We’ve been hearing a lot from dental practices lately, so we’ve compiled a list of the 5 common dental marketing questions that dentists have about digital marketing.
- How many new patients will I get from dental marketing?
We can give you an estimate of the number of new patients, but not a guarantee. To provide the best estimate, we would need to know the following:
- The percentage of your current patient population who uses PPO insurance for their dental care
- Dental practices that are in network with several dental insurances often get more new patients than practices that are not in network with any insurance.
- The number of days during the week that your practice is open, and if you offer evening or weekend hours
- Dental practices that have greater HOO have a better outcome when it comes to increasing new patient volume.
- Your practice’s availability in seeing new patients, whether that is the same day or within a few days
- Dental practices with availability in their daily schedules are able to see new patients sooner and are more likely to have a higher number of new patients.
- Your practice’s ability to handle after-hours contacts
- Dental practices that have online scheduling, answering services, or someone available after hours who can schedule new patients will have a higher number of new patients per month.
- Your practice’s current new patient conversion rate
- Dental practices with a higher conversion rate are those that are better equipped to answer new patient questions and can respond quickly to new patient inquiries by phone or online.
- Your practice’s no-show rate
- Dental practices with a low no-show rate are those that have streamlined internal systems, reaching out to patients with reminders via text or email.
- Your dental practice’s website and if it presents your practice with an appealing aesthetic that speaks to the right types of patients
- Outdated websites or websites that rely heavily on stock images can reduce the number of new patients who contact an office.
- Your dental practice’s online visibility
- Your practice’s digital footprint and how often you appear prominently in the search results are a critical piece of marketing. Greater visibility leads to more opportunities for new patients to contact you.
- How do I get more Invisalign/cosmetic/implant patients?
If you’re looking to bring in patients who are looking to spend more on higher-expense treatment services, like Invisalign and implants, then it’s important that your messaging on your website, ads, and social media ”speak to” these specific patients.
If you are currently speaking to ALL future patients, including those looking for emergency care, then you are not speaking directly to the specific patients that you’re looking to attract.
What you want to do is update the content on your website, optimize your website for SEO, engage on social media, and potentially invest in online advertising. Implementing these specific dental marketing strategies will help your ideal future patients discover your practice, engage with your content, and convert themselves from interested browsers into scheduled patients.
- Why is my website not showing up when I search for dentists in my area?
The primary reason this is likely happening is because of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
SEO is what allows your dental practice to show up in search results. If your website is not optimized for SEO, this is most likely why you are not seeing your dental practice’s website show up in search results. In addition to SEO, there is also local SEO to take into consideration, which allows future patients in your area to find out about your dental practice. To take advantage of local SEO, you can start by updating your Google Business Profile, leveraging patient reviews, and getting featured in local directories.
Another thing to consider this year is that Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is becoming an emerging aspect of SEO. This means that it will be important to consistently update the content on your website to ensure that it is understandable, citable, and authoritative, so that AI sees it as trustworthy and worth mentioning in AI-generated search summaries.
- What is SEO, and what’s included in it?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is what allows your dental practice to show up in search results. SEO is a tool that helps your practice get found online by future patients looking for a dentist. It is a process to show up in their search results when they’re putting in a search inquiry like “dentist near me” or “dental implants”. SEO incorporates many different components, including on-page, off-page, and technical SEO.
When implemented correctly, SEO can help rank your practice higher in search results, bring more traffic to your website, and increase form submissions and intake calls. You can learn more about our SEO services here.
- How do I rank higher on Google in my area?
If you want your dental practice to rank higher in search results in your area, it’s important to leverage local SEO to allow future patients in your area to find out about your dental practice.
Optimizing your practice for local search results lets future patients looking for a dentist or dental services find you faster. Ways that you can do this directly on your website include creating dedicated service pages, adding your location to your website copy, embedding a Google Map to show your location, and having different pages for different practice locations. If you’d like support in implementing a local SEO strategy, see our SEO services here.
We hope that putting together the answers to these 5 common dental marketing questions helped to make digital marketing more understandable. Having the information you need at hand can help you make more informed decisions for your dental practice. Plus, we’re always here to help when you need some extra expertise. Schedule a free consultation today!