Naren Arulrajah

Your office has it all. CAD/CAM, lasers, digital x-rays, oral cancer detection devices… The list goes on and on, and so does the bill. But you know the investment is worthwhile. Your patients will never wonder if you are serious about your commitment to high-end dentistry. They only need to look around, or glance at the list of technology on your website, and they’ll know they are getting the best. At least, that’s how 

In reality, most people don’t seem interested in the latest and greatest devices. They don’t grasp the significance of your investment, and they don’t seem to care how well your office is equipped. Why? The answer is simple. They don’t know what most of those items are. More importantly, they don’t understand how it benefits them.

Imagine you are looking for a luxury vehicle with the latest safety features. The salesperson proudly explains that this model features a state-of-the-art haptic feedback system based on research by Carnegie Mellon University. Now imagine another salesperson recommends a model with lane assist and other navigational features that provide feedback via vibrations on the steering wheel for distraction-free driving.

In the above scenario, both salespeople are selling the same vehicle, but one is focusing on the technical aspects while the other is discussing how it benefits you. Which is most likely to make the sale? Probably the one making sure the potential customer can easily understand what they are paying for.

How can you make patients understand the importance of new technology and devices in your practice?

Discuss patient benefits rather than technicalities

 — No one wants to be inundated with technical language that they don’t understand. Your patients aren’t dental professionals, and they aren’t necessarily tech savvy. The resolution of an intraoral camera or the wavelength of a laser doesn’t mean much to them. Instead, discuss how detailed images improve diagnostics and powerful lasers reduce the need for drilling.

 — Device manufacturers often offer images, brochures, and other marketing materials, which you might be tempted to re-use. However, these materials tend to be directed at dentists and other medical professionals. They might describe time saving and ease of use features that benefit your practice but aren’t meaningful to patients. If the materials discuss increasing your sales, patients might feel like the device is just a gimmick.

 — People are visually oriented. They will understand and believe what you show them much more easily than what you tell them. Text descriptions are important, but they are much more convincing when combined with images such as photos of beautiful CEREC crowns or infographics highlighting reduced radiation from digital x-rays.

 — The simplest way to explain a device or procedure is with straightforward facts and information. Unfortunately, that style of text is also dry and dull. Storytelling is one of the most powerful marketing tactics because it presents information in a relatable and engaging way. Describe the patient experience in a way that showcases comfort, convenience, or other benefits.

Some dentists expect patients to be as excited as they are about new, upgraded office equipment. Others assume patients simply aren’t interested, and they don’t use technology as a selling point. In either case, they are missing a wonderful marketing opportunity. In truth, those high-tech devices can get your phones ringing, but only if you market them in a patient-appealing way.

, has been a leader in medical marketing for over a decade. Ekwa provides comprehensive marketing solutions for busy dentists, with a team of more than 180 full time professionals, providing web design, hosting, content creation, social media, reputation management, SEO, and more. If you’re looking for ways to boost your marketing results, call 855-598-3320 for a free strategy session with Naren.

Articles

For as much as you invest in your dental tools and products, your patients may not care because they don't understand how your devices work. By helping them understand you can also market your practice as state of the art.

Dental Devices And Technology As a Selling Point

Your conversion rate isn't an indicator on your bottom line, at least, not in the direct you might be thinking.

			The most common misconception about conversion rates is that they reflect income generated. You have probably seen the often quoted statistic that a

 conversion rate is average. If 1,000 people visit your website, then you might expect it to bring in 23 or 24 new patients. In reality, that’s not what conversion rates measure.

			A webpage’s conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who take a specific action, usually on the website. Some of the most common include: 

			There are a couple of notable things about the above list. First, most of those activities are not directly income-generating. Converting visitors to leads is very different from converting them to customers. Secondly, the income-generating items probably don’t apply to your website.

			An online store has the option of measuring the visitor-to-customer conversion, because the entire transaction (including payment) is completed on the website. However, a dental practice is an offline business with an online presence. At most, your conversion rate will measure leads that might become patients.

