Dental, Dentists Websites: How They Improve Dentistry, Dental Care Acceptance

"No one wants to go to the dentist, to 'get' dentistry, people only need dental care." 

Of course, this is true, right?

Well, it might be, it can be, it must be, it will be... if one would look at a lot of dental websites today, or yesterday, and probably tomorrow. Sadly. 

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1st Website DEVELOPED CONCEPTS, CONTENT

Randall Palmore, DMD, FAGD 

"I wanted to personally write you and tell you what a fantastic job you did in developing my Dental practice logo and website. You provided me a great service at a very reasonable cost. I am having tremendous feedback from my website and it is definitely attracting new patients to my office as well as providing an excellent source of information for new and existing patients. 

Since this was my first experience in developing a website I was unsure about putting everything together. I appreciate your attention to details and patience with me as we progressed through the whole process. I will highly recommend Niche Dental (Agency) and Dick Chwalek to all dentists looking to take their practice to a higher level of marketing." 

The Dental Health Center

Designer The Peripheral Vision

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Continued from oh so Sadly...

To be more positive, okay that would be someone else writing, but as for this dental marketing consultant of curmudgeon county, the world of dentists websites is bleak, dire and often dystopian.

(Just heard that last word, and learned its meaning, so had to use it. Just kidding; what does it mean?)

The picture of dental websites is not really that bad, but to be depressive is fashionable in this downturn of a sagging economy verging on desperate times.  So let's get into the mire of this gummy bear of teeth stressing mess of website development regress.

NOTE: My view is not taken by all or most likely anyone, as far as I have been able to keep my head in the sand, but it sheds some murky light on the subjectiveness of my contrarian view.

Get on with it, or mark my words, I will drag, this slog of dental blog, out!

Then here goes dentists...

• Build value rather than follow the leader of the hack.

• Pile up your dentistry expertise CV & bio profile.

• Seeing is believing so find a way to show off what you do:

• Testimonials, before or after smile makeover photos

• Add reality to your great dental care personality, post, blog, tweet, facebook regularly

There is so much more, but I have a day job...

Blog post by,

Dick Chwalek

NicheDental.com

Follow NicheDental on Twitter.com

Developer of Connective Communication©

Traverse City Dental Office Sponsors: Cherry-Roubaix 2011 Cancer Survivors Benefit Ride.

TRAVERSE CITY, MI, July 1, 2011

The 4th Annual Cherry-Roubaix that delivers the State Road Race Championship race as part of their three day event on August 14, 2011 (in conjunction with the Michigan Bike Race Association and USA Cycling) also hosts a choice of either a 20 or 43-mile Charity Ride on August 13 to benefit Munson Healthcare Women‟s Cancer Fund.

Using every fund dollar for its purpose, Munson Women‟s Cancer Fund provides financial assistance to women in northern Michigan who have been diagnosed with cancer and have exhausted other financial means for their cancer-related health care.

Among other related items and health services, Munson Women‟s Cancer Fund covers expenses of prosthetics, transportation, childcare during treatment, and home medications.

“My grandfather, 'Papa', my father, Paul, my mother, Jeanette and my sister, Lucia...my entire family all had cancer.” With such a personal connection herself, Cherry-Roubaix Charity Ride founder Jean Peters feels passionate about the purpose that fuels the Charity Ride and inspires ride participants. “Papa was the first person I ever knew that died. He died of prostate cancer. My father died of Leukemia, and my mother had colon cancer. My sister Lucia has survived three types of cancer including a rare and deadly uterine-lining cancer. Two years later Lucia was also diagnosed colon cancer, and more recently, she had a big chunk taken from her leg as a result of skin cancer.”

Peters emotionally bonds with the many Charity Ride cyclists somehow touched by cancer in their lives. “My friends and their family that have had cancer include Joe, Marge, Kim, Kristin, Bill, Bud, Marta, Arabella, Mary Jean, Lucho, CiCi, Dayne, Jim, Maxine and my kitty, Roscoe. And of course, generations of Americans feel connected to famous cancer victims like John Wayne, Farrah Fawcett, Patrick Swayze, Dennis Hopper, Gregory Hines and Lance Armstrong.”

