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Digital Marketing Services That Work for Dental Clinics and SMEs

by | Jun 10, 2021 | Harris & Ward, marketing

Are you struggling to draw new clients to your dental clinic, law firm, or small business? You’re not alone. In fact, about 65% of businesses struggle to draw in leads and web traffic.

With the right digital marketing services, you don’t have to struggle! Instead, you can give your business the boost it needs.

Not sure where to start? Keep this marketing services list handy. With these online business marketing strategies, you can set your business up for success.

You can generate more brand awareness, acquire more website traffic, and gain new leads. Then, you can improve your ROI and start growing your business.

Set your business up for growth and success! Get started by learning more about these marketing services for startups today.

1. Branding

Before you start using the rest of this marketing services list, it’s important to consider your brand. Your brand will set your business apart from others within your niche. Without a distinct brand, consumers might not recall your business.

In fact, it takes an average of six impressions before you build even a smidge of awareness. In order to build brand recognition, consistency over time is key.

You can create brand guidelines to ensure your brand remains consistent across all marketing channels.

In fact, consistency could increase revenues by up to 23%.

When developing your brand, take a moment to think about your target audience. What do they care about? Shared values account for about 64% of brand relationships.

Then, determine your:

  • Vision statement
  • Mission statement
  • Unique value proposition
  • Logo
  • Color palette
  • Font styles
  • Imagery styles
  • Voice
  • Tone
  • Personality

Keep your branding consistent as you explore the rest of these marketing services.

2. Web Design and Development

In some cases, your website is the first time consumers interact with your brand. It’s important to make a strong first impression. If your website is old and outdated, consumers might leave.

They’ll take their business elsewhere instead.

Consider hiring an experienced web design and development company. They can create an eye-catching, wow-worthy website that will draw consumers in. Your website will host the content you create as part of your lead generation strategy.

Work with a design agency that can create a mobile-optimized website for your business.

More people are exploring websites from their smaller phones and tablets. If your website isn’t optimized, you could lose business. Consumers might struggle to explore your site from their smaller screens.

They’ll remember their negative user experience and maybe even tell others.

3. Content Creation

Start creating engaging, informative content for your website. Content creation is an important step in your online business marketing strategy. You can create content to demonstrate your experience and expertise.

Informative, helpful content will help consumers recognize your value. You can show people you understand the problems they’re facing. Then, you can create content that offers them an easy solution.

You can create different forms of content, including blog posts, articles, eBooks, and infographics. Then, you can optimize your content for search engines to help more people find your business online.

4. Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) can help your website content appear higher on Google and Bing. A higher ranking will position you in front of more customers. When someone searches for your product or service, your website might appear.

About 70% of all experiences online start on a search engine like Google. SEO can help you boost brand awareness and generate more website traffic. Once you draw people to your website, you can use your content to convert them into leads.

Only 0.78% of Google users look beyond the first page of a search, though. Without SEO, you might not reach customers.

Consider working with an experienced SEO agency. They can help you create content with SEO in mind. Then, they can optimize your content based on the keywords consumers use in a search.

Google’s search algorithm changes constantly. If you’re not up-to-date with the latest trends, your ranking could drop. Finding an agency that offers digital marketing services can give your business an advantage.

You can rank ahead of the competition and draw in new leads.

5. Custom Photography and Videography

Consumers can now recognize stock photography on sight. Stock images could make your brand look ingenuine. Instead, work with an agency that can capture custom photography for your brand.

You can use your photos for social media, your website, and other branded materials.

Consider creating engaging videos as part of your content creation strategy, too. A content creator small business expert can help you create attention-grabbing videos for your website.

6. Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can also help you reach more consumers online. Consider creating text and visual ads. You can use ads to direct more people to your website.

These ads can appear on social media platforms, other websites, and search engine pages.

Once people click on your ad, they’ll appear on a landing page on your website. Then, you can convert those visitors into leads.

7. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a great way to keep your customers engaged. Let them know about upcoming deals or events. You can also let them know about your latest accomplishments.

For example, a law firm can mention new additions to the team or accolades they received. A dentist’s office can share before and after photos of their patients.

As people start commenting on your posts, make sure to comment back.

