Editor’s note: Steve Hawkins owns an ad agency that handles Internet marketing for national companies, including Jiffy Lube franchise groups across the nation, as well as smaller local companies with one to 10 locations. He is not accepting new clients but is happy to answer e-mail inquiries from Becden clients.

If you’re looking to use Internet search engines to grow your practice, here are some basic suggestions borne of practical experience from several years of managing search marketing for both national and local clients. This assumes that your practice has a web site, although you’ll see that some things you do don’t even require a web site. Also, note that I am primarily referencing Google, which accounts for the largest slice of all search traffic. But the same principles apply to Yahoo and MSN/Windows Live.

Get Found Online
Submit your dental practice information to Google Base. This is Google’s business directory. You don’t even have to have a web site to be listed here, and it’s FREE to get listed, and you can update it for free.

Be sure to explain your base services and areas of specialization up front and list ancillary services further down the list. Also make sure to include hours along with your basic contact information. The whole experience should take about 15 minutes. Google will do the mapping for free.

Many people nowadays don’t even turn to the printed yellow pages – they just search Google or other online search portals for “dentists columbus oh” for example, and look at the top sites listed. Getting in Google Base will help put you there. If I did nothing else, I would do this. Note: keep your printed yellow pages ad, at least for a few more years.

Get Ranked with Search Engine Optimization
When visitors browse Google their eyes go to the “golden triangle,” the area in the top left of the search results page. The sites that are listed there are likely “search engine optimized” – meaning they contain content that the search engines and visitors find relevant.

The Google “Golden Triangle” shows where people’s eyes look (and where they tend to click).

Give it a look right now. Go to Google and type in “dentist [fill in your state].” If you’re not listed on the first page of the search results, your chances of getting noticed aren’t very good. Discouraging? Not at all. You might not get found when people search for “dentists nj” but you have a good chance of being found when people search for “dentists camden nj” and an even better chance if they search for “wisdom teeth dentists camden nj” assuming all of that information can be found in text form on your web site and in your Google Base listing.

Additional ways to get into the top spots on the natural side:

Add a few links to other local businesses and make sure they link back to you.
Consider writing a blog about dental care, and have that blog link back to your web site.

If you advertise with any other media, particularly radio stations, make sure they link to your web site. This will help immensely.

Use Google’s free key word tools to analyze the top local dental practice sites that show up in Google’s search results. Make sure those key words are included in your web site. We used this tactic to help a nation client get the number one ranking on almost all key words related to services they provide.

Update at least one section of your home page at least once a month. You can include tips, news and other information that is easy to update but relevant to your target audience (people seeking dental care and advice). If you don’t update your site, Google will visit you less frequently, and your page rank will fall.

What About Paid Ads?
As previously mentioned, we’ve found that paid search ads perform about as a well as direct mail. The big difference is that you can run an effective $200 monthly search campaign to acquire new patients. It’s challenging to do that with other forms of advertising. In our experience, search ads outperform all other types of online advertising by at least a 9:1 ratio. We discourage our clients from traditional web banner advertising except when it’s a free value ad to other advertising. But we do encourage paid search advertising, as long as it follows search engine optimization.

In Google, when setting up an ad words campaign choose to define you campaign geographically. Our experience shows geographic campaigns outperform “national” campaigns by 5:1, even when they both have exactly the same key words.

Set a Standard and Measure the Results
Like all marketing, you should measure your results. I’m assuming it’s mandatory to ask all new patients how they heard about you. If that’s not part of your new patient information checklist, make sure it is. And then make sure it gets filled out. If you are going to be spending money on search marketing, compare that budget with the number of new patients it attracts. After three months, calculate the results.

We’ve found for our large clients who have good data that paid search marketing (buying paid ads on Google, Yahoo and MSN/Windows Live) performs at least as well as direct mail and newspaper. Unpaid or “natural” search marketing outperforms other media by about a 4:1 ratio.

If I were a small practice, I’d budget $200 per month for search marketing for three months and then gauge the results. If the cost per new patient acquisition is acceptable I’d continue. If not, I’d consider getting some outside help or spending some time learning how to refine your campaign.

Published by BECDEN Dental Laboratory 131 E. 13065 S. Draper, UT 84020 888-344-9991 toll-free 801-576-9991 phone

The editor of this newsletter is Emily Webb of Becden Dental Laboratory, Inc. Please send any questions or comments about this newsletter, or suggestions for articles to: emilyw@becdendental.com ©2007 BECDEN Dental Laboratory, Inc.