Who Really Visits Dentist Websites?

360 Blogger
, 6:00 am
, Blog

With a simple internet search, anyone can find the answer to where’s the best coffee place in town or other fun things to do in your area. Searches also deliver new patient opportunities via a quality website, but did you know that most users only look at the first search results page? So how do people find your dental website?

There are several ways that people may discover your website once it’s online. Let’s take a look at some of the most common ways new patients will find you.

Search engines such as Google and others
Existing patient referrals and recommendations
Ads residing on other websites that when clicked, take visitors to your website
Offline direct marketing and advertising

Via Plain Old Search

Want people to find you on the internet? Of course, you do. But remember, the most important thing about getting good rankings on the major search engines (which helps your site get found and in turn helps you sell your services) is that “content is king!” We cannot emphasize this enough. Some dentists are under the mistaken impression that the website’s attractiveness is of the utmost importance. Not true at all.

Yes, your website needs to be visually appealing, no doubt about that. But the bottom line is “what does your website say?” Does it have enough content? To much content? Is the content related to your website topic or did you just throw some unrelated additional pages in to get more pages? Is the content written in such a way that it will help rather than hurt your site and its rankings?

Via Patient, Friend, Family Referral

Even if you do not ask for it, your existing patients may very well refer their friends and family to your dental office. If one of their friends asks them where they got their teeth cleaned last, they are going to say your dental office (unless they make a habit out of telling tales). When you let patient referrals take their natural course, they tend to come in slowly. However, if you add an incentive, your patient will find a reason to talk you up, even when teeth aren’t the topic of conversation.

And what typically happens is that instead of reaching for the yellow pages or phone book, they will search for you online. Most likely these prospective new patients will search for you by name, practice name maybe even address. This is why it’s very important that your name be prominently displayed on your website and that you’ve done a good job with SEO for those certain keywords.

If you want patient referrals to work for you, you have to talk them up to your patients every time they are in the office. Remind them of the awesome incentives that you offer to keep the opportunity at the top of their mind.

Via Links on Other Websites and Social Sites

The world of social media dominates the internet as well as society these day. In fact, on average, 1.4 million people log-on to the social sites daily. Despite the original intent of these sites, people use them as their source for daily news, business recommendations, and referrals regularly.

If you are a dental office that wants to acquire new patients, you need to have social media sites. As a local business, people expect you to have a presence online and want the opportunity to get to know you and what your dental office is all about. However, what’s even better than just having a social media presence is leveraging your social media presence to bring in new customers. Right now, both Facebook and Instagram offer the options for businesses to run paid marketing campaigns to targeted audiences. This means you can choose the demographic you desire, the area you want to market to, and when you want to market. Then, Facebook and Instagram blast out the messages and your phones start ringing.

Via Traditional Direct Marketing & Advertising

There is still a place for print advertising in the modern marketing world. And, as a dental office, you can really take advantage of print advertising to move your practice to the next level, sending fresh traffic and potential patients to your website.

Print advertising, although viewed by some as archaic, is actually still quite effective. People remember what they see and read. Furthermore, physical objects create more permanence in the mind than those on screen.

If you want to take advantage of print advertising for your dental office, there are a few 21st-century options that we have found to be ultra-effective.