Find the Marketing Gap That Will Increase Your New Patient Flow – A 30-Minute Dental Competitor Audit

Narrator: This is The Thriving Dentist Show with Gary Takacs, where we help you develop your ideal dental practice, one that provides personal, professional, and financial satisfaction.

Gary Takacs: Welcome to another episode of The Thriving Dentist Show. I’m Gary Takacs, the Thriving Dentist Show podcast founder and co-host. We have a great marketing episode for you today. This one’s focusing on marketing, and it’s titled, “Find the Marketing Gap That Will Increase Your New Patient Flow”. Again, the title of this episode is “Find the Marketing Gap that Will Increase your New Patient Flow”. For those of you that are interested in more new patients, you are in the right spot, and you’ll learn lots of things you can apply immediately in your practice.

Gary Takacs: Hey, before we get to that episode, two quick announcements to make, first of all, those of you that are regular listeners of the Thriving Dentist Show, know that we, throughout the year, we put on different virtual events, and we have a Thriving Dentist webinar coming up shortly after this episode is published on June 30th, and this webinar is titled, when Digital Dentistry Increases Production and Profit.

Gary Takacs: in that webinar, they’ll talk about 3D printing, same day restorations and cloud-based software systems. That Thriving Dentist event is on June 30th. It’s a one-hour event. You’ll get an hour of CE, it starts at 6:00 PM Eastern Time. So let me go ahead and do the time translation for you. 6:00 PM Eastern Time, 5:00 PM Central Time, 4:00 PM Mountain Time, and 3:00 PM Pacific Time. there is no tuition. you’re attending as our guest in our appreciation for your listenership to the Thriving Dentist Show Podcast. However, you do need to register. You do need to register for that webinar to register. Go to thrivingdentist.com/events and be sure to grab your seat if you’re interested in digital dentistry and how it can increase your production and profit. That is a great event for you. Now, the second, announcement that I have is we have a returning guest, Dr. Jeff Buske, and he has got a great tip for you, a Thriving Dentist, tip. And his tip is titled, “Talk Less Like a Dentist and More Like a Human to Truly Connect with Patients”. I know Jeff, and this is a really great tip. Again, here’s Dr. Jeff Buske. He’s going to talk about, talk less like a dentist, more like a human, to truly connect with your patients.

Dr. Jeff Buske: Your patients aren’t saying no to treatment. They’re saying no to the way that you’re presenting it. Most dentists think that case acceptance is a money problem, but it’s actually a communication problem. Patients don’t say no because they don’t want the treatment. They say no because they don’t feel the problem. That’s why the fastest way to increase case acceptance is to stop talking like a clinician and start connecting like a human being instead. So first, listen, use emotional based education. Don’t just explain decay or a cavity or bone loss. Connect it to what your patients care about. Listen, like confidence and comfort, and eating real food. Again, being able to smile in pictures or go to their grandson’s sporting events. It’s about getting their life back. People make decisions emotionally and justify them logically. Second, present one to two options at best, not 10. When you overwhelm people, they freeze choice overload, kills production significantly.

Dr. Jeff Buske: Give them a clear path and a premium option, and a stepping stone option, and watch how fast they move. Finally, show visual simulations, pictures, scans, mockups. Let them see their future before they commit to it. A patient will believe a photo far more than a paragraph of explanation that you’re giving to them. So, if you want higher case acceptance, it’s not about pressure, it’s about clarity. It’s about emotion and vision. If you want to start earning more while working less, then DM Me Freedom, and we will have an opportunity to connect and have a conversation. Remember, life is earned daily, never given. Do the work.

Gary Takacs: Welcome back to The Thriving Dentist Show. Special thanks to Dr. Jeff Buske for that great tip. Talk less like a dentist and more like a human to truly connect with patients. Well, let’s dive into today’s episode. find the marketing gap that will increase your new patient flow. Well, I assume that if you are a regular listener to the Thriving Dentist Show, you are also interested in always growing your practice. That’s one of the foundational principles that, I believe, is part of being a thriving dentist. it’s always growing, and one of the reasons I’m so fond of growth is because growing your practice is at least a partial answer, to hedge inflation, to hedge inflation. Basically, practices are either growing or they’re dying, or perhaps there’s a third option that they’re staying the same.

