How Patients Decide If You’re the Right Dental Office in Seconds

Intro: 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, your podcast co-host. Uh, we have a fun episode for you today. Uh, this one is titled How Patients Decide If You Are the Right Dental Office in Seconds. So, if you’re curious about, uh, what the mindset is of the public when they’re looking for a dentist, uh, we’re gonna unlock a lot of details for you that I think you’ll be able to apply in your practice to, uh, attract more quality new patients.

Uh, hey, before we get to that though, uh, two quick announcements. First announcement is, uh, coming up, uh, about a month after we publish this. Uh, we have our, 2025, Reducing Insurance Dependence Academy Annual Virtual Summit. Uh, it’s happening October 24th, um, from Friday, October 24th, from noon to 5:30 Eastern time, noon to 5:30 Eastern time.

Gary Takacs: Uh, it is literally an amazing virtual event that includes a lot of different components. We’re gonna have some short keynote lectures. We’re going to have a variety of panels. We have a whole variety of panels happening throughout the afternoon. Um, and, uh, we have some other surprises for you.

Uh, as part of that day, everybody that’s involved in that virtual summit has something to do with helping support you to successfully resign from PPO plans. Uh, it’s five hours of CE. It’s actually five and a half hours of content because we have to take a couple breaks during that time. Uh, but you get five hours of CE, and here’s the really cool part: there is no tuition. You’ll be attending that as a guest of ours in appreciation for your listenership. Now, you do have to register to register for the 2025, um, uh, Reducing Insurance Dependence Annual Summit.

Gary Takacs: Uh, go to RID Academy,  Reducing Insurance Dependence Academy. You’ll notice a quick popup screen, uh, to register and reserve your seat now. And, uh, you’ll get five hours of CE, but more importantly, you’ll get an amazing body of information you can use to successfully resign from PPO plans. Come join us.

Alright, we have a Thriving Dentist Top Clinical Tip. We have a returning guest contributor, uh, Dr. Joseph Mina Atella, and, uh, he’s gonna talk about why smaller implants ensure long-term success.

Well, with no further ado, here’s Dr. Joseph Mina Atalla on why smaller implants ensure long-term success.

Dr. Joseph Mina Atalla: Hello, my name is Dr. Joseph Mina Atalla, and I wanted to give you a few bold points regarding, uh, immediate implant placement. I want you to think about how this implant is gonna look 10, 20 years from now. How much tissues and bone is gonna be around this implant and around the neck of the implant. You need a good amount of blood supply for this to happen. And, uh, I want you to remember that the implant is a dead space. There’s not gonna be any blood supply coming from the side of the implant, feeding these tissues on that side, um, of the implant site.

Um, think smaller implant. If you are trying to achieve this much of a tissue and bone volume around the implant, the only way to compensate for that is to put a smaller implant. Um, we stopped thinking and, uh, uh, like last generation, that the bigger the implant, the better the energy is gonna dissipate around the neck of the implant for a few reasons.

One is the connection started dissipating the energy completely different than what we used to think before. Instead of it being more concentrated around the neck of the implant, it’s more dissipated between all the way to the neck from the cervical part all the way to the middle of the implant. So the energy dissipates differently, which gives us a chance to use a smaller implant. There is a conical connection. There is a better seal. There is less micromovement. There is no pumping effect, which is an, um, uh, which is— which helps us to pick a smaller implant.

Uh, this is one thing. The other thing is, the oral cavity is the most infected part of, um, of our body. Why do you want to have this big of a circumference when you have, uh, a much smaller circumference? Why do you want to have a bigger chance for the acid to creep in and for the bacteria to creep in?

The smaller the diameter, the better the vascularity around the neck of the implant as well. Um, I personally like using six- to eleven-degree con-morse, uh, implants for the anterior implants and more towards, um, eleven, twelve, or sixteen even in the molar, uh, area as well, to decrease the chances for the, uh, the screw shank itself to break.

