Ian McNickle leads WEO Media’s sales, marketing, consulting, and business development teams (

). He brings more than 20 years’ combined experience in technology, business development, sales, marketing, and operations. He lectures extensively throughout North America on all aspects of dental marketing and practice growth at dental conferences, study clubs, and continuing education events. In 2019, Ian published his first book, 

Mastering Practice Growth: The Definitive Guide for Growing Your Dental Practice or Dental Group

. In addition, he writes articles on a wide range of marketing and growth-related topics for publications such as 

Dental Economics, The Progressive Dentist

Ian McNickle

What is Google’s Mobile First Initiative?

Mobile First is a multiyear series of ranking algorithm changes to shift focus from desktop computers to mobile devices. For the past 5 years the volume of search on mobile devices has exceeded desktop traffic, so this move does make sense. The final transition is called Mobile First Indexing, which will be completed in March 2021. This will complete the transition from desktop to mobile algorithms.

Desktop Algorithm > Desktop Algorithm & Mobile Algorithm > Mobile Algorithm (March 2021)

At the highest level, Google’s intent is 2-fold:

Google split mobile and desktop search into 2 algorithms in 2016. This rewarded those who spent time to customize the user experience on desktop and mobile separately. Although good in theory, it took significant effort to maintain. Consolidating to 1 algorithm is less work.

With mobile search volume exceeding desktop, and the desire to move to 1 algorithm, shifting to the mobile algorithm made the most sense.

This is a departure from past algorithm changes, which primarily focused on improving user experience. Mobile First indexing is more about efficiency and reduced complexity for Google’s operations.

Website design technology and code change significantly about every 2 years, with much of it driven by screen size and resolution of devices as well as Google’s agenda.

Since April 21, 2015, when Google introduced “Mobile Friendly” tests into its algorithm,

 dedicated mobile websites have proven the best for user experience and conversion.

 They were concise, easier to navigate, quicker, and more readily provided information a person searching on a mobile device desired.

Google’s Mobile First initiative is massive. It is a total reversal from the original preference for dedicated mobile sites. Website designers and SEO agencies will need to ensure their sites do not fall into irrelevance by meeting Google’s mobile expectations.

According to Google, by March 2021 its algorithm will only consider content on the mobile website for ranking. It will ignore any content that only shows up on the desktop version of a website.

 However, content is still king, so the more unique content on a website the better. Gone are the days of being more concise or customizing content for a better mobile experience. Now you need to show everything on mobile.

If you have a fully responsive website with no customization for mobile visitors, then you will probably be fine. If there has been customization on your website, you may need to remove media calls that exclude content on mobile versus desktop and confirm the website still formats correctly.

If you have a dedicated mobile website, you probably will need to rebuild the entire website as soon as possible. If you have a desktop-only website, then it will be completely dropped from Google’s index.

 So if you care about being found in a Google search, you will need to build a new website as early as possible.

If you do not know the details of your mobile website, ask your website designer or SEO agency. Hopefully they have already contacted you about making sure your site is ready for Google’s search update. Any high quality website designer should be well-prepared for this change, just as they should have been prepared for the launch of the original Google mobile algorithm and then made the adjustment to responsive sites in recent years. Time is of the essence if changes need to be made, especially if you need to move away from a dedicated mobile or desktop only website.

Makino T, Phan D. Rolling out the mobile-friendly update. 

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2015/04/rolling-out-mobile-friendly-update

Responsive web design, dedicated mobile site or mobile app—how to choose? 

https://www.digivate.com/blog/mobile/responsive-web-design-dedicated-mobile-site-or-mobile-app/

Montti R. Google Mobile First Index—zero desktop content March 2021. 

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-mobile-index-news-from-pubcon-virtual-2020/384111/

Articles

Starting in March, Google search rankings will index websites based on their appearance and performance on mobile devices.

Is Your Website Ready for Google’s Mobile First Initiative?

	There has been a clear trend over the last decade with more and more practices expanding to multiple locations, incorporating specialty services and scaling up to DSOs. Talk with anyone who has done it or is currently doing it and he or she will tell you it’s difficult and quite messy. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

	Admittedly, I have a fairly unique perspective on this subject. My experience as a co-founder running an award-winning dental marketing agency for the last decade has given me a lot of insight into dental marketing processes and data at a macro level. Likewise, as president of The DSO Project, I’ve been able to consult with numerous DSOs across the country and learn from many more. While there are many challenges to scaling from a single location to multiple locations, and up to a DSO, this article will focus on a variety of specific challenges related to marketing.