Gary Takacs: And if they’re staying the same, you’re actually going backwards because of the effect of inflation. So, growth is a way to hedge inflation and stay ahead of inflation. Now, I’ve, I’ve spoken with many dentists, over the years, and, we always have an, dentists always have an interesting perspective. They wonder what other practices in their area are doing. They wonder what in the world they are doing? And I wonder if I could be doing some of those things, to improve my practice. But somehow that question never really gets answered. So, this is really a different episode. Naren is going to share some information with you that will show you how to evaluate, what others in your area are doing, and then what to do with that information. Very useful. This is a different type of episode than we normally do on the Thriving Dentist Show. It’s meant to be more like a workshop. By the end of this episode, every dentist listening should be able to look at practices in your area and figure out where you might be able to close a gap, so that you can increase new patient flow in your practice. So Naren, I’m going to go ahead and start with the very first question, Naren, why is competitor research the one marketing exercise that most dentists never actually do?

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary, and thanks everyone for listening in. I’m Naren, the founder of CEO of Ekwa Marketing. So, I’ve been doing this for 19 years, so I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Gary, your question on why is competitive research? The one marketing exercise most dentists never actually do is an excellent question. Let me start with a quote. And the quote is, none of us live alone. No practice exists alone. Everything is in the context of others, right? Like, for example, let me use a simple example. You go to a restaurant, imagine you are in a town with one restaurant, right? Literally one restaurant for like one mile, one hour drive. You are not going to really be picky. You just want to eat something, you are hungry. But the reality is, most of us don’t live in areas where, as a single restaurant, we have different flavors, different choices.

Naren Arulrajah: Some are really good at customer service; some are like pretty rude. So, we can pick and choose who we go to, and it’s very easy to, today before the internet, we had to rely on friends and people who have been to that particular restaurant. Today, we can use Google, we can go to their website, we can read their reviews. So, I think what you are asking, Gary, is understanding how our potential new customers are. Not only seeing us, but also seeing our competitors is very important, because how they’re seeing them will influence whether the customers or the potential customers are versus them. So, a good place to start is, to realize that you have to keep looking at how your patients are seeing you and your competitors, and it should be something you do. I would recommend, ideally every three months at least every six months, why?

Naren Arulrajah: The world is constantly changing. The board is getting stacked differently and things move around. So, you want to know what’s going on today in your environment as far as your patients are concerned, as far as their choices are concerned. So, where I would start is what I call doing a competitor audit. A competitor audit typically takes around 30 minutes, and we’ll walk through this, later in this podcast. And it’s a very systematic way of finding out how you are seen versus how your competition is seen. And there are some nuances we will get into as we do this. But the good news is when a dentist actually sits down and does this audit that we’re going to go through today, Gary, the answers on what they need to do become obvious. And a lot of times it’s not like major surgery. It’s like minor tweaks, minor changes, minor things that they didn’t focus on, that perhaps if they do focus on, would make a massive difference.

Gary Takacs: Awesome. Naren. I think you’re giving our listeners some context here. So, walk us through that 30-minute audit and where should our listeners start?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely, Gary. I think the first thing to do is, at least from the perspective of the doctor owner, who does he or she see as the competitors? Write them down, right? You know, and again, you might want to challenge your assumption because what you think is your competition may not be the real competition after you go through this exercise. So, just to see what the doctor and the team thinks today, just write down who you think your competitors are. Then obviously, I have a piece of paper or, I like to do things online, so I use Google Docs. So again, however you want to write, take notes, that’s fine. As you go through Z Excel, open up a Google Doc or a piece of paper. And one of the things I would start with is to go to Google and start typing in the phrase dentist near me.

Naren Arulrajah: Why? Because we want to see who’s showing up. Now, this is not the only keyword, there are a hundred of the keywords, but just to kind of get a feel for things. See what people are seeing in your neighborhood when they look for a dentist near them. a who’s showing up, who’s showing up on regular search, who’s showing up on maps? And start noticing. And again, this is just one keyword, just writing these people down. Another keyword you might type in is, dentist pseudonym, or another keyword you might type in is, let’s say you are into veneers and you wanna know, you know, how you are doing for veneers, vene, zip code, veneer, pseudonym. So, start typing in these critical keywords near me, dentists’ key procedures you do, and start noticing who’s showing up and who’s not.

