Mini Contact Forms

“Mini Contact Forms” provide Internet users with two very important things:

· Ease of Use – The form is simple and can be filled out quickly.
· Accessibility – The dental practice can be contacted on any page they are on.

The idea behind providing Internet users with mini contact forms is to give the website a personal touch and to make getting contact with the practice as easy as possible.

Most of the time, when a user visits a dental website, he or she looks for specific information, and if they can’t find it within two clicks, they go back to the search engine to find another website that will give it to them.

If the user is willing to contact your dental practice, he or she doesn’t want to search for a way to contact you; the user wants to be able to send you an email immediately. By placing mini contact forms in the same location on every page of your website, users are able to give you their information fast, without needing to go to a separate contact page.

Many times, our mini contact forms will be accompanied by calls to action, like “Speak With One of Our Dentists,” “Schedule a Free Consultation,” “Contact Our Practice,” or “Speak With Dr. Joe.”

Recently, we had a client using a mini contact form that was averaging 900 emails a month. They asked us to replace the mini contact form with just a call to action. We objected, but they insisted and we did it. The very same day, their emails dropped to almost nothing, and stayed that way for a couple weeks.

After seeing next to no activity for a while, we suggested to the client asked us to place the mini contact form back on the site. Their emails immediately jumped back up to an average of 30 per day.

We believe that the faster a visitor can access a practice, the better. Mini contact forms are not only easy to use, but they allow the user top access the practice as quickly as possible. By providing this, mini contact forms can generate more activity for your website.

Following are some examples of dental websites with mini contact forms:

Dr. Josh Bernstein in Sacremento, CA

Midtown Dental, The Gallery of Smiles in Houston, TX

Dr. Thomas R. Miller Dentistry in Albany, NY

Washington Center for Dentistry in Washington, DC

Create Authoritative Sites

The following is a quote from Planet Ocean's monthly newsletter -

"However, you can bet it's going to be the most authoritative sites with the best incoming links that will continue to rule the top of the search results."

To those of us who have been working with search engine marketing for dentists over the last five years, this is no surprise. Gone are the days when you could just post a 5-10 page dental practice website that lists your practice areas and bios for the dentists and expect it to be successful. If you want to get good search engine results you need to have exceptional content that stands out from other practices in your area. Remember, consumers are not interested in practices with pretty pictures on their site. They want to find information that is helpful to them and they want to visit a doctor that demonstrates a level of knowledge and expertise in handling their specific problem.

Oh, and by the way, the second part of the Planet Ocean quote had to do with incoming links. Guess what. If you have the most authoritative content, you will attract more links from other websites. They will want to link into your website because it will be a good resource for consumers.

It all comes down to content.

How does your website's content stack up to the other dental websites in your market? Is your website the authority website? If not, you might want to rethink your dental website marketing strategy.

Dan Goldstein
Page 1 Solutions

Using Articles to Create Inbound Links

We all know that it is important to create inbound links - e.g., pages from other sites that link to pages within your dental practice’s website. Several ways frequently used to do this include reciprocal linking and purchasing text links. Both are frowned upon by the search engines including Google.

However, there are a lot of websites that will gladly publish articles or press releases that you write. If you write a substantive article about a very specific area of your practice or about a specific procedure, it will be unique content that other sites will want to post on their website. There are a number of websites that publish articles of this nature. The key is to make the article interesting and original. Finally, make sure that you include links back to the specific page or pages of your website that are relevant to the subject covered in the article. If you have those links in your article and the article is published, you will have automatically created links back to your website.

The best possible scenario is that the article will be noticed by other webmasters who also want the same content on their website and will republish the article -with the links - on their website. One well-written article may turn into multiple webpages with links back to your practice’s website.

Always make sure that you have good content on your website first, however.

Dan Goldstein
Page 1 Solutions

Hanging In There with Sticktoitiveness

Some of my most successful clients today didn't always do so well on the search engines. Many of them had new websites that the search engines were turning a cold shoulder to. Others had websites that used to do very well but over time had fallen out of the web's limelight. In each of these cases, determination won the battle for my clients and they now enjoy solid presence on the search engines, including Google.

If your site isn't doing as well as you would like it to be doing, one of the worst things that you can do is ignore the problem. If you're not happy, make your concerns known to your marketing company. They should have their finger on your website's pulse and should have a fairly good idea of how your site is performing, but ultimately they need you to tell them if you're not getting as many emails as you would like to. At Page 1 Solutions, we have a few different measures of a website's success, but our main way of telling whether or not our clients are happy is by talking to them.

If you want to do more with the web, whether it's because you're not doing well or because you're hungry for more, be sure to let your web marketer know how you're feeling. By being up front with your expectations, you'll hopefully get quicker results. If your web marketing company isn't being responsive, it may be time to find another provider, but keep doing what's working. Don't scrap your entire marketing plan. If you do that, you may find yourself sliding further downhill instead of climbing to a new level of success.

There is No Web Marketing Miracle

This is key to understand. No one can offer you instant, lasting results. You can pay for sponsored listings on the search engines, but when the money runs out, your presence is zilch. The only way to obtain lasting results on the search engines is through blood, sweat, and tears - well, and money. We all know well enough to steer clear of "get rich quick" schemes. We all need to learn that the same applies to "instant web results quick and cheap" schemes. Anyone who says that can position you well on the search engines for $50 a month has 50 angry dentists on the line and is replacing them as they go. Don't be one of those dentists. Start with a solid online investment and branch off from there.

Stick To It -tivenes

Above all, stay active in your web marketing. Web marketers are like those little lizards that can run across water. They have webbed feet and are speedy little guys, but if they stopped running...well, I'm sure that they can swim if they have to. Don't get caught standing still, or your competition will speed past you while you're struggling to keep your head above water.

Here's what you need to do:

Keep on top of your web guy.

Keep blogging.

Keep posting electronic public relations articles.

Keep adding pages to your website.

Eventually, your determination will pay off and you'll find that you've reached the first page of the search engines.

Jonathan Fashbaugh
Page 1 Solutions