Marketing your dental practice online is a measurable, cost-effective strategy for reaching customers on their terms. The people who need your help are looking for you online. With the right approach, you can encourage them to visit your website, contact your office and set up appointments. In order to accomplish that goal, you must have a website that meets several design and marketing parameters. Most dentists don’t, and their websites languish in obscurity.

A well-designed dental website should practically eliminate the labor-intensive marketing efforts most dentists focus upon. Below, we’ll share three common website pitfalls that ensnare many dental practices.

#1 – Trying To Impress Visitors With Your Dental Website

Few factors can sabotage your site’s ability to increase your case acceptance as quickly as unnecessary flash and glitz. Prospective patients will often turn away from dental websites that are stylish to the point of being intimidating. Your site should coax potential patients to explore your services, rather than seem daunting to them.

That’s not to suggest that style is unimportant. On the contrary, a professional design is critical. It helps your dental practice exude confidence, talent and proficiency. The key is to find the perfect balance between “too much style” and “just enough to coax them into contacting you.”

#2 – Failing To Make Your Dental Website Search Engine Friendly

Google, Yahoo!, and Bing! continue to attract millions of people each day. Many of these people are in your community, looking for a dental practice they can trust. In fact, the trend to find local dentists online has grown dramatically over the last several years. This gives you an enormous opportunity to leverage the search engines in order to reach new patients who live near your office.

The problem is, most dental websites are designed in a way that makes it difficult for search engines to index and rank them properly. Sometimes, the issue is structural; the architecture of the site may prevent “spidering” by the search engines. Other times, the problem is a lack of relevance; the search engines are unable to determine the site’s topic.

If Google, Yahoo!, and MSN cannot find, index and rank your site properly, many of your potential patients will be unable to find you. An effective dental website must be search engine friendly.

#3 – Neglecting To Educate Patients

Many people are tentative about visiting dentists because they’re uncertain about what to expect. That uncertainty breeds procrastination. For example, a person might be experiencing a dull, throbbing pain in his tooth, yet be nervous about potential treatment strategies. Or, a person might be interested in enjoying a more attractive smile, yet remain unaware about her options. The less informed people are, the less likely they are to set an appointment with your office.

Your dental website is an ideal platform from which to educate those who need your services. Regardless of when someone visits your site, that person can explore a library of useful information that carefully describes the procedures you offer. By educating your patients, you’ll give them a level of comfort. And that encourages them to make an appointment.

Bonus Pitfall: Not Allowing Patients To Make An Appointment Online

Most dental websites do not allow patients to set appointments online. Instead, they force people to call. Not only is this inconvenient for the patient, but it’s also inefficient for the dental practice. Your site should give patients the flexibility to request appointments online. Once a request is submitted to your office, your staff can call the patient to confirm the date and time.

Designing and maintaining a website that effectively promotes your dental practice requires that you deftly sidestep a number of pitfalls. The effort is worthwhile. A well-designed dental website will attract more people and coax them to contact your office.

Chris Harmen writes for Officite, a medical website design firm that creates medical and dental web sites that are user-friendly and search engine optimized.

Vocational Training — the Other School Meat
 by: Cathy Warschaw

Many of us have been told that a college degree is necessary in order to land a satisfying career that has a good salary. However, while experts agree that most careers do require postsecondary training or education, statistics show that only a small percentage of jobs will demand a bachelor’s or professional degree. If you are undecided about whether or not attending a four-year college is right for you, what is a reasonable alternative?

A great option to a four-year college is a vocational training program. Vocational training programs offer specialized instruction to help students develop the knowledge and skills necessary to perform a specific job. In addition, these programs often have small class sizes — which allow for one-on-one communication with the instructor — and are completed in a much shorter timeframe. Many training programs are also offered on the Internet, enabling you to study from the comfort of your own home and on your own schedule.

There are also an unlimited number of careers that can be had through vocational training. A great job such as working the front desk of a dental office is easily achieved through vocational training. Additionally, vocational training prepares students for immediate employment by focusing only on the material that matters; while a four-year college expects students to take a variety of courses that usually have nothing to do with their interests and end up costing them a lot of wasted time and dollars.

On the front and back end, vocational training is much lower in costs than college tuition. Today, the average price of a four-year college is somewhere around $15,000 per year; while a vocational training institution averages 60-80% less. And the costs don’t end at graduation either. Many college students end up paying back hefty loans that they had to use in order to pay for school – before they even land a job!

In short, it is important to understand now what your choices are for postsecondary education. A great part of graduating high school and becoming a responsible adult is learning to make the decisions that are right for you. So mosey on up to the counter and take a good look at all the options available on the menu before you decide to order what everyone else recommends.

“Changing Lives…One Career at a Time.”

About The Author

Cathy Warschaw

The Warschaw Learning Institute has grown to become the leading online dental office training among today’s dental professionals, adults changing careers and high school seniors.

Contact Details:

Warschaw Learning Institute

8424 Santa Monica Blvd. #A-170

West Hollywood, CA. 90069, USA

http://www.warschawlearninginstitute.com

(323) 822-0917

Copyright 2005 by Warschaw Learning Institute

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