What Is Progressive Dental Marketing?

Mar 25, 2017

Progressive Dental Marketing with Awesome Content

Creating Better Content for Your Dental Clients
We all want content that is informative and rich in value. The dental marketing content for any practice’s site must be easy for your patients to digest. No matter how advanced your website is, it needs to have original, engaging content that your customers can interact with and enjoy. Algorithms utilize keywords to help users find valuable content, but user intent is also important for SEO.
 
Your content must match what the users want to read. There is a huge demand for content in the dental industry, but the content that you create may not easily be noticed. In fact, the majority of the challenge when it comes to creating dental content is creating content that engages your patients. Let’s take a look at some content creation myths that may be hindering your potential for new patients.
 

Content Creation Myths

At any given time of the day there are over one billion websites that are active in the online community, so you need to find a way to stand out. Some myths hinder this process, so let’s take some time to delete those myths from your mind completely.
 

  1. Myth: Content Is Designed to Advertise for Your Dental Office

 
You need to connect with your patients and build a relationship that is based on common interests. If an individual likes what they see coming from your dental office, they will most likely become a patient and wish to continue the relationship. You don’t need to advertise directly to get results; simply be seen. One way to do this is to have a plan for the content that you are creating before you put it down on paper. All you need to do is pique the interest of a potential customer to keep them coming back.
 

  1. Myth: Your Content Does Not Need to be All About Your Dental Business

 
Don’t dwell on the personal aspects of you or your dental office when you create content. Think like your patients and write content that will address their needs and concerns. Content that improves the lives of potential clients or patients will keep them coming back for more valuable, informative posts.
 

  1. Myth: Quality Content Always Generates Leads

 
No matter how great the content that you create is, it will never generate new patient leads if no one can find the content. You need to create a marketing strategy to make sure that your content is seen. A great way to do this is to promote your information though other forms of media that your patients may be interested in. You can also let your current patients know that your website exists.
 

Get to know your Target Audience

 
How can you create content for an audience that you do not connect with? If you have no idea who your target audience is, then chances are the content that you create on your dental site will not interest them. Consider the age of your patients, their interests, their needs, and form a content creation plan from there. This will help you have a content focus that you can utilize.
 
Alexa.com is a great way to track your audience and how engaged they are in the content that you are creating. It will tell you your bounce rate, your daily page views, and how long visitors stay on your site. You will also be able to see if they are male or female and where they are browsing from. Weaving this information into your dental blog and connecting with these individuals will get you the new patient leads that you are looking for. How can you create this type of content for your patient?
 

  1. Brainstorm

 
Typically, brainstorming is done with a few other individuals who can bounce ideas off of each other and create something new and exciting. It can help you create new ideas for articles, blogs, and videos. Even if an idea seems too farfetched for your blog, perhaps your team can help tone it down a bit and make it a great option for new content. Whether you are brainstorming alone or with a group, there are seven steps that you should follow.
 
1) Define your objective: What are you trying to accomplish? Is it new patients that you are looking for or are you promoting teeth cleanings in your neighborhood?
 
2) Limit your time for brainstorming: You do not want to spend all of your time thinking of ideas. Creating content is your goal, so limit your brainstorming sessions to be more productive.
 
3) Refine your concepts: Small changes to your ideas can give it the spark that will bring the concept to life.
 
4) Analyze any after-effects: Will your idea or plan create an additional response that was not originally intended?
 
5) Prioritize ideas: Once your brainstorming session is complete, rank the results to determine which ones are the most important.
 
6) Take action: Leap into the creation of the newly inspired content. Even if creating the first bit of new content is not familiar to you, you will soon be more comfortable in the situation. Success is often found in uncomfortable situations, so take that first leap.
 
7) Control and monitor your content: If you know what is being said on your blog, you can drive the conversation to a topic that will interest your patients.
 
Generally speaking, when you are brainstorming for ways to interest new patients in visiting your dental office, you need to think like a new patient. Let go of everything that you know and imagine that you are a prospective patient who is unsure of which dentist to choose. When you are thinking as the patient, you will have a better idea of what you need to do to fulfill their needs. Let’s explore a few ideas that can help you connect with your patients.
 

  • Identify the pain points of your patients: Pin point a need, a problem, a desire, or a challenge that they face. You can find these pain points by involving them in surveys at your office, asking them for feedback, and creating focus groups to hear what patients have to say. Once you have pinpointed a pain point, expand on it. So if the pain point is toothache, then you can cover toothache remedies, natural toothache remedies, and reducing the pain of a toothache. Covering these pain points is effectively a long tail SEO strategy that will increase your SEO standing and provide rewards for your effort.

