TITLE OF PRESENTATION*:  Dam-It, It’s Easy!sm -Basic Program

SYNOPSIS OF PRESENTATION

This fast-paced seminar combines a multimedia presentation with Hands-On participation featuring simplified dental dam application techniques that expedite dental dam placement.

Basic techniques discussed during the presentation include:

*  Clampless Technique-An alternative to using clamps
*  Simple guidelines for clamp/retainer selection
*  Winged Technique-A combined-step method
*  Modified Winged Technique-The wingless alternative
*  Loop Technique-A method to expedite dam placement through tight contacts

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Participants learn to apply dam for the following procedures:

*  Endodontic Therapy
*  Restorative Dentistry (Posterior teeth)
*  Composite-Bonding (Anterior teeth)         

In addition, helpful hints and suggestions are given for dam usage for various clinical procedures, which include interproximal restorations, structurally compromised teeth, and fixed bridges.

SPEAKER’S BIOGRAPHICAL DATA

Mary R. Costello, CDA, has a BS in Health Administration from Governors State University, Illinois.  She has over 40 years experience in the dental field, serving as Expanded Duties Dental Auxiliary for the US Army, a Dental Coordinator for a hospital-based dental center, and a Dental Dam Instructor, lecturing throughout the United States and Canada on Dental Dam Dentistry.  Mary is currently Manager of Continuing Education and Professional Relations-Hygenic Products for Coltene/Whaledent, Inc.

*Please note the material in this program is copyrighted.   This program cannot be reproduced (audiotaped/videotaped) for distribution without the written consent of Coltene/Whaledent, Inc.

For more information, please contact Mary Costello at MRC3236@aol.com.

Everyone wants their dental website to be ranked #1 in Google or Yahoo and it sounds like if you pay enough, you should be able to purchase that location.  However, this is not the case.  If a company tells you they can get your dental practice website ranked #1 in Google by next week then they’re either lying or they’re planning on using Google Adwords to have you pay per click.  It is possible to immediately get ranked #1 in Google for highly uncompetitive terms.  However, competitive terms have many factors.involved and will take time and trial and error.

Organic results on Google are not for sale like ad space. If you want to pay for placement, consider a pay-per-click campaign. Numerous factors are involved with organic website rankings for dental websites.  For example, longevity of your site on the Internet (at the same domain), keyword choices, alt-tags, keywords in your copy, and competing dental websites, to name a few.

There is nothing more beneficial than being on the first page of search engine results for highly competitive terms. People usually choose dental websites to visit based on the top listings – so that is definitely where you want to be. However, a good, honest website design and marketing firm will tell you that they can’t guarantee a #1 rank in Google but they can work with your site’s statistics and analytics to improve ratings.  Work, wait, analyze results – again and again.

Google, Yahoo, and other major search engines change their strategies constantly in an effort to weed out websites that are using “black hat” strategies for optimal placement. Rules exist in the organic website marketing world. If your web company plays by the rules and works hard for you, you’ll see lasting results that make everyone happy. If not, your site could get banned by Google, Yahoo, or other engines setting you back months or even years.

Click here for helpful information about search engine optimization for dental websites.

Pola Office+ Whitens in 30 Minutes

April 29, 2008 by DentalBlogs.com

Made by SDI, and Australian company with a North American branch, the pola system has five solutions: poladay, polanight, polaoffice, polazing (an in-office boost), and polapaint (no trays, good for touch-up). Dental Products Report featured procedural information (provided by SDI) on polaoffice in the April 08 issue, page 128. Basically, you apply the gel to teeth, use of a curing light is optional, and let the product set up for 8 minutes; repeat three times. Polaoffice contains 37.5% hydrogen peroxide and potassium nitrate to reduce sensitivity. Want to learn more? Visit www.polawhite.com online or order brochures by calling 800-228-5166.

Written by DentalBlogs.com on April 25, 2008

With exciting dental tools, like CEREC, iTero, and diode lasers, as well as the popularity that Extreme Makeover brought to cosmetic dentistry, being a dentist in 2008 seems like a pretty good career choice. The industry is moving forward, expanding; there are new revenue-generating opportunities…but the US economy is stormy right now, and no one knows for sure what the future holds for business – dentistry included. Robert W. Baird released a poll that predicts a slowdown in expensive dental procedures. The report caused a drop in some dental suppliers’ stocks, Dentsply, Henry Schein, Patterson, and Sirona, to name a few. It might be wise for dentists to refocus on the bread-and-butter services that people need, rather than the cosmetic services they want, to rise above the stormy sea of our economy, at least until the tides change. You might want to consider altering your marketing, including your website, hold messages, print materials, and in-office promotions to lean more toward the health benefits of good dental care, rather than the esthetic benefits.