Naren Arulrajah: And if you notice, certain websites keep showing up again and again and again, those are your real competitors, because now the other ones that patients or your potential patients are thinking of, when they’re considering you versus everybody else. And maybe nobody is consistently showing up, and that’s the good news, right? But you want to really find out who your customers are seeing first. That would be the very first thing I would look at. Then what I would do is, Gary, I would click on some of those profiles, including yours, especially the Google Maps profiles. Let’s say they see a Google Maps profile for Dr. Smith’s dentistry, making it up and I click on it, go and read some of the new reviews. You can sort the reviews by most recent, if they have like 20 reviews in the last 30 days, versus you only have five, that means in the eyes of your potential patients, that is a better practice.

Naren Arulrajah: And even in the eyes of Google, at least as far as quality is concerned, that is a better practice because they’re getting 20 reviews. Now, it doesn’t mean that practice is better. Perhaps they have a system to get those reviews. So, you will start noticing, among your top competitors who have a very good system in getting those reviews that are so critical in 2026, and how are you doing against them. So, step number one, find out who is showing up consistently for these popular keywords and where do you stack up? And if you, if you keep showing up more than anybody else, you are doing really well, but if you don’t, that’s a great opportunity for you to lean into. Step number two of those people who are showing up, how many reviews did they get in the last 30 days? And that’s a key metric. And again, how do you stack up amongst the top players versus, you, if you are again at the top, meaning you are getting more reviews in a 30-day period than anybody else, again, you’re doing an excellent job. Just keep doing what you’re doing.

Gary Takacs: Where can our listeners find out how many reviews that office the other office got in the last 30 days?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, there’s no like tool, Gary, where you can press a button. I’ll give you the answer. The way I do it is I literally click on their Google My Business page. And when you see the reviews, there is an option to sort by most relevant, most recent. So, I sort by like most recent, and then I just literally count, it’ll say three days ago, seven days ago, 15 days ago. So, I count all the reviews that showed up in the last 30 days. So

Gary Takacs: Literally a manual count of those.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. And good news is nobody’s getting 300 reviews, so this won’t take you more than like, a minute. More practices will get 5, 10, 1 maximum 20 reviews. So a good way to kind of figure out who has a solid cause. It’s kind of funny, I remember a conversation I had with a fellow entrepreneur, CEO, very successful person, and he said the way he picked his dentist is he looked at the reviews, like, because he thinks the people with reviews are better than the ones who are not, don’t have good reviews.

Gary Takacs: There’s, there’s some science to that, Naren. Yes. The reviews are the voice of a patient. Exactly. The voice of a patient.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Gary Takacs: It’s not what you think about yourself or what your team thinks about the office, it’s, it’s what a, in the patient’s perspective, how they experience your practice. and that means an awful lot to someone looking for a dentist. They want to know how others have experienced you.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly, Gary. And the other thing he told me is after he went to that practice, they asked him to write a positive review. So, he realized it’s not necessarily they’re really good, it’s just that they have a system in place that brings out those reviews. And of course, just like he was biased and he picked them, probably hundreds of other practices are picking that very same practice because they’re so good at getting those, five-star positive reviews.

Gary Takacs: By the way, if you’re not really good at taking care of your patients, don’t ask to write reviews,

Naren Arulrajah: Good point. So yeah, you have to be good to be able to succeed in this pathology. If you are a bad dentist or an inferior dentist, or who doesn’t care about dentistry, then hey, this won’t work for you. Yeah. and then the other gap I would look at Gary, is the landing page. So, let’s say I click, let’s say, I type in veneer’s, sury, and I see you and I see your competition go to the landing page. Do I see perhaps before and after pictures where I can, I’m convinced that you are really good at veers. And again, the competitors who are showing up in the top three or top five results, are there pages full of before and after pictures, compelling before and after pictures, perhaps? Do they have a video, welcome video, welcoming the patient to that page so that they feel at home, they feel comfortable being there, they feel like they’re wanted and they feel like they can understand the doctor.

Naren Arulrajah: Simple language, short video. So those are things you want to look at. And again, you wanna see how you are doing versus how your competition is doing. It’s a great way for you to really find out how does your market sees you versus your co versus the way they see your competitors, and who are your competitors and find those gaps. Is it reviews? Is it a CEO? Is it the landing pages? And now what you need to beef up, right? And usually, like I was saying earlier in my remarks, it’s not necessarily that everything is wrong. Maybe one or two things. You have to polish and strengthen and all of a sudden you see a big difference. Another key tip that I see is, the best ones also highlight their awards. Like when I go to their homepage, I’ll see the awards they won.

