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It’s Time to Elevate Dentistry!

Let’s face it; the majority of the population doesn’t value dentistry anywhere near as much as they should. And they don’t value it anywhere near as much as other things of considerably less value that they spend money on gladly.

Now couple that with the fact that there is no single place where people could find out anything they wanted to know about oral health, and then find a dentist and even book an appointment right there online.

Which is why Dentistry.com was created. Imagine a website with all the benefits of WebMD, ZocDoc and Yelp, rolled into one, and none of the negatives. That’s what Dentistry.com is–a website dedicated exclusively to our profession, the ultimate resource for the dental consumer.

Dentistry.com is the new, free online platform from Dentsply Sirona. The goal for the site is simple and powerful: to improve the state of the nation’s dental health by increasing the number of new patients who go to the dentist and accept treatment.

It’s time we elevate dentistry to its proper place in healthcare. And no one else is in a position to do it–not the societies, not the search engines, and not the review sites, because they don’t have the resources and they don’t have a comprehensive goal in mind.

Consumer Education Is Essential for Dentistry

We all know that dental health is integral to overall health, but the rest of the population doesn’t. We don’t go six months without finding some new disease that is linked to periodontal disease. And we’re the only ones who aren’t surprised.

Understanding the value of dentistry and then easily finding an appropriate dentist will do something very simple and profound: more people will go to the dentist, more often, and will accept more treatment.

Dentsply Sirona wants more people to understand the critical role good oral health plays in their overall wellbeing, which is why Dentistry.com was designed as the ultimate consumer site for all things dental. And they also understand that consumers want things fast and easy, and they want it on their smartphone. And they want it in one place. Which is why Dentistry.com features:

  • An active community of dentists sharing advice with patients
  • Authoritative information and articles from dental professionals
  • The most detailed directory of dental practices – anywhere
  • Advanced online dentist search and booking tools

Best of all, it costs nothing to join Dentistry.com. As a new member of this online community, you’ll receive a free profile that helps you to attract more new patients online, improve your website’s SEO, and receive online appointment requests.

Boost Your Website’s Search Results

I’ll explain how that all works. First of all, being part of Dentistry.com boosts the SEO for your own site because it is a directory, and Google likes to index that information and boost results accordingly. (Sounds technical, but trust me.) And Dentistry.com will also appeal to Google because of the rich, detailed content about dentistry, along with advice directly from top professionals. And this is the latest online tool, written in the most efficient language (Google likes that too!) and will eventually have the most information about dentists that can be found anywhere.

I said “eventually” because that last part requires your participation. It costs you nothing to be listed, and there is substantial benefit to do so. But this is how we make it the ultimate destination, by thousands of dentists participating.

It’s time to give the people what they want: an easy way to research dentistry and find a dentist, and then book an appointment. Hey, it’s 2018 already–let’s join the future. And the result will be more patients going more often, with a better understanding of the value of dentistry, which will lead to easier and greater case acceptance.

So claim your practice now. (Did I mention it’s free?) It will only take five minutes. Just click here: Claim My Practice.

Let’s band together and elevate dentistry. It’s time!

Want to learn more about Dentistry.com?

Dentistry.com is hosting a free webinar on November 16th where you can get an inside look into the consumer research that led to the creation of “the new patient destination for dentistry.” Register now.

 

 

Perfecting Your Dental Practice YouTube Channel

In my previous post, I explained how to make patient testimonial videos.  One of the most important Internet locations to post those videos is on your own practice’s YouTube channel.  Yep, just like ABC, CBS and Fox, you can have your very own channel for people to watch.

Why do it?  Because YouTube is the second most active site on the Internet, second only to Google itself, (which owns YouTube.)  And people love watching videos.  More than 50% of the time on smartphones is spent watching videos.

It’s so pervasive that there’s a battle going on between YouTube and Facebook for video dominance. The good thing about this competition is you can play on both sides and come out winning either way.  And beyond that, there is the Google Juice (SEO) that videos generate.

So how do you make your own channel, and how do you make it interesting?

First, you must have a Google+ account. I know, I’ve told you not to bother with regular posting on Google+ anymore, but that refers to social media activity. You still need to have a practice profile there, so that when people search for you on Google all your information comes up.  If you haven’t done that yet, go to Google Accounts and do that first, before I get angry.  (You don’t need a Google+/Google Place account to have a YouTube channel; you just need to have one if you’re a dental practice in the 21st century.)

I’m not going to give you a frame-by-frame explanation on how to do create your channel, because you need to learn to do this stuff by reading what’s on the site itself and finding what you need. But I’ll tell you what you should be doing, step by step.

1. Go to YouTube.  Sign in with your Gmail address.  If you haven’t created a YouTube account yet, you can do that as you sign in.  Make sure it is the same Gmail as for your Google+ account. If you have a Google+ page, YouTube is going to drag in the images from that. You’ll notice that it looks a lot like a Facebook page, only with a wider, narrower image.  So don’t be afraid to be consistent in your look and use the same panoramic photo, and put your practice logo in the thumbnail.  You can always adjust or replace them in your Google+ page and it will automatically adapt.

