Once your website is developed to be fully optimised for search engines (this is the SEO (search engine optimisation), then it is time to start promoting your site.
In other words, you now have a website that Google can easily find, but to also get top ranks and increase the number of visitors to the site, you need to advertise and market your site.
The internet has brought many benefits to marketing, one of which being lower costs and greater capabilities for the distribution of information and media to a global audience. The interactive nature of internet marketing, both in terms of providing instant response and eliciting responses, is a unique quality of the medium.
Another advantage of internet marketing is that all your marketing activities are fully measurable. What that means is that if you, for example, advertise on a dental directory, you can immediately find out how many visitors that particular directory is sending to your website.
Count the ways
There are many different ways you can promote your practice online. Below we list some of the most popular ones.
Search Engine Optimisation
If your website is developed to be fully optimised for Google and is targeting the right keywords then this will automatically be found in Google. But then there is more to do to get top ranking
Directory listing
There are numerous general and dental specific directories where it can be beneficial to include your practice details. The better directories, sometimes at additional cost, also allow you to include your web address, which his very beneficial. The advantage of being listing in directories is that, good directories receive thousands of visitors per months and for some people are the preferred method of looking for searching for a new dentist. Some example of directories: yell.co.uk, www.city-visitor.com/, www.dentalguide.co.uk/, http://dentist-finder.co.uk/ Another feature of some of these directories is that people can leave reviews about a dentist and rate their level of satisfaction.
Newsletter
Newsletters can be monthly or quarterly and be distributed via post in print format or via email in digital format. Typically, a newsletter contains some latest news and promotions from your practice and some general informative or entertaining articles. Newsletters can be an effective way to stay in touch with your patients and remind them about your practice. A well-written newsletter allows you to engage with your patients in a fun and informative way. Email newsletters are much more cost-effective than print and post, but on the negative side an email newsletter can be caught by spam filters or get lost in many emails that people receive every day. Hence, email newsletters can only be effective if the right software and techniques are used to distribute the emails. Another advantage of good email marketing software is that after sending the emails you get detailed statistics about how many people opened and viewed the newsletter and whether they clicked on a link in the newsletter.
Online PR
PR stands for Public Relations and essentially it is about raising your profile on the internet. The most famous example is Richard Bronson the boss of Virgin. He has always used his name and face to create publicity for his business. Now, how can you as a dentist create publicity and PR for your practice?
• You can appear on a panel of experts in some of the top dental portals where dentist answer questions in a specific area.
• You can create video clips of your satisfied patients and publish on YouTube and your website.
• You can use social media sites such as Facebook to talk about the latest treatment methods you provide at your practice.
• You can create a blog on your site and write informative or fun articles which are more personal to you. Blogs are a good way of holing a more informal dialogue with your audience, and can cover any topic from dentistry to personally hobbies, lifestyle, and other fun content or stories.
• You can also submit articles for various print and online publications such as the Dentistry magazine or here at www.dentistry.co.uk.
For further information, click here for dental website marketing.