Peters reflects on a recent report that compared to 1993, Americans are now 18% less likely to die of cancer. “So why commit to the Cherry-Roubaix Charity Ride if cancer sufferers have been on the decline? Because everything we do to combat this insidious disease has an impact. An eighteen percent improvement simply means those patients are not dying, but they and their families still have to endure the illness. That means people in my life, people in your life...and maybe even you.”

Straightforward and compassionate, Peters hits the mark. “Cherry-Roubaix Charity Ride cyclists ride because they care. Some are remembering those lost, some are fighting for those who are battling right now, some are paying it forward. Me? I am doing all three, and I am quite certain anyone who generously signs up for the Cherry-Roubaix Charity Ride is doing the same thing.”

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The Northwood Dental office in Traverse City is excited to be supporting and sponsoring this exciting cycling event as a Team Level sponsor. Dr. Brian Klym will also be racing on Sunday, August 14 as part of the Hagerty Cycling Team as a Cap 4 Racer.

More About The Cancer Survivors Fundraisers

Commit to one of two ride distances out gorgeous Old Mission Peninsula on August 13, and Peters guarantees that as participant, cyclists will get more than they give. “The 'Sisterhood' is leading us out the shoreline road from downtown Traverse City, and everyone, speedy or slow, is working to ride cancer into the ground by helping our friends and neighbors get help they need from Munson Women's Cancer Fund. We may not know who combats cancer now or in the future, but today we can do something.”

Peters confirms, “Our Cherry-Roubaix Charity Ride community inspires and needs your help. Get on a bike, have a good time, get a cool tee shirt, enjoy revitalizing comradeship and refreshments at Jolly Pumpkin on Old Mission Peninsula, and join millions globally who take a step in their own way to wipe this condition off the face of the earth. I'll be over your shoulder with you. Hundreds, including me, are very grateful for your choice on August 13 to ride together to defend women's health, support our friends and our families, and kick cancer to the curb.”

View photos, discover information, or register today for the Cherry-Roubaix Charity Bike Ride to benefit Munson Women's Cancer Fund at Cherry Roubaix Cycling: Charity Ride Web Page. Learn more about at MunsonHealthcare.Org Monson Women's Cancer Fund Page.

Jean Peters, founder of the Cherry-Roubaix Charity Ride, is also Cherry-Roubaix Technical Director and a member of the Cherry-Roubaix Board of Directors. Email Peters at jean@cherry-roubaix.com. Particular inspiration for this sharing of information is dedicated to the memory of Jean Peters’ dear friend, Jim B., a wonderful man, artist and supreme gardener whose gentle soul was relieved of his battle with cancer in late June 2011.

Cherry-Roubaix series is a three-day weekend event. The State Championship Road Race is on Sunday, August 14. The championship course begins and ends high atop Sugarloaf Resort in Cedar, Michigan.

The Grand Traverse area is a popular cycling destination and an amazing place for vacation value. All ages find opportunities to participate or take a break from fast-paced Cherry-Roubaix action. Relax on miles of pristine beaches, take a wine tour across Leelanau or Old Mission Peninsula, enjoy time at a ball game, climb the sand dunes or unwind in a charming movie theater after spending a few hours shopping and dining in quaint downtown Traverse City.

• The weekend begins with evening Sprints on Friday, August 12 at Traverse City’s Friday Night Live, and the excitement continues on Saturday, August 13 with a rip-roaring full day of cycling.


• Early morning cyclists of all levels may participate in the Cherry-Roubaix Charity Ride to Benefit Munson Women’s Cancer Fund followed by the high-energy Cherry-Roubaix Old Town Criterium. The criterium thrills spectators as racers explode into a one-mile course through the streets of Traverse City.


• Simultaneously with the Old Town Crit, the Kids Fun Ride and Cruiser Classic mix up the action for all to enjoy.


• The weekend crescendos in Leelanau County on Sunday, August 14 at the launch of the Michigan State Road Race Championship, the demanding race to determine the best of the best in Michigan. Hills and turns of the of the old 1980’s State Road Race course unforgivingly challenge and test racers from around the state.

