Dentists Read Their Online Reviews

For the average dentist, Internet dental marketing is becoming an ordinary part of dental management, and managing your reputation online is part of the job. The clear majority of dentists (83%) report searching for themselves online, according to a survey by dental website The Wealthy Dentist.
 
Google is the website dentists most often turn to for ego surfing, but they also look on Yahoo, Yelp and other consumer review websites. Dentists can maintain dentist profiles on find a dentist websites, but patients are increasingly entering information on the behalf of their dentist. It's often helpful, but sometimes inaccurate or even libelous.
 
Internet dental marketing requires paying attention to what's going on online. "If you have a website on the Internet, you better search for your site at least monthly to see where it is positioned on the search engines!" advised an Ohio prosthodontist. "If you are not on the first page of Google and other search engines, then you are not on the Internet for practical purposes," opined an Illinois dentist.
 
When it comes to dental website marketing, knowledge is power. Advised a Washington orthodontist, "From a marketing point of view, all dentists should know: 1) If and where they are on search engines, because increasingly patients pick their dentist from an Internet search, and 2) What is being said about the practice/dentist."
 
"I have heard that there are places where upset patients can go and leave a derogatory message and you have no way to refute it. Is this true?" asked a California orthodontist. Essentially, that is true. Some review websites let doctors and business owners to reply to poor reviews, others (like Yelp) do not. A California dentist recently made headlines for suing someone over a bad review.
 
"Online dental marketing is like any other form of dental marketing," said Jim Du Molin, dental marketing expert and founder of dental website The Wealthy Dentist. "If you're not monitoring your status and tracking results, you'll never really know how well you're doing."