By Fernando Diaz-Lundstedt

How can you handle the marketing power of the Internet in a creative and reasonably priced manner?

First, define a clear objective for your Internet presence. Are you looking to attract new patients? Do you need an online brochure for your existing patients? Are you interested in enhancing your professional image using the latest communication tool?

If you are interested in obtaining more new patients, the following guidelines will assist you in the design of your strategy.

• Search engines position is critical for your successYou will need a top position with the search engines for the key terms, in this case: dentist or dental and your location. Secure a name for your website that offers the best position. For example, if you are Dr. Name located in NiceCity, one option could be NiceCityDental.com or NiceCityDentist.com

  Remember, the key concept is to be listed at the top of the search engine listing for your location. You can always add your name to the description of the home page:

  NiceCityDental.com Dr Name’s Dental Practice in NiceCity

  That’s the whole point of this exercise: Terms such as dental, dentist, or dentistry associated with your location. Your name and the name of your practice are secondary to the objective of securing top listing with AltaVista, Metacrawler, AOL, Yahoo and the other search engines.

  One word of advice in regard to Yahoo: This is a directory and not an automated search engine. That means that they have a selective process and only websites with original and relevant content are listed. Description of standard services and general information about business hours and such will not get you a listing with Yahoo.

   

• Only a professional looking website will doThe free design website and the amateur look are not an option for a dentist. Think about it. How can you expect to have new patients willing to spend a significant amount of money in dental services, when your website looks like you may have plastic chairs in your reception area!

  The website for professionals need to be creative, very efficient and affordable. There are real differences between the companies and individuals that are offering web development.

  One way of separating rookies from real pros is by reviewing their portfolios. If the candidate does not have previous work neatly organized for your analysis, rule it out! It is that simple. Don’t pay somebody to learn web design at your expense.

  The other step that you need to take is surfing the web relentlessly. Find websites design that are appealing to you and add them to your favorites sites. After a while go back and review them, most likely you will find themes, colors, ideas that show a pattern. That is the starting point for yourself and the web design professionals.

   

• Work with creative peopleThere are a lot of people that are trying to sell cookie-cutter type of websites, regardless of your desires and objectives. Stay away from them! They don’t care about anything other than recycling their own stuff.

  Working with more creative professional may cost a few dollars more but it will set the right tone for your Internet presence. The overall look of your website needs to be pleasant, graphically balanced and creative.

  The home page of your site is the equivalent of the new prospect’s initial phone call. It needs to persuade the potential new patient to review what you have to offer. In this area, a professional writer can help you, too.

• The right budgetNo serious company will quote you a price without finding out what is the scope of the assignment. Simple web pages without a lot of creative energy can be found everywhere. The challenge is to sort all this options out and to determine the right balance between quality and the obvious budget requirements.

  Many web designers don’t want to work with anybody that have less than a millionaire’s budget. But I believe that you can create an attractive, rich in content Internet site within a reasonably cost range.

New Dental Web has friendly consultants that offer quality dental websites and dental marketing to fit any budget.

At this point, most of you have heard of blogs. Originally thought of as online, public diaries or storytelling tools, they are now used heavily in the business world for articles, marketing, and content management systems.  I highly recommend blogs to all my www.NewDentalWeb.com clients because it not only gives them the power of easily adding content without a web designer, but it also really helps them create numerous pages with search-engine-rich content and, if done correctly, lands them at the top of search engines for numerous search terms.

BLOG CREATION
At New Dental Web, we have the client choose their blog immediately.  This can be a stand alone domain name www.newdentalweb.com or a directory on your site www.newdentalweb.com/dental-news/ or a subdomain news.newdentalweb.com.  Once your domain or directory is chosen, we install the blog immediately so you can begin adding content.  While you are adding content, we will either begin creating your website design or take your existing design and

If used correctly, email campaigns can be an incredibly powerful tool.  I’ve used numerous companies in the past and have found iContact to be much more intuitive and less costly so I’ll use them today as our example.

Most dental practice business comes through repeat business and referrals.  There is no one more important than your current patient.  As such, you need to make sure that you take care of your current patients as well as use them to find new customers in a non-invasive way.

• Making phone calls to a customer every week is too invasive and may cause you to lose a patient.
• Mailing postcards every week is too costly.
• Sending reminders every 6 months is too long of a gap and may cause you to lose upselling opportunities.

