marketing
A stale office on a busy corner or the Taj Mahal on a dead-end road ?
Finding New Patients Online by Ernie Cote
When my daughters were young , we ’ d play “ Would You Rather ?” They would laugh and ask things like , “ Would you rather lick a dirty boot or step in dog poop ?” The questions got more absurd the longer we played , but we sure had a lot of giggles .
I thought about that game the other day as I spoke with a dentist complaining about her website traffic and contemplating a new site to fix the issue . I was trying to explain that a new , prettier site was not the answer , but I was failing to get through to her . Then I randomly blurted out , “ Doctor , would you rather have a brand-spankin ’ new , state-of-the-art building – I mean cover of Architectural Digest material – located at the dead end of a difficult-to-find road ? Or would you rather have a ho-hum office decorated by grandma a decade ago on the busiest corner in town ?”
She replied incredulously , “ The office on the busiest corner in town , of course ! I can remodel anywhere .” I said , “ Yes ! Me , too . So let ’ s get your site on the busiest corner in town ... or in online terms , at the top of Google searches , then focus on the model . Let ’ s shift the focus from building the site on the block with no traffic , to getting to the busier corner and remodel later .”
Thankfully , the analogy worked , and we shifted the conversation from new site photos and colors to less-fun-but-criticallyimportant topics like keyword research , link building , new blog content , etc .
Unfortunately , I work in what can be a shady industry . Too many companies offer overnight solutions to website traffic and conversions — promises of top Google rankings overnight . That ’ s just not possible because Google will not allow it . Despite what you might think about Google , its business model is founded on giving you the best search results possible .
If you searched for “ best cosmetic dentistry ” and you got results for ‘ lipstick ’ and ‘ dental floss ,’ you ’ ll stop using Google and their advertising revenue would dry up . So Google invests heavily in lightning-fast analysis of sites related to your search .
Let ’ s say Google is looking for the best result for your “ best cosmetic dentistry ” search and is comparing Dr . Ernie ’ s and Dr . Bert ’ s ( short for Roberta ) sites .
Dr . Bert
n has had her site up for several years and it loads very fast n has ‘ cosmetic dentistry ’ tagged in the appropriate places n includes recent blogs about ‘ cosmetic dentistry best practices ’ n has links to credible organizations in the cosmetic dentistry field n has a boatload of recent reviews from her cosmetic patients n is listed in multiple directories related to cosmetic dentistry
14 NORTH TEXAS DENTISTRY | www . northtexasdentistry . com