In the open source web-based world there are what’s called CMS or Content Mangement Systems. They are very self explanatory. Basically a website that is content manageable by those with little to relatively no HTML experience. You can on a basic level, manage the content of your own website without being a “programmer”. That is of course the end goal. These open source content management systems (CMS) are already compiled together, which means that they just need to be setup on your webserver. In more basic terms, CMS enable you to build a website for your dental practice fast and for a lot less money.

The top open source Content Management Systems on the market today are:

1. Joomla
2. Drupal
3. Wordpress

There are many others which can get the job done for you. These are just the most popular. But an intriguing feature about these systems is they are highly configurable and customizable. They allow dentists to have a high-end custom website for a fraction of the cost of doing it otherwise. If your web company does not know about CMS, or about any of the 3 systems before mentioned - then you probably should go to someone else for your dental web services. That’s a sure sign of someone who does not know what’s going on. As a dental practice, you need a web company to help keep you up-to-date with the latest technologies that will benefit your internet marketing capabilities.

The top 3 CMS systems  of Joomla, Drupal, and Wordpress come highly recommended by me. I have been using them since their existence and have seen them grow. They are great for the dental practice. All 3 systems follow typical web standards:

• Clean URL’s
• Not many code errors
• simple to use site navigation
• good organized file structre and so on…

CMS (content management systems) are help greatly with search engine optimization. Here are a few benefits:

• Tons of content
• organized navigation structure
• SEO Friendly URL’s and much more…

Patientdocs.com is an expert in providing these content management systems for dentists. Our development team has many years of experience in working with various CMS systems to help provide a custom, robust website at an affordable price for the dental office.

Al Lipper who is a Dental Success Consultant gave some interesting insight into dental marketing on the dental discussion forum recently. He talks about how persistent interaction with the patient help retention and in the acquiring of new patients. He give some very interesting information that is very helpful to all practices. The following is an excerpt from his article:

Interaction #1 – The Medical Questionnaire
By surveying patients, Dr. Wise learned that most patients prefer to complete their paperwork at home. Many perceive the form as “too time consuming” to complete during the visit. To improve patient satisfaction, Dr. Wise has office personnel complete patient’s medical questionnaires by phone.

Interaction #2 – The Patient Orientation Package
Dr. Wise mails an orientation package to welcome new patients. The kit features useful dental information accompanied by a copy of their completed medical questionnaire. The completed form gives the new patient a chance to add or amend any information. The patient orientation kit instills patient trust that Dr. Wise’s office is professional and devoted to quality dental care. Since the practice started mailing new patient packets, the number of appointment cancellations has been reduced substantially.

Interaction #3 – The Personal Appointment Reminder
When Dr. Wise’s office leaves the appointment reminder message, it demonstrates a commitment to reliable dental care.

Interaction #4 – Distinctive, Branded Giveaways
To distinguish his practice from other dental offices, Dr. Wise equips new patients with a gift box opposed to a gift bag. By using a different encasement for the dental supplies, Dr. Wise’s giveaways brand and set his practice apart from the competition.
Interaction #5 – The Appreciation Communiqué
As a follow-up to the patient’s appointment, Dr. Wise uses the appreciation letter as a form of market research. The letter requests that the new patient provide feedback on their experience so they can receive even better service in the future. The thank you note again exemplifies Dr. Wise’s devotion to customer excellence and supports the exceptional patient experience.

Interaction #6 - The Referral Reward
At Dr. Wise’s office, referring patients receive a $5 Gift card from Starbuck’s Coffee. However patients who provide on-going regular referrals or those who refer large cases get specials gifts - anything from a nice pen or travel alarm clock to a new iPod. You might think this is excessive, but gifts like this are more than paid for by a single additional referral. What’s more is that each time the patient uses one of these gifts, they are reminded of what a great dentist he is. Rewarding existing clients for making patient referrals conveys an appreciation for patient loyalty and inspires future referrals. Not to mention, maintaining patient allegiance is as important as cultivating new customers.

At the end of the day, Dr. Wise wows and dazzles new patients with attentive customer service. It’s not because he doles out nifty gift boxes and gift certificates. It’s the exceptional patient experience. Aside from extraction, cosmetic procedure or other dental services, it’s the cumulative patient contact or interaction that provides the patient experience.

Perpetual persistence is the tool and strategy multi-millionaires apply. Ask any uniquely successful individual the secret to their success, and they will purport perpetual persistence among their keys to success. At least, it’s what Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates claim. Whether it’s the persistence of knocking on doors for new business or perpetually following a proven market strategy, this strategy provides dependable, consistent results.