Um, flap—when you’re opening a flap, try to remember that you want to achieve, at the end, the rubber band of thick connective tissue on the neck of the implant. By doing so, make sure where you’re incising and opening the flap is—if you’re putting multiple implants, consider the Dr. Palacci technique, um, and the way to manipulate the tissues to have better connective tissue and, at the same time, to have a good papilla for the periodontium on the long term and the emergence profile as well.

Um, putting a smaller implant and a thinner abutment will not, um, counteract emergence profile. You can put the input a little bit deeper, and this steepness of the bottom of the abutment is, uh, can be compensated as well. And you can put a more steeper angle in a sense.

One abutment, one time technique is one of the best techniques if you can do it. And, uh, try to avoid the screwing and unscrewing. It’s gonna be much better—one, from the mechanical part, that is, less micro, uh, ashes of the metal that gets and creeps in between the threads; and, at the same time, the he-like attachment at the base of the bottom of the abutment attaching the tissues to the, uh, the bottom of the abutment, the titanium of the abutment. Solid zirconia helps sometimes, uh, for these he attachments to even creep on the crown itself.

And, um, yep, that’ll be it.

Gary Takacs: Well, Naren and I are going to reverse roles for this, uh, Thriving Dentist Show. Uh, I’m gonna introduce Naren. Uh, the topic is How Patients Decide If You Are the Right Dental Office in Seconds.

Uh, Naren has a vast amount of research on how consumers think. This is really useful because sometimes we run it through our lens. A lot of times, uh, we think about how we might respond to something—uh, meaning, uh, you as a dentist or you as a team member, you as an office manager. And the problem with that is, um, we don’t think like the public thinks all the time.

So we need to put ourselves in the mindset of the consumer, of the public—kind of the consumer’s journey, you know, the patient’s journey. We need to put ourselves in that mindset because it’s different. We know too much. And because we know too much, we look through a different lens, uh, and it’s not necessarily the same lens that the patient looks through.

And what we know is that you don’t have much time. You don’t have much time. And what I mean by that is that, um, today, in the world—fast-paced world that we live in—patients’ attention span is ever shrinking. Naren, would you, uh, agree with me on that point?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. Got it. It is shrinking.

Gary Takacs: Yeah.

Naren Arulrajah: Like, I mean, we are going to go to a time when we will have something connected to our brain, and before we even—before we even notice what we are thinking, the answer will, like, pop up in our…

Gary Takacs: It’ll be a signal— it’ll be a signal in your brainwaves that made the decision.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, exactly.

Gary Takacs: If I can prove that for just a minute, um, if someone finds you—finds your dental office—by way of an organic search, in other words, they type in a phrase and your office comes up and they choose your office and they go to your website, that patient will, uh, historically spend 90 seconds on your website.

Now, I think 90 seconds is a pretty short amount of time. Yes, it’s a minute and a half. They’ll spend 90. And, you know, I remember when I wrote my first website, um, I had the illusion that people would spend, um, you know, 20, 30 minutes just completely fascinated by our website. Right? That’s not true. But, but listen to that—if we think 90 seconds is short, if someone finds you because they went to a Google paid ad, historically—and this is hard data supported by Google—they’ll spend 15 seconds on your website.

Gary Takacs: Fifteen. So if you thought 90 seconds was short, it’s now 15.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Gary Takacs: Um, and it’s partly because they know if it says "Google ad" or "paid ad," "sponsored," they have a built-in suspicion. So their mind is already looking for the pushback—for the suspicion, right? So we’ve gotta somehow appeal to a patient in 90 seconds if they find us organically. If they don’t find you organically, we’ve only got 15 seconds.

Well, Naren, I’m gonna pitch it to you and ask you to pick it up from here, but, uh, let’s talk about how patients decide if you’re the right dental office in seconds.

Naren Arulrajah: That’s wonderful, Gary. Thank you so much. It’s a really, really, really important topic. And I think one thing we all know is the world keeps changing, right?

I remember, you know, before buying this house 15 years ago, we, uh, wanted a house that has a theater room. You know what I mean? Like where you can sit in front of, like, this room in the basement somewhere with this huge screen, and you go there and watch TV. And I bet, like—

Gary Takacs: A media—what we call a media room too.

