In the last 30 days I have been approached by two different dentist concerning SEO for their practice. Both of them invited me in to sit down with them because they were excited about the opportunity having a ranked website affords them as a professional in the dental industry…I was surprised to find out that a few thousand dollars a month is “way out of their budget” for online marketing or “SEO” as I called it.

I’m not a dentist by any means; I brush my teeth night and day and floss once a day and call it good. I thought my few visits a year from me x 100’s of patients would put some money in their pockets, but I guess I was wrong. I thought Dentists were made of money, at least all the houses of Dentists that I’ve been too are. One of them told me that they are even reluctant to spend $200 a month for the SEO plan that GoDaddy offers. I couldn’t believe my ears. The quote I offered them was fair and the rankings they would have received would have been top 10 for sure.

Now I can handle being rejected. Every business owner has the right, and should have the ability, to choose what is best for their business. I respect someone who tells me, this sounds great and the price is right, but we are going to market through another means. However, having someone tell me they expect my services for less than $200 a month is plain ridiculous. Maybe I was being punked or something?

So, to answer my title question…YES. Most dentists rely on word-of-mouth referrals to grow their business. What they don’t realize is that tens of thousands of people are looking for dental services a month in their locations and most of them are using the web as a means of finding what they are looking for. So here are my top 3 reasons why every dentist should have a great site that is ranked.

1. New patient acquisition. Dentists are not selling a physical product, rather a service that targets local customers. They need to do all they can to find local customers to bring into their chairs to enjoy the laughing gas as I so do.

2. Patient interaction. A great dental website will allow patients to get information about the services they might consider so they can ask questions to their dentist about these services. This will increase a dentist’s dollar per patient revenue and grow their business. They can also offer features such as online scheduling to allow patients the opportunity to schedule and unschedule their appointments.

3. Reputation management. With all the news out there about dental malpractice and dentist’s molesting their patients every Dentist should be very interested in controlling their rep online so they don’t get dragged into any of that by accident.

Maybe I don’t understand their concerns, but I think my arguments are pretty strong.

Posted by Andrew Melchior