Consider working with influencers in your industry, too. Influencers can help spread the word about your business. You can boost your brand’s visibility and draw in fresh leads.

Give Business a Boost: 7 Digital Marketing Services for Dental Clinics and SMEs

Don’t fall behind the competition this year. Instead, consider these seven digital marketing services. With these marketing services, you can wow your customers and draw in fresh leads.

Get ready to stand out from the crowd with these online business marketing tips today!

Need help developing your digital marketing strategy? We’re here to help.

Contact us today to discuss your web design, SEO strategy, and more!

How to Succeed at Small Business Marketing

by | Mar 31, 2021 | Harris & Ward, marketing

There are around 31 million small businesses just in the US. That’s to say nothing about foreign businesses that operate in the same space, a common problem for e-commerce businesses and freelancers. In short, you can come up against a lot of competition depending on your industry.

That makes marketing an essential component in any small business plan. The challenge, of course, is how you can make your small business marketing succeed in the face of that competition. Keep reading for tips that can help you get your marketing in the right place.

Make a Plan

Marketing is one area where you can’t throw it together as you go. You need a marketing strategy that informs a marketing plan. That starts with defining your target market.

What kind of person or business represents your ideal customer? What characteristics define that person or business?

Let’s say you run a dental practice. Is your ideal customer a family or someone looking for cosmetic dentistry?

If you want family business, you structure your marketing plan around things like preventative care for kids and essential procedures. If you focus on cosmetic dentistry, your target market is likely adults with disposable income. For those customers, you focus your marketing on lifestyle and aesthetics.

Once you define your ideal customer, you build a plan around them and their needs or wants.

Set a Budget

Marketing can and will eat as much money as you throw at it, regardless of results. That means you must set a sustainable marketing budget before you begin.

Sustainable means different things to different businesses. For a cash-strapped business, that might mean a couple of hundred bucks a month. For a high-profit business, it can mean thousands of dollars.

Rather than think of your budget in numerical terms, think of it as a percentage of revenue. Assuming you can afford it, a good rule of thumb is around 7% of your revenue. If you can’t afford that, crunch the numbers until you find a number you can afford and work with that amount.

Now, let’s look at specific things you can do.

Professional Website

Your business operates in an Internet-connected world. That means you need a website as a focal point for your business marketing efforts. More than that, though, you need a professional-grade website.

Customers these days regularly interact with websites built by Fortune 500 companies that poured millions of dollars into their site development. Those websites inform customer expectations about look and performance in any given industry. While you can’t compete with the budgets of those companies, you can get a website built by professional website developers.

That means you end up with a site that performs well and meets customer expectations for your industry. It also means you get a website that natively offers any industry-specific features you need.

SEO

It’s difficult to separate search engine optimization from any small business marketing plan, as it’s a core part of digital marketing. SEO is a set of tactics that help your pages on your website rank better in search results. If your site’s pages don’t rank well, people looking for businesses online simply won’t find you.

The most familiar elements of SEO for most business owners are keywords and link building. In essence, keywords are specific terms that people use when searching for products or services. By incorporating keywords specific to your business, you improve your odds of ranking well.

If you focus on a local market, location-specific keywords can help you even more.

Link building takes on two main forms: internal and external. Internal linking focuses on creating a web of links on your site between related content, which tells search engines that your site focuses on a specific product or service. External linking focuses on connecting your site to high-quality resources, which demonstrates you understand your own industry.

Custom Images

Many businesses rely on stock images for their websites. This is a cost-effective tactic, but it’s not an ideal one. There are a finite number of stock images for any given industry, which means you run the risk of using the same images as a competitor.

Custom images help you overcome this problem by ensuring originality. As a bonus, people respond to images in a more meaningful way than they do solely to text on the screen.

Video

Video does the same thing for your that custom images do, but even more powerfully. They let you speak directly to your visitors, which can help solidify an emotional connection. People also recall information from videos better than information they get from skimming written content.

Video has another advantage. It’s an ideal way for you to reinforce your brand message.

You can do slice-of-life videos from inside your company or office or offer messages from the owner. Assuming your brand message is authentic, it’ll shine through in the videos. If people liked your brand messaging before, you’ll reinforce that emotional connection.