Naren Arulrajah: Media room, right? And—but it cost the owners of the house who sold it to us at least a hundred grand. In the last five years, I haven’t been there once. You know what I mean?

Gary Takacs: Do you still know how to get to it?

Naren Arulrajah: I know how to get to it. And the reason is, you know, we are so used to just watching it on our laptops or iPads, whatever we want, in our beds. It’s just convenient. You know what I mean? Like, we always go for the convenient solution. Just getting up there and turning it on and going down there and waiting for the projector to heat up or, like, start showing stuff and fiddling with all this stupid equipment—just not worth it. Like, you know?

So just—and again, I want to watch something, my wife wants to watch something else, so it’s like, it’s better for us to watch whatever we want. Pull it—

Gary Takacs: Up on your laptop.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Gary Takacs: Laptop, mobile…

Naren Arulrajah: A lot of times people are, like, scrolling through—I mean, including us—Instagram or TikTok when we are, like, vegging out. Just—so it all depends on what we want.

And, um, you know, um, so—so—so that’s the key point, right? So we have to understand how the world has changed so everything we do is optimized for what’s going on right now. Making sense?

So—so what are some of the things that have changed? So the way people buy today is they start by doing research. Why? They can. In the old days, you couldn’t do research. You had to go to the library, call up the ADA or some kind of a dental association if you wanted to learn about a dentist. Now you just go to Google and type whatever we want.

So every day, 3 billion people type whatever they want when they’re interested in a topic.

Gary Takacs: Um, did you say 3 billion?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah.

Yes, 3 billion. And that’s every single day. So they go to Google and they type whatever they want. And usually it starts—it’s kind of like a mixture between, "I’m looking to find someone who can help me," i.e., dentist or dental office, or "I’m looking to learn about a topic," like, "I’m having a headache and I keep hearing maybe it’s something, this thing called TMJ, ’cause one of my friends mentioned it to me."

Oh, I was, you know, on YouTube and somebody said, "Headache and, you know, uh, TMJ." So I’m curious. So I start Googling "TMJ dentist," right? And I’m also Googling "What is a TMJ?" and "Why does it—what—how does it work?" and, you know, "What does a dentist do?"

I’m trying to learn about that whole topic. Um, so, so that’s where the buyer’s journey starts.

Naren Arulrajah: They start using Google for research, either about a solution provider, i.e., a dental office, or about the topic itself. Then they keep seeing somebody again and again.

And 5% of you dominate SEO, which means you’re showing up for free and you’re getting 95% of the free traffic. And the other 95%—ads—you know, they don’t even notice you. Once in a while, they’ll accidentally click on you.

But, so if you are in that 5%, step one, you have an advantage. Why? You keep showing up again and again for everything they’re searching for.

It’s not easy to get to the 5%. You have to put a lot of effort and be very precise. But you can. Just like some people get into MIT. You know what? Those people exist. They’re not jumping outta the planet Mars; they’re coming from planet Earth.

Naren Arulrajah: So definitely it can be done. It’s tough, but it can be done.

Second part of that is: they go to your website. Like Gary clearly said, if they come from SEO, they’ll give you 90 seconds—nine-zero.

If they come from, um, um, you know, ads, they’ll give you 15 seconds. So they come from SEO, they give you 90 seconds. They land on that page. Now you have to convince them, and you have to convince them quickly.

That’s the topic of this podcast, right? How patients decide if you are the right dental office—in seconds.

So we’ll get into that in more detail.

Now, let’s say that you convince them in five seconds or a few seconds that you are the right dental office. Then the phone rings, you know. Now, oh, no, no.

Naren Arulrajah: Then they check your Google reviews. They wanna make sure you are really who you say you are, and Google was not wrong, and, you know, keeps showing you again and again for all the different searches they are doing.

So now, you know, um, we go to your Google reviews. Let’s say you’re getting 10 or more reviews, and that mark is checked within seconds—again, 10 or more reviews a month.