Accurately measuring leads is challenging 

			You might have an email link, click-to-call button, or appointment request form. It is easy to track how many people interact with those items on a webpage. However, many people will just look at the phone number and dial it, especially if they are visiting the site on a computer rather than a mobile phone.

			A call tracking phone number is immensely helpful for analyzing the effectiveness of internet marketing. It is a special number posted on your website, which routes calls to your primary phone system. However, classic conversion rates usually apply to a specific landing page, rather than the entire website. Even a tracking number won’t tell you how many leads a specific page generated.

Making classic conversion rates work for you 

			Does all of this mean that conversion rate optimization is irrelevant for dental websites? No, but they need to be put into perspective.

				Measure site-wide conversions — With a call tracking number and clickthrough analytics on contact links, you can get a reasonably accurate ratio of total visitors who convert to leads.

				Measure page-level conversions, with reasonable expectations — There is nothing wrong with classic conversion rate analytics. However, keep in mind that the actual number of leads is higher.

				Measure website performance metrics — You can use metrics such as video views, link clicks, or interactions with an app. These actions won’t tell you how many patients, or even how many leads, the page is generating. However, they can tell you how engaging the page is.

Optimizing a different type of conversion rate 

			As we discussed above, dental practices generally don’t complete a sale online. The last and most important step in converting a visitor to a patient happens in your office. The process typically goes something like this: your website successfully piques a visitor’s interest, prompting him or her to call, and the receptionist takes it from there.

			n truth, the most important conversion rate in a dental office is the number of phone calls that convert to appointments scheduled. How can you improve this number?

				High customer service standards — Nothing will chase away prospective patients as quickly as a rude receptionist.

				Phone system upgrades — Every call that goes unanswered is potentially a patient lost. Furthermore, if people must wait on hold for several minutes, they already have a bad impression of your office before they talk to anyone.

				Staff training — A friendly, professional voice answering the phone promptly is a good start. However, that person also needs to be able to answer questions about your practice and know how to sell your service.

			If your business isn’t growing as quickly as you would like, don’t count on website conversion rate optimization to correct the problem. The first statistic you should check is the number of phone calls you are receiving. When the phones keep ringing, but people aren’t scheduling, then the problem isn’t with your website at all — it is most likely with your office staff.

Naren Arulrajah, President and CEO of Ekwa Marketing, has been a leader in medical marketing for over a decade. 

 provides comprehensive marketing solutions for busy dentists, with a team of more than 180 full time professionals, providing web design, hosting, content creation, social media, reputation management, SEO, and more. If you’re looking for ways to boost your marketing results, call 855-598-3320 for a free strategy session with Naren.

Think twice before you go to calculate your conversion rate, for dentists this isn't the greatest statistic to rely on.

Why Classic Conversion Rate Optimization Doesn't Work for Dentists

Don't slip up on your marketing by failing to meet HIPAA requirements.

Reviews and testimonials are core elements of any practice’s marketing, whether good or bad, they shape your professional reputation like nothing else can. However, this can be a point of frustration for dentists because you have no control over what others say. Furthermore, when you try to promote positive reviews and respond to the negative ones, you are faced with HIPAA’s privacy rule.

Despite common beliefs, HIPAA does not entirely forbid answering reviews, sharing testimonials, or discussing case studies. However, it does impose some very strict, and specific, restrictions. Here, we explain what you can and can’t say, as well as how to create a simple, HIPAA safe review-response strategy.

 protects any and all "individually identifiable health information.” You will not violate the rule unless your statement meets both criteria, individually identifiable and health information.

For example, a review response is individually identifiable, but it is allowed if you omit health information. On the other hand, if you are giving a lecture and mention the outcome of a specific case it might include health information, but it is allowable if it is de-identified. Below we examine both aspects of this rule in greater detail.