 

  • Follow your potential patient leads: Following your patients and letting them know that they are valuable to you is important. Your patients want to feel like they are important, so follow up with them. Talk to them and find out their interests, and meet them halfway. Each patient is an individual, so treat them as such, do not lump your patients into a large group of others where their needs will not be noticed.

 

  • Relate to your patients: Communication is important for building trust between you and your patients. No matter what the content you create is about, make sure that it is always consistent. Also, make yourself available to them; give your patients your email.

 

  1. Long tail Keyword Research can Help

 
Utilizing long tail keywords in your content is a risky game because you need to find the right phrase to connect to users, but it is a worthwhile venture that you should fully embrace. In fact, if you use long tail keywords properly, you can generate far more potential patient leads than you can with regular keywords. How can you get started?
 
1) Choose your keywords carefully: Google Keyword Planner is a great way to choose the best key words for your content. You input your main keyword that you wish to seed, and the program will suggest other keywords that you could use based on recent searches. For example: if you are looking for a dentist, a long tail keyword that may come up is dentists located in Los Angeles.
 
2) Dig deeper: Google is the number one search engine used to find information, so it is the only search engine whose results you can trust. Dig deep into Google’s results by reverse engineer your search and expand on it. This is going to be the best method of finding out what people are searching for.
 
3) Identify commercial long tail keywords: People typically look for one of two things. The first is information, which includes guides, tutorials, and entertaining content, the other is commercial, which means that they are looking for a service or to purchase something. If you are only creating informative content, then you should create some content to reach commercial users as well. Some keywords that fit into this category would be words like reviews, discounts, deals, and top rated.
 

  1. Headlines are Key

 
What is the first thing that your customers or your potential patients see when they are looking at your content? The headline, so you should spend almost the same amount of time creating engaging headlines as you would creating the content itself. According to Copyblogger Media 80 percent of your potential customers will read your headline, but less than 30 percent will actually read the content under the headline. Which type of headline is going to grab the attention of your readers and give the result that you desire? The rules are not set in stone for your dental blog, but let’s take a look at some styles that you may wish to try.
 
1) Question Based Headlines
 
The CEO of Google once said that businesses run on questions, and there is no greater truth in the world of dental blogs. How can you get answers if the questions are never asked? If you are writing information for your patients, these types of headlines could include something like: What are Five Effective Methods of Naturally Whitening your Teeth? Another example would be: How Does Sugar Affect your Teeth?
 
2) Case Study Headlines
 
This type of headline is great for promoting a specialized service. Letting your readers know your process and your results for dental procedures is a great way to attract new patients. They will appreciate the fact that you were willing to share the information with them. Headlines in this category could be: A Step by Step Guide: How to Effectively Brush Your Teeth with Braces.
 
3) Headlines Optimized for your Users Search
 
A lot of the individuals that make up your potential patient base will use search engines like Google to find what they need, so optimizing your headlines to be found is a great methodology. Headlines should contain your main keyword, but it also needs to make people want to read the content. Let’s say your key word is dental hygiene. You will want to create something like: How Good Dental Hygiene can Improve your Life.
 
4) Model Viral Headlines
 
There are millions of titles already being used on social media sites, which mean that a lot of headlines that get attention can simply be retooled to fit your content needs. A viral headline may be Eight Things Your Dentist Knows Just by Looking at Your Teeth, but it can be retooled into something better like: Eight Truths your Dental Exam will Reveal about You.
 
Creating headlines can be a difficult task, but there are tools available to make this process easier. Here are a few of my favorite tools to use when creating optimal headlines:

  • Ubersuggest is a great option that will generate ideas based on a seed keyword. If you have an idea, but you are unsure of where to begin with your headline, this could be a beneficial tool to use.

 

  • Buzzsumo is another tool I like to use. It does not give you specific headlines, but it analyzes headlines on social media feeds that receive the most shares. You can model your headline off of these.

 

  • Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator is great for creating blog titles that will grab the attention of your readers.

 

  • Emotional Value Headline Analyzer is a tool that helps you to appeal to the emotions of your patients. Emotional headlines are extremely effective, especially since human beings tend to read articles that touch them on a personal level.

 

  • CoSchedule Headline Analyzer is a great tool to use when you want to analyze headlines that you have already created.

 

  • Ntopic is a great tool that is designed to help boost your SEO ranking by creating SEO friendly headlines. The higher your score is, the better the headline is.