		I find it easiest to explain the new patient generation process by breaking it down into three primary steps: Market to generate leads

		Convert the appointments into sold dentistry (case acceptance)

	This article will discuss the first two steps.

	Lead generation should start with a laser focus on digital marketing where the website(s) form the foundation of your online presence. It should go without saying the website(s) should be optimized for mobile devices (ideally using responsive design). Once digital marketing is dialed in and performance baselines are understood, then you can expand to direct-to-consumer (D2C) marketing.

Related reading: Improving practice communication with Patient Prism

	Leads can be generated to the website with solid SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns. SEO involves a wide range of activities to get the website(s) ranking highly on Google. PPC campaigns are excellent at generating leads from targeted geographies for specific dental services such as dental implants, orthodontics, cosmetic dentistry and sleep medicine, among others.                   

	As the leads are generated, converting them into appointments is a critical next step. The main items on a website that help convert traffic into leads are putting the phone number in large font in the top banner, placing a practice overview video on the home page of the website, offering an appointment request button or appointment scheduling service, and using a live chat box to further engage people.

	However, items away from your website also play a crucial role in converting leads into appointments. Online reputation and social media make a real difference in convincing potential patients to contact your practice. I always recommend using a software service to generate a steady stream of good reviews to the major review sites, including Google, Facebook and Healthgrades. My firm, WEO Media, offers this type of service, but there are many on the market, so just pick one and use it consistently.

	Once the phone rings with your potential new patient on the line, it becomes mission critical to answer all phone calls and convert as many into appointments as possible. As you scale to multiple locations and beyond, I generally recommend using a third-party call center because it offers many advantages, including 24/7 coverage, surge capacity to handle multiple callers at once and, in most cases, a higher scheduling conversion rate is experienced. As your group practice continues to grow, at some point you may want to build your own call center, but I would avoid this as long as possible because it can be quite difficult, and affordable third-party call centers exist.

	Regardless of whether you decide to answer calls in your practice or outsource to a third-party, it’s important to really analyze your call answering performance. This will allow you to identify how many calls you’re missing, how well various people are doing at scheduling appointments and what improvements can be made. The best service I’ve seen on the market for call analysis is Patient Prism, an innovative call analysis software that can analyze calls and report in granular detail how things are going and how performance can be improved.

	As leads are generated, it’s critical to be able to track your lead sources as accurately as possible. I always recommend using phone tracking numbers for your various marketing initiatives. The online presence-which includes your website, along with directories, social media properties and other websites where your practice contact information appears-should all use the same tracking phone number. It’s necessary to use one phone number per location for all online properties about your practice or group. Otherwise, Google will notice the different phone numbers associated with the same business address and your SEO rankings will likely suffer considerably as a result.

	PPC campaigns can generally use Google scripts to track phone calls from these paid clicks versus calls related to organic traffic generated from SEO. Likewise, you’ll want to use a separate phone tracking number for each direct mail campaign, each print ad, each radio campaign and every other D2C marketing medium you employ, so you can effectively measure (or at least estimate) campaign ROI.

	At the end of the day, probably the most important aspect of tracking where new patients come from is simply asking them when they come to your office. It’s critical your staff have 100 percent compliance on this activity. You should treat this as a key job function for them and review it on a weekly or monthly basis. Accurate data is key to optimizing any marketing program.

	As you scale to multiple locations, you have two options with websites

		Build one website with location pages for each location, or

		Build a separate website for each location.

	If you choose to have one website, there’s a benefit to the simplicity of being able to reference one website address for all your marketing efforts. In this case, you should create separate webpages within the main website for each location because this is helpful for SEO rankings.

	However, if you’re concerned with generating the best results from your online marketing, then you should have one website for each practice location because this is far better for SEO performance. The good news is you can still have a central landing page or microsite to use a single website address for mass marketing activities such as a TV ad that sends people to one website address. In this case the landing page or microsite would simply contain links to all of the individual practice level websites.

Related reading: 6 steps to make any dental practice shine online

	Once you have enough locations in a geographic area, direct-to-consumer (D2C) marketing can be quite effective. As stated above, you’ll want to drive leads to one website address and track calls and leads as best you can.