With email campaigns, your practice is able to send out mass emails to your entire patient database (or the patients that request email updates during their visit) to promote specials that your practice is offering as well as dental news and helpful dental hygiene tips.  By creating “helpful emails”, the patient is often appreciative and it gives you the opportunity to sell services, such as teeth whitening, that they otherwise may never consider.

With iContact email campaigns, you have the ability to

• Send emails without clogging up your mail servers or being considered as spam
• Track what links in the email a person clicks
• Email auto responders every week, month, 6 months, or year (for appointment reminders or other types of marketing)
• Give people the opportunity to opt out of the list if they do not want to receive updates

Most importantly, current patients will have your company on their minds on a weekly basis.  This will constantly give them internal reminders and possibly prompt them to mention your services to friends.

I highly recommend using email campaigns for all dental practices and encourage you to spend some time putting thought into these campaigns. iContact email campaigns can potentially earn your practice hundreds of thousands of dollars if monitored and taken seriously.

If you need help creating email campaigns or other marketing materials, please feel free to contact NewDentalWeb.com for advice.

SUMMARY: What’s the best performing marketing tactic in online marketing? Whose budget got the biggest increase this year? We have the answers to those questions and more in our fifth annual ad:tech attendee survey.

Five new charts with data, including:

• What gets the highest ROI
• Marketers’ No. 1 test this year
• How important is social media

Online ad metrics are evolving into precise measurements that reflect exact ROIs — and marketers love it. More than 60% of all those surveyed said they’ll do the following:

• Measure search (66%)

• Conduct A/B tests on landing pages (63%)

• Integrate offline and online tracking (63%)

• Integrate Web analytics with search and email (68%)

At the end of each year, ad:tech and MarketingSherpa ask some of the biggest Internet marketers what tactics worked (and what didn’t) in the past 12 months and where they plan to spend most of their budget in the coming year. These ad:tech marketers spend more than most online — they are good indicators of what’s working online and what’s to come.

Among the top tactics:

• Behaviorally targeted ads favored: Still a favorite, marketers say they will be investing more in them in 2008.
• House lists top paid search: More marketers reported success with house email lists than paid search ads — a reversal from a year earlier.
• Test, test, test again: Marketers are measuring and testing more in almost all categories surveyed.
• SEO begets strong ROI: Search engine optimization is delivering a strong return on investment, according to more than half of the marketers surveyed.
• Viral gains converts: Agencies are urging marketers to explore viral marketing and advertising in mobile phones, online video sites and virtual worlds.

Here’s a few snapshots from Internet marketers. The survey received 421 responses.

Chart 1: Search and Email Are Top Online Performers

Paid search continues to be a strong money maker for more than a third of the marketers surveyed, but that number is down steeply from the previous year. The decline reflects an increase in competition that raised keyword prices and lowered ROI.

SEO continues to increase in popularity. Its low costs and high returns make it a leader among more than half (57%) of the marketers surveyed. Those numbers were 45% in 2006 and 33% in 2005.

The percentage of marketers achieving high ROI with email marketing took a dip for both house and rented lists. These figures likely reflect consumer fatigue with the platform, causing lower returns.

Chart 2: Behavioral Targeting Ranks as Top Online Tactic

Behavioral targeting again proved to offer a stronger ROI than contextual targeting, and by an increasing percentage. It increased 10% percentage points while contextual advertising fell 8%.

The largest drop was in rich media ads. The development-intensive platform fell 75% to where only 7% of marketers surveyed said it delivered a strong ROI in 2007.

The “worst Web ad of 2007” award goes to pop-ups and pop-unders, which no marketers claimed provided a significant ROI.

Text-link ads, a new option on this portion of the survey, were said to be a good investment by 23% of marketers. Affiliate marketing remained the same as the year before, with 25% of marketers finding success with it. Banner ads continue their slow decline, dropping 2% from last year and down 4% from 2005.

Chart 3: Marketers Plan to Increase PPC Budgets the Most

Budget plans for 2008 reflect the changing landscape of the online ad world. Marketers plan to invest more in PPC and behavioral ads and move away from poorly targeted display ads.

The high percentage of marketers achieving strong ROI from behaviorally targeted ads is attracting more investment — 27% of marketers said they’ll increase their spend, a 33% increase over 2006.

Surprisingly, 26% of marketers surveyed plan to increase spending on rich media ads, despite only 7% saying they had success with them in 2007.