Perpetual persistence is a marketing methodology that not only cultivates new patient relationships; it ensures the retention of new patients. How will you implement it in you practice?

I wanted to make my own comment regarding what Mr. Lipper has stated here. I believe that all 6 of the above interactions can be done via the Internet! That is what is so wonderful about the web. Granted it’s still good to interact with people in person. But all 6 of these interactions can and will add up to be quite costly for you in terms of overhead. But if you can utilize the web to help you in these interactions, you will save time and money and make more money reaping the benefits of such practices.

There is a huge problem with dental website templates. And that is that they are templates! Nothing is worse than having a pre-made template for a website. It’s cheap looking. Very Cheap looking. If you own or work for a dental practice, it is critical for you to have a website the practice. But it is not critical to have a template for a website. You are better off not having a website at all at that point.

What kind of message are you trying to send to your patients and potential patients? That you are cheap? That you are non-professional? I have a solution for you instead. Make sure that your practice website is totally custom in the way it looks and “feels”. Make sure that your website closely resembles your actual physical practice and the dentists who work there. Doing so will benefit your practice in the long run. It may cost you a little more money than a cheap template website. But it will pay off and you will be happy you paid the extra fees for a company to build you a custom website.

Remember this one last key point. As clever as companies try be, they cannot trick the potential customer. Internet users are becoming more and more savvy and they do know a template website when they see one! If you are caught having a template website it will ruin your reputation with that potential patient. That’s a risk you should not be willing to take.

Recently on The Wealthy Dentist Blog, Melinda Spitek spoke about the importance of marketing for the dental practice especially during the “slow” times. She covered several good points including the “essentials of practice marketing” which were stated as following:

• Ask for a referral, in person, with every appointment
• Reward patients who refer you a new patient
• Quarterly practice communication—newsletter or letter to your patients
• Professionally created “welcome packet”
• Printed stationery and thank you cards
• Consider newspaper, magazine, radio advertising
• Direct-mail prospecting service.

This is great information provided by Melinda and I hope that all Dentist Practices understand this information. The only problem is that it fails to include one of the most vital essentials of marketing. And that’s Internet Marketing! How could she so easily forget? When we are talking about “slow times” nothing is better than a website for your practice. Especially because it’s more cost effective than print and radio ads. Melinda Spitek, don’t forget next time!

For all of you out there who have a website for your dental practice here is a quick tip. Be sure to place your website address (URL) on all of your marketing materials. Business cards, brochures, letterheads, magazine ads, yellow pages etc. What this allows you to do is reference people to your website where all of the information about your practice exists. That way on your marketing materials you don’t have to feel pressured to put all of your content and pictures and pay for bigger printing jobs or ad space.

Have you ever seen an ad in the magazine or on the freeway that just says the website address of the company that is advertising? The first time I saw that was on a freeway for a marketing agency in Salt Lake City, Utah. It really caught my interest I must say. I ended up going to the website because it was a URL that was easy to remember. The website was awesome! Well designed and well structured with easy to use navigation to find any information I may have been looking for.

The point is that you don’t need to spend extra dollars for bigger ad space in your yellow page ads or any other form of marketing. All you need to do is simply reference people to your dental website. That then puts the pressure on your website to be professional and show your viewer everything you want them to see.

What is dental web site development? Dental web site development is much more than just web design. It’s much more than just having a website. It’s about having a functional website for your dental practice that actually does things for you. Creating a custom, good looking website is half the battle. You need to be able to visually appeal to your potential patients and show off your professionalism and clinical excellence. But the other half of the battle is giving your customer a website they can use. Something tangible. Something useful.

Patientdocs.com has been working extensively for the past 6 months on their  dental web site development service.  You get a custom web design with Patientdocs.com, but you also get online forms, appointment request tools, patient education tools, and many other features with your website that help enhance your site for the user and achieve ultimate dental web site development. So when you are looking for a new website for your dental practice, make sure you are asking yourself the right questions when you are figuring out what you want on that website. Make sure that you are asking for features that your patients and new patients can use. Ask for dental web site development!

In the recent July edition of Dental Economics Magazine, a helpful article was written by Mickey Bernstein, DDS titled AACD Accreditation: The key to successful Internet Marketing. It highlighted many important things about the importance of having a strong online presence for the dental office. A couple of the notes I highlighted are quoted below:

“Individual Web sites provide an opportunity for patients to preview the skill and artistry of the cosmetic dentist they are considering. On the provider’s site, patients often can view before-and-after images, patient testimonials, and a list of services offered.