	The most popular-and probably most effective-form of D2C marketing is direct mail campaigns. Radio ads on AM talk radio can also be quite effective. TV ads are more expensive and more unpredictable but can work well in some cases. Due to their higher costs, these types of marketing strategies make the most sense when your group practice is ready to move beyond the highly targeted approach of online marketing to cast the wider net to reach the entire community served by your practice’s multiple locations. 

	With your group practice’s online presence well organized and working to generate new patient leads, and your team properly trained to convert those leads into appointments, your group practice will have a solid marketing foundation on which to build. That’s when it’s time to push beyond SEO and PPC to take your messaging D2C.

	While this article is aimed at helping growing group practices and DSOs make their marketing efforts as effective as possible, the same principles apply to practices of all sizes. Regardless of the number of locations that make up a particular practice, having a solid SEO strategy, making sure your practice contact information is consistent everywhere online, and training your staff to covert new patients over the phone are key parts of growing a dental practice. 

Whether your practice has a couple of locations or is a burgeoning DSO, a sound approach to marketing is key to attracting new patients and continuing to grow.

How to effectively market your multi-location dental group

	I love Instagram; maybe it’s the simplicity of it. The highly visual posts and concise captions (if there are any) make it a fun distraction throughout my day. It’s no wonder that many users - especially those between the ages of 18 and 30 - find themselves to be addicted to the platform. Yet, there aren’t many dental practices taking advantage.

	Many are pouring their efforts into Facebook, but the very nature of Instagram makes it a great community for dentists to show off their work and engage with their communities. To get some insight and advice about how practices can jump on the bandwagon, I interviewed my friend and dental marketing expert, Ian McNickle, CEO of 

	Why do you recommend dentists get on Instagram?

	While I’ve always recommended Facebook as the primary social media platform for dental practices, Instagram is rapidly gaining on Facebook as an impactful social marketing platform.

Related reading: How to use social media as free advertising

	Facebook and YouTube still dominate social media for most users in the United States, but Instagram has seen significant growth, especially among young adults. As of June 2018, Instagram reported to have more than 1 billion active users worldwide. Likewise, according to the Pew Research Center, 35 percent of all U.S. adults now use Instagram. In particular, 71 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds and more than 50 percent of 25- to 29-year-olds are regular users.

According to Instagram statistics, at least 80 percent of users are now following at least one business. People want to be a part of a brand identity and keep up with it. Advertisers in general are seeing value with Instagram ads. According to Recode.net, in the first quarter of 2017, Instagram made up 10 percent of Facebook’s total ad revenue, but in the fourth quarter of 2018, it will make up about 30 percent. (Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion.)

	Posting and advertising on Instagram can produce a significant benefit for practices that are able to effectively engage with their patients (and potential new patients).

	It’s very important to set up a business page for your practice, as opposed to using your personal Instagram page. Business pages have many advantages over personal pages: the ability to list information about your business, the option to include clear calls to action (CTAs), page analytics and the ability to advertise.

	When setting up your business profile page, make sure you include relevant keywords that people might search for, such as your practice name and “dentist type, city, state” as well as your primary services and procedure categories (general dentistry, orthodontics, dental implants, etc). We recommend using the following CTAs: call, email, text and get directions.

More from the author: The reinvention of dental imaging software

	You often talk about user-generated content. Can you explain what that is and how to create it on Instagram?

	You don’t always have to be the one to create content for your page. You can collaborate with highly engaged users (patients, friends, colleagues) who are creating content about you. Featuring this type of content shows that a business is listening to their community and can encourage further engagement from other users. User-generated content doesn’t always have to be photos and videos; it could be asking people to comment or tag a friend so that you can feature these interactions as a post or in stories. Sometimes encouraging engagement is just asking people to post emojis if someone agrees, or you can ask them to pick the best emoji response to content you’ve posted.

	For example, you can create a post asking users to share photos of their smiles using the hashtag #shareyoursmile and this will give people a chance to be featured on your page. You can also encourage user interaction with giveaways and asking people to like, comment and share, which would enter them in a drawing to win a fun prize.

	I think the great thing about Instagram now is that it’s not just about posting static photos to the timeline. Can you tell practices how they can post stories just like their users?