2. Name Your Channel. You can name your channel whatever you want, but generally it’s your practice name.

Add a description of your channel, which is simply a quick description of your practice and it’s location and contact information. Mine looks like this:

Fred YouTube Home Page
3. Upload Videos.  Anything you have already done:
  • Patient testimonials
  • Practice tour
  • Practice parties, holiday events, etc.
  • Dentist’s statement of purpose
  • Treatment explanations

Entitle and describe your videos individually. Your settings should include making the video public and allowing comments.

4. Tag your Videos.  This is perhaps the most important part of the video, maybe even more than the title. Click the on the pencil icon and you will get to “Information and Settings,” and then there is a box to add tags, where the red arrow is pointing.

Fred YouTube Channel tags

Click to enter the “tags” box and then just start typing relevant words. You can add as many tags as you want. You can’t do too many. They should include your practice name, your dentist’s name, and words like: dentistry; teeth; smiles; dental health; and anything that relates to the video, like braces or implants. Two or three words in a single tag is not a problem. These are critical because this is how Google finds your video if someone is searching a specific topic. (You don’t think Google is watching your videos and determining what’s in them, do you?  They won’t be able to do that until next year!)

5. Create a Playlist. On the left side of your Channel Page, click on “Library” and then on the button that says, “New Playlist.” What this allows you to do is suggest what video the viewer should watch next, in what sequence. Otherwise Google will do that for you, and that’s not necessarily what you want to happen, because it won’t be one of your videos.  Click on “Playlist Settings” and make the playlist “public,” and I also suggest in the “Ordering” that you show them by “most popular.”  Then click “add videos” and all the videos will appear.  Highlight them all and then add them into the playlist.  Eventually you will make multiple playlists, like when you have a lot of patient testimonials, but for now let’s just one done.

6.  Add Relevant Outside Videos to Your Playlist.  You can add other videos that you like to your playlist. They don’t have to be all yours.  Essentially, you are creating “programming” because you want them to stay on your channel, even if the video is made by someone else.  This is what the playlist allows you to do.  Make your playlist more interesting by suggesting other videos that relate to dentistry in some way.

7. Shoot more videos.  Add them to your playlist. You should be shooting more testimonials all the time.  But also, do videos explaining your technology and procedures or treatments if you think you might be any good at it.  That way you own them, and don’t have to borrow someone else’s.

Some other notes:

Facebook prefers it if you upload a video directly to them, not embed a YouTube video into your post.  So why make them unhappy?  Just upload it two times: once to Facebook, and once to YouTube.

You can embed your YouTube videos into your website, if you have a dynamic one.  If you don’t. Shame on you. Check out WebDirector.

Still can’t figure it out?  Then search YouTube for a video on “How to Set Up a YouTube Channel.”  There’s a YouTube how-to video for everything!

 

Becoming Remarkable is Now on Audible!

The moment many of you have been waiting for is here: my latest book, released lastBR-Amazon-image September, is now available on Audible!  We have found that Audible is the best medium for an audio book, and you can find it right here: http://amzn.to/1T0YCug.

The price is $19.95, and unfortunately because it is Amazon I can’t discount it for anyone. 🙁

It will NOT be released on CD, as it has become an archaic (and expensive) medium, and Audible accounts are free, and even have a subscription model.

Now that I’ve managed to get this done, I promise to start blogging regularly again!

SEO: Can You Ever Stay Ahead of It?

Every business dreams of coming up on the first page in an organic web search.  And every day I talk to dentists who want to improve the SEO of their website.  All while Google keeps changing how the results look and what satisfies their search algorithms.  They just did it again on August 6th in a fairly big way.

Let’s talk about that change first.  The big differences are:

1. The map results on computers now only show 3 practices. This now mirrors what happens on mobile phones.

2. The full address of the practice is gone.

3. Everything “above the fold”–what is immediately viewable on a computer screen–is now essentially paid for.

SEO search resultsThere are still listings of organic results on the first page, meaning if you scroll down you will see them, and not have to click to see the next page of results, but in this particular search Yelp had the first three “organic” positions.  This is because they know how to maximize SEO, and can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars making sure they are doing everything that Google wants. You can’t do that.

Also, notice that on the right the paid ads do get their address to show up.  And they can even offer specials or a have a specific message.  But clearly Google makes it easy to get to the paid advertisers’ websites.  And you can be sure that the bidding for those places is escalating all the time.

This is all happening because Google is in the ad sales business, and they want you to pay to appear.  The results are even more narrowed toward paying advertisers when you search on a mobile device (which is where more than 60% of searches begin, by the way.)

Face it, when you have 80% of dentists who now have a website, they’re not all going to show up on the first page organically. It’s not physically possible, and clearly getting more challenging all the time.

So what should your strategy be?

You still need to find as many ways to create good SEO as possible. But don’t fall for some company guaranteeing that they can get you on the first page. There are too many factors out of anyone’s control. Read my previous blog on this for more insight on that.  It’s more true now that ever.

