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.

You have already used word-of-mouth to grow your dental practice this far. Now 50% or more of your patients use Facebook everyday, many times a day. Word-of-mouth now happens on a ratio of 1:100, not 1:1. You need all your patients to LIKE and join your Facebook Page so they can talk about you and share your special offers to friends.

If you also want to advertise on the most popular website on the planet (target by gender, age, relationship status, interests and location) then you must make your Facebook adverts link to your Facebook Page (not your website) in order to fully maximise your data capture and thus ROI. The secret is to keep Facebook users on Facebook so you keep them in their comfort zone.

Before setting up a free Facebook Page for your business, you will first need to register/login to a free Personal account. If you want to do-it-yourself, click below:

1. Register/Login on Facebook
2. Create your Facebook Page

Over 90% of UK Internet searches are on Google.

You need to be found for all your dental keywords + main location. If you want to grow and expand your catchment then target all your surrounding towns and cities. Google Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is now so complicated, you need Google Experts, not just SEO Experts, to achieve predictable rankings. There’s no point talking about other search engines (Yahoo, Bing, etc) because there is only Google Page 1, that’s what over 90% of people use and then the other search engines try to emulate Google.

Your Google Expert will estimate search traffic volumes to suggest the most popular keywords and ensure you maximise Return on Investment (ROI) in priority order.

Try the Google Keyword Tool yourself:

• Enter a word/phrase per line.
• Tick “Only show ideas closely related to my search terms”.
• Select only “Advanced options > Locations > United Kingdom”.
• Enter the anti-spam verification characters.
• Then Search to find out which keywords get hundreds or thousands of searches each month and which keywords get practically none.

Click here if you want to know more about Google Page 1

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.

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.

Men and women of course, have different behaviours. Men tend to be concrete thinkers that like to consummate and complete what they set out to do, they like powerful imagery (and sounds) as reinforcement to written information. At Dental Focus Web Design, we encourage our dentist clients to show before and after photographs to give visual evidence of clinical experience and expertise. Women are different biologically, psychologically and socially. They tend to prefer written (or verbal) communication, which leads to deeper processing of information and better recall. We recommend video testimonials to show emotional evidence of your patient’s new smile and outcome; greater confidence and happiness.

How do your patients react to your dental website?

Knowing and understanding your patient base will make your dental marketing more successful. Surveys and questionnaires are very useful in getting inside your customer’s head. Existing patients can and should be your most valuable resource when it comes to figuring out what new patients want on your dental website.

Behavioural Marketing is the targeting of website visitors based on their observed previous behaviour, applying ‘recency’ and ‘frequency’ to consumer data.

‘Recency’ = how recently your website visitor has performed an action

‘Frequency’ = how often your website visitor has performed an action

Changing behaviour is really difficult to do. So it’s much smarter to adapt your dental marketing and dental websites to existing behaviours in a way that gets the patient to think about the dental services on offer. ‘Social media’ isn’t inherently new behaviour; it is simply a new technology that facilitates existing behaviour.

We can also measure and analyse behaviour using website statistics such as Google Analytics.

Adrian the Wizard’s “Top 7 Google Analytics”:

1. Visitors > Overview > Absolute Unique Visitors

- how many people visited your dental website compared to last month?

2. Visitors > Overview > Average Pageviews

- how many pages did people look at compared to last month?

3. Visitors > Overview > Time on Site

- how many minutes did people spend on your dental website compared to last month?

4. Visitors > Overview > Bounce Rate

- what percentage left your dental website immediately compared to last month?

…Is this bounce rate expected or do you need to change your content?

5. Traffic Sources > Keywords

- which keyphrases were used to find your dental website on Google, Yahoo and Bing?

6. Content > Top Content

- which pages were the most popular?

7. Content > Top Exit Pages

- which pages made most people leave your dental website?

At Dental Focus Web Design, all our dental websites include Google Analytics to ensure you can measure the behaviour of your website visitors and your dental marketing 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.

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.

Photo by Cameron Cassan. CC BY 2.0.

