Scroll down to see the latest and greatest blogs of the month!
June 1st, 2019
LinkedIn is seeing engagement continue to increase by 24% year over year
Getting social media success on linkedin
24% year over year growth in LinkedIn engagement is a lot! This is why we recommend LinkedIn to any of our clients. It works, plain and simple. However, as a business owner who may not have the know how on what to post or how to post with this platform, we found a nice infographic that explains how to succeed with posting on LinkedIn. If you don’t have the time to learn how to do this and grow your connections, let us know and we would be happy to help you can real results.
June 2nd, 2019
Best Social Media for Boutique Businesses
Best Social Media for Boutique Businesses
If you are a boutique business, it can be challenging to figure out which social media to be on. If you aren’t sure whether or not you are a boutique business, just think small bakery or retail clothing store – a local small business with a real location in a shopping district. Anyways, according to this article, the best social media platforms are:
- Instagram: “Boutiques will gain followers and loyal customers in the short-term, and can use the platform to act as a personalized version of their website, deepening connection with customers in the long run.”
- Yelp: Because of the locality of your boutique, it would be beneficial to be on yelp for customers to easily find you. Also, in our professional opinion, it’s a great source to gain additional SEO exposure and visibility.
- Pinterest: “Carefully selected, and curated, boards can serve as a source of inspiration for the local creative community, while also attracting niche customers and clients to interact with the boutique business.”
- Facebook: Basically, everyone is on this platform and it is really beneficial for people to see when searching for your business name.
June 3rd, 2019
How To Make Your Social Media Look Good
How To Design Small Business Social Media Posts
There are so many benefits to having a captivating blog post in your online strategy. The main one is that it will catch the attention in newsfeeds of social media channels. It can convey certain emotions and create positive associations with your brand. It is quite easy to DIY these photos, so here are a couple of tools to help you. Our personal favorite is Canva!
June 4th, 2019
Sometimes a Bigger Influencer Following is Not The Best
Influencer Marketing: Sometimes a big audience is not the best
When using influencer marketing, most business owners attempt to connect with influencers in their industry that have a large following. Interestingly enough, sometimes a smaller audience is good. It can indicate a committed and highly interested group that could end up benefitting from what you offer. According to this article, people seem to get social media confused with mass media. It is always tempting to increase your following numbers, but that can sometimes dilute your efforts and miss your target market and make your business appear average. In our professional opinion here at Paladin, we can say that a large audience is not a bad thing, just as long as you are careful about how you craft it.
You can view the original article here about influencer marketing.
You can view the original article here about influencer marketing.
June 5th, 2019
Digital Marketing for your Dental Practice
Digital Marketing for Dentists and Dental Practices
As a professional dentist, you may be thinking about getting your digital marketing in shape. The dream of setting up a website or social media presence that actually sends you patients is tougher to achieve than many claim. Here are some basic things to consider and know before diving into it:
Social Media
Social media is a fantastic and low cost method to begin forming an audience and following. The key on these platforms is to post frequently and consistently. You will also want to send traffic back to your website through a link to boost your overall marketing and SEO efforts.
But... you're probably asking the question "who in the world would even care about my social media posts? I'm a dentist, nobody wants to see posts about dental health". We've heard this before and the answer is that you are part of a local community. Check out the local events and news and you can create posts around them! You can also mix in a tiny bit of dental advice once in a while too. Another great option is to check for latest news in your industry and write your thoughts on it in the form of a blog. Then you post this blog on your website and post about it on your social media.
You can also check on competitors to see what they are posting to get an idea of what followers are reacting to. Regardless, make sure your content is valuable. Do not make it about your services all the time. If you don't provide value, your social media marketing will suffer.
SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is a process that allows your website to show up higher in Google's search results. SEO is usually applied to websites in order to achieve this result. In the early stages, it requires a lot of research to find out what and where people are searching. These methods usually take a long time (at least 6 months) to take effect. If you're reading this, you're likely a local dentist office. You'll certainly want to focus more on local searches such as "dentist office (city name here)".
PPC and Google Ads
Google Ads have become nearly synonymous with PPC (pay per click). These are ads that show up during a search on Google in a "sponsored" section. This is a great digital marketing effort to gain initial leads and patients as a dentist office. Search ads usually have a call to action and can drive valuable behavior such as sending a contact form, booking a consultation, or requesting more information. Again, like SEO, you can focus these ads on your local area to bring your cost to acquire a patient down and be more relevant for those who are searching online.
Google ads also offer other options such as video ads or display ads. Display ads create general awareness for your dental practice and you are charged based on impressions. Impressions are basically how many people see your ad. Video ads can do either - create calls to action or generate awareness for your dental office. You just need to have the equipment to film a high quality video.
What If You Don't Have Time?
If you don't have the time to learn or apply some of these strategies, you can look into various automation softwares on the market. Otherwise, you can hire a digital marketing agency to help you out. Here are a couple things to ask:
1. Are they active on social media themselves? And do they follow digital marketing news and trends?
2. Do they have experience and are they willing to share their success?
3. Are they transparent about their digital marketing practices?
4. Do they claim to have any "secrets" or "formulas" that they promise will yield results?
5. Do they communicate well with their clients?
6. Are they willing to give you references?
7. What is the contract term?
Hopefully you found this guide useful for your online marketing as a dentist! If you have any questions, feel free to fill out a contact form so we can help out!
