One common mistake that we see so many dental websites make is that they all use very similar stock images, if not the same. As a matter of fact, if you pick 10 vendor websites, I bet you you’re going to find the same photos in there. What you want to do is you want to differentiate your practice from all your competitors in your area, so what it means is that you need to stand out. And one of the ways to do that is not to use stock images, but use professional photos. And that’s the reason why for our Practice Growth Program clients, we send a professional photographer to go in and take professional photos for our clients to make them stand out.

Did you know that only 5% of the people who come to your website is ready to take action, ready to make an enquiry? So, what are you going to do with the other 95%? What you want to do is to have funnels in place to exchange their details and you give them something of value.

The reason those 95% are not ready to take action is because they’re still at the research stage. They’re going from your website to your competitor’s website, and they’re trying to find a website that they feel they can trust. They’re trying to find a practice that they feel is going to give them value for money and, most importantly, is going to deliver the dental work that they’re after.

So, what we want to do is you want to give them something of value, give them something that’s going to assist them in their research process in exchange for the details, whether it’s email, their mobile number. And once you’ve got that, you want to nurture them on an ongoing basis, and in that ongoing basis is to keep helping them with their research process, giving them more information, so that when they are ready to make an enquiry, that you become the provider of choice.

Here’s another statistic for you. Did you know that when you have a lead from your website… And when I say a lead, that’s someone who gave the details in exchange for a piece of content. 50% of those few people are actually not going to do anything, but the 50% who will, only 15% will take action in the next 90 days. And the other 85% will take action in the next week and a half.

So, my question to you is, are you going to focus on that 15% or are you going to focus on the 85%? Well, the answer is you want both.

So, you know that 15% are going to take action. Then you want to have things in place to nurture them in a short period of time to hopefully entice them to make an enquiry. But the other 85% that is going to take action in the next year and a half, you want to also have something in place on an ongoing basis to nurture them, and that is where the funnel comes in.

You want to have a long term evergreen funnel that keeps nurturing these people. So, it could be a newsletter, it could be getting them to follow you on social media. But when they follow you on social media, only 5% of them will actually see your posts, so you want to have paid social media, as well, to nurture these people. And this is exactly what we do for our Practice Growth Program clients is that we’d put funnels on their website so that we can capture these people’s details and nurture them on an ongoing basis, whether it is through SMS, whether it’s from email, whether it’s through a paid social media advertising, it’s a very holistic approach.

The third reason why your website is not performing as well as it could is because maybe you don’t have enough content. Someone’s not going to read 300 words on your website and make an inquiry for a $20,000 cosmetic dentistry service.

For our Practice Growth Program clients what we do is rewrite their services page contents of up to 1,000 words. Right? So, the more content that you have, the more information that you’re providing for your patients on what is the procedure? How does it work? How do you guys approach it at your practice? What is your philosophy? What are the pros and cons? So, you’re giving your patients a lot of information to assist them in the decision making that you are the right provider of choice. The additional benefit of having over 1,000 words on your services pages is that it is great for SEO, as well. So that means it’s going to help your page rank ahead of your competitors, or things equal.

The fourth reason why your website is not performing as well as it could is maybe because you don’t have enough case study for your dental website. I was at a dinner party recently, and the hosts are in their 70s. And they’re having some dental problems, and they were actually looking for All-in-Four which is a significant investment and also is quite a decent size procedure. And knowing that I work with a lot of dental clients, they said to me, “Liza, how do we tell from one dentist to another who to choose?” And one of my answers to them is check out their work. See how many of that procedure they have done. And how you need to differentiate you from the competitor is the amount of case studies that you have on your website, and that includes before/after photos, write up of their treatment, what were the problems they had before. Right? So, to show real people.

Now, sometimes it might be challenging to get patients’ before/after photos with the full face, you might not be able to get consensus, but what you can definitely do is blur the eyes or only show the teeth. Right? So, then, that will be anonymous. So, you definitely want to have a lot of case studies of all your procedures, especially the major ones, to showcase the quality of the work, and also prove that you can actually perform and do what you say you can and give people that sense of confidence and peace of mind.

The fifth reason why your dental website might not be performing as well as it could is because you might not have enough video blogs, or blogs at all, to showcase your IP. One of the ways to showcase you know what you’re doing and you what you’re talking about is through blogging. Now, you can write, but videos are also extremely powerful because they put a face to the camera. And this is exactly what we do for our Practice Growth Program clients, is that we bring in a videographer team and we help them with the topics and the content so that they know exactly what they’re going to be talking about.

And the reality is they know all the information anyways, it’s is coming up with the right topics. And we do research to find them the questions that the patients are asking. And what ended up happening is that we now, with our clients, their patients come to them and go, “I’ve been watching your videos on dental implant. I want Dr. so-and-so to help me with my procedure.” And because it gives them a sense of familiarity, the person, the comfort, and this is exactly what you want to convey to your potential patients. So, with video blogs, not only does it showcase your IP, but it gives them a sense that you are friendly, you’re a real person, and that you care. And when you’re on camera and you’ve got your face in front of it, that is the sense that you want your patients to feel.