Essentially, anything relating to a person’s mental or physical condition or care is considered health information. According to the HIPAA privacy rule summary, this includes:

		Demographic— Age, gender, ethnicity, and similar information

		Conditions — Diagnosis, prognosis, symptoms, medical history

		Treatment — Test results, prescriptions, medical appointments, care providers

		Financial — Past or future payments relating to medical treatment

HHS (United States Health and Human Services)

, HIPAA’s privacy rule does not protect de-identified information. There are two ways to meet the standard of de-identifying. The first is an expert determination by a qualified individual. The second is to remove all identifiers, which are outlined in HIPAA regulations.

There are nearly two dozen items on the list of identifiers. They include:

		Basic information — Name, contact details, URLs, health records, full face photos, IP addresses, vehicle registration information

		Dates — All elements, except year, of any date relating to the individual  

		Location — Geographical information referring to an area smaller than a state, full zip codes or partial (first three digits) zip codes that represent fewer than 20,000 people

		Identifying numbers — Social security numbers, account numbers, and similar

		Other — In addition to the lengthy list of specific personal identifiers, you need to consider if there is reasonable basis to believe the information may be used to identify the individual. This stipulation is especially relevant to review responses. Even if you omit all personal information, people reading your response will realize you are referring to the reviewer.

Myths and misunderstandings about HIPAA privacy compliance 

Often, dentists react to HIPAA’s privacy rules in one of two ways. Some find the complexity intimidating, and they decide that any review response or similar interaction is too risky. Others believe they have nothing to worry about, if their internal policies and ethical standards will cover anything HIPAA might forbid. In most cases, neither is quite accurate.

You can respond to reviews, including testimonials on your website, and utilize patient data safely without violating HIPAA. However, it is important that you clearly understand the requirements, because some details of the rule are unexpected.

The most common points of confusion include:

		The individual’s status as a patient is health information. For example, if a reviewer says the wait time in your office was an hour, and you respond that the person only waited five minutes, then you have violated HIPAA, even though you didn’t mention any medical details.

		Health information is protected, even if the individual already released it. For instance, a patient might describe the medical condition in great detail in the review. However, it is a violation of HIPAA for you to repeat any of those details in your response.

		You can release protected information if you have written authorization from the individual to do so. If you want to include signed testimonials or full photos on your website, you simply need to get the correct authorization. However, verbal consent is not sufficient.

		You also need to be mindful of HIPAA even when answering positive reviews. Dentists tend to tread lightly when dealing with a disgruntled patient. It is easy to respond to good reviews more casually, but a simple statement like “it was great to see you,” is a violation.

Patient reviews can be the best — or worst – advertisement your dental practice can get. Considering the long list of things that you aren’t allowed to mention you might be wondering what you can say.

		Thank reviewers for their feedback. You can acknowledge the review, without acknowledging that the person is a patient. Furthermore, a “thank you” is good practice, even when answering bad reviews. Other people who read the interaction will want to know that you care about patient satisfaction, and that you take feedback seriously.

		Give information about your practice. You can’t directly respond to details of the review, but you are free to discuss your policies, standard of service, and other details about your practice.

		Invite the person to contact you directly. You will have more freedom to resolve the issue if a person is willing to call your office, rather than discussing it in a public forum. Additionally, it will show potential patients that you tried to correct the problem.

Here are a few examples of noncompliant review responses, and complaint alternatives:

		Noncompliant: It’s always a pleasure to see you (acknowledge that the person is a patient).		

				Compliant: Thank you for the kind words!

		Noncompliant: You need to give the medicine time to work (mentions the person’s treatment).		

				Complaint: Our goal is to help every patient live pain-free.

		Noncompliant: I’m so sorry you had to wait; our schedule was delayed by a serious emergency that day. (confirms the person is a patient)		

				Complaint: Our average patient wait time is 11 minutes, though occasionally our schedule is delayed by emergencies.

		Noncompliant: Please give us a call to reschedule (confirms the person is a patient).		