Naren Arulrajah: Why studies show that people who win awards are much more trusted than those who don’t. So even if it’s like a local newspaper that gave you an award highlighted conversion rate will double, even a welcome video on your homepage, again, as your competitor have a video on their homepage, they don’t good news for you. You can, you can really make your practice that welcoming practice, not just on each procedure page, meaning the Invisalign or veneer page, but also on the homepage. So there, these are simple things, Carrie, I know we can do an in-depth study on this. And if anyone is interested, go to the Thriving dentist website, contact us and ask help on how to do a competitor review. And we’ll give you the full template. Full playbook.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. And I want to amplify something you said about landing pages. We know from data that comes from Google that; potential patients don’t spend a lot of time on your website. If they found you organically, meaning you’re not buying an ad, but you, they found you because your website performed well in the eyes of Google. And Google is presenting you, as an organic search engine optimization, they’re, they’re presenting you. If they find you organically, they spend 90 seconds on the website. If you’re using ads, which many of our listeners will and ads have a place for sure if they’re using Google ads, you only get 15 seconds according to Google because that, people are skeptical of an ad. There’s a built-in bias. Well, of course, whatever I see is going to look great cause it’s an ad.

Gary Takacs: So, if your term is a land, whatever term they’re searching for takes you to your homepage, you’re wasting time as if someone’s looking for veneers. Use that example early. I’ll stay with that, Naren. Yes, someone’s looking for veneers. And they come on your homepage and they got to wander around and try to find where to go to learn more about veneers. And remember, if they found you by an ad, they’ve only got 15 seconds, the likelihood they could find a tab or find something goes down in 15 seconds. Now, if they found you organically, you’ve got 90 seconds, but better to have them land right where the information is, where they’re searching. So have it land on a landing page about cosmetic dentistry and about veneers, that way you’re maximizing that conversion opportunity. Cause literally they’re landing exactly where you want them to land to learn more about your office and why they should have veneers done there. Does that make sense, Naren?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. If anybody was watching this video, they would see me nodding. So every single thing that Gary said, I totally agree with, and they are excellent. things for you to think about as you go through this audit.

Gary Takacs: The other comment that I would make is that we have to remember, we always have an information bias. Naren, anybody listening to this podcast is deep in the weeds in dentistry. Yes, we’re in the weeds, but the public is not. The words they use to search for a dental office. Could be very different from the words. We, I use a very basic example there, and I don’t believe that anybody listening to this podcast would refer to a crown as a cap, correct cap. Isn’t that what is on the baseball team, on their head? That’s a cap, yes, but the public might be looking for a cap. Yes. Information about a cap. now no judgment. They just don’t know the same terms that we know. So, if you want to know more about what the, in your area, wherever you are, let’s say you’re in Rochester, New York, what are the terms that people in Rochester U use, because they might be different, same state, but they might be different than the terms that someone in Manhattan uses. So, you can literally just go to Google and say, in my area, what are the 10 most common keywords and key phrases that the public uses to search for cosmetic dentistry? And now you’re going to get, you’re right from the horse’s mouth, you’re getting from Google. Am I correct on that, Naren?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. Gary. A couple of things. Another example could be broken, crooked teeth, right? A lot of us know specific types of products, but that’s not how the customer sometimes switches. They’re looking for the problem they have and they’re describing it in layman’s terms, simple English, but bleeding gums as opposed to, the scientific name of, whatever you want to say, right? So, I think, I think like you said, Gary, you don’t need to guess what these are. You can ask Google. Google has a tool called Google Analytics that’ll tell you all the phrases’ people are actually using to find you or find that particular page. So that’s one way, we kind of always get real time intelligence. They’ll tell you exactly what phrase people are using, how many times that phrase was used, and what’s the average position where you are showing up.

Naren Arulrajah: So, let’s say there are 30 phrases and one phrase, let’s say for the, crowns example, let’s say dental crowns near me, I’m just making this up, is 35 people looked it up in the last 30 days and your average position is 17. that’s a good keyword to go after because people are typing it and you’re not showing up at the top and you want to go, move forward. So, use these tools to really find out how well you’re doing. And I think you made another point, Gary, that’s very true. Google is incorporating AI into Google itself. So, you don’t even need to now go to Google Analytics and figure these things out. You can keep asking Google, it’s the same old Google that you’re used to and use, 50 times a day.

