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The Evolution of Orthodontic Marketing
Orthodontic marketing is evolving to become a more holistic process of reaching out to prospective local clients. SoLoMo is a term in online marketing that has surfaced relatively recently and stands for Social, Local and Mobile. The concept, however, is not new. Businesses have been combining their presence on social media with their local marketing and mobile device targeting in a consorted way for almost a decade, albeit in a more rudimentary fashion.
Looking at an orthodontic practice’s social media, local marketing and mobile presence under a common prism rather than as separate entities is bringing new levels of efficiency to lead generation. This new paradigm is reducing both time and money spent on promotional efforts for orthodontic offices across the country. SEO for orthodontists is gaining new meaning and the blueprint to attracting clients into your office is evolving to meet advancements in information technology and telecommunications.
What Does it Mean to be Social, Local, Mobile Friendly?
Delving deeper into what it means to apply this type of marketing, SoLoMo refers to taking the local marketing model that has been pushed by search engines and social media platforms and applying it to include the geo-location capabilities of mobile devices. As smartphone and tablet manufacturers started adopting GPS-centered technology in their products, the ability to track users’ locations and cross-reference them with people’s habits and schedules became more potent.
It used to be that in order to make local marketing work, a business owner had to target users that were searching for keywords related to their industry. Now, marketing to potential clients can be as specific as targeting someone within a 5-mile radius that is in search for an orthodontist that has more than 10 years of experience working with children.
In order for a business’s marketing to be SoLoMo friendly, everything in its sales funnel needs to be tailored to easily disseminate attractive offers in the form of text, images or even video to users in the vicinity. From your social media profiles to your landing pages, everything needs to work in unison to achieve maximum results.
The Role SEO Plays in Your Marketing Strategy
SEO for orthodontists has always been a key component in getting a dental practice known in the community. Earning the highest possible search engine rankings for the most relevant keywords for your office was enough to have clients calling in for appointments after merely conducting a search on Google for ‘orthodontist in city XYZ‘.
With the new capabilities available to users, they can now check for orthodontists in their immediate area that is highly rated in reviews and that has photos of happy clients for everyone to see. Conventional SEO does not cover all the bases for achieving this kind of interactive communication.
How You Can Boost Your SEO
Adapting your SEO to fit this new model of getting clients can give you a significant advantage over your competition and does not require a complete overhaul of how you optimize your website. The following simple tips will get you started on creating a SoLoMo friendly website.
Become More Social
Make your content more sharable and encourage discussion. Posting your content on platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter where it can receive shares, likes, retweets, comments and follows will let Google and other search engines know that users appreciate it. The more interaction your posts receive and the more click-throughs to your website you get, the more social signals you will amass, pushing your website up the rankings ladder.
Even promotional actions can be geared toward skyrocketing your social-local reach. An example of this would be to offer a discount to anyone that called your office after seeing a photo one of your patients posted on their social media upon leaving your office. That way, you are not cannibalizing your service by offering an overt discount, rather you are rewarding local internet users that are smart enough to recognize quality orthodontic work and are fast enough to contact your office to lock in the savings.
Offer Every Possible Location Option
Be sure to include your orthodontic practice’s location in written address and map forms. If your website is built on WordPress, you can use a plugin such as Local Search SEO Contact Page to automate the process. When running pay-per-click campaigns, making full use of Google’s sitelink extensions can make your office’s phone number and other important information easy for local users to employ in contacting you.
Offer an Optimal Mobile Experience
Google and other online platforms have been gradually increasing the importance given to having a mobile-friendly website. If your website does not offer ease of use when navigated on a mobile device, your rankings will suffer greatly and you cannot hope to attract local clients. An experienced SEO expert can iron out all the kinks and give your website the speed and readability it needs in order to align with your marketing strategy.
What SoLoMo Means for Your Orthodontic Practice
Orthodontics is a niche branch of dentistry. Your practice is a specialty that users are actively searching for in order to improve their level of comfort and appearance. Taking the social, local and mobile approach can be very beneficial in growing your business by attracting new patients but also cementing your position as an authority and a competent expert in your field.
Prospective patients are looking for a highly-reviewed orthodontist that can give them the best results as per the testimonials of others and the reputation that the doctor has built.
Elevating your marketing to operate on this level can take time and there is a learning curve attached to it with. However, with over 60 percent of businesses having some sort of social media presence and only a small percentage of them making use of the online marketing strategy detailed herein, there is ample territory for an orthodontic practice to exploit.
Finding a knowledgeable marketing expert that has experience working with orthodontists is a hassle-free way of achieving measurable results. Contact us today to arrange a complimentary consultation where we can show you what is possible for your business. We have over ten years in the space and can show you tangible case studies on how we achieve income-growing results for our loyal clientele.
Is your Orthodontic Office SoLoMo Friendly?
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Perry Stevens is the founder and CEO of Blend Local Search Marketing Ltd. He’s a tea drinking, grows cocoa and is a frequent traveller.
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