	Taking notes from Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook have added stories to their platforms, allowing users to share updates that disappear after 24 hours. While Facebook hasn’t received a high amount of adoption, Instagram users frequently use the story feature to get regular updates. In fact, according to Statista.com, there are approximately 400 million users watching stories every day. Stories also offer a way to create user-generated content and feedback, such as direct messages, polls and submitting questions for the practice to answer. This allows for informal, real-time updates from the practice. Ask questions, interact with followers, share news about the office, showcase moments in your day and have fun!

Trending article: 4 ways to improve your practice's infection control in 2019

	How creative do you have to be to get solid engagement from your Instagram posts?

	Gone are the days where you could post any photo and get decent engagement. The visual esthetic of photos is extremely important as people curate their feeds. Instagram is a highly visual platform, so while people want value beyond esthetics, it’s still important to have visually interesting, striking or beautiful photos that draw people in to learn more and engage. Also, consistency in visuals is important for your branding. If you’re posting from your mobile phone, apps like VSCO, Snapseed, Canva and Over are just a few of the many photo editing apps for mobile devices.

	How often and when should practices post to get good engagement?

	There’s a lot of conflicting information on when you should post to Instagram and how often, but in general, weekdays seem to perform best. The exact time and frequency of posts is up to you and your specific audience, but in general, think of when someone would have breaks in their day to check their phone (waking up, lunch, breaks, once they get home). While it’s important to post frequently to keep users engaged and keep up with Instagram’s algorithm, it’s also important to focus on high-value content that encourages people to interact.

Read more: 4 tricks to increase patient referrals

	As for promotion, we generally recommend the 80/20 rule in which 80 percent is spent on teaching people new information, entertaining them, or encouraging them to interact and 20 percent can be product or service promotion. You could post daily if you have the bandwidth, but at least once or twice per week would be acceptable.

	The majority of posts should focus on telling a story, encouraging followers to share and providing them something of value. Successful promotion requires trust, and trust on Instagram involves establishing yourself in a community and showing that you have a story to tell but also that you listen and celebrate the stories of others.

	If you follow these strategies, I’m confident dentists will experience benefits in their practice marketing and online engagement. 

	If you have questions about your website, social media or online marketing, you may contact WEO Media for a consultation to learn more about the latest industry trends and strategies. The consultation is FREE if you identify yourself as a Dental Products Report reader.
	 

How a few simple strategies can make your office stand out on this social media platform.

The rise of Instagram for your dental practice

	Each month, Dr. Lou Shuman consults with a dental digital marketing specialist to discuss the latest developments in SEO strategies, website optimization, social media trends, online reputation management, marketing and more. 

	This month, Dr. Shuman sat down with Ian McNickle, MBA, partner and co-founder of WEO Media, to talk about online dental practice marketing and the benefits of  

	Do you think SEO or PPC is a better tactic for online marketing results?

	SEO consists of a wide range of activities that are done every month in order to get a website ranking highly on Google search results (or any search engine). PPC consists of using paid ads to generate traffic to a specific webpage. PPC ads can be used on search engines like Google and Bing as well as social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube.

	SEO and PPC results show up on different sections of a search result page. PPC ads typically show up in the advertising section of search results, which are located at the very top of the page in the first three or four positions listed as well as the very bottom of the page. By contrast, organic search results (which are driven by SEO activities) are shown in the Local Map section as well as in 10 organic listings below the Local Map. It is estimated that more than 90 percent of all clicks are on the Local Map and organic listings.

Trending article: The power of website lead conversion

	SEO and PPC both can get your website found on page one of Google, but which is better? 

	SEO and PPC are both recommended for any online marketing program that wants to drive new patient growth. When implemented properly, they work together to complement each other. 

	For local businesses like a dental practice, each location has a physical address that serves that local market. Google will rank a local business in the organic results for the city corresponding to the physical address of the business but typically not for the neighboring or surrounding geographies.

	 This creates a problem. Your practice could serve patients in these nearby areas, but you won’t show up in search results for those areas because you don’t have a physical business address there. (Note: A P.O. box is not a legitimate physical address as far as Google is concerned).

 is use SEO and PPC together to strategically maximize results. When we setup a PPC campaign, what we’ll often do is analyze the search terms and geographies where the practice website is already ranking well and compare that to a map of all the geographies they could realistically pull people in as new patients. The areas on the map where the website is not ranked on page one are good candidates for a PPC ad campaign. It is best to target the top two or three services (such as dental implants, cosmetic dentistry, braces, etc.), and focus those ads on the geographic areas where the website is not on page one. 