Naren Arulrajah: Hey, what are the keywords? People who are looking for Invisalign or braces typing in my neighborhood and my neighborhood is this particular town. we go and do the research and tell you boom, here are the keywords people are typing. And of course we want more detail. You can again, ask Google, tell me data, like how many times, are they using that keyword and so forth. But I do still think at some point you want to master Google analytics because that’s very specific to your location and your practice and your website. So, it’ll give you real specific information as opposed to generic information.

Gary Takacs: Now I’m going to piggyback on that second question there and then ask you a third question. So, imagine that our listeners have now done the 30-minute audit. Okay? They’ve done and they’ve got all this information. Define what they should be looking for in that information.

Naren Arulrajah: Great question, Gary. And I think this is where one phrase or one sentence I would, I would share at the beginning of the answer is it’s all relative and it’s a work in progress. And let me explain what by relative and a work in progress. If all your competitors have one review a month and you have three, you are crushing it. What do I mean? Of course, it’s going to be hard to find a town where your competitors are getting one review a month, but let’s assume that’s the case. So, you need to really understand the state of play in your town with regards to these things. What are those things? Am I showing up on Google more often than my competitors for the keywords that I care about on Google Maps, on Google AI search or Google regular search, right? Second is, reviews and how many reviews and the quality of the reviews. And the third is the landing pages. And what happens? So let me go through one by one. So, when it comes to keywords, right? You want to rank for a hundred or more keywords in the top 10 results, that is the holy grail. If you

Gary Takacs: Are, you’re going to get on page one, top 10, page one,

Naren Arulrajah: Page one, exactly. If you are ranking for a hundred or more keywords on page one, you are doing extremely well when it comes to people finding you. Why? Marketing starts with people who have a need finding you as the solution for that need. So again, if you’re not showing up and certain competitors are showing up again and again, for you to beat them, you need to do a much better job in showing up on Google Maps, Google search, Google AI search more consistently. And I think the number is a hundred. So that’s what I would be looking for there. And I would see how far behind am I to a hundred targets in the top 10 results. And again, how am I doing against the top people who keep showing up again and again, am I one of the top or am I number seven or number 10? So those are all opportunities you can like work on and improve on

Gary Takacs: Because nobody goes to num, nobody goes to page two,

Naren Arulrajah: Nobody goes to page two. That’s why they don’t need to.

Gary Takacs: They’ve got 10 good choices there on page one. There’s no need to ever go to page two.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly, Gary, that is very true. The next thing I’ll look at is the Google reviews. Again, I’ll compare the number of reviews that you got in the last 30 days to the number of reviews these other people who are showing up got in the last 30 days, perhaps the top three or four. And if you are the best, meaning you are getting more five stars, what I call paragraph reviews, when you manually count them compared to your competition, just keep doing what you’re doing. No changes. Just keep doing what you’re doing. But on the other hand, you are not, that’s an opportunity. And I know Gary talks a lot about this in his work, and we also use the exact same methodology that Gary uses to get at least 10 or more five-star paragraph reviews every month. There’s a process to it. It’s not automated, it takes a little bit of effort. And Gary recommends morning huddles for that. And I’ll let Gary provide some color on it. So again, if you notice you can improve there, meaning you are not doing as well as your peers or you’re not meeting that minimum ten five-star paragraph reviews or level letter reviews every month, then I would work on it. Gary, before I go to the next point, can you kind of explain how somebody can get 10 or more five-star paragraph reviews every month?

Gary Takacs: Yeah, it’s, it’s something we do with all of our clients because they have such an important effect on your marketing. And one of the easy things you can do is you can have a business card printed up and on the back of your business card, print a QR code that will take someone directly to your Google My Business page. So, it’ll go right there. And then in the morning huddle, identify patients on your schedule today that you flat out know would write a five-star review. If you are not sure, then go on to the next one. So, identify people on your, whether it’s on the doctor’s schedule or it’s on the hygiene schedule, identify patients on your schedule. Let’s say you go through your schedule today and there’s five people, I’m just making up an example. There’s five people that you guys all agree with.