The simplest and safest solution is to avoid reviews entirely. Just don’t encourage them, don’t respond to them, and don’t put them on your website. That is exactly the strategy some people take.

Unfortunately, that is also a potentially deadly marketing mistake.

In truth, patient reviews can be the best — or worst – advertisement a dental practice can get.

		Invest the time (yours or a trusted employee) to thoroughly understand the HIPAA privacy rule and use that information to create a few standard “template” responses, as well as consent forms. Have a lawyer or HIPAA expert review them if you are unsure.

		Monitor review sites closely, and post pre-made responses promptly.

		Use reminders, in-office forms, or third-party software to encourage patients to leave reviews.

		Include authorized or de-identified testimonials on your practice website.

HIPAA is nothing to fear, but it is something to take very seriously. With a good strategy you can answer every review quickly, easily, and without wondering if you crossed a HIPAA line.

For more practice management insight, read on 

Naren Arulrajah is President and CEO of Ekwa Marketing, a complete internet marketing company that focuses on SEO, social media, marketing education and the online reputations of dentists.

With a team of 180+ full time marketers, 

 helps dentists who know where they want to go, get there by dominating their market and growing their business significantly year after year. If you have questions about marketing your practice online, call 855-598-3320 to speak one-on-one with Naren.

Reviews and testimonials are an important part of your marketing strategy, but just make sure you don't violate HIPAA when using them.

The Dentist's Guide to HIPAA Compliant Marketing

Your patient retention starts the minute patients walk into your office.

New patients boost your dental practice income. However, if they only come for one appointment, the benefit is minimal. On average, acquisition is 

 than retention. What keeps them coming back (or keeps them 

 coming back)? Here are five areas where dental practices often lose patients without even realizing it.

Email appointment confirmations and reminders are standard in many dental offices. Unfortunately, your patients might not see them. On average, people only open 

one out of five emails, but they open nine out of ten SMS messages

You can try switching from emails to SMS. Even better, offer several options and ask patients for their preferred communication method tailoring communications for each individual patient.

The waiting room, or reception area, is the 

 of your practice that patients see when they walk through the door. They will proceed to spend some time there before entering a treatment room. If it is unattractive, unclean, or uncomfortable, then new patients have already formed a negative opinion of your practice long before they see a dentist or hygienist. Furthermore, they are less likely to schedule another visit, knowing they will be spending more time in the undesirable waiting room.

To find out what patients experience, try spending about half an hour in your own waiting room, and ask staff members to do the same. This should give you ample ideas about how to make it more comfortable, convenient, and inviting.

If you are like most dentists, your marketing efforts are targeted to new patient acquisition. As important as that is, it should not be the sole focus of marketing. Invite patients to connect with you on social media and subscribe to your newsletter. Send greeting cards for holidays or patient birthdays. Run occasional promotions or contests targeted to current patients.

The possibilities are endless, but the goal is the same: develop and strengthen the doctor-patient relationship. You don’t want to be “out of sight, out of mind” between appointments.

No matter how great the dentist is, patients won’t want to come back if the hygienist is uncaring, the assistant is incompetent, or the receptionist is rude. On the other hand, some people stay with a particular practice just because they are so fond of certain employees besides the dentist. Basic customer service training is essential to customer retention in any business, and even more so in a dental practice. A high percentage of your patients are feeling some degree of fear and anxiety. If you and your team soothe those feelings, people are much more likely to come back.

In a time when people can have groceries delivered to their door within hours, conduct global business meetings from the kitchen table, and operate household appliances with voice commands, convenience is no longer a bonus. It is an expectation.

You might have a brand-new CAD/CAM system, a suite of lasers, and CT scanning. Yet, your practice will seem outdated and low quality if patients have to wait until Monday to contact you, put up with long wait times, and then fill out lengthy paper forms. The types of technology they notice and expect are website chatbots, email contact forms, online account access, quality phone systems, digital forms, and similar features that simplify the patient experience.