 

  1. Content Outsourcing

 
Outsourcing content creation has become a great resource in the past few years. If writing is not something that you enjoy, then spending the time to write blog posts on your dental site everyday is not going to be productive. You will be spending a lot of time trying to figure out what you want to say and how to say it, when a professional will be able to put your ideas to paper a lot quicker. Sticking with one writer will allow them to adjust to your content strategy and your professional needs. Let’s take a look at some tips to help you get started.
 
1) Have a specific objective. If you cannot explain what you need created, then you need to flesh it out more so that the writer you hire can create the content that you wish to have. There are a lot of content writers available to create content for your dental page, so you need to hire someone who can guide your blog in the right direction. Your content creator needs to know if you are trying to create an SEO friendly piece or if you want to connect to your patients specifically.
 
2) Define your budget. Creating content and marketing that content will requires some type of a budget, so plan ahead to account for it. About 70 percent of your marketing budget will be used for content creation. Some writers charge hourly, while others charge per job. If you want to clearly define how much you will spend for the project, you can agree to pay a fixed rate, but make sure that it meets the industry standards for content creation.
 
3) Set standards for your content. Quality content is imperative so choose a writer who has enthusiasm about the topic. If they lack interest, quality may dwindle over time. In addition, you need a writer who knows the basics of SEO because keyword stuffing is not going to get you the new patients that you desire. Proper grammar and spelling is also an important aspect of any content. If a writer is not passionate about the topic at hand, the content may suffer.
 

How can you find great content writers?

Well, first you can search on Google for freelance writers. Once you find one that could match your needs, look to see if they have a website or any samples where you can check out their writing style. If writing samples are not provided, then you can either ask for them or move on to another candidate, but first impressions are important, so it they have sample writings that have specialized content for the dental field, then contact them to discuss the content creation. Here are some other resources that you can use:
 

  • Problogger Job Board allows you to post a job for a month. This post will cost about $50, but it will connect you with writers who are interested in the project that you post.

 

  • Odesk.com is another great resource that allows writers to bid on jobs that you need assistance writing. You can set guidelines and explore the writer’s profile, experience, and knowledge of a topic before selecting them to create your content.

 

  1. Content Promotion

 
If your blog or website is fairly new, don’t expect results from your posts immediately. SEO marketing will offer long term rewards, not instant web domination in the dental field. The best way to improve your SEO rankings is to promote your content.
 
Reaching out to authority bloggers in the dental industry can help you reach potential patients in your area. Build a relationship with these individuals to promote your content on their page. Blogger recommendations are a great way to promote your services; in fact, nearly 61 percent of online shoppers look for reviews and recommendations before making a decision on which dentist is right for them.
The FREPT model is perfect for using blogs to promote your content. What does the acronym stand for?
 

  • Find
  • Research
  • Engage
  • Pitch
  • Track

 
Let’s take a look at each and see how this model can help promote the content that you are creating.
1) Find blogs and bloggers in the dental industry that you can connect with. First, the posts on the blog need to be up to date; fresh creations at least once a week. Make sure that they have an active community that engages in posts by making comments. Choose a blog that is well connected to social media platforms. The blogger should be well respected in the dental community, and they should be able to use SEO to promote your content. One way to find a blogger who fits your needs is to search Google for the headline you want to promote and see which blogs are in the top five results.
 
2) Research the blogger and their blog to make sure they are compatible with the needs of your patients. Check out their domain authority as well as their page authority. Find bloggers who have a lot of social media followers; in fact, you can use tools like Twitonomy to help you get details.
 
3) Engage in the content that is posted by the blogger. Finding influencers is typically easy to do, but it is even simpler if you have something of value to give to them as well. You can leave valuable comments that their readers will latch on to. Like their content, join their email list, connect with them on other social media platforms, or share their content with your readers. Once you have their attention, keep it.
 
4) Pitch a guest post or an idea to the blogger to connect with them more. Focus on how you can help them benefit from the relationship, but make sure to let them know what you do when you introduce yourself. Keep communications simple and to the point so that they do not simply ignore the email, and make it about them and how their readers will benefit from building a relationship with you.
 
5) Track your email communications to see who is looking at them. Yesware is a great add-on that is designed to be used with Gmail. It tells you the exact time that the email was opened as well as how many times the message was viewed.
 
If you follow this guide, you will be creating better content for your dental clients in no time. Consistently creating valuable content that is marketed to your target audience properly will produce more loyal patients for your dental office. Don’t forget that your content also needs to be accessible to mobile users who may want to engage in reading your content on the go. Does your content connect with what your patients are looking for, and how easily can they find it?