Gary Takacs: Oh yes, these are the five people we know love us and we love them. They haven’t already written us a review. Another thing we look for, and then we decide there’s five of them. The next thing to do, go through each name and ask for a team member to volunteer to ask that. Let’s say the patient’s name’s Maria. Hey guys, who would ask, who would like to ask Maria for a review event? And if you don’t get a volunteer, find someone in your practice that is social, gregarious and outgoing. on the DISC personality profile, they’d have a high eye, they’re an influencer, they have social skills and assign it to that person. Why am I assigned to that person, Naren? Because they have no trouble talking to anybody. Exactly. And there should be at least someone in your practice that meets that definition.

Gary Takacs: And then, throughout the day as those patients come up, let’s say the hygienist, oh, I’ll ask Maria. she loves, she loves us and we love her. I’ll be sure to ask Maria. So sometime during the hygiene appointment, a GIE can say, Maria, I sure love seeing you on my schedule. When I see you on my schedule, I know I’m going to have a good day. We also love seeing new patients as well. I have a favorite task, by the way, the way a lot of new people find us. It is by looking at Google reviews. sometime today when you get a chance, if you’d be kind enough to write us a Google Review, I’d sure appreciate it. And I hand her the business card and I’d say, here’s our business card on the back of the card.

Gary Takacs: There’s a QR code later today. Just point your finger at that card. I’ll take you right to our Google My Business page, making it very easy for you. Maria, thank you in advance, for doing this for we sure appreciate it. And there it’s, a couple little disclaimers. I don’t like asking the patient to pull out the phone right there and write us a review. I think that’s too pushy. But I also, there could be a technical problem with that if the patient is on, your Wi-Fi IP address. and Google starts to see a ton of reviews coming from the same IP address, Google’s going to be concerned that somehow this is being gained. So, I’d rather go out on their own, pull out their phone, and write it at their own convenience sometime. Because they won’t be on your IP address. So there you go, Naren. and many of our clients, have over 1400 Google reviews using that method that I just described.

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely, Gary. I think, like, many, again, I was nodding when Gary was speaking. Yeah, getting those reviews, making it a routine, making it part of your culture. I know Gary gets into a champion and bonuses, and I know we can spend like a half an hour talking about it, but everyone is interested again, reach out to us and perhaps we could send you that episode that we did on, getting five-star Google reviews.

Gary Takacs: The mistake that many offices make, Naren is a default to just automatically sending out an email or text message, right? And we’re doing it. We’re doing that. Well, you’ve heard me talk a lot about the difference between a relationship driven practice and a transaction practice, right? And I’d like to think that our listeners lean towards being relationship driven or they’re aspiring to, if you’re relationship driven, we talk to people. If you’re a transaction practice, you just send them an email.

Naren Arulrajah: And to be fair, the transactional practices won’t have paragraph love letter reviews. They will have three stars, four stars, one word, all zero words. So, people can smell it. They know it’s not relationship driven when they don’t see those paragraph reviews, like many of our clients, mutual clients, they have these paragraph reviews and it’s, it’s a game changer.

Gary Takacs: Absolutely. And it is currency today. Google reviews are a form of currency, not absolute, we recognize dollar bills, but yes, their currency that translates to dollar bills. Yeah,

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely, Gary. It has a huge difference. The other points I would make when it comes to what you look for in these audits is let’s say we talked about, Vene Chicago or vene, zip code, right? And I go to the landing page, like Gary pointed out, is that link, the landing page for the vene, section. If it’s not, then you have a problem. You need to fix that. Again, compare yourself to your competitors who’re sending people to the landing page. And once I go to the landing page, two things to look for is that a welcome video, 45 second video that says, Hey, I’m Dr. Smith. I’ve been helping patients with ERs for the last 17 years. Look at my veneer section. You can see some of the work I have done. call my office. We would love to be of service. simple as that. Of course you can personalize it.

Gary Takacs: Maybe you close that video with, I love helping patients with all different types of dentistry, but I especially love helping patients have the smile of their dreams through cosmetic dentistry. There you go, Naren, I’m going to go to question number four. So now they’ve got some information. They’ve done the 30-minute audit. You’ve shown them what to look for, they’ve got some information. This is a two-part question. Part one, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll ask both of them, both parts right now. Part one is what’s the wrong way to use this info? And then part two is, what is the right way to use this information?

Naren Arulrajah: That’s a great question, Gary. And most of the time the wrong way to use the information, I can summarize it in like just one answer. And that is, they copy the people who are doing well. Literally they say, hey, make a website just like this guy’s website, and that’s it. And that’s what they tell their office manager, their marketing team or whatever. That is the wrong way to do this because its kind like,

Gary Takacs: Well, the real wrong way Naren is to actually cut and paste the copy.

