The tide is turning.

A recent poll found that 53 per cent of Britons feel upset when denied access to the internet and that 40 per cent experience loneliness when not able to go online. The internet is a drug, forever making our attention spans shorter. We always want another ‘quick fix’ and to feed ‘the habit’ with more fast information.

Lecture by Matt Brittin, MD of Google UK & Ireland, on making the web "fast and happy".

I recently attended a talk by Matt Brittin, MD of Google UK & Ireland, who spoke about how their greatest priority was to increase the speed of accessibility to information using photo and image recognition for search, speech and audio for search, page download speeds, smart results, auto-translations, intelligent suggestions, etc.

Everyday people now have internet access via smartphones and all sorts of connected personal devices, as well as desktop computers. Google wants the web to be fast and happy.

When a group of people were recently tested by giving up all technology for one full day, some described it as hard as quitting smoking or drinking. One survey participant described it like “having my hand chopped off”.

So how can your dental web design and marketing help to ‘feed this habit’. The answer is by you having an online presence that is offering fast and easily accessible, up-to-date information. Indeed, recent research showed that a business that is present online, is currently growing (on average) at six times the speed of a business that is offline.

Online and mobile is the way forward, witness the fact that younger people found it harder to give up technology, while often the over-40s coped better. The new computer generation is fast becoming ‘all’ people and everyone will soon have been brought up with a computer. So try to make sure your patients, won’t be lonely. When they are not visiting your mobile friendly website, keep them company with E-newsletters, Facebook and Mobile Apps.

Please don’t be like King Canute – who sat on the beach, commanding the tide to not come in. He got his feet wet, of course.  We can’t prevent progress or afford to ignore it.

Adrian Adler is ”the Wizard” at Dental Focus Web Design.

Remember to subscribe to our E-Newsletter so you can get our latest dental marketing ideas and tips immediately – the Internet Marketing Secrets of “WOW websites that find you and convert you!”

If you would like some free advice, Email Us or call 020 7183 8388.

The best dental website design is always personalised to the dentist concerned. Otherwise it ends up being a ‘me too’ website. You need to show the dental practice, your team, your Unique Selling Points (USPs) and engage with your target patients.

But first you do need to know who you are, how you are perceived and who your patients are. You may think you know this, but often you surprisingly won’t. Please check by conducting regular dental practice surveys, do research and speak to your patients. We recommend using www.surveymonkey.com, which has a free basic service for running dental marketing surveys which you can email to patients or have a link to via your dental practice website.

This will then allow your website to engage in the right way with potential patients on a deeper, more emotional and relevant level.

In dental marketing, relevance is crucial. If your website is not relevant to your target patient audience, they will quickly leave your dental website. You need to make your website relevant by:

1) Attractive Design

The right design and branding will have the correct appeal.

2) Credibility

Photos of your professional and capable team are expected. Photos of your smiling patients will prove to patients that you are the expert. Video testimonials will put word of mouth on your website. Hot buttons on your home page can show off special offers and key treatments, this will establish what you’re about within seconds of glancing at your home page.

3) Affordability

Special offers and a transparent fee structure will further reassure website visitors. Patients are looking for evidence of fixed pricing.

4) Contactability

Show your telephone number clearly at the top of every page, feature your address, have an email form and an online appointments facility on your dental practice website. A lot of your visitors will be your own patients simply trying to access your website for basic contact details so make the experience easy for them. These days, patients will be using an iPhone, Blackberry or other smart phone while on the move so make sure your website is compatible.

5) Regular Updates

Make your website have a genuine “Point of Difference” by personalising and individualising it. Personalising your website will minimize the chances of visitors ‘skimming’ it and quickly leaving. Instead, make your website the ‘destination’ dentist website where patients want to keep coming back. Having a blog and updating your website on a weekly, if not daily, basis with your latest special offers, patient smiles and video testimonials will increase your returning visitors and word-of-mouth!

Your website is simply a reflection of your dental marketing strategy. Be different; stand out by standing for something.

Dental Focus Web Design provides empowerment training for blogs so that you know exactly what weekly and daily updates to make. We are experts in Google domination for multiple TOP Page 1 rankings. Get the right team behind you, get empowered by the Masters!

Adrian Adler is ”the Wizard” at Dental Focus Web Design.

Remember to subscribe to our blog by e-mail so you can get our latest dental marketing ideas and tips immediately – the Internet Marketing Secrets of “WOW websites that find you and convert you!”

If you would like some free advice, Email Us or call 020 7183 8388.

Is the Internet making us all dumber?

