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Web Hosting - Website Design

By Gen Wright

 In a recent study by Nielson/Net Ratings, research showed that 73% of consumers use leading search engines, like Google and Yahoo!, to find products and services offered by local businesses. With that being said, it's critical that your practice has a performance-driven website that patients can find when searching for dental care online in order to grow your practice.


An advanced online marketing campaign can be designed to enhance your web presence, attracting new patients to your practice and expanding your reach to your local market. Combined with results-oriented practice marketing tactics and the ability to track your results, you can expect to see dramatic improvements in your site's traffic and online visibility.

Use Search Engine Marketing To Increase Online Exposure

A website is only valuable if potential patients can find it online. Otherwise, it's merely another virtual billboard littering the online landscape. Search marketing strategies, such as search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, are two valuable methods for ensuring your site gains exposure on Google and Yahoo! to those who are actively looking for local dental professionals. SEO focuses on optimizing your website's content on the search engines to achieve higher rankings in the natural search results. And PPC involves the prominent placement of keywords in the form of highly targeted advertisements for your local area in the sponsored listings of search engines. Combined, SEO and PPC can position your website front and center when patients search online for your local dental services.

Because the search engines can funnel an enormous volume of targeted traffic, a professionally implemented search engine marketing plan should form the core of your dental online marketing campaign.

Build Trust Through Patient Education

Patient acquisition is often driven by education, because patients are naturally concerned about the factors that influence the health of their teeth, gums and mouth. They are also interested in learning more about available cosmetic dental services, such as tooth whitening, veneers and cosmetic contouring. Your dental website can play a critical role in educating patients, both new and prospective, to improve their level of comfort and trust with the services your practice offers.

Educating your patients with online educational resources can position your practice as an authority in the dental industry. It can also set your practice apart from your competitors. As a result, potential patients will be more likely to request an appointment with your office. And when you add an appointment requests feature to your website, you can enable patients to make an appointment conveniently through your website in order to further reduce obstacles and improve patient acquisition.

Extend Your Web Presence With Integrated Practice Marketing

While your dental website should be the focal point of all your varied marketing efforts, you can drive its effectiveness by integrating complementary promotions, such as direct mail, email campaigns and brochures to extend your professional web presence both online and offline.

Rather than diverting attention away from your website, these promotions can be used to direct new and prospective patients to your site. Once they arrive, your website can educate them with an extensive library of dental content. Not to mention that informative articles and educational videos can describe your services and encourage patients to set appointments.

Tracking Results and Increasing Case Acceptance

One of the main advantages of using your dental website to increase patient acquisition is that each activity can be closely tracked and measured. As long as your online marketing efforts can be measured, they can be improved; and small improvements implemented over time can lead to higher rankings in the search engines' natural listings. It can also lower your pay-per-click bids while your ads gain greater visibility through higher positions. Ultimately, more prospective patients will see your dental website, visit, and request appointments at your office.

Many dental professionals underestimate the influence of their websites to increase their patient acquisition and case acceptance rates. Your site is a lever that you can use to reach your local market. It is a tool that attracts and educates patients, increasing their level of comfort and trust. With time and ever- vigilant efforts, you'll find that a well-designed online marketing campaign can lead to more qualified traffic to your site and a dramatic growth in your dental practice.

Sean Hartment is the author for Officite, a leading dental website design firm in Oak Brook, IL. Since 2002, Officite has designed and developed over 4,000 medical and dentist websites, helping dentists all over the country increase business for their practices.

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