How Can Google AdWords Benefit Your Dental Practice?

By: Mahnoor Awan

As a dental practice, you likely have a beautifully designed website and branding, complete with the best web practices, fully optimized for SEO, resulting in your practice's website on the first page of results for relevant searches. You also regularly post on different social media platforms and reach out to your patients for reviews. You think you've done everything but are still looking for new patients. How else can you bring in more new patients?

This is just one of the scenarios where you, as a dental practice owner, should consider taking advantage of online advertising, as part of your digital marketing strategy.

One of the most effective online advertising services is Google AdWords.
Why?
When you are looking for something, what is the first thing you do?
Search on Google.

On an average, there are 40,000 search queries on Google per second (3.5 billion per day on average). Then why not take advantage of such an opportunity to expand the online presence of your dental practice and the services you offer? Our statistics show an increase to the number of appointment requests for practices that have both good natural SEO placement AND AdWords campaigns (regardless of the source of the interaction). It's as if there's the perception that having both adds additional credibility while providing additional opportunity to show branding and messaging to the potential client.

Therefore this approach extends and goes hand in hand with having a well designed, functional, responsive, and well optimized website.

Are you intimidated by the idea of Google Adwords because it sounds too complicated or involves too much money being spent on a monthly basis? Does it seem like a high risk strategy? Well, it doesn’t have to be, as we go in detail explaining what exactly is Google AdWords, how it works, its benefits, and if it is the right marketing strategy for your practice.

What is Google AdWords?

When you do a Google search for almost anything, the first few results you may see could have a little "Ad" tag on the left, those are Google Ads. (Google used to place ads down the right hand side of the screen as well - but this newer practice streamlines all results and is more responsive to different screen sizes).

4 Free Visual Content Tools Every Digital Marketer Should Know

By: Beles Lezina

Digital marketers know creating content can sometimes be tricky. Whether you're new to the industry or a self-proclaimed expert, producing visual content can be a difficult and often frustrating process. Here are four free online content tools that can make it as easy as clicking a button:

SCAM Alert - Google My Business

We hear you've been getting calls and even we get calls. A strange number rings, there's often a pause, and then a recorded message states:

Dear Business Owner, Numerous attempts have been made to verify your business location. This is our last attempt to reach you. Your business is at risk to be removed from Google's Search Results. Press #1 to speak to a Google Operative Now.

Sounds important, right?

Well, it's a scam.

Is Google removing your reviews? This might be why...

A case of disappearing reviews and what to do about it…

By: Johanna Bannis
According to the 2017 Local Consumer Review Survey, 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation - an important statistic when growing your business. As such, they can play such an important role in the ongoing success of business practice. So what happens if reviews that you work hard to cultivate are being removed? Business owners are confused as to why some reviews are being removed from Google. Particularly, it seems strange that a review can be published and then, not long after, mysteriously disappear.
Well, there's a reason for this:

Google has specific criteria for reviews and may filter any reviews (over time) that don't adhere to it.

You may inadvertently be asking for reviews incorrectly, or have otherwise run afoul of the rules without realizing it. If you've checked out the Google criteria and still don't feel that the reviews should have been removed, then continue reading to find out if any of these situations below apply to you.

Tips for Creating Mobile Friendly Newsletters

It's no surprise that mobile usage in recent years has increased drastically. Today's mobile users often consider phone calls and text messages secondary functions on their devices, while everything from using social media apps, browsing the web, and of course checking emails are their primary uses. As of March 2017, data shows that 54% of emails were opened on a mobile device. That number continues to increase.

If you're using email newsletters as part of your practice's marketing strategy, it is important to create mobile friendly e-blasts so your message is delivered and properly displayed to all your recipients. To make your newsletter mobile friendly, here are a few tips to help guide you during design.

Related Article: 5 Examples of Great Dental Newsletter Practices

A Clean, Responsive or Single Column Design


When optimizing for mobile, it is important to realize that the limitations of screen space is the primary driver. Crowd it at your peril. Mobile users are willing to scroll down the screen, but not pinch and zoom in to read through the text.

A responsive template uses CSS to help control the layout of the e-blast on various screen sizes, most usually displaying multiple columns on a desktop, and single column on smaller screens.

A Single Column layout is an even simpler responsive layout that stretches the width of a single column up to a usual maximum size of about 600 pixels (which will increase as screen resolution gets better and better over time.

Either solution, will allow you to create a design that is mobile friendly, concise, and to the point, providing an optimal experience for your readers. A single column template becomes the lowest-common-denominator approach, while a responsive design allows you to take more advantage of desktop sized screens. Why not always go responsive? Because there are a surprising number of mail apps that don't yet fully support the CSS media queries’ which enable this functionality. So you might end up doing extra layout work that can't be taken advantage of on some email apps.
Remember, the greater the viewing experience, the higher amount of engagement, and the less chance of unsubscribers.

Here's an example of a newsletter for Toronto Children's Dentist, based on a 600 pixel wide responsive design. Much of the content is split into two columns on the desktop and shows as one column on smaller screens with the images shown above each text section.