Supposedly the Internet has changed the way our brains work, reducing our ability to think critically and to concentrate for sustained periods of time. Increasingly now, the theory is (because of the Internet) we tend to quickly ‘skim’ information and we have become more superficial, less able to concentrate on detail. The argument is that if you neglect the more ‘focused’ ways of thinking, these pathways will gradually disappear.

But as human beings, we naturally crave new information. We always want to know more, even if that means setting aside something quite important, to find it out. Social networking sites, ever-changing websites, e-mails, tweets and blogs all feed this ‘habit’. A pleasure producing chemical called ‘Dopamine’ is released when we find new pieces of information. Therefore we basically crave online interruptions.

Naturally, to be able to ‘harness’ this growing need is important for your dental websites and dental marketing effort. So offer your patients information to process that is new and interesting. Have an updated and relevant dental website, showing fresh weekly information, special offers, video testimonials, news, blogs etc.

Make people feel that if they don’t visit your site, they may be missing out. They are spending, on average, 45% of their time, looking at various types of media. Much of that time is spent looking at trivia. So make the information on your dental website of real relevance and interest. Then watch the results!

Dental Focus Web Design provides empowerment training for blogs so that you know exactly what weekly updates to make. You need to increase your credibility week on week. You need to know exactly what attracts weekly patient enquiries. Be empowered by the Masters!

Adrian Adler is ”the Wizard” at Dental Focus Web Design.

Remember to subscribe to our blog by e-mail so you can get our latest dental marketing ideas and tips immediately – the Internet Marketing Secrets of “WOW websites that find you and convert you!”

If you would like some free advice, Email Us or call 020 7183 8388.

Everyday, thousands of co.uk domain names are registered on a first-come-first-served basis. Your domain name (e.g. harleystreetsmileclinic.co.uk) will be used for your dental website address (e.g. www.harleystreetsmileclinic.co.uk) and email address (e.g. email @harleystreetsmileclinic.co.uk)

The sooner you secure your domain name, the better. If you don’t act quickly, firstly, you will miss an opportunity to get the exact web address you want. Chances are that your domain name is already taken and you will now need to consider alternatives. Secondly, domain name age is one of the 200 over ranking factors in Google’s algorithm, albeit a relatively light weighted factor. More importantly, the sooner you launch and establish a relevant dental website, the older your credibility and relationship with Google, which helps your rankings.

Your website address is your online location, like the postal address of your dental practice. Choosing the right domain name is important to your online dental marketing. When finding a domain name you should consider using words that you wish to be associated with; your practice name is an obvious choice. If Google rankings for your location are your priority, then you should select a domain name with the location keywords.

Keep your domain name short so that your website and email address is short to make it easy to say, spell and remember. You also want to fit your web address into tight advertising spaces (e.g. signage or newspaper advert) and make it both visible and readable from a distance.

A co.uk domain name tells everyone that your dental practice website is UK based. Indeed, in research, 72% of respondents in this country said they would prefer to visit a .uk web site above any other.

Google.co.uk results are different to Google.com (worldwide), Google.ie (Ireland) or any other country. Google deems UK websites to be more relevant for its Google.co.uk search results and thus ranks UK dental web sites higher. Over 80% of all UK searches take place on Google.co.uk so it is very important to indicate to Google that you’re a UK dental website. In fact, if your priority is to rank at the top of Google.co.uk, and you don’t already have an established dental practice website, then you should use a co.uk web address in order to gain quicker rankings.

Remember not to use the “specialist” keyword unless you are sure the General Dental Council (GDC) will approve. Also be careful not to knowingly infringe an existing trademark name when registering your domain name because the law can easily view your act in bad faith and you will lose that web address to the trademark owner just as easily as you secured it. It’s important not to waste your time and money, especially valuable Google rankings, on a domain name you will later lose.

There’s no point in dentists buying hundreds of domain names and spending a fortune on renewing them. You only need one web address per dental website. We usually recommend co.uk as the main one to promote but we also secure .com to simply protect your intellectual property.

At Dental Focus Web Design, we help dentists choose and secure their dental website addresses everyday. It’s the first decision that you need to get right to ensure your online dental marketing is a success.

Adrian Adler is ”the Wizard” at Dental Focus Web Design.

Remember to subscribe to our blog by e-mail so you can get our latest dental marketing ideas and tips immediately – the Internet Marketing Secrets of “WOW websites that find you and convert you!”

If you would like some free advice, Email Us or call 020 7183 8388.

Photo by andrewarchy. CC BY 2.0.

The word “aesthetics” is derived from the Greek word “aisthanesthai” which means perception. Much debate and discussion has occurred over the centuries about the central questions of aesthetics.