Three days of Cherry-Roubaix events across the resort landscape of the Traverse City area satisfy cycling fans of all ages, from families looking for a fun, northern Michigan getaway to die-hard professional and amateur racers seeking incredible races in a supportive cycling community.

Click to find maps, a downloadable media kit, and Cherry-Roubaix info or call John Sohacki, Event Director at 231-342-2003.
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Posted by Dick Chwalek

NicheDental.com

Strategic Tips For Building Profitable Dental Practices in 2009

When it comes to being successful during a downturn, communication is everything! Dental practices that want to thrive need to consistently present the value they offer to more consumers and keep their patients better informed as well.

While building dental expertise is vital, its potential is very limited without a connective communication strategy to make it actually available and understood by others. It is time  to give your expertise a high priority status.

The current economic situation has created many businesses challenges. Dental practices need to respond in various ways to encourage consumers to make dentistry a higher priority. Consumers will only delay longer without ongoing reminders. Additionally, current patients need a higher level of communication and stronger referral skills.

While regular preventive dental visits can be delayed without a short-term downside, significant health problems and personal reasons will not wait for an economic recovery. When emergencies arise and toothaches occur, your dental office should have a public presence to keep your patient numbers on a growth trajectory. 

Dentists who offer high value services such as Invisalign braces, dental implants, cosmetic dentistry, and smile makeovers should make sure they are the ones these patients will know of when they start looking. Sedation dentistry marketing is also a way to move consumers who have put off dental treatment because of fear to get the care they need now.

Take these steps to keep your dental office profitable in 2009.

The Best Dental Marketing Plan has THREE Elements

ONE: Be A Publicly, Proactive, Persistent Dental Practice

• To grab people who are not considering dentistry right now
• Usually includes a traditional dentistry marketing element or format 
• People need to be made aware of your cosmetic and restorative expertise and services 
• While public marketing is not cheap, done right, dentists can bring in new blood fast 
• Waiting for referrals, or consumers to think about or searchers is risky in a downturn

TWO: Completely Cover Your Current Dental Patients Angle

• Patients want others to know about you if you do things well 
• This is hardly ever done well - it is often generic, impersonal, and infrequent 
• Referrals and smile makeover case acceptance result from effectively communicating value 
• Find more ways to connect with dental patients and more formats to ask for referrals 
• Where you communicate now - add elements that say something new about you 
• Referrals still make great patients, but the new landscape requires new methods 
• Use dental technology to better inform patient of your services and expertise

THREE: Network Your Internet Connection: Dental Websites

• The Internet is where your patients, and consumers are, and will be looking for you 
• There are a thousand ways to attract new dental care patients online: spread your wings 
• Internet evasion will shrink your community influence, referral power, expertise value 
• Remember most other dentists are doing one thing, if any, and often haphazardly 
• Keep adding to your online dental advertising repertoire, weaving in your highest value services

Downturn Dental Marketing ConclusionAssertive and persistent public and internal communication is essential for your dental practice to be viable today and long term. Dental marketing is not only a good thing it is the only thing that consistently gets consumers and patients enough information in the quantity, quality, and the right time of day for them to absorb it effectively. To achieve the success you want in 2009, get the marketing you need to reach your revenue goals.

Commentary by Dental Marketing Consultant Dick Chwalekand Niche Dental communication coaching guides you to better, faster, and fit-your-needs solutions.

Visit Niche Dental on Twitter.

Website SEO For Dentists: Exposed!

SEO is working for some dentists and dental practices. But be wary of the HYPE! Dental website SEO is a 'well' of potential that cannot be fully understood or controlled – even by the dentist website SEO experts – because it is always evolving and not necessarily doing more for the money spent.

Make sure the dental website SEO well you are lowered into provides enough financial liquidity to pay back your investment not just a very long rope wrapping around your dental marketing budget.

Website SEO is NOT like dental treatment that has an upward trend of improvement over time – it is more like shifting sands of value with many areas of quicksand for your marketing dollars. Make sure you get the whole picture for your dental website strategy not just a service with a bunch of over-hyped promises. Your dentist web site strategy should focus on what YOU need, not mostly what SEO needs!

