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Howard:
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It is a huge honor today to be podcast interviewing Jill Nastasia?
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Jill:
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Nastasia, yes.
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Howard:
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Nastasia. I can't help but ask, is that Russian, Nastasia?
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Jill:
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It's a Russian name, but I am of Italian descent.
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Howard:
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You just married a Russian, then?
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Jill:
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No, they came over from Russia into Italy before I got here.
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Howard:
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Oh, they went from Russia to Italy to here?
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Jill:
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Yeah.
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Howard:
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I love names. I've gone all around the world and I love names. The funniest thing about going to Russia is they don't find out until they come to America that "Margarita" is a drink.
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Jill:
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Oh, yes.
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Howard:
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It's a very common name in Russia, so is [Natasha 00:00:47], Nastasia. Let me read your bio. You're originally from Connecticut. Jill spent a number of years in the Midwest in the mortgage industry before becoming a Texan in 2002. Joint ventures with small businesses around the country led her to establish MDPM Consulting in 2010. With many years in business development under her belt, Jill has worked with clients from almost every major city, helping them with their marketing efforts and growing their businesses.
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Today, Jill is MDPM's CEO, but more importantly, she's the Director of Business Development for her clients. She approaches online marketing with a long-term approach, evaluating how all the pieces of dental practice fit together to create a successful brand and business. Outside the office, Jill's a busy mom to her 2 teenage boys, so you can share some sympathy with me, since I have 4 boys. She also enjoys yoga, kayaking, volunteering and devouring books about the history of major American cities.
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We're basically twins, except you're a lot younger than I am. It's funny, because we're about the same age. When we were little, it was all the Yellow Pages. When I got out of school, all the older dentists thought I was ruining the profession by advertising in the Yellow Pages. They kept saying to me, "If you had cancer, would you pick an oncologist out of the Yellow Pages? If you had a heart attack, would you call a cardiologist out of the Yellow?" They just thought it was ridiculous. Then, not only did it explode, the Yellow Pages, now it's ran its course. Is it gone? Is it all moved digitally, Jill?
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Jill:
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I think it's absolutely officially dead. It happened over time, piece by piece. When I first got into this industry 7 years ago, people were still hanging onto it. They were trying to stay relevant by offering directories. A lot of times, Howard, things don't move forward in a sequential order. They leapfrog over. The Yellow Pages tried to create an online directory and they didn't realize the consumer's going to search the world wide web and not search for a directory that would search for them. Right now, I only run across a handful of people that still advertise in it. They tend to be those that have been in practice for many years.
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Howard:
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When I was in college, the whole rage was the mainframe. I felt so lucky, because I got out of dental school before those stupid computers affected me. I got all the way out of school without touching a computer. Then, PCs were all the rage. PCs turned out to be so much more of a game changer than a mainframe computer. Then, in 2008 with the iPhone, Steve Jobs, that just changed the entire world. The smartphone is really where it's at right now, isn't it?
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Jill:
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Yeah, absolutely. Everything's going to mobile devices, be it a smartphone, an iPad. People are working in a whole different way. Again, that's a perfect example of leapfrogging. You have people who don't even have a PC at home, they just went straight for a mobile device that they can use. It's not always going to go step by step an equal amount of time at each stage.
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Howard:
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I can't believe it, I'm 53 now, but last year at age 52, I actually cancelled my landline because it was annoying. It took about 3 years for my thick walnut brain to realize that, every time I have to come home, I have to check 3 messages on my landline and it's all 3 telemarketers. Now, I'm just trying to get rid of my mailbox.
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Jill:
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You and a lot of other people are trying to get rid of the post office. It's not relevant for people. There has actually been court orders in various states, one of them being Connecticut, where they said a mobile device is valid for legal purposes either to do business or to contact an ex-spouse, et cetera, that landlines aren't necessary.
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Howard:
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I just think it's a crime that I have to walk out to my mailbox every day and get a bunch of crap out of there and then carry it in to my trashcan.
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Jill:
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Yeah, absolutely. I think you're with a lot of people on that. [crosstalk 00:04:58].
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Howard:
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I don't think you can get rid of your mailbox, though.
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Jill:
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No, not yet. We got rid of the landline, so maybe it's coming.
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Howard:
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Man, I wish I was in a business where it was against the law to get rid of your business. What is the value you're adding? You're helping dentists do digital online marketing?
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Jill:
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Yes, Howard, I changed our name to a "consulting company," rather than "marketing company," because I want to help them make great decisions. Yes, we design websites, build websites, right copy, do all that, but most importantly, we guide them. Being my age and your age, like you pointed out, the internet wasn't around when we were young. I had to learn this. I'm not some 25-year-olds who grew up with it. I love the fact that I can help my clients navigate what parts are necessary and what parts aren't, because they're just as confused as I was when I started looking at everything.
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Howard:
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What does "MDPM" stand for?
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Jill:
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Initially, it stood for "Modern Dental Practice Marketing." Then, we quickly went down to just "MDPM."
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Howard:
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Kind of like "Kentucky Fried Chicken" went to "KFC"?
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Jill:
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Yes, exactly. [crosstalk 00:06:15].
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Howard:
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It started out Modern Dental Practice Marketing?
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Jill:
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Yes.