Yeah, 10 or more reviews a month. And we prefer what we call "love letter reviews." These are, you know, paragraph reviews, and people just love them.

And Gary and I work with mutual clients. It’s not easy to maintain 10 or more reviews. It can be done, but you need discipline, you need a plan, you need a champion. Gary teaches all of that as part of his coaching system.

And the good news is, the ones who follow it, like many of Gary’s clients do—they’re crushing it.

Naren Arulrajah: But if you’re not following it, hey, you need to work on it.

Now, the phone rings. Again, this is something Gary and his team helps with. We record the calls. That means we know every single call.

We know who’s answering, who’s booking appointments, who’s not booking appointments. You know, how many calls are missed.

So now you want to convert those calls, right?

If you are not trained, and if you’re not monitored—if you, meaning your team, is not trained and monitored—they could do 30%, which is the average according to ADA, in terms of what percentage of new patient callers are booking appointments.

Think about it. That’s dismal, right?

You know, two out of three new patients are coming into the door and then walking out the door—door being the phone door, right?

That’s the first impression, first connection they’re having with you.

Gary Takacs: It’s not enough for them to call.

Uh, well, and they actually—they landed on your website, saw something they liked. They looked at your reviews, read some things they liked. They figured, "I’m gonna give them a call."

Now they give a call, and two out of three don’t make an appointment.

Well, it’s actually more than that.

Uh, but, uh, you know, 30% appointment.70% did not.

So you gotta correct that, ’cause that’s, you know, that’s a big hole in the bottom of the boat.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. I mean, you could have great marketing, but if the person on the phone doesn’t know how to book them in, who cares that you have great marketing, right? It’s totally a waste of time.

Gary Takacs: That’s why marketing is a—

When doctors often ask me early in our coaching relationship, "My marketing isn’t working," they’ll tell me, and I say, "Well, let’s make sure we’re solving the right problem. Are you getting enough phone calls?"

‘Cause if you’re not getting enough phone calls, that’s on your marketing company, right?

Uh, or that’s on your marketing activities.

Or are you getting enough calls, but you’re not converting ’em?

And every time I’ve asked that question, 100% of the time a new client will say, "I don’t know."

Right? So, let’s get the information. Let’s see.

Because if you’re not getting enough calls, that becomes a marketing problem.

If you’re getting the calls but you’re not converting ’em, that’s a conversion problem. That’s different.

So we make sure we’re solving the right problem.

Now, let’s go back.

You’ve taught me something that you call the ten second rule. What’s that?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, Gary, that’s a really, really great place to start. So, ten second rule is: "Am I in the right place?" Right?

So people, you know—let’s say I Googled "Invisalign [surname] [zip code] near me"—I end up on your Invisalign page.

If you are ranking, that’s a good thing, right? Because it’ll directly take them to your Invisalign page, because your Invisalign page is the one that’s ranking.

So in 10 seconds—

Gary Takacs: So you wanna—you don’t wanna make the, um, the patient, the consumer—you don’t wanna make ’em work to find the information.

Naren Arulrajah: A hundred percent.

Gary Takacs: It needs to, like, drop in their lap.

Naren Arulrajah: A hundred percent. Like one-click purchase with Amazon, right?

Literally with one click. I don’t have to enter my credit card, my address. I don’t have to reconfirm, "Do I really want it?"

Like, one click—it says, "You will get your shipment by 3:00 PM this afternoon." Boom, right?

Gary Takacs: Yeah. If you’re in a big city, like you are and I am—yeah, in Phoenix, you’re outside of Toronto, right?

It’s not even next day; it’s later this afternoon.

Naren Arulrajah: I know, it’s later this afternoon. So people are used to that.

If I can get what I want on my doorstep by 3:00 PM, you think I’m going to sit around and click around and find information?

No. Make it easy for me.

Otherwise, I’m out of there.

Gary Takacs: There’s a marketing term that goes back to when we used to do a lot of things in print, right? And it’s called "above the fold."

Yes, above the fold.

