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What should you include on your dental website and why? Today Linda discusses the important elements required for a successful dental website. Linda talks with Ed Bejarana about search engine optimization and content layout considerations.
Linda provides dental professionals actionable marketing knowledge they can use to grow their dental practice.
Linda Mettler: What I want to see for dental offices is I want to see the warmth and the uniqueness of that practice come through on their website. And I really think people achieve that with images,
whether it's just a photo Welcome to the matalin Marketing Podcast where we will talk about marketing strategies and tactics to grow your practice. I am your host, Lynda Mettler and I have worked with
dental practices for several years now. And I want to share my knowledge and experience with you so that you can gain valuable and actionable steps on how to grow your practice. We will talk about the
latest and greatest and marketing features some guest speakers so that you can hear firsthand what is and is not working and help you unravel the complexities of the digital marketing world. I work
really closely with my clients. So we will also delve into some other issues that affect your practice from time to time, such as staffing problems, COVID protocols and similar issues. Good morning,
today we are going to chat about the importance of a good website. And what makes that website great for your practice. And I'm going to I have a guest speaker with me today. His name is Ed Bejarana.
He is a 35 year veteran of everything internet and a guru when it comes to building websites that are optimized for SEO. So Ed, thank you so much for joining me this morning, and welcome to our
program. Happy
Ed Bejarana: to be with you, Linda.
Linda Mettler: That's great, well, we'll definitely get this kicked off. So first thing I want to talk about a little bit and tell our listeners is how important it is that their website is the
central hub of all their marketing. This is where your current patients and prospective new patients can find out everything about you and your practice. Everything about your services, your
financing, and insurance plans, your office hours, and everything about you and what makes you unique and your dental practice unique. So let's start off talking a little bit about content that you
need on your website. And then we'll chat with Ed for a few minutes about the structure of your website. So obviously, you want all the basics on your website, you want your office hours, your
telephone number. And even though that seems really basic, I want that phone number up top front and center. Nothing frustrates me more than going to a website and I can't figure out how to contact
those people. So I want to put your phone number I want you to put your phone number on your website, up front and center so that people can find it. All your services need to be there needs to be a
page for every single service you perform. crowns, whitening, hygiene, implants, whether or not you treat sleep apnea, TMJ, orthodontics, everything you do needs to be on that website. From a visual
perspective, take your top three services and make those visually stand out on your website. You can you can organize it like cosmetic or aesthetic dentistry, restorative services, that kind of thing.
But we'll talk a little bit more about design in a few minutes. But you also need to have a page for all your new patient forms and information that people need your COVID protocols that needs to be
on your website. All your links to social media and all your other marketing channels need to be on your website. And those links need to be really easy for people to see, like icons like the Facebook
icon. And probably one of the most important ones is a link to your Google reviews. People love to see testimonials and reviews. So have that link to your Google marketing or your Google reviews,
right there really easy for people to click on and find. You also want to have a blog on your website. And that blog needs to be very consistent. Whether you do it monthly or quarterly, just make sure
it stays content. And that's a great way to add fresh content to your website is through your blog. So you want to have that information on your website. And I know a lot of you want to have your
affiliations with the ADA or your state Dental Association, or organizations that you belong to, on your website, your footer or at the bottom of the page is a good place to have all those. But you
definitely want to have all that information on your website because otherwise how do people know that you're an expert in your field if you don't have those things on there? So everything about your
practice needs to be on your website. And it needs to be organized correctly and structured correctly so that people can find all that information in an organized format. So for that, we're going to,
I'm going to ask Ed, what is the best way for websites to be organized from an SEO standpoint? ad? Can you can you enlighten us a little more on that?
Ed Bejarana: Sure. You know, over the decades, the importance of placement of information has changed dramatically. It used to be that if the information was just on your website, anywhere on your
website, it would get you ranked. But today, with trillions of searches taking place, every single day, Google and all of the other search engines place a premium on the information that's up at the
top of the page, what we refer to as above the fold. So when your page loads the first time, the information that's visible at a glance, is automatically weighted better. From a search engine
optimization standpoint, the information that's below the fold has a lower overall rate of importance when Google is evaluating your website information. So you want to have those services that are a
most profitable and and be most likely to bring you in customers in the door. Rather than the loss leader items. You want to have the the meat and taters, if you will, that will actually get people in
your practice. And then you can use the human factor to do the additional sales. So answer to your question where the information exists on the page is absolutely critical. And I know we're going to
talk about mobile responsiveness in a minute. But that fold is going to be in a different place, based upon the size of your screen.
Linda Mettler: Right, right. And I tell all of my clients, how important it is that their website be mobile responsive. And I can't believe how many websites are out there. And that's really common
these days, because everybody's searching on mobile devices, either a tablet or a phone or even a small laptop. But I can't believe how many websites I see out there that are not mobile responsive. So
that's something crucial importance.
