Think Fresh (Content)

I was watching television with my daughter Stephanie recently and we were talking about marketing slogans, specifically Subway’s “Think Fresh” campaign. It occurred to me that what consumers want in their meals (“lots of visibly fresh ingredients”) is the same thing they want in their information when researching on the web. Equally important, this is also what the search engines (specifically, Google and Yahoo!) are wanting in your website’s pages, as well – unique, fresh, original content.

BEWARE OF USING TEMPLATED COPY - Although it may be hard to believe, search engines have ways to recognize the originality of your website’s copy. If your page’s content is the same cookie-cutter content used in lots of other dentist’s websites, many search engines will perceive they have already indexed that information, and not give your page a lot of credit, regardless of well it may be “optimized”. This is particularly an issue with Google.

Obviously, there is a higher cost to develop new original copy to your website. At the same time, you will likely pay a bigger price in lost opportunity by cutting corners with utilizing templated copy. Developing and continually adding fresh content to your website significantly increases your opportunity to generate a much greater return on investment.

So, “Think Fresh!”

Bill Fukui
Page 1 Solutions

Websites - A Resource Or Just An Online Ad ?

I was cleaning out our basement and ran across an old set of Encyclopedia Britannica my father bought for me as a child. It occurred to me how the Internet has made these once valuable information resources virtually useless.

However, it did remind me of an important fact: Although you may try to leverage the Internet medium for advertising purposes, don’t lose sight of the fact that the Web is still primarily used as a research tool, particularly regarding more sophisticated service-based industries.

This magnified when you consider how it relates to the search engines. The more you understand that search engines (especially Google) reward “resource pages” more than “online advertisements,” the better your chances of improving your search engine positioning results. This also applies to updates. Encyclopedias used to regularly send “Book of The Year” updates to keep your encyclopedia information up to date. Doing the same thing with your dental website serves a similar purpose.

Remember, search engines don’t index websites, rather, they index pages of websites. Deep, well-organized, information-rich website pages have a much greater opportunity to get higher listings than short, superficial, “salesy” copy. The good news is that as dentists, you have a lot to talk about. Each type of dental condition you handle could be the basis for multiple pages. You can use a blog or an RSS News feed to keep it current as well.

At the same time, you will develop greater credibility with online consumers with more information-rich content, rather than generic, Yellow Page-like copy. You will help yourself and your visitors when you think of your website as an online dental resource for consumers, instead of an online advertisement for your practice.

Bill Fukui
Page 1 Solutions

Mini Contact Forms

Web users are a fickle bunch. We all have been there. We search for a dental web site, go to the first one, click around to a couple of pages, and then on to the next site. Usually if a visitor to practice’s web site doesn’t find what they want within two clicks they’re done. Users don’t want to click around, they want to find their information fast. On the same token, if they are willing to reach out to you, say getting in contact with you through an online contact form, they are more likely to fill out a form that is on the page they are on rather than one that is one or two clicks away.

Here at Page 1, we call these instant contact forms “Mini Contact Forms”. The idea is to create a personal touch and an easy way of getting in contact with the practice. These contact forms are placed on every page in a similar location throughout the website. Often times we like to put calls to action such as “Ask Ashley”, “Schedule a Free Consultation”, or “Ask Dr. George." We have seen great results from these mini contact forms and we try to employ them in almost all of our dental practice websites.

Recently we had a client who had asked us to take down their mini contact form in favor of a call to action to a new practice area. Before we took down their mini contact form they were averaging 30 emails a day through their website. The same day we replaced their mini contact form with the call to action, they saw their emails drop to almost nothing. Within a couple of weeks they had received almost no emails through their website and asked us to put the mini contact form back on the site. They immediately saw their emails jump back to an average of 30 a day.

We had always been touting the value of a mini contact form from the perspective of ease of use and accessibility. As a firm, we generally thought that the faster a visitor has access to a practice, the more results the practice will see. It turns out we were right on the money.

Planning for Growth

When you're developing a new website, it's a good idea to plan room for growth. It's a common misconception that when you build a dental website, and finally launch it live on the Internet, you're done. Internet marketing success stories have taught us that the most successful websites on the Internet are those that are updated and expanded on a frequent basis.

The trouble is, if growth is an afterthought, you risk tacking new material onto a finished product in ways that create clutter or confusion. Eventually, you'll find yourself faced with an organizational overhaul project. This isn't a bad thing. It's better to reorganize than to force your website visitors to sort through the clutter, but reorganization can be minimized with an organized plan for future growth.

Similar to an architect planning for a building's future expansion, plan for the expansion of your website. This requires significant forethought. Will you have changing promotions on your website, such as community involvement, seasonal reminders, frequently updated new items, etc.? If so, ask your designer to build this into the design so that your promotions add to the design instead of detracting from it.

How likely is it that you would like to add new sections to the website that will require a new navigation button? What about the new RepairPost Fibre or an advanced dental implant procedure? If it's likely, or you know of some growth area of your practice that you would eventually like to include on your website, consider asking your designer to build the design with a navigation strategy that can be altered and added to without needing to redesign the entire website.

Consider creating some additional content in the beginning that will be added to the website gradually. This way, you know what the end result will be and how you're going to get there. You're not scrambling for website growth ideas each month or quarter. For example, Frequently Ask Questions pages are helpful to visitors, and can be added a page at a time without sacrificing the integrity of the website, simply by adding a text link at the bottom of existing pages. Include a complete list of FAQs for each substantive area of your website.

If you know that you want to add content on a regular basis, but don't want to pay a web designer to add it for you every month, consider adding a blog like this one. Adding a blog is inexpensive, and will allow you to grow your website without the need for technical assistance.

When you take measures in the beginning to accommodate growth in the future, you can save your practice some time and money in the future. Nothing is more frustrating than feeling the need to revamp your new site six months after its initial launch.

Jonathan Fashbaugh
Page 1 Solutions