Naren Arulrajah: I have seen people do that Gary, many times.

Gary Takacs: Of course, none of our listeners win intent. but they’ll cut and paste and you’re immediately going to the basement. Yes, Google will penalize you for cutting and pasting it. They’ll also publish your comp; they’ll punish your competitor because they don’t like it information.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly. And so

Gary Takacs: As bad as almost as bad as that is having ChatGPT write the information for you.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly. Got it. You hit it right on the, these are three biggest no-nos. It’s like, if anything is too good to be true, it is too good to be true copy and pasting. Yeah, it sounds easy, but what, it’ll get you to the basement because Google will punish you using chat JP to write the content. Same thing, Google knows it’s AI generated, Google will punish you. so it’s really, copying the design and copying, just duplicating the website. Again, AI will punish you because Google knows none of this is yours. None of this is original. So Google doesn’t want to reward you because you’re just adding no value to the world or to that patient because you just, you’re just a copy paster.

Naren Arulrajah: The right way to deal with this is, I think you have to prioritize. So, let’s say instead of ranking for a hundred keywords among top 10 results, you only ranking for five, that would become the most important issue I would work on. Because people can’t find you. How do they like you and how do they choose you? So, to me, I would, there’s sequencing. So, first is, am I doing really well when it comes to people finding me for the things I care about? dentists, the different services I offer, the different keywords associated with those services. Am I showing up for a hundred or more keywords? So, if that’s not fixed, that would be my number one job. Now, that’s not something you could fix on your own. You need a strong company that’s going to take a long-term view and do all the things that Google cares about for you to dominate AI, search for you to dominate Google Maps and for you to dominate.

Naren Arulrajah: SEO By the way, one thing I forgot to mention that you should look at in your audits is how you are doing on chat. JPT, those same keywords are you showing up on chat, JPT on perplexity versus your competition? So that’s something we do on a quarterly basis and we track all of our clients, not just on Google, but on every platform. So, if you’re not showing up, that would be the first thing I would solve. Let’s say you are showing up, the next thing I would solve is Google reviews that 10 or more five-star paragraph reviews. It’s a must. You can’t live without it. I would solve for that. So, if you’re not hitting that target, again, your competitors are doing better. Now 10 is the baseline. If your competition is getting 15, I would over time try to get to 15.

Naren Arulrajah: Cause you don’t want to be okay. You want to be the top when it comes to how people perceive you based on those reviews. The third thing I would solve, which is easy and perhaps the best ROI is those landing pages, those short videos, we talked about those before and after pictures that convince people that you really know veneers. You really know Invisalign because you have actual examples of people’s lives you have transformed. The only tip I would use in the before and after is use a full-face picture for the after. Why? Because that shows the transformation. People are not buying the closeup, technical, pictures, they’re buying the transformation. So, use that full face picture. So that’s how I would prioritize. I wouldn’t do everything at once. A CEO works with a company. When it comes to reviews, you can do it when it comes to those before and after pictures and videos, you could do it.

Naren Arulrajah: Just have to prioritize, pace yourself. Say, I will add one before and after every month. If that’s all you can do, start somewhere. Right? I will add one video every month, just pace yourself. And then the mistake I see people making is they want everything done in two minutes or two days and they just give up. They’re like, oh, it can’t be done. So just pace yourself. Remember I made a comment, it’s about progress, not perfection. So, every month I make progress on those things. Every, just keep at it. Know what time you will do really well.

Gary Takacs: I’m going to introduce this last question there, and this is the last question, but I’m going to introduce it with a quote. It’s a quote that I like an awful lot. The quote goes like this, if you claim to stand for everything, you stand for nothing. Correct? With that quote in mind, what’s the fastest way for a listener of the thriving dentist show, who’s also a practice owner, to get clarity on where they stand?

Naren Arulrajah: That’s an excellent question, Gary. I know I do marketing for a living and I love this stuff. And this comes easy and natural and it’s fun for me, but it may not be for our listeners who are, they love dentistry. They don’t necessarily love marketing. I’m not saying none of them love marketing, but most of them are passionate about dentistry as I’m passionate about marketing. So, I would recommend booking what I call a marketing strategy meeting. We have an entire team dedicated to doing this research that I just outlined, looking at you, looking at your competition. They spend six hours seeing how you are doing on Google search, on AI search versus your competitors. Who are you, your top competitors? finding the gaps, not only finding are you doing well or not when it comes to search, but what is the reason behind it?