Social Media

Let us not forget the 800-pound gorilla that is social media. Very few businesses possess the staff, budget, or know-how to maintain a presence on every social media site. Yet, a small business social media presence is essential.

Dig down into the benefits and pitfalls of different social media platforms. Then pick a maximum of two platforms to focus on as a starting point. Look for sites that play to your business’s strengths.

If your business has lots of products, an image-focused site makes sense. If your business relies on personality and in-person services, lean more into sites that let you leverage those factors.

Small Business Marketing and Your Business

Small business marketing matters as much as big business marketing for the long-term survival of your business.

That means you need a plan that focuses on your ideal customers and a budget you can sustain. It also means leaning in to the reality of digital marketing.

You need a pro website with solid SEO. Your marketing should use custom images when possible, and video if your budget supports it. Your business also needs a focused presence on social media.

Harris & Ward specializes in small business digital marketing and site development. Have a larger project? We offer enterprise SEO and marketing services.

3 Reasons to Care About Local Business Listings

by | Sep 17, 2020 | Harris & Ward, marketing, Search Engine Optimization

3 Reasons to Care About Local Business Listings

Written by Lesley Goodaker, Digital Marketing Manager

Local SEO efforts directly correlate to your business’ reputation, rankings, and revenue. That’s why its vital to understand the purpose of local business listings and citations.

What is local search?

As the name might suggest, local SEO is intended to attract customers in concentrated areas such as a specific town or city. Greater search visibility for small businesses often means more foot traffic, more service opportunities, and ultimately, more revenue.

To this end, Local SEO is all about increasing search visibility for businesses that rely on face-to-face interactions with their customers. These can be brick-and-mortar businesses with physical office space, like a law or dental office, or businesses like electricians and construction companies that services specific geographic areas.

Much like traditional search optimization, local SEO is designed to improve your visibility on Google and other search engines. This is largely done by creating content using keywords that are relevant to searches your target audience is looking for.

Examples of a local search query include phrases such as “lawyers near me,” “dentist in Lexington,” and even, “best Lexington eye doctor.”

What is the role of business listings in local SEO?

Not that long ago, businesses had a plethora of options for publicizing their business locally through phone book listings, newspaper advertisements, mailers, and even telemarketing.

Unfortunately, as marketing has taken a turn towards digital channels, many of these mediums have become all but obsolete either due to cost alone or a general lack of disinterest on the part of consumers.

In this way, internet marketing has become as much of a necessity for the mom and pop shop down the street as it is for the likes of Starbucks and Aspen Dental.

With over 90% of consumers searching for local businesses online, local citations are quickly replacing traditional offline advertising. As a result, more businesses are turning to local business directories online for an accessible way to publish their business information.

Here are 3 important reasons your business should care about local directory listings.

1. Gain visibility.

Many online directories (including Google My Business) allow businesses to submit their information for publication for free. This is a cost-effective way to boost brand awareness and increase online visibility for brands that can’t or don’t want to turn to paid advertising.

That aside, published online listings offer businesses an automatic boost in search visibility. Though you won’t get to the first position result simply by submitting your business information, you will gain favor over businesses that have not submitted their own information for publication.

Building citations on sites like Google, Facebook, and within relevant online directories such as Angie’s List or Healthgrades ultimately gives your business more online visibility. This in turn helps your business to be found by the right people at the right time.

2. Control your brand.

A pleasant side effect of creating citations for your business is that you get more control over your brand. Submitting and/or claiming your online business listings allows you to determine how your business is displayed in the search results. Instead of merely pulling information about businesses from multiple sources (i.e. Facebook, websites, etc.), search engines will rely on the information presented in your verified listing.

3. Secure consumer trust.

It’s no secret that reviews are a vital part of your business’ reputation. Even so, digital reviews are increasingly referenced by consumers as a make or break factor in their buying decisions. This makes your business’ ability to receive and display reviews crucial to securing consumer trust.

Publishing/claiming your business listings on reputable review sites like Yelp or the Better Business Bureau makes it easy for existing customers to leave feedback and even easier for prospects to find this information. At the end of the day, word-of-mouth reviews will get out there so you may as well make the most of it!