Aesthetics is based on ‘perception’, which is the process of attaining awareness of sensory information. The oldest quantitative law in psychology quantifies the relationship between the intensity of physical stimuli and their perceptual effect. This is very relevant to new technology, the internet and websites. For example; how effective and what messages does your dental website (a piece of visual stimulus) give? The process of perception alters what people see. When people view something with a preconceived idea about it, they tend to see their preconceived idea, whether they are there to see or not. This problem stems from the fact that humans are unable to understand new information without the inherent bias of their previous knowledge. The human mind will usually try to reach for something that it already recognizes, when confronted with something new and not easily comprehended.

This is where bespoke dental website design can be so effective, by providing visual, powerful stimuli that will reassure and help the site visitor. Dental website templates will not help you break through barriers and stand out. Without new, understandable information, a patient will just see their old, ideas of what a ‘dentist’ is, with all their existing preconceptions (possibly misconceptions).

How is your dental website template perceived by the viewing audience (that is assuming you have one)?

Aesthetics are very relevant to dentistry. The World Aesthetic Congress (WAC) is coming up in June and is held every year for ‘aesthetic dentistry’, which improves the appearance of patients (through dental and other cosmetic treatments, etc). Your website may need the equivalent of a ‘smile makeover’, in order to send out the right message to achieve your dental marketing aims.

Adrian Adler is “the Wizard” at Dental Focus Web Design.

Remember to subscribe to our blog by e-mail so you can get our latest dental practice marketing plan immediately – the Internet Marketing Secrets of “WOW websites that find you and convert you!”

If you would like some free advice on how to replace your old dentist website template so you can enter the dental website awards, Email Us or call 020 7183 8388.

Photo by Victor Bezrukov. CC BY 2.0.

Dentists need to move away from ‘procedure-oriented’ dental marketing, and find new, unique ways to win patients.

Yes the dentist may offer Restorative Work, Implants, Cosmetics, Dentures, Whitening, etc. and good work too, but dentists mustn’t become too obsessed with these procedures. The “marketing” and “emotional connection” stuff matters too, in fact “emotional branding” is the new buzz word in marketing.

First a dentist needs to develop empathy with patients. A complete understanding of the psychological state of mind of patients (who will sense this). Most dentists of course, strongly believe that the services they provide will help people solve dental problems or enhance the quality of patients’ look, teeth, confidence, etc. and they are right. But almost everyone outside of the dental profession pays little attention to dental health issues until they are forced to do so.

In dental marketing, you should always find ways to win the confidence of patients before they accept treatments. A website communicates a mood, an ambiance. It has ethereal values and can form an empathetic connection with patients. With design, colours, information, it can have a ‘tone of voice’. It beats walking up to someone and bragging about how good you are.

So do not sell procedures. Instead, present patients with a ‘feel good’ website. That way, you let the patient choose and accept the service and the solution.

Adrian Adler is “the Wizard” at Dental Focus Web Design.

Remember to subscribe to our blog by e-mail so you can get all our dental marketing ideas immediately – the Internet Marketing Secrets of “WOW websites that find you and convert you!”

If you would like some free advice, Email Us or call 020 7183 8388.

Photo by BruceTurner. CC BY 2.0.

A dental website is a functional, ‘living and breathing’ marketing tool. The world and the web is always changing, advancing and moving forward.

Dental websites can help potential patients develop ‘trust’ and ‘confidence’, without even meeting the dentist. The dental clinic is marketing 24/7 through a website. If a practice environment and its technology look outdated, patients will lose confidence in their dentists and start to ‘shop around’. Similarly, if a dental practice website looks outdated, visitors will lose trust and move on.

Visitors will not enjoy a web site that is out of date – their attention and interest is key in converting them into patient leads. Returning website visitors will be impressed when they notice new content and activity. A website needs to be a true and current reflection of a dental practice. It should emphasize all the dentist’s strengths in a positive and enticing way. That is why we encourage our clients to play a very active role in maintaining and growing their website content i.e. fees, special offers, team updates, treatments and testimonials.

Changes to your website are also necessary for improving Google search engine rankings. Google ranks websites based on relevancy for today. What’s deemed relevant for today may not be the same next week or next month. Thus, you need to signal to Google that your website is up-to-date by regular changes to your website.

Growing your  website pages using a blog publishing platform puts you in control!

Adrian Adler is “the Wizard” at Dental Focus Web Design.

We’d love to hear from you and have a discussion – please leave a comment and rate us!

And remember to subscribe to our blog by e-mail so you can get all our dental marketing ideas immediately – the Internet Marketing Secrets of “WOW websites that find you and convert you!”

If you would like some free advice, Email Us or call 020 7183 8388.