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The internet has fundamentally changed how businesses operate, and dental practices are no exception. In 2022, 82% of people looked online for a local business, with 28% looking on social media. So having a strong digital marketing strategy is critical for any dentist looking to compete and grow their practice today.

Digital marketing encompasses all of the online efforts you use to attract new patients, engage with existing ones, and build your brand. While traditional marketing like print ads and billboards still has its place, going digital opens up new avenues for reaching local customers where they already spend time online.

For dentists specifically, digital marketing services can help with:

• Increasing your discoverability and visibility when prospective patients search for local dentists.
• Building trust and credibility through positive online reviews and social proof.
• Staying top-of-mind with existing patients through email and social media.
• Converting more phone and website inquiries into scheduled appointments.
• Reaching new demographics like busy parents and millennials who primarily consume information online.
• Keeping your practice competitive as more dentists shift marketing dollars to digital.

With the right strategy combining SEO, social media, paid ads, and more, digital marketing allows dentists to attract qualified leads, fill their appointment books, and grow their practices year after year. This guide will explore the key channels and best practices modern dentists need for effective digital marketing.

Website Optimization

A dental website needs to be optimized for the modern internet if it is going to attract new patients online. This means making sure your website is mobile-friendly, loads fast, and has a clean, updated design.

Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly

More than half of all web traffic now comes from mobile devices like smartphones. Having a mobile-friendly site is critical for reaching people searching for a dentist on their phone. Your site should resize and reformat for any mobile screen size. Content should be easy to read without zooming in. Check how your site looks on different devices. If it's not mobile-friendly, work with your developer to make optimizations.

Improve Your Site Speed

Site speed has become a factor in search engine rankings. Slow load times lead to high bounce rates and poor user experience. Test your site speed and aim for sub-3 second load times. Minify code, compress images, limit HTTP requests, upgrade your server, and leverage browser caching to improve speed. Every fraction of a second delay could be costing you visitors.

Freshen Up Your Design

While you don't need to completely re-do your site design, consider smaller updates every 2-3 years. Outdated designs look unprofessional and cause visitors to lose trust. Even minor color changes, new fonts, and some reorganized navigation or layouts can help freshen things up. Review top dental sites for inspiration. Good website design aligns with your brand image and makes your practice look current.

Local SEO

Optimizing your dental practice's website and online presence for local search is critical for attracting new patients in your geographic area. Here are some key local SEO tips for dentists:

• Optimize your Google My Business listing with complete information like address, phone number, photos, services, and messaging options. This helps you stand out in local search and Maps results.
• Build strong local citations across directories like Yelp, YellowPages, Mapquest, etc. Having consistent NAP (name, address, phone) information across directories helps boost local rankings.
• Include your city and state in page titles and content. Make sure your location is prominently displayed on every page of your site.
• Get customer reviews on Google and other sites. Positive local reviews build trust and authority for local search.
• Create location-specific landing pages or service pages targeting your city. Optimize these for local keywords including neighborhood names.
• List your dental practice on industry-specific directories like Dentistry or Healthgrades.
• Join your local chamber of commerce to build connections and get listed on their site.
• Sponsor local events or get involved with local organizations. This raises brand awareness and relationships within the community.
• Publish blog posts about treating patients in your city. Share local insights and highlight your connections to the area.
• Use local SEO plugins that allow geo-tagging content or optimizing the site for geographic keywords.

Focusing on local SEO provides a major opportunity for dentists to stand out in their market and attract new patients searching for their services. It allows you to connect with patients right in your backyard.

Content Marketing

Content marketing involves creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. It's about pulling people toward your brand instead of pushing your message out. For dentists, content marketing provides many benefits:

• Blogging - A regularly updated blog on your website allows you to demonstrate your expertise and establish authority in dentistry and dental health topics. Useful educational blogs build trust with potential patients and get your website found more easily in local search results. Focus your blog posts on common dental issues, new procedures or technologies, oral health tips, etc.
• Social media - Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube allow dentists to directly engage with their audience. Share blog posts, videos, before/after photos of procedures, interesting dental facts, and health advice. This shows patients your personality and builds relationships.
• Videos - Videos are engaging and help patients put a face to your practice. Post videos introducing your staff, providing office tours, and explaining dental procedures or oral hygiene techniques. Short videos work well on social media and help build your credibility.

An effective content marketing strategy helps dentists attract more patients by showcasing expertise. Blogging, social media, and videos establish your clinic as a trusted dental resource while growing your local visibility and reputation.

Paid Search/Google Ads

One of the top options for dentists to increase visibility is paid search ads, primarily Google Ads.

With Google Ads, you create targeted text ads at the top or side of search engine results pages (SERPs). When someone searches for terms related to your dental services, your ad can show up and drive traffic to your website.

To make the most of Google Ads, here are some steps we include in our PPC marketing strategies:

• Research keywords that potential patients search for related to dental services in your area. This can include terms like "family dentist [city]" or "[city] cosmetic dentistry." Use Google's Keyword Planner tool for ideas.
• Create tightly-themed ad groups around your most important services like checkups, implants, Invisalign, etc. This allows you to customize the messaging and keywords for each ad group.
• Write compelling ad headlines and descriptions that quickly summarize how you can help and why patients should click on your ad. Emphasize benefits like experience, personal care, gentle dentistry, etc.
• Target your ads by location so they only show for searches within your service area. Adjust your location radius as needed.
• Set a daily budget that works for your practice and experiment to determine the optimal bid amounts to get visibility without overspending. Monitor weekly/monthly to optimize.
• Use call tracking numbers on your ads to measure phone calls driven by clicks. This helps gauge real conversions.
• Include location extensions, call extensions, callout extensions, and other additional ad elements that make your ads more prominent.
• Review search query reports to find new relevant keywords to add and low-performing ones to eliminate or bid down on.