Now, today, it’s—I mean, there are offices that do some things in print marketing—but today, it doesn’t mean the same thing.

But what does it mean today, "above the fold"?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. So usually, think about it, right? Invisalign—I Googled Invisalign, whatever that means.

I’m looking for something to do with Invisalign. I’m in the market for Invisalign, right?

So convince me that you are somebody I should—

Gary Takacs: Pay attention to. So what is the fold?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. So the above the fold would be things like maybe a welcome video, you know?

And because—remember—one of the things that’s in the back of the mind is—

Gary Takacs: A position on the page?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. So usually it’s the screen that they see, you know, at the top, right?

So, for example, if it’s my smartphone, I shouldn’t have to scroll down to see it.

You know, just as soon as I click on it, I see it.

Gary Takacs: So what needs to appear? What are the specific elements that need to appear above the fold?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. So one thing that needs to appear is, you know, obviously the phone number—so I don’t even have to think about it.

Just press the button and call. Remember, 70% of people are coming from mobile. I’ll touch on it more later.

So for them, they don’t even have to go and write down the number or remember the number.

They should literally touch that number icon and it calls.

Um, you know, welcome video could be above the fold.

Obviously, sometimes you have to make compromises, and maybe it’s slightly below the fold.

Cases could be above the fold—like, you know, the before-and-afters.

You know, um, especially the full-face after picture—this is really powerful, right?

A lot of people are stuck on being clinicians—a lot of dentists.

So they do close-ups and they have the best close-ups, but the person who’s gonna spend 30,000—or even 5,000—doesn’t understand the close-ups.

They didn’t go to dental school. They don’t know the nuances of why this—

Gary Takacs: That’s not really nice. Attractive full-face smiles.

Yeah, they want—

Naren Arulrajah: Smiles—because that’s what they’re buying. They’re buying outcomes.

Remember, we never buy the details. We buy outcomes.

Why are we buying a trip to, you know, a nice five-star resort?

We are buying an outcome.

I know one of our dear friends, DI Reed, talks about the butler who unpacked her bag, and she’s somewhere, and, you know, like she’s posted pictures of this amazing dish—and she has her own butler.

You know what I mean? Like, that’s what we are buying. We are buying outcomes—not an outcome.

Yeah, we are buying an outcome.

And that’s what they want. And they’re asking, "Am I getting it?"

And they’re willing to pay for it.

So same way here, right? Full-face after pictures.

Those are the three things I would focus on: the phone number, the welcome video, and the before-and-afters.

Because now it tells me, "Yes, I’m on the right page. This doctor knows about Invisalign. He has helped a lot of people like me."

Mix it up—so maybe some of the people are young, all different skin colors.

You know, that way they feel like, "Oh yeah, they’ve had someone just like me."

So now—

Gary Takacs: Now let’s get granular on this.

Yes. So, um, we know that dental consumers are much more visually oriented in the way they’re processing information.

They’re processing through their eyes.

So if you’ve got landing pages and web pages that are nothing but long—text, text, text, text, text—they’re not gonna read that, right?

So let’s talk about the visual cues that build instant trust.

What are some visual cues? It’s not in the narrative, it’s not in the print—it’s in the visual cues.

What are some of those that build instant trust?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, I mean, I love Dale Carnegie. He’s somebody that both of us look up to—look up to.

He wrote a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful book, and it’s called, um, How to Win Friends and Influence People, right?

It’s a classic—written almost a hundred years ago.

It’s true today—actually more true today than it ever was.

And the reason is, we live in a very disconnected world where people are looking at their devices.

And one of his quotes that I love from that book is: "We do business with those we like."

Just one line—"We do business with those we like."

Think about it. Do you do business—you have two options—one guy you like, one guy you don’t; one person, lady—you’re gonna do business with who you like.

So how do you get people to like you, right?

In that first impression, in that few seconds.

Remember we talked about 90 seconds if it’s SEO, 15 seconds if it’s ads.

You know, have smiling team photos. Don’t use stock images, right?

So it’s like, you know, use words like "Hello," "Welcome."