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Howard:
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I assume your clients, if they go to MDPMConsulting.com ...
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Jill:
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They will find us.
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Howard:
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Pardon?
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Jill:
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That's where they will find us.
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Howard:
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When they go there, what is your typical client? You're talking to thousands of dentists right now. What are you a perfect fit for? Who is this dentist that you're helping? When they consult with you, how much is it? What do you do for them? What's your value-added proposition?
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Jill:
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Sure, our ideal client, either he's a sole practitioner or has a handful of partners. It is not the big corporate dental practices. As you know, the majority of dentists out there are their own sole practitioner or have a partner or 2. What we do, we help them as a small business navigate what's necessary for online for their branding, their logo, designing and building their website, writing their content. Then, ongoing, doing search engine optimization, helping them with reviews and social media, and measuring and analyzing and working with them so that they're getting new patients and maintaining maintenance marketing with existing patients so that they're successful.
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We keep them relevant online. It's not just 1 piece, it's all the pieces. Based on who the client is, if it's a brand new practice or if it's transitioning or if it's a sale or someone just getting ready for retirement and trying to sell it, we put together different packages for folks.
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Howard:
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What does something like this cost?
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Jill:
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A basic website, and when I say "basic," it has all the bells and whistles, is about $4,000. Then, we have 3 monthly packages. They range a base package for $299 a month, mid for $699 and top package for $999. What that includes, in addition to support and hosting and making edits, is us proactively putting new content out there. The difference in the packages is the degree and frequency of the content, putting that content on social media. All of them have consultations every month with us, where we talk about what's going on in their practice, the changes, the events, also new business, analyzing what their goals are and working with them through that.
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We also just rolled out something value-added to all those practices, where we're sending them out a social media package every month at no additional cost to go ahead and put that on their social media, in addition to our blogs that get put on there.
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There's a lot of products at the conventions, various things that I think are not necessary to pay extra money. Because economy's a scale and we have so many clients, we are able to put together this package for them to use in the office. We're looking for solutions so that they don't have to buy from several different vendors to meet their needs.
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Howard:
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Do you have a lot of clients now?
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Jill:
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We do. We are in 37 states and Canada right now.
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Howard:
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Oh, Canada's just a state. They don't want to admit it. If you look at Canada and California, they're identical. They have the same number of people and the same number of dentists. Canada is just the 51st state. It's just California Version 2.
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Jill:
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It's funny, because they say 90 percent of the business is done within 99 miles of the US border.
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Howard:
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That's absolutely true. You have clients in 37 states. Are you more needed and more successful in the big city areas? What if you're in a rural town of 5,000? Do you really need all this stuff if you're in Clay Center, Kansas, population 5,000, or is this something you really need if you're in Phoenix or Boston or Vegas?
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Jill:
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There's different levels of what you need and each situation is different. I can honestly say, if you plan on staying in practice for more than the next 3 years, regardless of what you have for business, you need a good, solid website with all the necessary elements, not a templated website, not something that's just thrown up, but a really good, solid website.
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Now, what you add on after that varies. Perfect example, we have a client in Austin, Minnesota, which I think the population is about 5,000. They asked us to build a website. Their goal was they want to attract associates. They said they can't go out to the meetings, et cetera, and not be able to show the associates, "This is what our office is about." Even though they have a good book of business, they may not always be putting that website up there for the purpose of getting the consumer, maybe it's to get employees.
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Howard:
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Tell me if I'm right or wrong on this. You go to a dental convention and you're listening to this lady up there and she's talking about all this SEO stuff. I'm sitting there thinking, "Okay, Google, that's their whole business. How does this person up there understand the whole business when Bing is trying to figure out what Google is doing, when Yahoo's trying to figure out this business?"
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Do we really know what Google is doing to get SEO? What are the SEO realities? What are the myths? I always cringe. I'm just thinking, "If you're so smart in SEO, why don't you go work for Bing, because they're getting their ass kicked by Google or why don't you go work for Yahoo?" Talk about SEO, search engine optimization, realities versus myths versus urban legend.
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Jill:
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Sure, first of all, [inaudible 00:11:49] that says they know SEO or they can get you to page 1 for this term, they're just absolutely lying. You can't know that and I don't even pretend to. Also, there's not 1 formula that's going to breed success, because it's not all about the rankings as well. It's about a whole host of things, as far as the reviews and how you're coming up and what pages people are going to. It's not an exact science.
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What we do is we go back the old fashioned way, we read. We read what Google puts out and they write in their blog, their Webmasters tools, everything that they want to see. You put together in your formulative plan, you test it with some of your sites, you start seeing a direction that's working, and you adjust as things go on.
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As they release new releases, like when they did Penguin, we adjusted things. When they made the announcement last April that non-responsive sites weren't going to get ranked as high, we made sure all our clients had responsive sites. You do the best you can with the information you have. You just have to stay on topic. Then, when you decide what your path is going to be, you stick with it and give it time to work.
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Howard:
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There's so many online ways to market. We hear of your website, we hear of blogs, we hear of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn. Will you go through what you think is the most to least important, the hierarchy of how you would approach that? You can't do everything. Someone told me there's over 100 social media sites.
