don’t scrimp on web design, as that can only harm you. As far as design is concerned, we suggest going with something simple and elegant, rather than flashy and over-the-top.
Aside from upgrading your website’s appearance, you should ensure that it features high-quality, relevant content. Make sure to also use relevant keywords. For example, a good keyword would be dentist[enter office location name].
In addition, think about what your visitors might be looking for (pricing, location, working hours, etc.). Your job is to enable them to find that information with just a few clicks. Also, create adequate meta descriptions, title tags, and add working links to other useful pages (on your own website or others).
Off-page SEO is everything that happens outside your website. That includes backlinks, citations, and mentions on other relevant websites. You can improve it by partnering with other similar businesses for mutual promotion. Check out this link to learn more about SEO.
Starting a Blog
It’s important to think of all of your potential users, not just existing clients or those looking to schedule an appointment right away. For example, some people might have a query or problem, but it’s not urgent enough to actually contact your office. Therefore, such visitors can benefit greatly from educational blog posts.
Content marketing is a great way to reach more people, provided that you use relevant keywords. However, it’s also a good opportunity to show potential clients that you care about them, as well as a valid excuse to show off your expertise.
A well-written blog post can certainly instill confidence and maybe even encourage users to make an appointment. Just make sure to include a call-to-action at the end.
Social Media and Email Advertising
Email marketing is yet another useful strategy that many businesses use. Start by asking your future patients for their email when they show interest in your dental services. That way, you can send them regular reminders for appointments, which they will certainly appreciate.
What’s more, you can also ask visitors to sign up for your newsletter. You can convince them to do so by offering something unique and actually beneficial for them. For instance, promise they’ll receive the latest news and blog posts containing helpful dental tips and tricks. In addition, you can send an exclusive email to inform them that you offer incentives for referrals.
Nonetheless, as we all know – if it’s not on social media, it’s like it never even happened. Everyone’s on it nowadays, not just younger audiences.
Thus, your dental office should be on it, too. Think about creating an account on all of the popular sites, such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and others. But that’s not all. For this move to make any sense, you’ll need to engage with other users and pages, and post on a regular basis. As far as the content is concerned, you can post anything from discounts, events, and testimonials to blog posts and live dentist Q&As.
Final Thoughts
Of course, doing just one of these actions probably won’t do much for your business. One doesn’t work without the other. You can’t expect people to engage if there’s nothing to engage with. Also, what good is quality content on your website if it looks suspicious? Therefore, paying attention to every aspect of your online presence is a must if you want to successfully advertise your dental practice.
Luckily, even if all of this is unfamiliar to you, you can hire a marketing specialist to help you boost the visibility of your dental practice, while you focus solely on dentistry. Believe us, the investment will certainly pay off in the end.