Some sites have the ability to complete registration forms and make exam and recall appointments.”

Pretty interesting information. The writer, who is also a doctor himself claims that “eighty percent” of his new patients now come via the Internet. That is a tremendous statistic if it is accurate. Even 50% is a very high number of new patients from the web. This example shows the importance of a website for the dental practice and how effective it really can potentially be.

One of the leading vendors in Dental Practice Management Software is EasyDental owned by Henry Schein, inc. They have the EasyDental software for the practice as well as many other tools for practice management. One of their “eServices” is called WebReady where it appears that they offer services for building websites and web tools for dentist offices. On their WebReady services page they list some of the features and benefits to their WebReady service.

On this same page they cited some very interesting statistics from a man named Dr. Larry Emmott, who claims to be a leading expert in how technology benefits the dental industry. On this services page Dr. Emmott shows how a dental practice website is a lucrative venture. He says that “if your practice averages 4,000 patients, and a website increases your practice growth by just 5 percent, you would add 200 new patients each year.” That makes for some pretty interesting statistics. He then says, “If these additional patients average $300 per chair-time visit, you can potentially increase revenue growth by an average of $60,000 per year“. On top of this Dr. Emmott claims that a practice will save/increase $30,500 per year from Web Communication tools.

If you add up all these numbers you will find that Dr. Emmott’s claims are that through websites and web services, a dental practice can increase it’s yearly revenue growth by $90,500! A further breakdown of these numbers can be found here and also here. If these claims are even remotely true, then the importance of getting a website and web tools for your dental practice are obvious.

It’s important for Dentist Offices to have a map and directions to their office on their website. By doing so, you make it easy for your potential new patients to find you. This of course leads to new business for your practice, and increasing profits and revenue. It is very common of internet users to search for a map or driving directions while using the internet. According to the February 2007 survey held by Pew Internet Stats, 86% of all American adult internet users search for a map or driving directions on the internet.

Remember that this is the same survey that stated 71% of all American adults use the internet in general. The fact that 86% of that 71% searches for directions or for a map shows us that it is a critical practice to have a map on your website to your dentist office. Not doing so could result in huge potential annual losses. So if you work in a Dentist office, are a Dentist, or communicate often with a Dentist or Dentist office, this effects you. Make sure every your Dentist office has a map on your website. And of course, if you don’t yet have a website we suggest you get one.

P.J. Lloyd is the CEO of Site Revamp Corporation and writes in his blog for his company often. Site Revamp is a web design and development company that specializes in search engine optimization and internet marketing solutions. P.J. recently wrote a very interesting article titled “Yellow Pages vs. Search Engines” in their blog. The article focused on specific statistics and facts regarding Internet usage against yellow page usage. The following are some excerpts from this well written article…

“According to Jupiter Media, over 64% of people looking for information online, use search engines. If I can type what I want into a search engine and find what I need, I don’t need to go through the 100 pages of ads in the Yellow Pages. Search Engines are getting more precise down to an industry specialty and geographic focus, while also continuing to be easier to use.

I’m not sure about you, but as a business owner, the last thing I would do is give my prospects a list of my competitors. The Yellow Pages does just that. Using search engines, you can differentiate yourself from everyone else. Given that your site is optimized, when the ideal client is looking for what you do, they find you, not your competitors.

And did you know that as far back as February 2004, The Kelsey Group and Bizrate. Com found that 64% of Internet users who make purchases online prefer search engines to conventional Yellow Pages. Go figure.

he Yellow Pages Integrated Media Association commissioned a study finding that the printed Yellow Pages have seen usage decline from 2.0 average weekly lookups per person in the mid 1990s to 1.4 average weekly lookups in 2003. However, the economics of publishing printed Yellow Pages remains incredibly strong, so even with decreasing usage; the books continue to appeal to advertisers at maximized ad rates. With more research validating Search Engine Optimization and benefits, listen for the ripping of those Yellow Pages rate cards.

Bottom line: Realize that yellow page books and yellow page online directories do not differentiate you from everyone else. Make sure your site tells what you do, where you are located and invites the client to take action with your firm. Welcome to search, the killer application that is leapfrogging the current directory model. Search is the future: the question is - are you are going to be a player or a spectator? Good Selling!”

You can read more of this article by clicking here. I found his lists of statistics and information very appealing and interesting. It’s obvious that the Internet is a much more effective and cost efficient means of advertising for the Dental Industry, and for all industries for that matter.