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Jill:
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Yeah, what I like to compare it to, if you remember back from your college days, Howard, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, where you started with food and water. To me, the food and water is the website itself. You have to have a website that, 1, is built responsibly and that's up to Google's current standards, 2, has original content. It can't be directory articles from other sites or from the ADA. It has to be 100 percent original, so Google recognizes you as a subject matter expert.
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It also has to be optimal for user experience, is your phone number clickable, various things. It's got to be targeted at your audience that you want. You need that. That's your basic thing. If you didn't have anything else and you told me you were going to invest in something, I would say you need a good, solid website with original content.
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Then, once you have that, the next piece are all the citations and directories. You want to make sure you're lined up correctly on Google Places, Yelp. You don't need to go out and sign up for 100 review sites. Chances are, you as an individual who goes online, if you haven't used the top 5, that's what the average Joe is using, too. Set up those things, make sure they're consistent according to the rules, encourage people to leave reviews, that would be the second.
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Then, the next part would be content. By "content," Howard, I mean, writing in blogs, which is making you, again, the subject matter expert, helping people find you, helping you rank high. Lastly, hopefully someone will read it, but more importantly, it's really to please Google. All our packages include some level of blogging. Even for our own company, every time we [inaudible 00:15:27], the phone rings. It's that simple.
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Then, the final piece, which would be the pinnacle, at the top, if everything else was going great and you've got your website, you've got your directory base, your content's being done regularly, then if you want to do social engagement, that's great. I know that goes against what a lot of people say, but I can tell you from experience, there's no point in running out and spending a lot of time on Facebook when you don't have a good website foundation, you don't have your directories and you're not including the content. It's really just that extra, at least in dentistry. Now, there's other industries that social media matters even more.
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Howard:
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You said there was 4. It was the website, then the reviews, then the blogs, then the top of the pyramid, social media. Did I miss one?
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Jill:
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Nope, those were the 4.
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Howard:
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Okay, so then let's start at the bottom of that pyramid. I like that Abraham Maslow deal. By the way, one of my favorite management books of all time was "Maslow on Management." He was combining, this is the monkey, this is the animal you're dealing with, and then how does the animal biology apply to management. I thought that was the most interesting book. My other favorite anthropologist was Desmond Morris.
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Let's start at the bottom of the pyramid and work our way up. Okay, I'm just trying to guesstimate. There's thousands of dentists listening to this right now. They pretty much all are commuting to work. They're sitting there thinking, "How do I know my website's any good? I was at a convention 5 years ago. I was at the Ohio State Dental Association and I gave some firm some money, they built a website. I don't even think I've looked at it in 5 years." How does this dentist listing to Jill know if his website's up to par?
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Jill:
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There's a lot of components, but a few simple things. The chances are, their website is out of date and doesn't meet current standards. First and foremost is, websites, if they're responsive. What that means is, does it adjust, not just on the iPhone, but does it adjust on any sized screen, on a tablet, on a smaller PC? If you shrink the screen, everything should reorder in stacks, so it shows an image properly. You still see the entire image.
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That's important for 2 reasons. The first is you know yourself, when you go to a website, if it doesn't stack order properly, if it's just a miniature of the website and you can't see anything and you can't click, you're not going to want to use it.
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The second thing is, Google knows if it's coded to be responsive and they're not ranking them as high, especially if people are searching on a mobile device, which they say is going to be about 85 percent this year, we'll be searching on mobile devices. Anybody can test that themselves just by looking at their own site on a mobile device or shrinking the screen on their desktop.
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Howard:
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When I am calling back a dentist or emailing back or anything and their email's, "Howard@TodaysDental.com," I go look at their website. Half of them look like they're 10, 15-years-old. I just saw one today and it said for his curriculum vitae, I clicked it, it said, "401K Error, Link Doesn't Work," or something like that. It's crazy.
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Then, say you'll be at a restaurant, and you're talking to the dentist and he gives you his business card. You're talking to him, and you go to Google and you pull up his reviews and you say, "Hey, have you ever read your reviews on Google?" 99 percent of the time, this is what you'll hear, "What?" They never ever know about their own reviews. I guess that's a walk into the next, what do we need to know about reviews? Furthermore, you said there were top 5 review sites. Can you name them? I only really hear of Google and Yelp.
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Jill:
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Google, Yelp and now Facebook. Although Facebook likes aren't necessarily as important, Facebook does have reviews that the consumers are going to see. Then, based on the region, there's usually a couple more that seem prominent in that region. Some areas of the country, Citysearch and AngiesList is popular. Then, there might be others that Kazoo is popular. We know those top 3 are the ones we're going to worry about and then we do a little search and say, "Okay, do you have anything regionally going on in this area that your competitors are also placing value on?"
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Howard:
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If you go onto Dentaltown, 205,000 dentists, and you search online reviews, most dentists are having a nervous breakdown, meltdown, because someone got on there and ripped them a new one. I'm the first to admit, I got bad reviews on there and some of them are just comical.
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I was telling my listeners a couple weeks ago, some lady came in, walked in, no appointment. We spent 2 hours with her. Then, when she found out that she wasn't going to get everything free and her insurance paid and she's actually going to have to open her purse and give us more than a dollar, she finally left out in a huff and then went and wrote us a bad review. What would you say to the dentist who's driving to work right now, coughing up a blood clot, because someone left him a bad review? Should he just drive off the bridge and just end it right now?