Find a marketing agency to help with your local business listings.

The importance of local listings can’t be overstated.

Think about how often people, yourself included, search for businesses near them? Searching for local businesses online is becoming easier with each passing day, so the importance of having listings online is growing, as well.

If you own a local business, it is imperative that you are not only represented online but that your representation is accurate as well. This is growing even more important during the ongoing health crisis.

If you’re unsure where to begin, consider enlisting the help of a local marketing agency!

 

4 Tips for Small Businesses Impacted by COVID-19

by | May 26, 2020 | branding, Customer Service, Dental Marketing, Harris & Ward, marketing

Navigating a Pandemic [4 Tips for Small Business Owners Impacted by COVID-19]

The coronavirus is causing financial difficulties for businesses across the U.S. And while everyone’s first priority during this pandemic should be to stay safe and healthy, maintaining your business’s health is equally as important. 

We know that many small businesses (ourselves included) are facing more challenges than ever during the current COVID-19 pandemic. With customers shying away and team members working remotely, it’s time to think outside of the box.

So, how can small businesses survive the turbulent times ahead in 2020? There’s no easy answer; however, there are things you can do today to help navigate these challenging times. 

The W.A.R.D Method

Work Remotely (when possible)

Your team may already be working remotely or you may be preparing for that possibility in the future. For some businesses, this may only mean a slight adjustment but, for others, this can drastically change your daily operations.

As more businesses have moved towards remote work, they are taking advantage of the growing number of digital tools popping up to help teams stay connected and productive. Consider the following recommendations for keeping your team connected during COVID-19:

  • Collaborate with your team using a shared document, a video meeting, or a team chat room. Note: If possible, avoid group texts as this can be overwhelming outside of business hours. 
  • Ensure your team has access to important documents from anywhere by uploading them to a cloud-based service through a product like Google Drive or Dropbox.

In cases where remote work is not an option, take care to ensure you’re adhering to best practices to keep your team safe and sane during these uncertain times.

Additional Resources: Managing From Home? Here’s How to Keep Your Team Engaged During Coronavirus • COVID-19 Has My Teams Working Remotely: A Guide for Leaders

Adjust to New Customer Behavior

With new regulations emerging daily, customer behavior is changing faster than ever before. As a result, you may want to consider shifting your operations temporarily to fit your customers’ new behavior.

Start by considering what you have to offer your customers. Are there ways for you to offer those products or services in a different format? Take a look at just a few of the samples below. 

If you’re in: and typically offer: Consider offering:
Education/Consulting Instruction/consulting in-person virtual sessions for clients. 
Residential services In-person meetings or estimates Virtual estimates through photos, video chat, or facetime.
Restaurant Dining In

Offer takeout or delivery.

 

Offer frozen meals that people can stuff in their freezer.

 

Offer recipes that clients can make at home.
(Non Essential) Health Services In person

Go mobile and go to individuals homes.

 

Offer virtual consults over Facetime.
E-commerce Online Make sure people know what’s in stock, delivery times, and if it’s made in the USA promote that!

 

 

Rework Your Offerings (Temporarily)

If you can’t sell what you normally do, how can you use your resources to create a new, more relevant offer?

During this chaotic time, you may find yourself in a situation where simply adjusting your existing offerings won’t work. In that case, you just might be able to shift your entire lineup to something more relevant (and useful) to your target demo.

For example – many local distilleries, and even a Kentucky-based CBD company, have shifted their focus to producing hand sanitizer temporarily. This not only makes great use of otherwise wasted byproducts but also helps a ton of people!

The key then becomes acknowledging this change and broadcasting it to those who need to know. 

Distribute Information

Regardless of the industry you’re in, COVID-19 will inevitably shift some facet of your business. This could mean a change in hours, a temporary closure, or, again, a change in the types of products or services you offer.

As a small business owner, the best thing you can do is distribute the information about these changes across as many platforms as possible.  This includes updating your website and business listings on platforms like Google and Bing, as well as posting to all of your social media channels.

If you’re unsure where to even begin with your planning, consider taking advantage of the complimentary strategy sessions being offered by many agencies. This can be a great way to conserve resources while still being strategic about your business operations. 