So when I go to, you know, the contact or touch page—

You know, today with technology, we know if it’s morning or afternoon.

"Good afternoon," "Good morning." So there—

Gary Takacs: Or "Good evening."

There are words that trigger comfort and welcome and those kinds—

So I’m saying, we don’t have to ignore words, but, uh, you know, we want to pay attention to the visual side.

What about—um, you know, it’s interesting.

I find reviews very interesting, Naren.

Google reviews, right? Let’s stay with Google.

There’s all kinds of other reviews, but let’s stay with Google.

And I’m guilty of this myself.

We have absolutely no idea who wrote the review.

Yes, no idea.

We have no idea. That person could be someone as completely different from us as we could ever imagine—

And yet, we trust the review.

Yeah. That, right?

So talk about testimonials, and why testimonials belong on their website.

Naren Arulrajah: That’s a great question, Gary.

Uh, you know, this is human psychology, right?

I love this experiment. If you just, um, Google it—elevator experiment—

You know, elevator. What this experiment is—this was done in the sixties.

So they hired two or three actors, and they told these actors to walk into elevators where there’s only one other person in the elevator.

And they said, instead of facing the door, face the opposite side—and see what happens.

This is a long ride—let’s say 30 stories. They—

Gary Takacs: Oh, this is a classic experiment in psychology.

Any of you that took Psych 101 in college, you know about this study.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. And every single time, that one person turns around—

Even though everybody from the beginning of time looks at the front of the elevator.

Why? Because the three other people in the elevator are turning backwards.

He or she feels odd being the odd man out.

So we follow the herd, right?

Reviews is exactly like that.

On one hand, if you have great reviews—we trust you.

For example, 4.5 stars, 500 reviews—we trust you.

On the other hand, you don’t—we don’t.

Yeah, that same principle is at work, Gary.

It’s almost like we trust the crowd—in this case, the three people in the elevator—more than we trust ourselves.

So literally, they’re second-guessing their own decision to face the front of the elevator like they have done for the last 10 years—because the three people around them are facing backwards.

Imagine, if you can make them change their mind, how easy is it to—

Gary Takacs: It’s herd mentality.

Naren Arulrajah: Herd mentality.

Yeah, I mean, you said it right.

But it is in the DNA—this is not, you know—you talk about psychology and how powerful psychology is.

This is a classic example of that.

So testimonials, reviews—

Gary Takacs: Hardwired. We’re hardwired that way.

Naren Arulrajah: We are hardwired that way.

Gary Takacs: Now, let’s—

Mobile devices are more prevalent now than ever.

Yes. And what Google calls mobile—correct me if I’m wrong—but what Google calls mobile would be a phone, obviously, is a mobile device, but also tablets.

Tablets—more and more people have tablets. They’re using ’em as e-readers, they’re using ’em as, you know, a mobile device that has a larger screen than your phone.

So talk about why mobile view is often your first impression—the first impression.

Naren Arulrajah: 70% of people today use a mobile device to find a dentist.

70%. And this is just study after study. So they’re—

Gary Takacs: They’re not sitting at a desktop, typing something in.

No, they’re not. Maybe 30% are, if you use the opposite number.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. And the reason is—

Gary Takacs: They’re on the run, using a phone or mobile device.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. And the reason is that mobile device is in our pocket, is in our hands all the time.

Computer—you have to go there and sit in front of it. And usually I’m doing a meeting or writing a document, otherwise I’m walking away from my computer, right?

So on the other hand, my mobile device is sleeping with me. It’s waking up with me. It’s what I browse before I go to sleep.

Gary Takacs: It’s the first thing you see in the morning, last thing you see at night.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

So, it’s just—we spend more time with our mobile devices. So that’s how they’re discovering.

So they’re like, "Oh yeah, I need to get that new smile," you know, because maybe they saw an Instagram video of somebody with a beautiful smile—I’m just making this up.

Or, you know, they were talking to somebody across the table, and that person has a beautiful smile, and they are ashamed to smile in front of them because they have a crooked smile.