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Jill:
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You're right, they do just about, because there's a lot of energy, time and care and pride that goes into their practice. First and foremost, you have to work offensively, meaning, you have to be getting reviews on a consistent, ongoing basis. The reason that is, is when you get that bad review, people will see all these great reviews and they won't give as much credence.
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The second thing is, I say always respond, unless it's just totally a troll under the bridge saying inappropriate things. Respond, not necessarily in details, but, "I'm sorry to hear that. We'd love to talk to you. Please call the office." I have heard so many times when people will put something like that up for people, the people won't call, but they'll immediately take down the review.
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Now, you'll have some that will never take it down, but at least you're a business person, you're a professional that's saying, "Hey, talk to me about it." People realize you're human and things are going to happen. If they see the good reviews, they see you trying to have an open dialogue.
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Howard:
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I want to stop right here. As I say, my job is guesstimating what these dentists are thinking. I'm 53. All my friends that are my age, they say they've never left or read a review. Is it a age thing? When you look at Americans reading reviews, is it more boys or girls, older, younger? Is there any demographic sequence to this review thing?
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I'll give you another bias that's negative against reviews, it's older people, in our whole life, whatever Hollyweird reviews or New York City or whatever, they never correlated to whether I liked the movie or not. In fact, I used to joke forever that if the New York Times said it was a horrible movie, that means it's a must see. If they gave it 5 stars, it meant the artsy-fartsy people liked it. Is there any demographics to who places and reads reviews or is it just general?
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Jill:
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I think there's some, but of course there's always rule-breakers of those. I think the over 50 set, and I'm almost there at the over 50 set, I handle things directly and privately, that's just who I am and I think that's my generation. I think the 30-year-olds, they grew up living their life online. Certainly, this group of 20-somethings, they put everything out there.
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The other thing that I see is people in more urban areas leave reviews versus rural. I think that's because there's this certain amount of safety. You're in a big city, nobody's going to know you. If you're in Independence, Iowa, you're not necessarily going to write this about your neighbor down the street. I also think people ...
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Howard:
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What I heard you just say is the under 20, who put everything online, they're the Jerry Springer generation?
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Jill:
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Yes, exactly.
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Howard:
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[crosstalk 00:23:32].
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Jill:
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Exactly, you know who has a migraine and who's cat died.
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Howard:
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Yeah, how do you manage reviews? How does your company help reviews? How could me paying you one of your three layers of $299 a month, $699 a month, $999 a month, how would that help my patient, [Margaret 00:23:50], leave a review?
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Jill:
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First of all, we set up those review pages in your best light. We have accurate information, we have your hours, we have photos. We have it look alive and active. As you know, some of those review sites, it looks like the place is closed, because it's got old information and will talk about something from 2014. We keep it alive and active.
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Second, we also put a reputation management page on the website where we have links, so that the doctor can either direct people there to leave reviews upon request, have an iPad in the office or reach out to certain people to say, "Hey, I appreciate the kind words. Can you leave a review?" We make it easy.
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Then, the third thing is we're available to respond when they have a negative review. We help them craft the response to put on there, because we do say you should at least respond to something, and every situation's different. Then, the final thing is, if it's completely inappropriate, there are some methods to reporting to have it removed. That's not always a successful route, but every once in a while, you run into something that's just so out in left field, you're able to get that done. The best thing to do is bury it with positive reviews.
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Howard:
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If it's a negative review, just post, "I'd like to remind everyone that half of the planet is batshit crazy"?
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Jill:
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Howard, I wouldn't recommend that, although we all feel that way.
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Howard:
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Is that because it's offensive to bats?
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Jill:
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Yes, exactly.
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Howard:
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Oh, my God, people are so funny. They're the best and worst thing about the whole planet. Now, let's go to what no one wants to hear, is that they're going to have to write a blog. Why is a blog important? How long does this thing have to be? Is it 100 words, 1,000 words? Is there any sweet spot where Google says, "Okay, it's blogging, it's alive," frequency?
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Jill:
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Yes, absolutely. The blogs are 350 to 500 words long about a particular topic, have some meat, some information in there and post it on a regular basis. The more you blog, the better it is, but it is also better to do it on a consistent basis. I wouldn't want to go in on the 1st of the month and load 20, but I think it would be great to do 1 every day of the week. That's how Google's going to be looking to see if you're the expert.
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What you're going to want to focus on are a few things. 1, you're going to want to focus on services or problems or things that you hear your patients asking about, because if they're asking about it, they're probably going to be Googling it. You want to go ahead and get some nice, long [inaudible 00:26:29] keywords in the title and write about a specific thing.
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The second part is the community itself to help with SEO and also reach out to your folks, talk about what's going on in your community. Are there events coming up? Dentistry is a face to face business in a specific community and you need to be part of that. The blog is a great way to do that.
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Then, the third thing about the blog, you can also use it as a vehicle to put out new information about your office, your staff, your patients themselves. There's the high school football game and little [Johnny 00:27:05] is one of your patients, that's a great story. It ties in all the things we talked about and then you can also then talk about [inaudible 00:27:12] at the football games, things like that. It's a whole formula.