 

 

Modern SEO: Snake Oil vs Structure

by | Mar 10, 2020 | Harris & Ward, marketing, Search Engine Optimization

Modern SEO: Snake Oil vs Structure [Plus, 5 Important Questions to Ask a SEO Agency]

Understanding SEO, even on a basic level, is helpful in recognizing scams and companies that are just out to make a quick buck. That’s why we take the time to educate you about the work we’re doing and to share ongoing reports on our progress.

Over the last 9+ years, we’ve analyzed a ton of data to know what works and what doesn’t work in SEO. From authority link building and content creation to contextual link building and guest posting, we keep your site growing to increase brand awareness and increase your ability to outrank your competitors. 

Do I Really Need SEO?

Have you ever questioned whether or not you need to invest in SEO or if you can simply hold off until your company grows? This is a common question that we have heard all too often when talking with business owners.

SEO is a legitimate strategy for driving traffic to your website, ultimately increasing leads and conversions. But, unlike paid advertising, SEO takes time to be implemented properly. There are no shortcuts, no cheap tricks, and no easy answers. As a result, we recommend starting SEO as soon as you are able to.

Obviously, as an SEO marketing company, we’re going to tell you the same thing that every other agency does: SEO takes time. It takes time to research your market and niche. It takes time to run analyses on your existing site. Most of all, it takes time to produce quality content.

And that’s just on our side of things. It can take as little as 2 to 6 months for search engines to recognize your website. But, it can take as long as 4 to 12 months to begin seeing results. 

So, how can you tell if your SEO services are working? Simple, hold them accountable and look for real structure. 

Snake Oil vs. Structure

As consumers, we’ve all been subjected to marketing hoaxes at one time or another. From quick-fix diets promising results in a week to MLM schemes disguised as the next million-dollar idea, we’re all familiar with these kinds of products and services. Being enticed by such offers is an inclination we’re all familiar with. The same can be said for SEO.

While we would love to tell you every agency has your best interest at heart, that’s just not the case. With so many individuals and agencies claiming (and subsequently failing) to take websites to the top of Google’s search results overnight, it’s easy to see how the industry as a whole can seem like a sham. This cycle of distrust can quickly disillusion any small business owner. 

Generally speaking, marketing agencies fall into one of two camps when it comes to SEO — those that follow best practices and deliver tangible results and those that make empty promises and advise you to just “trust” that their services are working. The most important thing to remember is that a reputable marketing agency will never guarantee a specific ranking on search engines. If they do, stay away. It is impossible to deliver on such a promise (even Google says so).

Bottom line: a reputable marketing agency will never tell you to just “trust” in the process. A quality SEO firm is going to show you what they’re doing and provide feedback for recommendations. 

Our Approach

At Harris & Ward, we employ a two-prong approach to achieve success with our clients. First, we identify areas you’re already doing well in and reinforce those with a safe, diversified, link building strategy. This will help build the foundation for the second part of our approach — competitive research. 

To ensure we’re growing your presence in the search results, we use advanced competitive research to find what’s missing from your site including high volume, low competition, valuable keywords. Once these are identified, we’ll do the heavy lifting to build out relevant, well-researched content designed to gradually increase your rankings in these new areas.

5 Important Questions to Ask an SEO Agency

While it may never seem like the “right” time to start SEO, a good rule of thumb is to pair these new services with a site launch or redesign. By doing this, you and your SEO team can ensure that your site is designed to be search engine-friendly from top to bottom. But, how can you tell if you’ve found the right agency for the job? 

Easy! Treat the hiring process as you would for any other employee. At the end of the day, the agency you hire is going to be a crucial part of your team. Here are 5 questions to consider when hiring an SEO firm:

  1. Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some case studies?
  2. What is your experience with businesses in my niche?
  3. Do you offer other marketing services to supplement organic search business?
  4. What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?
  5. How frequently can I expect to communicate with you? 

Though every relationship you enter into will always carry a certain risk, asking these crucial questions can help you understand which “camp” your prospects fall into and what you can expect from them. 

To learn more about Harris & Ward’s SEO services, contact us today!

