We help Australian Dental Practices become visible online, and to do so in a manner that attracts new patients to their practice and grows their business.
Our founder is an Australian Dentist: she has become a champion of effective online marketing for her professional colleagues and a defender of their rights to retain control of their marketing and not be misled by unscrupulous providers.
As a result we’ve become sticklers for
- only using tactics that are gold standard and effective
- only providing dentists with what they need (so that they don’t waste time and money on unnecessary tactics)
- accountability and transparency
- complying absolutely with the laws, guidelines and regulations that are applicable to our profession
- ensuring that dentists own and are in full control of their online assets
- ensuring that we use business growth and practice success as the ultimate indicators of successful online marketing
We Can Help Your Dental Practice In The Following Ways
- Developing new Dental Practice Websites and rejuvenating existing sites
- Website care packages to protect your most important online asset
- Writing website content that helps website visitors find what they need on your site and which compels them to contact your practice
- Helping the practice owner decide what online marketing tactics are necessary to meet their practice needs and putting them together into an effective online visibility strategy that will work
- We provide online marketing services such as Ethical SEO, Social Media Management, Blogging and Google AdWords Management.
- Providing Online Marketing Management services- we can either manage your current marketing agencies and keep them accountable for delivering results, or we can provide the full suite of services you need using the skills of our own team
- Assisting dentist-owners to review the results of their marketing efforts on a monthly basis and to draw meaningful conclusions about the data which allows the practice to improve upon the results- see our monthly Website Check Up Packages
- Troubleshooting problems with online visibility and conversion of website visitors into callers- this includes website audits, SEO rescue plans and Google Penalty recovery services
- Training you or members of your team to perform some marketing activities in-house: this keeps your overheads down and can make some of your marketing more effective than if done by a third party
- Educating dentists and their teams about online marketing, so that you can make better decisions about marketing your own practice. We provide a free members library of helpful resources and guides, conduct monthly webinars on topics critical to your online success and present to audiences of dentists and practice managers at conferences, meetings and workshops.
Who These Services Are NOT For
Please note that we do not work with practices who are comfortable breaking the rules or working against the Advertising Guidelines. We only work with ethical practices who focus on providing quality care in a professional manner.
A Little Rant From Our Founder
Many dentists have been led to believe that their entire online marketing plan can be ticked off once they have a website in place: but unless you live in a location with low competition, this won’t be enough to attract visitors to the website and ultimately new patients to the practice.
Expecting a practice website to be capable of driving a steady stream of new patients to your practice without an ongoing marketing plan is much like paying thousands of dollars for a fabulous billboard that is then erected in a remote rural location: there might not be anything wrong with the billboard, but it’s very unlikely to be found by anyone.
Some dentists understand this distinction, and realise that there is a lot that can be done to make their website more prominent. They put their feelers out and learn about the existence of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), SEM (Search Engine Marketing, usually pay-per-click advertising using the Google AdWords platform), Social Media Marketing, Google Local Listings, Content Marketing, Blogging, Online Video and more.
Some of these tactics work really well, but not every practice needs every tactic and they are best applied as an integrated strategy rather than as an ad hoc, ‘let’s try this new thing’ approach. It’s also important to ensure that, no matter what marketing or promotional tactic you are employing, it is compliant with the National Law, Advertising Guidelines, and other applicable rules, terms of service and regulations.
This is where Australian Dentists can really get shafted misled.
Many Aussie Dentists have employed Agencies and individuals who have then engaged in all kinds of shenanigans. It’s important for dentists to realise that Online Marketing Agencies are not members of a regulated industry and do NOT have a code of conduct to follow.
Australian Dentists have reported that their online marketing service providers…
- offer all types of tactics whether the practice needs them or not
- rarely if ever integrate their approach (which sometimes means tactics will be working in opposition to one another)
- generally do not ensure that the tactics are delivered in a manner that is compliant with Australian Laws and Guidelines
- often fail to explain what service the dentist is buying: for example, SEO is often sold as a ‘black box’. Australian Dentists don’t always know what is being delivered as part of the service. Often the tactics are ‘black hat’ (against Google’s guidelines), ineffective (because Google now ignores the tactic entirely) or involves the creation of content (which should be compliant with the Advertising Guidelines but never is).
- often utilise SEO tactics that are against Google’s terms of service (which can cause your website to disappear from Google’s index altogether, causing your practice to become INVISIBLE online)
- generally provide only the most basic level of reporting (if any) which means it is impossible to calculate how well a tactic is working and whether it’s worth continuing
- point to ‘metrics’ like ‘ranking position’ as the most critical factors in measuring success
- sometimes make outlandish claims to persuade dentists to hire them. These may include claims to be able to manipulate the search results (when in fact any attempts to do this are against Google’s guidelines and either won’t work or will get the website penalised) or to be ‘working for or with Google’ (the implication here is that they have a special relationship with Google that gives their clients and advantage, but this isn’t how Google works).
This is not to say that there aren’t some awesome agencies out there: but it’s important that you are ultimately in control of your promotional activities. After all, it’s your money at risk, and you are the one ultimately responsible for complying with the rules.
The best advice I can offer is:
- Only buy online marketing services if you know exactly what it is that will be done on your behalf
- Ask about how the agency or individual ensures that their services are compliant with Google’s Guidelines and the National Law and Advertising Guidelines
- Insist that NOTHING ever be published unless you have read it and signed off on it first
- Know your numbers: keep a close eye on the results that are being achieved, by reviewing your Google Analytics and New Patient Phone Call and Acquisition Data every month