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Howard:
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Yeah, you are really elite. It's funny, ever since I got out of dental school, any time I ever heard a human recommend their doctor of any specialty to another human, I just drill down on them, "Is that person a diplomat?" and they don't know. "Where'd he go to school?" "I don't know." "Where'd he graduate?" They don't know. The only thing they know about that guy is that he was in their church choir and his kids was in the same scouting deal and they met. It's just all the human stuff. Marketing is about human stuff and dental technicians want to talk about bone grafting and sinus lifts and nerve repositioning. You're saying, make it more human stuff, talk about your community, your events, all that stuff.
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Jill:
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Yeah, absolutely. Along those lines, testimonials from your patients are helpful, not the specifics of, "This was the technical issue and we overcame it by doing X, Y and Z," but more, "This woman was getting ready for her daughter's wedding and she was uncomfortable with her smile. Now, look at all the work and she's feeling beautiful that day." They want to know the human story, the success stories, and how it made people feel.
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Howard:
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Yeah, and weddings are so special. It's the day you legally meet your future ex-wife. That is amazing. Also, I think a good one is is what you just said, I hope it didn't fly over their head, is that when a patient asks you a question, that should be a good blog.
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Then, when you get asked 3 times in a month, like coconut pulling, I just keep having people come in. I'm an old guy, so I talk about all the fads I've lived through and all that stuff. Now, coconuts are the miracle stuff, like a coconut has something a grapefruit doesn't and all this stuff. Yeah, if a patient asks you a question, that'd be a good time to answer to them chairside and then go in your backroom and open up a Word document and answer the question again and there's your blog, right?
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Jill:
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Yes, and now we write our blogs for our clients. We come up with the editorial calendar, but we tell them at any time they're hearing that question, pull out their phone, shoot us a text. That's what you want for your next blog. That's what you want to see on your schedule. They don't even have to go through the trouble of writing the blog, but they certainly can help with the content if they're hearing it. If we don't hear from our clients, we do reach out and we ask, "What are you hearing?" We also ask the hygienists, because a lot of times, the dentist doesn't hear nearly as much as the rest of the staff.
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Howard:
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Okay, so then you're saying, this pyramid, Maslow's hierarchy, the bottom of the pyramid is the website and then next mass, it'd be reviews, then blogs. You're talking about blogs, which no one ever talks about, and you're saying social media's even less important, it's the tip of the pyramid. Yet, my God, all you hear about is these dentists building their practice on Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest and all that and it's really not true, is it?
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Jill:
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No, it's not. Howard, there's something missing from this pyramid. I don't know if you've noticed. It's not even on the pyramid, is pay per click.
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Howard:
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Google AdWords?
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Jill:
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Google AdWords, pay per click. I know there's people that disagree with me out there, so I'm ready for all the naysayers, but when you're investing money, if you've done all these, pay per click really can't add a whole lot more to it and, certainly, you shouldn't forgo all these things for pay per click.
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Howard:
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Oh, so you're saying pay per click is overused and less effective?
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Jill:
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Yes, I think pay per click has its place in very large cities that are so competitive, Manhattan is one of them. The majority, I'm here in Dallas, Texas and we probably have about 50 to 60 clients in Dallas and they are doing fantastic page 1. We've got 5 million people. We don't need pay per click.
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I'm going to tell you why I don't like pay per click. I do think there are some consumers that click on it. I think it's great when you're looking for a restaurant or buying something shiny. When it's a personal service such as dentistry, which is very serious, people are smart. They know those are ads. That's not what they're looking for.
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Even if they said, "Hey, I like this guy, Howard Farran. I want to go to him," studies have shown, they're going to check 5 other places online for validity. If they haven't invested in that good website in their directories, in their content and in their social media, that pay per click is not going to be supported, that, "Hey, this is really a good place to be." People have to really think about it in steps. There's no easy, "I'm going to pay this money and I'm guaranteed."
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Howard:
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I clicked my first pay per click ever yesterday. It was on a ad from the Dallas Cowboys looking for a quarterback.
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Jill:
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Perfect.
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Howard:
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That was my only one. I heard the most expensive pay per click was a Manhattan personal injury attorney.
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Jill:
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Yeah, I believe that.
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Howard:
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If you hate attorneys, you should just log on to Manhattan personal injury attorneys and just start clicking all those banner ads.
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Jill:
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Exactly, and I also have a lot of case examples of people I've met with who were spending $3,000 or $4,000 a month on AdWords and they weren't getting anything from it. I'm not a big fan and I'm never one to say it will never work. We do have a couple clients we handle AdWords, but it's literally not until they've done all the other things and we measure it carefully. I like to get people there the easiest path and look at things organically, before going that route.
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Howard:
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Okay, my homie's driving to work, I've had you for 33 minutes, she's going to get to work in 28 minutes. What should she do? She goes into her office, she takes off her coat, puts down her purse. She logs onto her website. How could she test that, that it's up to SEO standards? After listening to you for an hour, she's going to go in and look at their website. What should she be looking at? How can she test it, if it's any good or not?
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Jill:
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First, she should see if it's responsive.
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Howard:
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Okay, talk about that.
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Jill:
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We talked about strengthening that. Then, we talked about content. You may get a home page, it's original in your bio, but go to any of the service page, your implant page, grab a paragraph, throw it in the Google search bar, see how many other websites have that same exact copy. If it's one of the website companies that sell templates and duplicate content, you'll see pages of that same paragraph. It's the simplest way to check if you have original copy.