This isn’t to say that patient retention is less important than acquisition. In fact, both are essential to the financial health of your dental practice. Just imagine trying to fill a bucket that has multiple leaks. The water pouring in is your new patient flow. The leaks represent patients lost. Your income potential, like the water level, will rise quickly when you increase the incoming flow while plugging the leaks.

For more practice management insights, read on 

Naren Arulrajah is President and CEO of Ekwa Marketing, a complete internet marketing company that focuses on SEO, social media, marketing education, and the online reputations of dentists.  

helps dentists who know where they want to go, get there by dominating their market and growing their business significantly year after year. If you have questions about marketing your practice online, call 855-598-3320 to speak one-on-one with Naren.

Targeting new patients should always be a part of any marketing strategy, but don't lose sight of the patients you already have and ways to keep the new patients returning for your services.

Five Surprising Reasons Why Your Patient Retention Is Low

In order to keep your sight at the top of the search page you'll have to assess your website for its SEO strengths and weaknesses.

In a competitive digital world where every website is vying for a Google page one ranking of the most valuable keywords, it takes a professional search engine optimized website to achieve top rankings.

A comprehensive SEO analysis should be performed periodically to ensure that your dental website is performing well on all parameters. This can help ensure sustainable high visibility for your website in targeted search results.

The overall structure of your dental website should be logical and efficient. To analyze your site architecture, make an assessment of how many clicks it typically takes to navigate from the home page to important landing pages. Check out whether the web pages are linking to each other are appropriate in the site hierarchy, and accord priority to the most important pages in the architecture.

Navigational elements such as JavaScript or Flash can undermine architecture because they can be inaccessible to search engine crawlers. It is best to avoid these elements in your site architecture.

Online readers are spoiled for choice and are typically impatient with a short attention span. If your dental web pages are cumbersome and take too long to download, many of the visitors may leave. Even the 

 will evaluate faster loading sites more comprehensively and consistently compared to the slower ones.

You can make use of Google PageSpeed Insights service to evaluate the performance of your website. Employ the best practices recommended by Google PageSpeed for best results on Google. 

Search engine crawlers will use your website’s 

 to identify various web pages. Check whether your dental website has a well-formed XML sitemap, and whether it follows the appropriate sitemap protocol. Make sure that the sitemap has been submitted to Google via their webmaster tools. Keep the sitemap regularly updated so that every new web page appears on it.

One of the simple ways to check the search engine rankings of your website is to search for your dental practice or brand name in Google search. If your website shows up at the top of search results your site has been indexed properly and everything is clear.

However, if the site is missing from the results or showing way down in the list of results it is important to investigate the causes. Low rankings for all or most of the important localized keywords will also indicate that your website is not correctly optimized for SEO, and thus needs a revamp.

For each web page, you should first check whether the URL is short, reader-friendly and includes relevant keywords. Secondly, the SEO tags for each page should describe the page accurately and include appropriate keywords. The third and most important part of this analysis is content.

Check whether each of the web pages includes updated, accurate and substantive content. It should include targeted and localized keywords, but keyword cannibalization should be avoided. This means that each page should contain its own unique and relevant keywords to the specific content on that page. Copied, spammy, or repetitive content must be removed by an employee, or yourself, in charge of the web site. This has nothing to do with the readers, this is because Google can detect if the content has been added just to manipulate its searches, and not with the intent to provide value to readers.

It is also important to analyze the quality of the inbound links to your website. Links from dubious sources will undermine the value of your site from an SEO viewpoint.

Perform an objective site analysis for all these parameters periodically to ensure your dental website continues to rank high in search results for the most important keywords your clients may search for online.

Top Social Media Marketing Trends For Your Marketing Strategy

Three Innovative Tools to Increase your Dental Website Traffic

helps dentists who know where they want to go, get there by dominating their market and growing their business significantly year after year.