Here’s what you need:

1. A dynamic website that allows you to change content easily yourself and have constant new content feeding to it automatically.  It should be simple, modern-looking, and easy to navigate.

2. Reviews are powerful content, and if you are surveying your patients using PatientActivator or some other application, then you can have those appear automatically.

3. Embed Yelp reviews in your site.  It will only show three, but it will keep people from leaving your website and going to Yelp to see reviews.

4. Add new patient testimonial videos every week.

5. Write a blog, and link it to your website. It should have your town included in most posts, as well as some key dental phrases. Your blog is for Google to read. Most humans won’t. So being local and with relevant words is what matters most.

6. Make sure all the directories across the web have the exact same information about your practice. ReputationMonitor, which is included with PatientActivator, makes it much easier to do this.

7. Have a form where patients can request an appointment.

8. Make sure your website is responsive, meaning it plays properly on every device–particularly mobile phones–and in every browser.  The first test is to look at your website on your own phone.  Easy to read? Pretty? Better be!

But overall, concentrate on giving a great patient experience, because your website is only one part of your promotion and practice awareness. Social media and review sites will play a larger and larger part of that with every passing month.  It all has to work together, with your website as the hub.  And what patients post out there matters more than ever.

We build websites with our WebDirector product, but there are other reputable companies out there as well.  You can tell who they are because they don’t promise magical results.  We will also help you integrate all the social media aspects that you need to make everything look consistent and connect to each other.

It’s a daunting, moving target, I know. But it’s the way of the world, and ignoring it or thinking it doesn’t relate to your neighborhood is going to prove to be failed strategy.  So stay on it!

 

 

 

Google+ Down, Mobile Up, Facebook Up and Down

Here are some up-to-the-minute changes in social media.

  1. Google+, as far as dental practices go, is over.  Let me be the first one to tell you that you can stop posting there. Google+ is morphing away from being a social media site, as it failed the “me too” challenge with Facebook. I know, in my book I told you to mirror everything you did on Facebook on Google+.  Stuff changes–don’t shoot the messenger!  However, you should still request reviews for your Google+ page, as they will still show up in a Google search, and are valuable for SEO and influencing searching consumers. [Thanks to Jason K. for pointing that out!]
  2. Your activity, likes, and recommendations on your Facebook page are no longer indexed by Google.  No one knows exactly when this happened, but it’s over. So you get no Google juice (my term for SEO) out of your activity. This doesn’t mean you stop using Facebook.  It’s still the best medium to show the experience of being a patient of yours.
  3. On April 21, Google is modifying its algorithms (how it ranks websites) with respect to mobile sites. If your mobile site is not responsive or reformatted to play well on mobile devices, it is going to hurt your ranking.  Not the first time I’ve told you how important the mobile version of your website is.
  4. 74% of consumers will abandon your mobile website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Not the second time I’ve told you how important the mobile version of your website is.  More than 60% of web searches begin on smartphones, by the way.
  5. Videos now start playing automatically on Facebook as people scroll down their wall. (Unless you turn the function off.) This is engaging FB users in a big way. How big? Well, media analyst Socialbakers’ recent study showed video has twice the organic reach on Facebook as photos. And Facebook also has twice the number of videos with 1 million views that YouTube has. That’s serious.
  6. Because of this, I maintain that patient testimonial videos are your best marketing tool. Also, make sure you post natively on Facebook, which means don’t link a YouTube video or other URL source, upload it using Instagram or straight to Facebook with your computer or device.  If you don’t know how to get them done, read this blog post.
  7. Physicists now believe that gravity can leak into parallel universes, creating tiny black holes, and that the Large Hadron Collider may be able to detect them.  This may not seem important now, but wait 50 years. You’ll be saying, “Yeah, I knew about that back in 2015!”

That’s it for now.  But expect more changes.  Social media is a rapidly moving target.  And of course, if your website isn’t playing right on mobile, check out WebDirector.

And Jack Hadley, from My Social Practice, had this important point to add:

Fred, your statement under #2 is only partially true, “So you get no Google juice (my term for SEO) out of your activity.”

Cyrus Shepard, a super-smart SEO guy at MOZ, wrote the following just a couple of days ago… “The basic argument goes like this: ‘Google says they don’t use Facebook likes or Tweet counts to rank websites. Therefore, social activity doesn’t matter to SEO.’ This statement is half right, but can you guess which half? It’s true that Google does not use metrics such as Facebook shares or Twitter Followers directly in search rankings. On the other hand, successful social activity can have significant secondary effects on your SEO efforts. Social activity helps address two of the major tasks facing SEO: 1) Search engine discovery and indexation 2) Content distribution, which leads to links and shares.”

I wholeheartedly agree when you say, “It (social) is still the best medium to show the experience of being a patient of yours.” Spot on! However, in addition, there ARE SEO benefits that result from social media activity. We see it with our clients all the time.

Oh, BTW, if anyone wants to read Cyrus Shepard’s post, here is the link: http://moz.com/blog/seo-myths.

Thanks, Jack!