Ed Bejarana: Well, and you cannot emphasize the crucial element enough because Google actually has two databases. So when you do a search on Google, the first database that's searched is the mobile
database. And if your website is not mobile, responsive, or mobile friendly, you will not be in that database, and therefore you will not be present during the first search. It's only when there's no
other options. Does the second database which is desktop only gets searched?
Linda Mettler: Interesting. Yeah, that's absolutely true. And I try to try to educate people about that every day, every day. Ed, can you talk a little bit about the importance of analytics and
tracking and how we how we do that tracking for our websites,
Ed Bejarana: you know, we can only improve that which we measure, and Google gives us a free tool that we can install on the website, that gives us a good deal of information. There's premium tools
that we could subscribe to, to give us even more information. But first and foremost, we just have to know how many people are visiting the website. And when we make a change, we need to document
those change and see whether the number of visits the length of time on the website, the number of times people land and then leave right away. We need to see if those numbers are changing. Because
Google's overall ranking is going to be based upon how many people come to your website, stay on your website and read multiple pages. So installing analytics on your website. Is mission critical.
Linda Mettler: Great, thank you. Yes, I agree. And I when I meet with my clients every month, that's one of the first things we go over is their website, their previous month website, statistics, we
look at the traffic where the traffic's coming from. And just like you said, we look at changes that we've made from the prior month to see if those things are working. So I definitely love going over
analytics with people every month and that way they can see their website traffic is increasing, decreasing and where it's coming from. And that helps us in the marketing to be able to target those
people. perspective new patients even better. So, the other thing, though, that, that a lot of offices really, that I see out there today, and maybe you can help me a little bit with this, too, is I
see a lot of cookie cutter, websites and templates out there. And what I really like for our clients is that we don't do that, that we really custom build their website, I like, what I want to see for
dental offices is I want to see the warmth, and the uniqueness of that practice come through on their website. And I really think people achieve that with images, whether it's just a photo, or videos,
and I love to see websites that have pictures of the dentist and of this staff. So one thing I like to do is on the team pages, posts, short little videos or images and bios of the staff members,
because I think that gives kind of a human element to that website to that visitor to that prospective new patient that says Why should I come to this dental practice? Why should I come and see, you
know, that doctor? What What do you think of that ad?
Ed Bejarana: You know, I've seen this literally since the beginning, before there was an internet, I've been working on websites. And the very beginning websites, we actually had a chart that said,
what goes where, and we had very specific regions, that bits of information would go and that was for database reasons. But what we saw in the early days of the website is one site just look like the
next and the next and they were all the same. And what happened was people were just becoming immune to the information. And the same happens today. We we see the trends and designs and you've got the
fancy hero graphics that cover the whole page and, and then you have the 1/3 header hero graphic. And what happens is your visitor starts to tune out to the information. So having that unique element
that draws people's eyes into your practice gives you a distinct advantage. It's like a trade show. When you go to a trade show, and there's 1000 exhibitors on the floor, and you're walking down the
aisle. It's the booth that's different that gets your eye. It's the booth that's communicating with you on a personal level, through the graphics through the presentation, that's going to grab the
attention for those very precious few seconds that we have to make an impact. Sometimes the right photo will just simply give them another three or four seconds to find out Oh, this is a real human
being. And look what they're doing for the community. I advocate a bunch for pointing your personal activities. What are you supporting Little League? Are you a bowler? Do you love Golden Retrievers?
I get personal on my websites, because people want to do business with people.
Linda Mettler: Right? That's exactly right. Thanks so much for your input on that ad, I could not agree with you more. And I have a couple of websites. If you're interested in looking at something
that gives you a good blend of organization and you know, good visualization. I've got a list of websites, they'll be in our show notes, but I want to let you let our listeners know what they are. The
first one is Bissell dental group.com. And that's bi SS e Ll Dental Group calm and to be transparent. That is a website that we host at Metro marketing that we designed and we host so just to be
transparent about that. But I have a few more that you can take a look at that we did not design and we do not host but that I believe have some good SEO, some good visual design and that you might
just want to take a look at and then kind of compare with your own website and see if there's some areas for improvement. So Hancock ortho.com is a good site. Pittsburgh, dentist calm I really like
because the dentist she's she's got a nice photo in the middle of the page there. Bethesda family dentistry.com and Bates dental.com are all great websites to look at for organization. I love their
navigation menu, how people can find things and their visual, their visual imagery. So check out those websites. They're also listed in our show notes. And maybe look at your own website and put
together a list of what can be better. If you need any more information, give us a call. Thanks so much and have a great day.
Ed Bejarana: Are you committed to the growth of your practice, but learn more Marketing can help at medtner marketing. We help dental practices gain new patients, increase referrals and maximize
patient retention with customized Marketing Solutions tailored to fit your needs. Visit www dot medtner marketing.com to schedule a free consultation and learn how we can help grow your practice.
Thank you for tuning in to the Mettler Marketing Podcast. Please share this episode with your friends and colleagues. If you would like to be a guest on our show, visit Mettler marketing.com and drop
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