Your dentistry has a value that should standout from the GIMMICKS dental SEO firms have in their quiver. Make sure the dental practice Website SEO firm’s belief in their own service is not more overblown than their knowledge of other dental marketing services that might be more valuable to you.

Secondarily, dental SEO merely WAITS for new patients to search… so you end up fighting for the same limited patient base your dentist competitors are. Plus it is getting even more difficult to get those new dental patients as more of your dental practice competitors join in the online and SEO fray.

This means rather than enhancing the overall supply of patients, you are paying more and more dental marketing dollars for fewer patients than the first dentist that did SEO. While I do see issues with its SINGULAR potential for driving patients to your dental practice, SEO can help you gain a foothold in the dental advertising environment.

SEO – search engine optimization – the “free click” concept – is very seductive for many dentists. It is the “Free” dental PR of the web. However, there is REAL WORK involved. Either you do the dental web site search engine optimizing or your dental Webmaster does.

Dental SEO is an ongoing process. You also need to be wary of the many pitfalls and gimmicks that might hurt the high ranking potential of your dental web site. Think of effective dentist SEO as keeping ahead of periodontal disease with your patients. There are good days where you feel good about what has been done – but if nothing is done for months – much of the value is lost. Search engines change their rules and algorithms, and the basic technology of tracking results transforms constantly.

Effective dental website SEO is a matter of valuable content, updating, and some technical formatting and structuring. This is not all about “meta tags” as it was in the early days. Some SEO groups can even get your site blacklisted: using various schemes like “link farming” and “keyword slamming”. These are very shallow dental SEO strategies. Be sure the strategy is also about valuing your dentist expertise not just finding “a dental website”.

The most vexing dentist web SEO issue: there is no way to really quantify the value of any specific strategy that will get you at the top consistently because of all these variables. Unless they assess many aspects of their dental marketing, dentists will just pay more until “it happens”.

Finally, to gain the upper hand in this online dental advertising environment, it makes sense to have a decent offline proactive dental marketing campaign. Use SEO to gather up dental patients who are already out there searching for a dentist, but make sure you are ALSO introducing more people to the value of your dental practice brand through an external marketing strategy, a dental direct mail program for example. Even sending a few hundred or a thousand dental postcards a month, which direct consumer directly to your dental web site not to search for any dentist.

Remember dental SEO is a regressive strategy unless you are priming the pump with a proactive – get more consumers to log online – public (and patient) dental marketing communication campaigns. Avoid the quicksand of one trick pony dental advertising strategy. Get the right dental communication mix, Integrate!
Sincerely, Dick Chwalek - Niche Dental President
CALL 866-453-1026

Dentist Marketing Coach and Dental Consultant
NicheDental.com
PLUS - Go Proactive with your dental marketing...

Dental Logos With Standout POWER, Stationery Design, Dentist Websites Too!.

Grow Your Patient Base Fast with Personalized Dental or Orthodontic Postcards!

What Makes A Dental Website Work?

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for dentists is a hot topic in dental website marketing. While being high on the search engines has its advantages, it is not much different than being the first ad in the yellow pages many years ago.

With a HIGH SEO RANKING for your dental website, you will get more window shoppers, but not necessarily very many patients or at least those who will understand and appreciate--in timely manner--the value you will present them.

Rather than merely cranking up the number of "scanning eyeballs" also make sure you are moving towards an integrated and patient attracting dental marketing strategy.

Here the main elements you need to be successful dentist online:

1) Present your best "real people" smile makeover photos or videos not dental cases alone.

2) Have testimonials of dentistry patients saying many different things about their experience, their dentist and their new confidence.

3) Present various elements that include the dentist (you) with patients, about who the dentist is in real life, and other elements such as dental pr (dentist on TV video, etc.)

See What Arthur Freedman - Hartford CT Area Cosmetic Smile Makeover Dentist Says.

Sincerely,
Dick Chwalek - Dental Marketing Coaching
Call 866-453-1026
NicheDental.com