If you have questions about marketing your practice online, call 855-598-3320 to speak one-on-one with Naren.

Every website is vying for the coveted top spot on a google search page, so how can you make your dental website stand above the rest? Follow these tips to assess your site's SEO rankings and improve on any weaknesses you may find.

Have You Conducted an SEO Analysis of Your Dental Website?

Digital marketing is an essential part of any overall markeing strategy, but it is also a field that is constantly changing. Make sure you're staying ahead of the curve.

A digital footprint is an essential part of marketing strategy in this age of omnipresent internet. The competition is tough, especially for dentists, battling to attract patients in tight geographical areas in this constantly changing high-tech era. In 2019, there could be a dramatic shift in the paradigm of digital marketing including content marketing, social media, and SEO among others.

It is critical to re-think the current marketing strategy for your practice. You need to consider the ever-changing advertising landscape and understand that what worked before might not work for you anymore. These 5 current digital marketing trends are going to shape how potential patients perceive your practice.

Authenticity weighs heavily in the realm of digital marketing because you are dealing with real people looking for your services. There is a considerable shift in the way algorithms currently work, many search engines have 

. For example, if your search query is for “red apples”, the algorithm already knows that red apple is a round edible fruit that comes in a color known as red.   

This one valuable component is often overlooked in the hustle of other SEO tactics. It can be easy to lose sight and importance of your practice in the constant pressure to outperform and target patient goals. There are a lot of useful SEO strategies which can get quick results.

However, there is nothing quite as powerful or simple as sincerity and honest-to-goodness marketing. This can be the clinching factor that sets your digital marketing campaign apart from other dentists’ practice.

Like any other consumer, a patient will try to assess the authenticity of a dental website or practice while selecting a healthcare option. Honesty and sterling content are co-related and undisputed when it comes to keeping a patient loyal. Patients are on the lookout for transparency in healthcare. You can get ahead by being real, down to earth and honest in your claims.

The forecast for 2019 is that a huge portion of your patient internet traffic is going to be through internet videos. As per a survey conducted by 

, there is a more than 15% increase in businesses using video as part of marketing strategies. Currently, 81% digital marketing strategies include video marketing as a poignant component to achieve goals. The same study concluded that most businesses observed video marketing to increase their ROI.

The same holds true for healthcare as well. You can give your practice a competitive edge by including internet video traffic in the statistics. There have been no signs of slowing down ever since videos made their way into inbound marketing. Live streams are especially preferred by patients while looking for a new healthcare service, as facebook and Instagram are major driving forces behind the desire for live content.

There have been multiple surveys conducted in determining the efficacy of live videos over pre-recorded ones and all the evidence points towards live videos resulting in a higher patient retention rate.

3. Optimize Work Output with Marketing Automation

You can squeeze greater results from your digital marketing toil by employing marketing automation at the core fundamentals of your digital strategy. As a dentist, there are only so many hours available to you in a day.

You need to focus on creativity rather than wasting time on repetitive tasks. This can be easily performed by automation. In fact, one of the greatest benefits of automation is the ability to target multiple channels to acquire more patients simultaneously.

Prepare yourself to take advantage of the leaps in technology such as artificial intelligence that can lower your work stress and help you achieve pre-set marketing goals. Healthcare businesses across all platforms are facing a sense of urgency to reap complete benefits of their efforts. You need to capture the interest of your target 

 patients by using marketing automation techniques to their full potential. Such as scheduling social media posts days, even weeks, in advanced.

The field is level right now across all industries and spheres. However, soon the market will tilt towards those practices which can make the most of automated technologies. Recently, there have been increasing numbers of healthcare businesses leveraging some degree of 

The scramble to understand how SEO strategies and search engines are affected by voice integration has already begun. According to 

, voice searches are increasing at an acclerated rate with the prediction claiming 50% online searches to be made this way by 2020. There is no avoiding SEO when it comes to keeping your dental practice at the top. Local search implications are a major factor in acquiring new patients and retaining the old ones. It is critical to redesign with the changing waves and initiate an adaptation process.