Many dentists regard marketing as a necessity and therefore not always something they need to ‘embrace’. For dental marketing to work effectively, it needs to be a ‘state of mind’, it requires a strong, consistent, long term communication of your Unique Selling Points (USPs).

To do this, one of the first things is to develop a dental website. With all the dental websites out there now, you need to stand out by communicating USPs with patients in mind. The website content should be interesting, exciting and worth knowing about.

A dental logo is not a brand. It is only a brand element. To transform your brand is not just about redesigning your logo or the ‘look’ of your website. A dental brand is about who you are and how you do things – your USPs. A patient may think that they can transform their smile, but we all know that afterwards, behind that smile is essentially the same person.

We help you develop your USPs by emphasizing your strengths i.e. the dentistry expertise, the practice, the people, the treatments and the value you are offering people. The market has become crowded with “me-too” competitors. Unless you just want to sell on ‘low price’, this is no way forward. We believe in dental marketing that enables patients to see your particular ‘point of difference’ as valid and valuable.

Always beware, of finding yourself saying the same things in the same way as other dentists. It pays dividends to talk not only about your own dental services but also about your own particular dental expertise. In other words – what makes you different? In fact, we feature on many of our dental websites a page called “Why Choose Us”. The most important USPs are about the patient experience – how will the treatment, people, environment and communication be different at your dental practice?

Remember, a website is only a reflection of you, your brand, your USPs!

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.

Therefore if a dental website was dull and uninteresting, someone’s visit to that site is going to be a lot shorter than it would be with a well designed website. Furthermore their attention span will be further decreased if the website is found to be difficult to navigate and it is slow to download sections. Frustration certainly shortens a person’s attention span.

The web has allowed people to develop incredibly short attention spans. This is because everyone knows that there are always other sites that they can look at, with similar information. In fact, there are many different ways to find these different websites: Search Engines, Directory sites, Price Comparison sites, Social Networking sites etc – they all offer a huge amount of data on services available.

Consequently it’s now a bit like a small boy being let loose for hours in a sweet shop. With the internet too, you are spoilt for choice. Therefore if you see a site with a long, long introduction on the home page set out in a tiny type size, are you going to take the time to read it, or go somewhere else? Initially, most people are not particularly loyal and faithful when it comes to websites. But once someone finds a site that gives them the information they want, in an easy to understand way, that person will keep coming back.

A dental website design strives to achieve the main dental marketing objective: ‘conversions’. A ‘conversion’ is where people (as a result of visiting a website) actually pick up the phone to make an enquiry (or they pay a personal visit to find out more). To increase ‘conversions’ we ensure a site is as highly ranked as possible on Search Engines and then the site design itself works to ‘convert’ each site visitor into an enquiry. This is mainly achieved by lengthening the site visitor’s attention span.

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.

Positive psychology

We seek to adapt and utilize this for the visual communication of ‘positive values’ in our web designs for dentists, as this forms the basis of an effective dental marketing strategy. Positive psychologists seek “to find and nurture genius and talent”, in other words, to find the positive and “to maximize this, making normal life more fulfilling”.

Therefore we set out to find positive, aspirational images of places, people and situations that are relevant to Dental Care. A good web designer is taught: “Always show the benefits and the positives”.

The theories of human flourishing developed by humanistic psychologists such as Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers and Eric Fromm, have found much support from positive psychologists. How do we humanize every situation to make it accessible and achievable? This is the challenge facing the web designers at Dental Focus on a daily basis, as we communicate Dental Marketing values. I taught design once to ‘disaffected’ youths and I found Positive Psychology to be the way forward. To identify in each individual learner his strengths, the things he enjoyed and excelled at, rather than the negatives that had got him in to trouble. Design is about expression, so we express visually the ‘positives’. It worked for me with troublesome teenagers, and it certainly works with professional Dental Practices (who I find a lot less troublesome!). In fact with dental website design, we achieve some quite startling results!

Positive emotions, engagement, and higher hopes are all central to good web design and to Positive Psychology.

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.