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Howard:
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Yeah, because if you have a lot of friends on Facebook or Google Plus or Twitter, you see the same image, sometimes 10, 15 in a row from all over the United States.
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Jill:
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Yes, absolutely. It's not just about the ongoing blogging or the social media. It's their internal pages have duplicate content. When Google reads it, instead of reading a 35-page website that'll offer these services, they're reading the home page and the bio page and contact page, because that's the only page with original content. They are not the subject matter expert or the person to go to for any of those services. That is the number one thing that people don't realize, is about the duplicate content.
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Howard:
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Okay, I've heard that 50 percent of consumers will only go to the website first page, the landing page, and that only another 45 percent will go to a second page and only 5 percent go to 3 or more pages. Do you think that's true or false? If it was true, what would be the most likely second page of a website?
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Jill:
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I think that's true to an extent. First of all, that person may go to the first page, but the whole reason they got there was because of the services that were listed on the second, third, fourth and fifth page for organic rankings, so that's why it took them there.
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The second page, I will tell you what we see all the time, they read the bio. They want to know, "Who is this person that's going to be performing services? Where did they go to school? What is the training? Do they have kids at the school my kids go to?" They're looking for a connection.
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The third page is the "Where are we? How do I find you? Let me look at a map. Let me look at the outside of the building." People don't read a whole lot about those services, but those services are necessary to come up, so that they explore it. Then, they pick up the phone and they call and they ask about your services.
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Howard:
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There's been some talk lately that, I'm sorry, I just wanted to know the question, Google changed the business Google page or the Google Plus account page?
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Jill:
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Yes, they've changed that several times over the last few years. It's actually a work in progress. The Google Maps used to be Google Places. It keeps changing what it is, but it's how they find you on the map and little markers on the map. That's one of the ...
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Howard:
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Google Places then went to Google Maps and that's different than Google Plus, right?
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Jill:
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Yes, Google Plus was something they were trying to compete with Facebook and make it a thing and it just didn't take off. They've tried 2 different times and it just never caught on. However, you could still post and you could still have circles of friends and it's still being used, but it's not as relevant.
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When we blog for someone, we post it on Facebook and we'll even post it over on Google Plus, just because it's there and it's not costing anything additional. Who knows, maybe one day Google will get it rolling, so we figure it can't hurt to have it there.
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Howard:
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Now, what percent of the searches for a dental office do you think are on Google, as opposed to Bing or Yahoo or something like that? What percent would you guess?
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Jill:
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We think it's about 85 percent.
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Howard:
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Then, who would be number 2, Bing or Yahoo?
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Jill:
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I believe Yahoo's actually above Bing, but they both have a very small market. Then, there is just that handful of little one-off search engines that are out there that I couldn't even tell you the names that exist.
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Howard:
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Do you know what my first search was on?
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Jill:
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What?
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Howard:
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You won't even remember it, AltaVista.
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Jill:
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Oh, my gosh, I do remember that. That's a long time ago.
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Howard:
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Yeah, I always thought Microsoft should buy Yahoo. Isn't that a no-brainer? It's like Disney buying Pixar. If 85 percent of your searches are in Google, some people believe you just need to be in all of Google's properties. It should help that you have a Google email address, as opposed to an AOL or Yahoo or MSN. You should be on Google Plus, that if you're using all kinds of more Google stuff, then at the end of the day that might help your SEO. True or false?
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Jill:
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I think that's false. I think what type of email you use doesn't impact search. I do think, though, the Google Plus, you should at least have a profile, as well as all the other directories, Yahoo and things like that. You want to be represented on all of them, but I don't think it's, "Okay, I'm going to do everything Google."
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However, when deciding what type of guidelines we follow, we do take our cue from Google, because everybody seems to follow what they do and there's a reason they're doing it. It seems to make sense and the others usually aren't going to go an opposite direction, as far as search results.
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Howard:
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Like I said, I don't use this, so I don't know enough to ask the question, but some people use what they call a "Hootsuite." When they make a post somewhere, it kicks it out on Twitter and other places. Have you heard of that?
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Jill:
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Yes, and there's actually 4 or 5 different companies that do that and different industries have different companies that do that. I haven't seen a whole lot of value. People get sold on the automatic nature of it. I really believe writing it, having it on your own site versus putting it on somebody else's property and then manually posting it is really your best way. People love to think technology is going to replace the human aspect of things and it doesn't. Every time they're trying to come up with an automatic way for things to happen to cut corners, people get smart and they change the rules again.
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Howard:
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Another thing is, you see all these people spending all this time posting on Facebook and they don't even have a blog on their deal. My favorite joke is that if you want to make money with Facebook, delete your account.
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Jill:
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I agree with you. You notice, I have that on the top. I think, for dentistry at least, it doesn't work. I think Facebook ads don't work for dentists. I think it works great for other industries, but it's not going to help you. Having that website and the blog, that's the core. That's the key, right there.