You need to understand that voice queries are longer than their text counterparts. This affects search results as digital assistants evolve to understand user intent and assess the context of what they want to promote action from the users.

You need to adjust your content to fit the changing criteria driving search engine results. For instance, a digital assistant assesses a particular string of words to determine whether it is intent of action or a query for research purposes. While patients may type, “best gastroenterologists in NYC” in a search engine, they are more likely to say, “Hey Siri, I need an appointment at the best gastroenterologist in Midtown, NYC”. Thus, refining their search but changing some of your keywords.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been slow in gathering steam. However, it is steadily rising in the spectrum of digital marketing where healthcare is concerned. AI begins where humans stop performing. One of the most widely implemented forms of AI right now in online practices is chatbots.

Patients find it easier to connect with a new practice online before making the decision to visit for an appointment. Chatbots are increasingly being used by medical practices to help patients find solutions to their problems regardless of the device they are on. These perfectly simulated human interactions can help book appointments, take care of minor queries and even help ease a patient’s anxious mind till you become available.

You could have ignored AI till now and quietly dismissed it as a concept that existed only in Hollywood. However, it is time that you take this goldmine of opportunity seriously now. A number of adaptations of Artificial Intelligence are available in the current chatbots 

designed specifically for healthcare practices

New media, opportunities and platforms are being embraced to create a digital transformation that is more responsive, analytical and authentic. The primary goal still remains constant for all healthcare businesses, to choose the best options for their patients as they transition through the various landscape changes.

6 Dental Website Marketing Mistakes to Look Out For

Naren Arulrajah is President and CEO of Ekwa Marketing, a complete internet marketing company that focuses on SEO, social media, marketing education and the online reputations of dentists. With a team of 180+ full time marketers, 

In order to avoid potential challenges to your digital marketing strategy make sure you stay ahead of the curve by preparing for these 5 top digital marketing trends. 

Top 5 Digital Marketing Trends for Dental Practices

The traffic your dental website generates can also be a valued source of income, make sure you're maximizing it.

In the digital marketing era, many companies rely on pay-per-click online advertising on Google, Facebook and other platforms to increase their website traffic. However, paid advertising can be an expensive proposition, and the results may not be up to the mark in many cases. Here are three innovative tools you can use to boost traffic on your dental website without spending a fortune.

You can gauge the popularity of online videos from the fact that 

 is now the second-largest search engine (after Google) with more than three billion searches a month. That makes it bigger than Bing, Yahoo, and all other search engines. To capitalize on the search power of YouTube, all you need is a webcam to create a video about a new procedure or technology introduced at your dental practice, or any other useful and interesting information or news related to your field.

Website traffic generated via YouTube is typically more engaged because the average viewer would have already seen a video and would be more likely to be predisposed in favor of your dental practice. YouTube provides you its own keyword tool that will help you learn about the common keywords and phrases that you can use to drive more targeted traffic to your website.   

You can embed YouTube videos on your website to increase your view count as well. The higher the number of views that your YouTube video garners, the greater will be its visibility in the search engine results. You may also consider using free online tools to create videos that involve the use of your computer, and upload them directly on YouTube. 

 is the world’s most popular question-and-answer site where questions are created, answered, organized and edited by its user community. Quora is one of the most innovative tools available on the Web to generate traffic for your dental website. The site is designed to help online readers discover valuable information on specific topics of their interest.

Quora is an ideal place to generate ‘referral traffic’ or a steady stream of visitors who visit your dental website from site links that you place on Quora. You can answer questions posted on Quora that are related to your area of expertise. Your answers will continue to show repeatedly whenever new users ask the same question on the site.