	This approach is a smart way to get the maximum number of clicks from potential new patients for a given marketing budget. Obviously the bigger the budget, the more clicks we can generate.

Trending article: Can email really be HIPAA compliant?

	How should doctors select an SEO/PPC provider?

	It is a good idea to ask to see some client examples. We often send potential clients a PDF that highlights a bunch of our clients ranking high on page one to demonstrate what we can do. In addition, I would recommend asking these questions:

	• Is your company a Certified Google Partner company? If so, that indicates they probably have some people who technically know what they’re doing, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they will do a good job for you. I see practices getting ripped off all the time by companies that just aren’t putting in the hard work to get results.

	• Do you have a lot of experience in the dental industry? There are lots of companies that offer SEO and PPC services, but not too many that focus entirely on the dental industry. We work with hundreds of dental practices and that experience makes a big difference in our ability to get results.

	• Do I have to sign a long-term contract? It often takes time to get results with online marketing, but I would avoid 12-month contracts (or longer). It is reasonable to agree to a six-month contract, but I would recommend against longer contracts. If an agency cannot demonstrate improving trends after six months, something is probably wrong with what they’re doing. 

If you have questions about your dental practice’s website, social media or online marketing, you may contact 

 at 888-246-6906 or info@weomedia.com for a consultation to learn more about the latest industry trends and strategies. The consultation is free if you identify yourself as a reader of this publication.

Dr. Lou Shuman and Ian McNickle, MBA, discuss the ins and outs of optimizing your online marketing results.  

Which is better:  SEO or PPC?

	Each month, Dr. Lou Shuman consults with a dental digital marketing specialist to discuss the latest developments in website optimization, SEO strategies, social media trends, online reputation management, marketing and more. 

	This month, Dr. Shuman sat down with Ian McNickle, MBA, partner and co-founder of WEO Media, to talk about why website lead conversion is so important, and how it can help improve a practice’s marketing ROI. 

I’ve heard you lecture on the topic of website lead conversion. Can you elaborate exactly what you mean by that?

	The reason I often teach people about this topic is that few people understand what it is, and why it is so important.

	To learn about website lead conversion we need to first take a step back and discuss online marketing. When it comes to online marketing there are two primary objectives: 

	1. Generate as much relevant traffic as possible, and 

	2. Convert that traffic into as many new patient leads and appointments as possible.

	This second step is what we call website lead conversion.

Related reading: The critical reason your dental practice needs a mobile website

	Sure, let’s start with website traffic. There are many ways to generate traffic on a website, such as having high search rankings on Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc., which is achieved through effective SEO (search engine optimization). Gathering lots of patient reviews on Google, Facebook, Healthgrades and Yelp also has a very positive impact on your search rankings and traffic. Social media activity, engagement, boosted posts and paid ads can all drive traffic to a website as well. Online directories can drive traffic, and the list goes on and on. 

	Once you’ve implemented a robust program to generate traffic it is equally important to understand how to convert all this traffic into new patient leads. Many items affect website lead conversion, such as:

	• having a modern website design with proper layout

	• appointment request buttons or forms

	• the use of actual photos instead of stock photos

	• patient testimonials (video and written)

	An experienced online marketing agency with expertise in the dental industry like WEO Media should be consulted for best practices in this area.

Related reading: The role of the dental team in online marketing

So how would someone track and calculate this to know if their website is performing well?

	Lead conversion rate is calculated by dividing the amount of conversion activities (phone calls, appointment requests, etc.) by your website traffic each month. By doing this, you’ll be able to develop a baseline range for how your website typically converts traffic. A practice would need to make sure their website has a tracking phone number on it so they can accurately measure how many calls are coming from the website each month.

	Consider this example: let’s suppose your website generates 400 visits (traffic) in a month. You received 30 phone calls from the website, and 10 appointment requests through the website. Your conversion rate would be 40 conversion activities divided into 400 visits for a conversion rate of 10 percent. If you monitor this rate over time you’ll be able to understand how your website is actually performing as a marketing tool. Ideally, we like to see websites converting at a rate of at least 10 percent.