 

3 Benefits of Working with a Certified SEO Agency

by | Jan 24, 2020 | Google, Harris & Ward, marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Web Design

Google Analytics Explained [Plus, 3 Benefits of Working with a Certified SEO Agency]

Written by Lesley Goodaker, Digital Marketing Manager

The importance of Google’s marketing tools has grown tremendously over the last decade. Today, any business that wishes to grow its search engine rankings must make use of these tools — and for good reason.

Google Analytics is one of the many tools that Google provides to help business owners understand what visitors are doing on their website. Like, Google Ads, Analytics is an essential component of any business’s marketing toolkit.

What is Google Analytics?

Google has one of the most well-known analytics reporting platform for tracking web performance. Serving as a host for data collection, the platform can gather a wide range of data about your site and the visitors who use it. The best part — Google Analytics data is not presented as raw data but in the form of custom reports.

Using a tracking code, Google Analytics reports back to a central dashboard which provides a visual representation of site data in real-time (or by a specific date range). These are designed to make it easy to identify patterns and gain insights about your performance.

Why is it Important?

The insights you gain from Analytics reports can be a valuable tool for improving your site performance. Rather than operating on guesswork, you can set up goals with concrete objectives, including:

  • Identifying the pages that convert best. This can be particularly beneficial to business owners looking for enhanced eCommerce, improvements on a contact form, or to improve bounce rate.
  • Understanding the origins of your site’s referral traffic. Referral traffic is Google’s method of reporting visits that come to your site from sources outside of its own network. This can be helpful in learning about your audience and their interests. 
  • Tracking the location of your site visitors. Using your users’ IP addresses, Analytics can help you identify where your traffic is coming from (geographically speaking). This can be a great asset for determining lead potential.
  • Determining how many new (and returning) users visit your site. Tracking your ratio of new to returning visitors can help you better understand the function of your site for customers. Are new users using your site to gather information about your services? Are returning customers using your site to contact you?

But, that’s just the start. To the untrained eye, the admin menu and functions can be overwhelming, As a result, many business owners simply choose to not set up Google Analytics. That’s exactly what you don’t want to do!

What if I Don’t Have the Time to Get Certified?

As a small business owner, it’s very likely you already have too many hats to wear. The last thing you want to do is invest your time (and money) in learning the ins and outs of a platform as cumbersome as Analytics.

So, how can a time-starved business owner still benefit from Google Analytics? Simple — enlist the support of an agency (like Harris & Ward) that is trained in the management of Google platforms. 

We are proud to offer search engine optimization services for small businesses that are backed by team members who are Google Analytics certified. Using the expertise of trained digital marketing experts, we take your site’s data and turn it into real results.

After all, the greatest value of Analytics is not in the data itself but in the actionable takeaways for your business. 

Benefits of Google Analytics Certification

While virtually every self-proclaimed marketer on the planet is using some form of Google Ads or Analytics, few of them are actually certified.

Google certification programs have long been an industry standard for gauging a marketer’s competence in different areas of digital marketing. However, with the wealth of information already available online, many people fail to see the point in certification.

Though analytics is easy enough to use for beginners, with proper attention, it stands to be a very powerful tool in the hands of knowledgeable users. That’s why we’ve compiled the 3 most compelling benefits of Google Analytics certification.

  1. Better business practices. During training, students learn the nuances of Analytics and how to best manage Google Analytics custom features and tools. While any marketer or business can access Analytics, SEO professionals that are certified by Google are held to a higher standard than others in the industry and operate according to Google’s best practices for account management.
  2. Ongoing education. To maintain status, individuals (or agencies) must retake their certification annually to ensure they are well-versed in the latest and greatest technology. As a result, certified marketers are being encouraged to practice continuing education in order to maintain their status. This ultimately ensures you are benefitting from the most contemporary SEO tools and services. 
  3. Improved strategy. Certified professionals must be well-versed in all features of Analytics including keyword research, competitor research, site performance, and much more. When you’ve learned how to properly set up and navigate an Analytics’ property, you’ll be well on your way to making better recommendations and business decisions on strategy implementation.

So, why wait? Contact us today to discuss how Google Analytics can benefit your business today!