Quora will let you build up a score on the basis of how readers rate your earlier answers. If your answer is good, the readers will vote it to the top where more people can see it. This will help build your online credibility and reputation while also increasing your visibility. To make the most out of Quora, use images and YouTube videos wherever possible with your answers. You can even link your Quora account to your social media networks, which will let your answers appear on these networks.  

A podcast refers to a series of audio, video and PDF files that can be streamed online to a computer or mobile device. It is a relatively underrated source of generating website traffic, but offers a unique opportunity to build up a loyal, repeat audience for your dental website. To begin with, you can create, maintain and submit your podcasts to the iTunes store, which is the most popular home for podcasts and offers wide exposure. 

Once your iTunes playlist of podcasts is created, you can add it to your blog, or even upload it on YouTube for wider reach. The user-friendly platform of iTunes is designed for easy discovery. Users can identify your podcasts quickly through the search and browse features of the platform. You may include interviews, reviews, discussions, patient testimonials and other informative, as well as conversational, elements for your target audiences.

Search competition gets reduced when you adopt innovative ways to increase your website traffic. You can popularize your dental practice and build an online reputation using these creative Web-based tools without incurring any advertising or marketing costs.

For more practice management and marketing tips read on 

Naren Arulrajah is President and CEO of Ekwa Marketing, a complete internet marketing company that focuses on SEO, social media, marketing education, and the online reputations of dentists. With a team of 180+ full time marketers,

As digital marketing becomes a major part of your practice the traffic your website gets will not only become crucial to gaining new patients, but income as well. Here are 3 ways to keep your traffic up without breaking the bank.

In 3 seconds or less you'll have to make a good first impression on a potential new patient. Here's how to make sure your website is fit to do just that.

Your company website is often the first “face” your patients see, even before they visit you in your physical building. Today, a significant number of potential customers are attracted to a dental practice because a popular search engine directed them to its well-designed website. If they are impressed, they visit the practice in person. Else, they simply move on to a better designed website!

For this reason, your website needs to be visually appealing, responsive to a potential customer’s needs, and in alignment with your company’s mission and vision. In fact, a cleverly designed website can:

Showcase your company in favorable light as a leader.

Generate new leads for your practice and create opportunities to actualize them.

Conversely, a poorly designed website can even put potential customers off your practice!

To avoid this unfortunate situation, listed below are 6 website marketing mistakes you might inadvertently have made, and straightforward ways to fix them.

Here is a shocking statistic for you. Many of your virtual visitors will give you less than 

 before they decide to move on. Yes, your website has barely 3 seconds in order to complete loading and make a worthwhile first impression. This means that your website needs to keep up with the internet superhighway by being supersonic in speed! Here are 2 tips to make this happen with minimal fuss.

Spring clean your website and discard all unnecessary clutter —large graphics and images, sluggish plugins, extra web pages that are no longer relevant, etc. Colorful media images can certainly brighten up an otherwise dull website but take care to keep them under 50K in size.

Distribute your website pages across a CDN (content delivery network). This way, each page may be handled by a different server. But the end result is a faster, more responsive website.

”? Let this not be used in relation with your website. This can happen if you use fancy words to describe your practice, without backing them up with facts and figures.

Fortunately, this mistake is easy to reverse as you simply need to spruce up your website with the following key elements:

Automated counters — for social media shares on blogs, for registration numbers to virtual events, etc.

An authentic privacy and anti-spam message in all your pages, so your visitors feel safe sharing their contact information with you.

Positive reviews from patients who genuinely benefited from your practice.

All of these will help re-iterate the integrity of your dental practice, so every visitor feels safe in becoming a potential customer.

In the best case, your website generates high traffic, and allows visitors to provide their contact information. In the worst case, your visitors have no opportunity to sign up with your practice. However, either situation is not going to be fruitful for your business, unless you have a compelling system that influences your visitors to 

An ideally designed website completes all ends of the marketing funnel, and provides your visitors with:

In today's world your website will be the place you get a chance to make a first impression on a potential new patient. Don't turn them away because your website isn't ideal for them to use. 