Social Media
Social media is a fantastic and low cost method to begin forming an audience and following. The key on these platforms is to post frequently and consistently. You will also want to send traffic back to your website through a link to boost your overall marketing and SEO efforts.
But... you're probably asking the question "who in the world would even care about my social media posts? I'm a dentist, nobody wants to see posts about dental health". We've heard this before and the answer is that you are part of a local community. Check out the local events and news and you can create posts around them! You can also mix in a tiny bit of dental advice once in a while too. Another great option is to check for latest news in your industry and write your thoughts on it in the form of a blog. Then you post this blog on your website and post about it on your social media.
You can also check on competitors to see what they are posting to get an idea of what followers are reacting to. Regardless, make sure your content is valuable. Do not make it about your services all the time. If you don't provide value, your social media marketing will suffer.
SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is a process that allows your website to show up higher in Google's search results. SEO is usually applied to websites in order to achieve this result. In the early stages, it requires a lot of research to find out what and where people are searching. These methods usually take a long time (at least 6 months) to take effect. If you're reading this, you're likely a local dentist office. You'll certainly want to focus more on local searches such as "dentist office (city name here)".
PPC and Google Ads
Google Ads have become nearly synonymous with PPC (pay per click). These are ads that show up during a search on Google in a "sponsored" section. This is a great digital marketing effort to gain initial leads and patients as a dentist office. Search ads usually have a call to action and can drive valuable behavior such as sending a contact form, booking a consultation, or requesting more information. Again, like SEO, you can focus these ads on your local area to bring your cost to acquire a patient down and be more relevant for those who are searching online.
Google ads also offer other options such as video ads or display ads. Display ads create general awareness for your dental practice and you are charged based on impressions. Impressions are basically how many people see your ad. Video ads can do either - create calls to action or generate awareness for your dental office. You just need to have the equipment to film a high quality video.
What If You Don't Have Time?
If you don't have the time to learn or apply some of these strategies, you can look into various automation softwares on the market. Otherwise, you can hire a digital marketing agency to help you out. Here are a couple things to ask:
1. Are they active on social media themselves? And do they follow digital marketing news and trends?
- If the digital marketing agency is active and keeping up on industry news, this likely means that they have updated and high quality methods that can help your dental practice succeed online.
2. Do they have experience and are they willing to share their success?
- If they aren't willing to share their success stories, this is a red flag.
3. Are they transparent about their digital marketing practices?
- If the marketing agency does not share their methods with you, this is a red flag.
4. Do they claim to have any "secrets" or "formulas" that they promise will yield results?
- If so, that's a red flag. This is most common in the SEO field.
5. Do they communicate well with their clients?
- You want a digital marketing agency that works well with your dental practice. Ask and see how they plan on communicating and working with you so the business relationship can be as smooth as possible for each party.
6. Are they willing to give you references?
- If the marketing agency does not give you references, it could mean two things. One is that they are brand new. The other is that they have had dissatisfied clients who are not willing to be referenced. Getting a reference and calling them can help show the marketing agency's quality of work - so it's a good idea to check on this before moving forward.
7. What is the contract term?
- You never want to be locked in on a 12 month contract with a low quality marketing agency. At that point, it's not doing any good.
Hopefully you found this guide useful for your online marketing as a dentist! If you have any questions, feel free to fill out a contact form so we can help out!
June 14th, 2019
How To Get Your Website Ranked Higher on Google
Getting To The First Page of Google
Getting to the first page of Google and causing your website to rank higher on Google is no easy feat. Lately, we have been gaining a lot of success on our own pages. Our most successful one so far has been "affordable PPC firm" which is a great success for us. This is living proof that our 4 pillar strategy works for SEO purposes and can get you real rankings fast. SEO and getting your website ranked takes a lot of time, so if you are attempting to do this, make sure you give it some time and consistent effort. As you can see, we are currently on the first page for this search term along with other search terms continuing to rise. The internet has voted! We're one of the leading PPC firms out there:
Rank on the first page of Google
We would love the chance to do the same for you and a couple of your keywords that people are actively searching for. Feel free to contact us below!
June 17th, 2019
How To Prevent Social Media Hacking
How To Stay Safe on Social Media
Staying safe on social media can be tough these days. Whether the hacker be an ex wife or husband, a past employee, or even a random person online trying to steal your information, it's good to know what to do in case of a social media hack. All of your social media accounts can be compromised, particularly if someone has your phone or your password stored on their device. If you need help with this, feel free to contact us to get a full social media protection service as a one time fee. So, if you're seeing some suspicious behavior, here are a couple things you can do to help fight back.
June 18th, 2019
How To Check Your Website Ranking And a Couple Tools To Help
How To Check Your Website Ranking
Keeping track of your website and keyword ranks is vital to your online success so you can know what to focus on and what content to create. There are a lot of tools out there to help you, we cover a few in this blog.