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So that we don't ever exclude one thing, we say, "We don't charge extra for this." We're like, "We already wrote your blog. We're going to put it on Facebook, so you have something, so you don't seem outdated." Again, I don't place a whole lot of weight. I know there's guys out there that write entire books, that if you do all this with social media, this is what will happen. I just don't believe it's true. I think sometimes it can help with maintenance marketing if you're part of your community online, but I wouldn't spend a whole lot of time on it.
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Howard:
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Yeah, but I almost think it's the human condition, because it seems like the noisiest parts of society almost don't even matter. I'll give you an example, the last election, 4 years ago. They spent a billion dollars, the whole United States was just obsessed with it for a year. Then, at the end of the election, it was the same President, same majority in the House. The whole thing was just noise.
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Same thing in clinical dentistry, all the millionaires I know, all they have is hygienists and do fillings and crowns. That's everyone doing a million dollars, taking home $350. All the noise is that you got to do same-day crowns and you got to learn how to place implants and all this weird, extracurricular stuff, but the bread and butter is the website. If you want to spend any more time, manage your reviews. Then, if you got any time left over, every time the patient asks any question, write a damn blog. After they get done listening to you, you know what they're going to do? They're going to go spend the whole afternoon on Facebook.
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Jill:
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Yep, absolutely. They want it easy. It's interesting what you just said. When you talk about our average client, we have clients of all different levels. I would say our average client is that dentist that's not at every single convention, he's not on the talking circuit. He's in his office day in, day out. He's in his community making relationships and he's not famous, you'd never know his name, and we partner with him.
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That's middle America. We have clients all over the country, but I joke about my Midwest folks, they're just the heart of the whole thing. I never go after the, quote, "famous dentists." I just want to work with people just like I am. I'm building a business, taking care of my family, being part of my community.
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Howard:
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Yeah, I know. I was born and raised in Kansas. They're just hardworking boys who just go to work every day, do their daily grind, 8:00 to 5:00 and they're just getting her done. They're helping their patients. They're making a lot of money and it's just all under the radar.
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Jill:
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That's the majority of people, I think that's what they're really doing. It's the extremes you hear about, but that's what the industry's made of. I just flew up to Detroit to go speak to a dental clinic club, only about 50 people, but it was amazing. This club is one of the oldest in the country, Detroit Dental Clinic Club. They had several dentists there who had served in World War 2 and then they had some newbies just out of school that were 25 and 26. It was so great to see them all working together. It was such a privilege and honor to go up and talk to them.
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Howard:
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That is very cool. You've lived through the mainframe to the PC to now the smartphone. What do you think the next big thing is around the corner? When I walked out of college, I didn't see the PC revolution coming. I didn't see the cell phone coming. I didn't even see the ATM machine coming. I didn't see the automatic garage door coming up. What do you think's around the corner that we don't see coming yet?
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Jill:
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It's funny you say that, because I have a son that just went off to college and he's agonizing his major. I keep telling him, "Learn what you love and learn how to learn, because your job doesn't exist." This didn't exist when you and I were in college, Howard. The one thing that does exist is relationships and listening and being strategic.
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I really don't have a great prediction about what's going to come, but I think if we can communicate, listen, respond, read and write and articulate, that's the group of people that's going to be able to go far. My favorite quote by Darwin is, "It's not the smartest or strongest of the species that survives, but the most adaptable to change."
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Howard:
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That's so true. I used to hate watching TV in the TV room with my mom and dad, because back in the day, I was the channel changer. I was their remote control. It was always, "Howard, get up and change it to 10," you just barely sit down, "Change it to 12. No, go back, and put it back on 3," or what was worse is they had those rabbit ears and for some damn reason, if I stood there and touched it, the reception improved. Half the time, I'm just standing there, augmenting. Remember the rabbit ears?
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Jill:
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Yes, I do. We had a TV like that.
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Howard:
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I didn't understand why, I was a boy with 5 sisters, so whenever we pulled into the house, I was the idiot who had to jump out and raise the garage door that was made out of solid wood. It just broke my back every time. I want you to go back. You said a couple things that I think might fly over people's heads. You said make sure their website is responsiveness. Can you just go over that one more time? What is a "responsive website"?
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Jill:
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Sure, what it means is it's going to work properly on all devices. What I mean by "properly" is when you're looking at a PC versus a phone, it shouldn't look exactly the same, because you're not going to be able to operate it on the phone. It's going to shrink and restack with buttons, so that the consumer can use it. You're going to be able to see everything on there versus if you do it, if it's not responsive, you're only seeing part of it or you have to use your fingers to make it bigger. You just can't operate it. It's different than when we used to have mobile sites. This is adapting to everything on the fly, whether it's shrinking of a screen, a tablet or a small tablet and then a phone. It covers a lot of different devices.
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Howard:
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I see this question, too. People ask, "Should a dental office website have an app?" How would you answer that?
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Jill:
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No, a couple of things. There isn't a whole lot you're going to do with an app for a dentist. Most of the dentists don't really need to collect payments on a regular basis, so you're not using an app to make a payment. There's really not a lot. People don't like it, because apps are fun and sexy and everybody wants to be in on it, but there's just not a practical application for an app. I've seen quite a few out there, but I'm like, "I'm not sure that really adds to the experience."
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Howard:
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What if one of my homies looks at their website and not sure? Can they ask you? Can they email you? Can they call you?