Naren Arulrajah: What are you doing right? And what are you doing wrong? So, what to fix, what to change. And I don’t want to get into details. It could be now it could be Google EAT scores. So, whatever the reasons are, you want to get to that as well, so what to do to fix it. same thing with the landing pages. our team will look at your landing pages, your competitor’s landing pages, find out what you’re doing, right, what you could improve. So, you really get a thorough report card on what you are doing well and what you’re not doing well in versus your competition as well as a game plan. Like, almost like an action plan that tells you, here are the things that I would do, and here is the order that I would, in which I would do it. It’s a $900 value, Gary. And the link is ekwa.com/td . So that’s ekwa.com/td , and that’s the special link for any listener of a thriving dentist. Go there, book that marketing strategy meeting. It’s our gift to you and get the report and what you do with it. At least you can then make that choice, right? Whether you act on it or not. But definitely get that report so how well you are doing and what can improve.

Gary Takacs: I’ll add a little bit to that last question. What’s the fastest way for a listener to a thriving dentist show who’s also a practice owner to get clarity on where they stand? One of the things that I’ve noticed, and I’ve, I’ve literally reviewed thousands of websites and I’ve often seen a page that lists every single dental service imaginable on the planet, every single service. and they, I think what they’re doing is, they’re, they’re trying to give you, no matter what it is you’re looking for, it’s us. Right? Kind of reminds me of looking at a menu for the Cheesecake Factory. You ever been to the Cheesecake Factory? I have been

Naren Arulrajah: There, Gary, yes.

Gary Takacs: It’s a 20-page menu. Yes. It literally makes you dizzy. Just looking at it’s overwhelming. And when someone has a page where it lists, you know, 55 services that are provided, I think you’re striking out, it’s that saying, it’s, you know, if you stand for everything, you stand for nothing. pick the things that what more, what types of procedures would you like to do more of? What are, what are five of those? What would you like to do more of? And build landing pages. Has your marketing company had Ekwa build landing pages around those? but the idea of just throwing everything up there, like the kitchen sink, I think it leads to skepticism on the part of anybody that lands, oh my God, how could they be good at anything if they’re doing all these things?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, I totally agree. And the other problem with that is jack of all trade, master of none, right? Imagine you’re doing 20 things. You don’t have time to do the videos, you don’t have time to do the before and after. You don’t have time to get reviews that are specific to that service. So, the PE person going there says you are mediocre. So yeah, you have a page and you are ranking maybe because yes, your company’s doing a good job, but you are mediocre because you haven’t invested the time to get those cases, get those videos, get those reviews. So, I would rather pick five. And then maybe once you have mastered those five, maybe another three or five and that’s it, but I would not, I would not have like 20 services. those practices don’t do well. Again, having done this for 19 years, I know the ones who do well, they focus like you said, Gary.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. Well, Naren, this has been a great episode. You’ve given our listeners lots of useful information. I would encourage everyone to do that marketing audit, do that 30-minute audit to see where you stand. You’re going to learn all kinds of things. Lots of takeaways here, landing pages, short videos, before and after, full face and the after. lots of useful stuff. I want to encourage you as Naren invited you to schedule a marketing strategy meeting with Ekwa, if you’d like, to get some help with your practice to really master marketing. Also, if you’d like help to help you develop your practice, to its full potential, we are accepting new clients at Thriving Dentist coaching. There’re times where we have a wait list, however, we’ve had a really good, early part of 2026 where a number of our clients have hit the finish line by design, and have successfully, sold or transitioned their practice.

Gary Takacs: And it has opened up some opportunity for us to work with some new clients. If you have interest in that, go to thrivingdentist.com/csm . That’ll open up my calendar and you can schedule a one hour zoom meeting with me, where I want to learn more about your practice and I’ll share a little bit about our coaching, to determine whether it might be a good opportunity to work together to help you develop your ideal practice. and as I bring it back, full circle, go to thrivingdentist.com/events, to register for the next digital event that we’re offering here at Thriving Dentist. On that note, thank you for the privilege of your time, Naren, and I look forward to connect with you on the next Thriving Dentist Show.