Trending article: The top 5 dental marketing scams

In your experience can this really make a difference for a practice’s marketing ROI (return on investment)?

	Yes, absolutely. This is where it gets interesting. When you can improve items on your website that improve your website conversion rate even a small improvement can result in tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in additional revenue.

	An average website may generate 500 visits per month with an average conversion rate of around 10 percent. If you can implement strategies to improve your conversion rate and it improves to 12 percent, consider the impact. This slight two percent improvement equates to 10 additional new patients leads per month or 120 per year. If you can convert even 25 percent of these new patient leads you’ve now generated an extra 30 patients per year. How much is that worth? 

	The good news is most of the items that improve website conversion rate do not involve ongoing costs, but rather specific expertise and industry experience to properly design and construct the website.  

If you have questions about your dental practice’s website, social media or online marketing you may contact WEO Media at 888-246-6906 or info@weomedia.com for a consultation to learn more about the latest industry trends and strategies. The consultation is free if you identify yourself as a reader of this publication.

How generating web traffic-and successfully converting that traffic into new patient leads-can have huge benefits for your practice.  

The power of website lead conversion

	In our column last month, we discussed several updates related to Facebook, including the Newsfeed algorithm for getting seen, and a new search feature being tested. This month we are continuing with Facebook since they just rolled out a big new change.

 business page lately? If not, you should take a look. Facebook quietly rolled out a new business page design that will impact the layout of your page. It is essential practices keep up with the constant changes in social media, and this is the latest example of why people need to stay on top of their 

Related reading: How to use Facebook to successfully market your dental practice

	Think of Facebook as one of the doors to your practice. When potential and current patients are visiting your page, it’s important for them to see the best possible reflection of your practice. Staying current on the updates, ensuring you’re implementing any necessary changes, and working with new tools to increase patient conversion can help boost your practice above the competition.

	We have outlined the latest changes, and offered some suggestions on how best to use them to your advantage. 

	Continue to the next page to see the changes - and how your practice can benefit from them.

	The practice logo used to sit on top of the cover image and it was always tricky to create cover images that integrated nicely with the logo placement. No more! Now your logo stands alone in the upper left of your business page. Likely you won’t need to make any changes to the logo section on your page since the image size has stayed the same.

	Now that the logo has its own area you have additional creative space on the cover image. This image helps tell the story of your practice. You might want to use an image of the front of your office, a full staff picture, highlight an award you’ve won, or use something similar that speaks to your brand. The cover image is the same size as before, but now that the logo has been moved you’ll want to redo this image to take advantage of the extra space.

Trending article: 6 simple steps to great SEO

	The tabs have moved from under the cover image to the left column. The good news is that you can now add even more tabs to your pages. You can create tabs for reviews, contests, events, etc. If you’ve created tabs in the past, you might want to take a few minutes to clean up the tabs that are listed. If there are tabs that are no longer relevant, delete them.

	These buttons are now far more prominent to the page. Like, message, share, etc. are easier for your patients to see and interact with so you don’t need to take action in this section.

Continue to the next page for more changes...

	This is one of the most important areas of your page. The call-to-action button has changed position and gotten bigger which makes it far more visible. That’s good news for lead conversion.

	You’ll want to spend time making sure the correct call-to-action button is implemented for your page. You can choose between “book now,” “call now,” “shop now,” “watch video,” “request appointment,” “send email” and a few more. We suggest using “call now,” “request appointment” or “book now” for the best results.

	It’s now possible to search posts from a business page. Searching in this box only returns results from the business page the patient is on. You won’t need to take any action here but it’s good to know that your posts will have a “life” online and could be visible for a longer period of time now that people can search for and find them.

Trending article: How videos can improve online marketing performance

	The About section used to be a tab under the cover image but in the new layout it is in its own section on the right. This allows your information to have increased visibility on the page. As long as your about information is up to date you won’t need to take any action. If your information is outdated though, it’s a good time to clean it up.

	These changes all lead to a cleaner, more organized business page with a much stronger focus on the call-to-action button and therefore increasing your new patient lead conversion.

	As an aside, with the newsfeed algorithm changes Facebook has recently made, we strongly suggest you formulate a post that instructs your followers how to always make sure your posts show in their newsfeed. 