Chart 4: Marketers Plan to Integrate Analytics

Online ad metrics are evolving into precise measurements that reflect exact ROIs — and marketers love it. More than 60% of all those surveyed said they’ll do the following:

• Measure search (66%)
• Conduct A/B tests on landing pages (63%)
• Integrate offline and online tracking (63%)
• Integrate Web analytics with search and email (68%)

More than or almost half will do the following:

• Update analytics software (55%)
• Run multivariate tests (49%)

Online brand awareness studies are less exact than other types of ROI analysis, which is causing marketers to turn to sharper metrics. The number of marketers planning a brand awareness study dropped 33% — to 28% of respondents.

Chart 5: Wireless, Virtual Worlds, Viral – What’s Hot?

As in previous years, viral marketing gets its share of attention, especially with the YouTube phenomenon.

• 93% of marketers said agencies recommend either an increase in spending or begin spending on viral video.
• 87% reported recommendations to start or increase viral marketing on social networking sites.
• 62% said agencies advised advertising in games and virtual worlds – the highest number of recommendations for a first-time budget while paradoxically attracting the highest number of recommendations to decrease spending. This confusion clearly reflects the medium’s unproven status.
• 60% saying they are urged to try wireless ads on mobile networks –- it came in second in first-time budget recommendations.

Research Notes
ad:tech’s Fifth Annual Study was conducted by MarketingSherpa’s research team. There were 421 survey responses from ad:tech attendees in December 2007.

By Kelvin Ho Wee Min 

Are you wondering or searching for the best products to help with your bad breath? If so, here are some tips to keep in mind before you begin your search.

The first is that you always need to understand the real cause of your own smelly breath. No product in the world will work if it is not addressing the underlying cause of your breath condition. For example, if you chew gum but have foul-smelling breath because of a tooth infection, this is not going to help much.

When considering just what are the products to help with your breath condition, you want products that are going to fix the cause and not just mask the smell or cover it up. Anyone can chew on really strong mints and the odor of the mint can be stronger than your breath, but that does not fix anything.

So are there any products that help?

Generally, things that keep your mouth hydrated are the best breath enhancers you can get. Keeping your moist will help to keep those nasty anaerobic bacteria away so that your breath does not stink. As such, you should avoid oral hygiene products that contain alcohol, including mouthwashes and rinses. Alcohol just makes your mouth dry, which causes smelly breath. Rinses that are alcohol free are best for use after your brush or after eating.

In fact, some of the most effective breath products can be easily found and are readily available around the house. Peppermint oil is very good for moisturizing your mouth, settling your stomach, and giving your breath a fresh smell. And of course the oral hygiene products you already have in the bathroom are very good for fighting smelly breath, if you use them of course.

It is surprising how often people fail to floss and brush regularly, even though good oral hygiene is the best thing you can do to keep your breath fresh. And, what are the products available if the cause is something medical?

Usually a cover-up or mask is not going to do it. All the gum and mints in the world are not going to help if you are on a high protein diet or for some other reason are upsetting your digestive system.

If you are really curious as to what are the best products to help with bad breath for you personally, check with your dentist. He or she can perform an exam and recommend something suitable for your own breath condition.

There are a number of ways to bring traffic to your website.  Targeted traffic represents potential customers and everyone likes customers.  This article contains a few ways to drive traffic to your site.

You should have a short and long term marketing goal for your website. Short term must be immediate traffic and long term must focus on search engine optimization.

Immediate Traffic

Immediate traffic is achieved by outside marketing as well as activity in websites, mainly forums and blogs, and writing articles about your products or services. Your articles must obviously be of high quality and optimized with the necessary keywords which will attract readers. If your articles are very good then other webmasters may link to them creating extra traffic and backlinks to your dental practice website. Going back to the forums, you should be active in forums which are related to your website. Make sure to insert links to your site wherever possible without spamming. These links also create backlinks to your website which again help your PR.

Search Engine Optimization

Successful Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will provide high unpaid search engine rankings which will provide you with targeted traffic. SEO holds a lot of value on targeted backlinks and original quality content. This takes time and patience but you will be rewarded if you update your site regularly with quality information.

Other Tips

• Optimize your Meta Tag Title, Keywords and Description.
• Start a blog and register it at Technorati.
• Keep your site updated with new tools and resources for your visitors, you’ll notice they’ll keep coming back for more.
• Get Google Analytics to track your visitors and site’s performance.

NewDentalWeb.com offers a number of online tools specifically for dentists and medical practice professionals.  Search engine optimization (SEO) is a very important for any company looking to use their website as a self-marketing, profit-making tool.  Read more about Search Engine Optimization for Dentists and other Online Marketing Tools for Dentists.