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Jill:
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Absolutely, they can email, call me, anytime. I will do a complimentary analysis and I will tell them completely what they should or should not do. I don't believe everybody needs a new website, just because I didn't build it. There are a lot of great websites. Sometimes they just need a different maintenance package. I'm brutally honest, I can't help it. I come from the Northeast, it's the way we talk. I'm happy to take anybody's questions and tell them what my opinions are on it.
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Howard:
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Go through your contact. What's your email? What's your cell phone? Give them all that.
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Jill:
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Sure, it's Jill@MDPMConsulting.com. Our number is 972-781-8861.
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Howard:
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That's Jill@MDPMConsulting.com?
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Jill:
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Yes.
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Howard:
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The cell's 972-781-8861?
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Jill:
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Yes.
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Howard:
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I want you to do me a favor.
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Jill:
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Yes?
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Howard:
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Could you do me a favor? If you download my app on your smartphone or go on the website, it's got that Google magnifying glass little search thing and you search "Howard website," there's a thread there, "What do you think of Howard Farran's mobile site?" Would you go on there and tell me what you think on that, too?
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Jill:
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Absolutely.
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Howard:
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I use Dentaltown for myself. I just wondered, to see what free feedback I could get. A lot of people there are arguing about this and that on a website. I'd love to see you weigh in on that thread.
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Jill:
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Yeah, I would absolutely love to do that.
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Howard:
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Also, what's cool, is whenever you answer a question, you have your signature area. If you said, "I think Howard's website would be a lot better if you took down Howard's picture and put up a picture of Brad Pitt," in your signature area, it'd say your name, your logo, all your contact information on it. There's a lot of companies that say their best marketing is just posting on Dentaltown, because people see their signature. If they like the way they're talking or answering or whatever, they think they're an authority, it gives a lot of business, especially in crown and bridge labs.
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There's a guy named Shaun Keating who built Keating Laboratories by just answering dentist questions about crown and bridge. He just answered them so good and so honest. He was so funny. Sometimes he'd say, "God dang, look at your impression! There was a bloody gauze in it. You can't even take the bloody gauze out?" He was just a great guy. I'd love to see what you thought of that thread and my website in that.
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Jill:
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Absolutely, I will do that.
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Howard:
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We got 205,000 members on the website and 40,000 of them download the app, so I'm sure they're all going to want to know. Jill, I've had you for 50 minutes. Is there anything else you think my homies need to know about everything we're talking about?
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Jill:
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One thing I do want to say, in interviews when we're taking a new client in, I discuss it, and I want people to know, although there's best practices for SEO and how it should be set up, don't be afraid to like what you like, as far as the design. People will tell you all day long, "Oh, you should use dental blue and you should wear your white lab coat."
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The bottom line is, you should be you and the website should be an extension of your office, so the right people are attracted who will feel comfortable there and you're matching up. I really want to encourage all the dentists to be themselves and be comfortable with who they are. Although there's a lot of technical rules, there's no rules on who they need to be.
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Howard:
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That's well-put. When I was in Kansas City and I graduated from dental school, I did all the demographics of Phoenix, Arizona. I went to 85044, but that was the second best demographics. The best demographics at that time was north Scottsdale at 101 Via Linda. I gave that to my good buddy, friend, [Steve Hays 00:51:40]. I told him to go there.
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I was just a born-in-a-barn Kansas hick and I knew I wasn't really going to fit in in north Scottsdale. I knew the rich, hootie-tootie people. I grew up with people that had no underwear and wore overalls. I wanted to be in middle class Phoenix, I thought. I relate so well in Phoenix.
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In fact, across the street from me is the Guadalupe Indian Reservation. It's about 25,000 people, probably 15,000 don't even have citizenship or whatever. Hell, those are my favorite patients. When I'm at a party and some guy says, "See that guy over there wearing the," some fancy name shoes. I'm like, "Dude, if you know the brand of a man's shoes, me and you just ain't from the same town." You know what I mean?
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Jill:
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No, I'm with you, Howard. I grew up in a working class neighborhood, half-Irish, half-Italian. With the streets, everyone was your family. That's how I treat all my clients. I'm much more comfortable in my middle America folks than worrying about being elitist, that's for sure.
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Howard:
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I'm 100 percent Irish at 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 grandparents. I got to ask you, which is your better half, your Irish half or your Italian half?
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Jill:
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Oh, it depends on the day. A combination is deadly, I'm told.
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Howard:
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The combination is deadly?
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Jill:
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Not for me.
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Howard:
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Hey, Jill, thank you so much for spending an hour with me today. If you have any questions, you don't know if your website's stacking, loading, and you're just confused, just email Jill at MDPM Consulting. If you bought your website 5 years ago and it's one of those website-in-a-box cans where 3,000 other dentists bought the same damn website, you're saying you have 3 levels of, what was it, $299 ...
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Jill:
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$699 and $999.
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Howard:
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$299, $699 and $999, but it would cost $4,000 to build up the whole website from scratch?
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Jill:
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Yes, absolutely.
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Howard:
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All right, Jill.
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Jill:
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Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to jumping on Dentaltown and give you some feedback.
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Howard:
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Oh, I can't wait. Thank you so much, Jill.
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Jill:
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Wonderful, thank you, Howard.
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Howard:
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Okay, bye-bye.
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