With continued optimization, Google Ads can deliver a steady stream of new patients and phone calls for dental practices of any size. The key is tailoring your account's targeting, ads, and budget to your unique offerings and location.

Social Media Marketing

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter provide a great way for dental practices to connect with current and potential patients. With so many people scrolling these sites daily, having an active social media presence can help raise awareness of your dental services and establish your practice as a trusted community resource.

When using social media for marketing, focus on providing valuable content that engages your audience rather than overly promotional messages. Share informative articles, fun patient photos and testimonials, behind-the-scenes practice updates, oral health tips, etc. Respond promptly and professionally to any comments and messages.

Run occasional contests or giveaways to incentivize patients to follow your pages. Facebook ads can also help expand your reach and get content in front of targeted demographics in your area.

Instagram is ideal for posting appealing visuals of your office, procedures, dental care products, and team members. Use relevant hashtags so people can find your posts. Twitter is great for bite-sized tips, news updates, and monitoring brand mentions.

Overall, social media marketing requires consistency and participation to see results. However, the platform's interactive nature makes it worthwhile for dentists to cultivate an engaged follower base and position their practice as a trusted pillar within the community.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a crucial digital marketing channel for dental practices to nurture relationships and promote services. Collecting patient emails and sending regular newsletters and promotions helps practices generate repeat visits and referrals.

• Collect emails at every touchpoint. Have patients provide their email at check-in, on intake forms, when booking appointments online, and through follow-ups. Offer a small incentive like a free eBook to encourage signups.
• Send a welcome email to new subscribers. Thank them for subscribing and sharing an exclusive offer or coupon to incentivize their first visit.
• Send monthly newsletters. Share practice news, staff highlights, seasonal promotions, patient education resources, and more through a monthly newsletter. Keep content fresh and valuable.
• Promote new services and procedures. If you start offering a new service like implants or Invisalign, let patients know through email. Share details, before and after photos, and promotional offers.
• Segment your list. Separate patients by demographics and service history to send targeted promotions based on their needs and interests.
• Automate post-visit emails. Follow up after cleanings and procedures with automated emails checking in on recovery, sharing care instructions, and asking for reviews.
• Watch metrics like open and click-through rates. These help gauge engagement so you can refine your approaches for maximum impact.

With a healthy email subscriber list, thoughtful segmentation, and strategic sending, email marketing provides dental practices with an effective channel for consistent patient communication and driving revenue.

Online Reputation Management

Managing your online reputation is essential for dentists to build trust and attract new patients. With online reviews and ratings becoming important in consumers' purchasing decisions, monitoring and managing online presence is now more critical than ever.

Monitoring Reviews

• Set up Google Alerts for your practice name and the names of your dentists, so you are notified of any new reviews. Check review sites like Google, Facebook, Yelp, and Healthgrades regularly.
• Respond professionally to both positive and negative reviews. Thank happy customers and offer apologies or solutions to unsatisfied ones. This shows patients you care.
• Consider enlisting an online reputation management service provider to monitor reviews on GMB 7 websites 24/7 and inform you of new posts. They can also publish positive reviews on your behalf.

Improving Ratings

• Make it easy for happy patients to leave reviews by sending post-appointment emails with links to review sites. Offer incentives for leaving reviews.
• Train staff to proactively seek reviews from satisfied patients before they leave the office. This avoids only getting reviews from patients with extreme experiences.
• Analyze reviews to identify areas for improvement at your practice. Then implement changes and inform patients. This demonstrates you are listening.
• Run social media giveaways and promotions, asking people to like, share, or review for a chance to win. This can increase positive ratings.
• As a last resort, report fake or defamatory negative reviews to the review site for removal. But focus more on earning genuinely positive reviews.

Actively managing your online reputation is now an essential dental marketing tactic. Monitoring and responding to reviews while encouraging more positive ratings will help attract more patients to your practice.

Analytics & Reporting

In the modern digital age, data and analytics should be the foundation of your marketing strategy as a dentist. With so many digital channels available, it's essential to track performance across platforms to determine ROI and optimize your efforts.

Google Analytics should be implemented on your website to monitor traffic, top landing pages, geography reports, referral sources, and other valuable data. Key metrics to analyze are overall site traffic, patients acquired, goal completions for lead generation forms, and engagement on site pages. Examine traffic sources to see which channels drive visits and prioritize higher converting sources.

Your website analytics can connect with paid search campaigns, social media ads, and other platforms to provide cross-channel reporting. Analyze cost-per-click, conversion rates, and return on ad spend. See which keywords and campaigns produce results to optimize paid search accounts. Compare different ad creatives, offers, and audience targeting options across networks.

Email marketing analytics will showcase open rates, clickthrough rates, and unsubscribe rates to fine-tune campaigns. Monitor social media analytics to identify the highest-reaching content. Review local SEO metrics like Google My Business engagements.

Consolidate cross-channel data into one reporting dashboard for a big-picture view. Track KPIs over time, test different initiatives, and replicate what delivers outcomes. Analytics empower dentists to master digital marketing through data-driven decisions.

Conclusion

Digital marketing offers dentists numerous opportunities to attract new patients, build their online presence, and grow their practices. By implementing tactics across multiple channels like search, social, email, and more, dentists can promote their services to local audiences actively looking for a dentist.