	By hovering over the “Like” button, your patients can select “See First.” By making this selection they well always see your updates in their newsfeed.

	Stay tuned for future topics that will include social media trends, SEO (search engine optimization) strategies, PPC (pay-per-click) best practices, online reputation management and more.

Have you looked at your Facebook business page lately? If not, you should take a look. Facebook quietly rolled out a new business page design that will impact the layout of your page. It is essential practices keep up with the constant changes in social media, and this is the latest example of why people need to stay on top of their social media marketing efforts.

7 things your practice needs to know about the new Facebook business page

	In our column last month, we discussed the importance and impact of using videos in your online marketing. We reviewed options for hosting videos, which types of videos are effective for dental marketing and how to extract the most marketing value from your videos. This month we will discuss recent developments and trends on Facebook.

	It should be no surprise that the largest social media site on the planet continues to change and innovate at a rapid pace. It has been very interesting to monitor recent developments, and understand their impact for dental practice marketing.

	The Facebook newsfeed algorithm: How to get seen

	Last year Facebook announced they would be making a change to the newsfeed algorithm so that they could better deliver relevant content to their users. They started to track what a user was engaging with (likes and comments) and then gave higher relevance to similar stories being in someone's newsfeed. What this means is if someone has liked or commented on a post from your practice, they would be more likely to see your posts again in the future. Facebook is essentially trying to understand your interests and match those topics with what would be shown to you in the future. This is similar to internet radio stations like Pandora that learn what you like and attempt to give you more of what you like over time.

	Recently Facebook announced another change to take this concept a step further. Now they are going to track how long you interact with an article or piece of content after leaving Facebook. By monitoring engagement time, it gives them additional insight into what a particular user likes to read and see in their newsfeed.

	This data is currently being collected on Facebook’s new Instant Articles as well as articles that open in the Facebook application on mobile devices.

	Relevant and engaging content is more important than ever! If a Facebook user clicks on your content and immediately bounces right back to Facebook without taking much time to read the content, then this could negatively impact your visibility in the future. On the other hand, if a user goes to your page and takes the time to read the entire article, then you're likely to rank higher in the newsfeed.

	The interesting thing to note is that although this information is valuable to track user engagement and relevant content, it's also part of Facebook’s push to get publishers using their new tool "Instant Articles," which means more content is being published behind Facebook's wall and less on other sites. Essentially they are trying to keep people within the walls of Facebook and not link to external websites, thereby leaving Facebook during that browsing session.

	For now, it's important for your practice to take note of the changes and be sure that your blogs and other social media posts are engaging and targeted specifically to your audience.

	New search feature: Is Facebook trying to be like Google?

	Recently Facebook started testing a new service called "Local Search." Local Search allows a visitor to search for businesses near them and see results on a map with detailed information about the business displayed on the search results page.

	Facebook hasn't done much to announce this new service yet and in fact has said they don't plan to use this site as an entry point for traffic. Think of it more as a value add to the user already on Facebook. However, some industry experts speculate that this is a direct attempt to siphon search traffic away from Google and other search engines.

	Although the service isn't ready for rollout just yet, there are some interesting things to keep in mind.

	1) With Facebook thinking along the lines of search, now is a good time to update your practice’s business page on Facebook with the most complete contact information (phone, address, website, photos, videos, etc.). If Facebook search does materialize, you’ll want to be ahead of the curve by having your page ready.

	2) Facebook reviews might carry more weight in the future. Currently, Facebook reviews don't have much impact on your search results within the site. However, it remains to be seen whether or not this will change in the future. If Facebook rolls this out similar to Google and Yelp, then reviews will carry a lot of weight in the ranking of search results within their site. When you consider that most consumers place as much value on online reviews as they do with word of mouth it seems likely that reviews on Facebook will become more important in the future.

	No one knows for sure whether or not this new service will make it past the testing phase but the implications of the testing of this service means changes might be on the horizon for Facebook.

Facebook can be a valuable marketing tool­ for dental practices-if you know how to make the best of it. .

How to use Facebook to successfully market your dental practice

	In our column last month we reviewed tips on how to get the most out of your web presence. We explained how to optimize elements of your website code, the importance of a website sitemap and fresh ongoing content updates, understanding backlinks and why you should be active on social media.

	This month we will explore the importance and impact of videos on your online marketing performance.

