Dentists (and other health professionals)- Your Market is Looking for You Online…Are You There?

Monday, July 12th, 2010 at 10:44 pm

[NOTE: The case study below applies to ANY business with a web site]

About a year ago I decided to stop doing Internet Marketing consulting to small businesses because the time and effort that was required to educate on the massive potential online was very time consuming. Although I knew this would change (because those who did NOT adopt a serious online marketing strategy would eventually be out of business), there were just too many opportunities online, to dedicate any more time to the consulting “sales funnel process”. Hence, my focus was creating more profitable e-commerce businesses of my own.

What has changed? The client model I have developed is much more selective. Now instead of the client interviewing me, I interview the client to see if there is potential for improving their bottom line. In addition, the potential client needs to have a basic understanding of WHY online marketing is imperative to the success of his/her business. It’s time to wake up and smell the roses. Here we are in the middle of 2010 when the media has not only acknowledged, but has “beat to death” the immense benefits of online marketing and social media marketing. If a business owner doesn’t “get it” by now, well you know the rest of the story.

Recently, I developed a model that centers on a few specific niches for what I feel have the most potential by enhancing their online marketing strategy. This month I have created a specific system to generate targeted web site traffic for Dentists in the major east coast cities including Boston, Hartford and New York. One of the reasons I choose to work with dentists is because the opportunity online is phenomenal. You see in Boston alone Google reports that 15,000 consumers a month are searching for the term “Boston Dentist”. And, that is just that specific term. It does not include the variations of search terms internet consumers are typing in. The figure below taken directly from a Google search results from June 2010, for Boston Dentists, shows several keywords being used by those looking for a dentist in the Boston area. The results for other cities are similar (although larger cities like NY will be much more).

Are all these people looking to hire a dentist? No, but out of 15,000 a month you can be sure a majority of them are. What you should also understand is that 98% of the online searches will NOT go past the first page of their search. So, the first ten web sites which appear on the first page will get a proportion of the 15,000 consumer visits for “Boston Dentist”. And, yes the first web site listed in the first page gets about, according to a number of statistics, between 30-40% of those searches. And, NO ONE, NOT ANY SEO consulting service can guarantee you position #1 on the first page. But, 60-70% of the traffic dispersed between the remaining nine sites on the first page is still an incredible number of leads. So, you should by now have a good idea WHY you need to be on the first page of Google for “Boston Dentist” if you are a dentist in and around the Boston area. If you are NOT in Boston just replace the city with your own. Same for if your profession is other than a dentist. It works the same no matter what service you provide or where you are located.

Meanwhile, here is a trick question. What is more valuable to be ranked for, “dentist” which has over 13 million monthly searches or “Boston dentist” which has about 15,000 Google searches a month ? The answer may surprise you.

What is critical to understand here, is something called “long tail” which comes from highly targeted traffic. You see many highly searched terms are relatively useless as they have no direction, no conversion potential. Using our dentist example let’s say there are 13 million searches a month for the term “dentists”. Well, what exactly is a person typing “dentists” for? I am not sure, but I can tell you it is HIGHLY unlikely that he/she is looking for personal dental services. However, what about the person searching with the term “Boston dentist”? Here is someone conducting a specific geographical search. This online consumer is much, much closer to a buying decision than the person using a generic search term like “dentists”. . Hence, the term “Boston dentist” is what is referred to as “long tail” or “Targeted traffic”, highly targeted traffic.

*Also, keep in mind that consumers are also searching for specific Dentist Specialist terms like orthodontists, dental implants, cosmetic dental, Los Angeles veneers, etc. You get the picture.

We have just started a new service specifically for dentists, chiropractors and other health related professionals. In the future we will work with other service businesses. The new service will be to optimize your web site until it moves up to the FIRST page of Google for a specific term like “Boston Dentists”. And, if you are not getting the HUGE benefit of that after reading the above and seeing the Google keyword analysis image, then thanks for visiting our blog and good luck. If you DO “get it” hit the contact link above and we will discuss the opportuntity in more detail.

Remember this – no matter what your business or profession, the words that consumers enter into search engines are indicative of their needs, and in these needs, there is opportunity for you to provide a solution.