	When you are surfing the internet, do you ever watch videos? Of course you do. We all do. Whether you’re watching cats skateboarding, or getting tips on how to fix an appliance, we all watch videos-and lots of them. There are endless numbers of marketing studies which show the positive impact of videos in all areas of the internet: e-commerce sales, social media engagement, website engagement and so on.

	One study by Search Engine Watch found that videos increase engagement on a webpage on average by 400 to 700 percent. What does that mean? If you think about all the hundreds (or thousands) of people coming to your website every year you are getting a certain level of engagement which will show up as patient appointments, phone calls from the website and emails from the website. Adding videos can increase this number of patient appointments, phone calls and emails.

	Back in November 2014, Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg made this statement: “In five years, most of [Facebook] will be video.” The reason he predicted this trend is the clear impact videos have on website engagement.

	
• 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text. (Sources: 3M Corporation and Zabisco)
	
• 46 percent of users take some sort of action after viewing an ad, according to Digital Content Next.
	
• According to Forrester Research it is 50 times easier to achieve a page one ranking on Google with a video.

More from the authors: The role of the dental team in online marketing

	Ok, so we can all agree that videos are a good idea to use. The next question is where you should host your videos. There are literally dozens of websites where you can host videos but two of the most popular and widely used are YouTube and Vimeo.

	For our purposes, we generally recommend YouTube since it is fairly easy to use, and has the added benefit of being integrated into Google search results (since YouTube is owned by Google).

	There are many types of videos you can implement for your practice marketing, but the most important is an overview video of your practice. This will typically be one to two minutes long, and be posted on the homepage of your website. An overview video will include a combination of what is known as A-roll and B-roll. A-roll contains video of the subject being interviewed; for example the doctor (or doctors) would be talking directly into the camera or at slightly off angle to the camera. B-roll contains video taken of the environment such as the outside of the building, front door to the office, waiting room, operatory, equipment and technology used in the office. B-roll also includes people interacting such as the doctor reviewing an X-ray with a patient, talking with the patient during a consultation, smiling patients, etc.

	The magic happens in post-production. A skilled videographer will weave the A-roll and B-roll into a flowing story about the practice. The goal is to showcase the personality of your practice, and the benefits of coming to your office (friendly and welcoming atmosphere, modern technology, experienced doctors and staff, etc).

	You might want to consider producing other types of videos such as patient testimonials, explanation of services, explanation of technology and equipment used in the practice, explaining pre- and post-op instructions and answering FAQs. These videos can be posted throughout your website.

	The general recommendation is that your overview video should be done professionally. A good rule of thumb is most videos on your website should be done professionally with the exception of patient testimonials. These can be done with a smartphone if you like, but professionally produced would be better. However, when it comes to videos posted on social media you can certainly use videos produced on a smartphone.

Trending article: Using social media to capture the millenial audience

	How to get the most value from your videos

	Videos can only produce value if people watch them, so it is important to increase your viewership as much as possible. Think of each video as an important asset, and you want to leverage that asset to the fullest extent. In order to do this videos should be posted on your website, social media sites, online review sites and any other websites that are appropriate. Some social media and review sites don’t accommodate videos, but seek out those that do and post your overview videos at a minimum. It is also recommended to post patient testimonial videos across all these sites whenever possible.

	Please note-every practice should check with their State Dental Board or Association to understand the rules and guidelines around posting patient testimonials. At the very least you should have every patient sign a marketing release form which gives you permission to use their testimonial for marketing. It is highly advised to consult an attorney in your state who is familiar with HIPAA and State Board Marketing guidelines.

	Stay tuned for future topics that will include Facebook tips and recent developments, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies, PPC (Pay-Per-Click) best practices, online reputation management and more.

Incorporating videos into your dental practice’s website, social media and online presence can bring big returns.

How videos can improve online marketing performance

	In our column last month, we wrote: "Over the next few issues we will provide specific takeaways in reference to: 1) optimizing videos 2) creating proper title tags and meta descriptions, 3) Facebook tips; 4) Improving your SEO performance thus raising your Google rankings; and 5) Provide tips on getting better performance in your pay per clicks."

	In keeping with that plan, this month we are going to focus on numbers two and four.

Search engine optimization is more important than ever. Here are 6 ways to make sure your site stands out.