They’re like, "Okay, as soon as the person leaves to the washroom, I’m gonna look up that dentist." Right?

So whatever is going on in their life—and the mobile device is the computer in their hand.

You know, a lot of times it’s the phone.

Many, many times it’s also iPads.

I see a lot of people today carrying tablets wherever they go because it’s a bigger screen.

Like if you’re a real estate agent, you won’t see them with a phone—you’ll see them with a tablet.

Why? They wanna show things and whatnot.

So depending on the profession, it doesn’t matter—it’s one of those. So you wanna—

Gary Takacs: Talk about, how do we optimize for mobile?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. I’ll tell you the common mistakes. Like, for example, many websites don’t have responsive websites.

What responsive technology means is, you know, the website kind of changes itself depending on the screen size.

In other words, you are on a mobile phone—it’s a tiny screen—it’s a different website than if you’re on a desktop.

So it’s optimized for that device versus others.

Gary Takacs: Optimized to the user’s device.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly. Exactly.

So that way they don’t have to squint. Like, for example, if it’s not optimized, I have to squint, I have to scroll left to right.

It’s just a pain.

Remember you talked about—

Gary Takacs: If you had a smartphone—it was a horrible experience to go to a website.

Exactly. It was—

Naren Arulrajah: Very different. Very different. But—

Gary Takacs: If your website is—

Naren Arulrajah: Optimized, right?

So we talked about how one-click purchase, and don’t make me think, and don’t make me work.

If I have to scroll left and right, I’m not gonna spend time on your website. I’m just gonna go to the next person on the Google list.

Why am I wasting my time?

And Google knows this, so Google won’t even send you to that website.

So Google will never rank your website if you’re not optimized.

Gary Takacs: You’ll never even get the chance to get—

Naren Arulrajah: The chance to go to the website.

Gary Takacs: Because Google’s gonna know that your site’s not optimized and they’re gonna push you down—to the end.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Because remember, Google gets 3 billion users, but none of them have to continue to use Google.

So Google—

Gary Takacs: Doesn’t want the user to be unsatisfied.

Exactly.

Naren Arulrajah: If Google sends them to a crappy website that’s slow to load—and they think it’s slow to load, it just doesn’t—it’s not built properly. And—

Gary Takacs: Oh, we all remember the beach ball.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Beach scrolls, you know?

Yeah, it just keeps going in circles and whatever, right?

So those are some of the things you wanna make sure.

And now with Google—you know, it’s not making changes 10 times a day, it’s 3,000 times a year—because the world is moving so fast.

Now AI is getting integrated.

We are gonna do more episodes around AI, you know, in the near future, where if you now Google, you will see AI answers right within the Google window itself.

So the world and how people behave continues to change.

By the way, if you want to know if you’re doing well with, you know, the convincing people in seconds, or if you want to know if you are ranking for 100 or more keywords—book a marketing strategy meeting.

You know, that’s our gift to you. It’s ekwa.com/msm 

Naren Arulrajah: You can book that meeting and, uh, we’ll spend six hours researching you.

At the end of it, you’ll get a report card—how well are you doing, what your weaknesses are.

We’ll also study your competition and tell you how well they’re doing, so you know where you stand.

And finally, we’ll give you a plan—so by the end of the 12-month period (it takes time to really, really, really do well)—how do you get into the top 5%?

And how do you, from that point onward, stay in that top 5%?

This way, you have an unfair advantage in being found and being, you know, um, purchased by all your customers.

Gary Takacs: Well, Naren, you did a great job of talking about how patients decide if you’re the right dental office—quickly, in a matter of seconds.

Let’s hit pause here in the Coaching in Action segment.

We’ve got some questions that have been pre-submitted that allow us to go into more detail about this over in the Thriving Dentist Q&A segment.

Welcome back.

Naren, you did a great job of talking about the changing landscape of marketing and how important it is to do things quickly—otherwise, you’re not gonna get a chance.

Well, let’s amplify our discussion by going into some questions that our readers—our listeners—have submitted.

Gary Takacs: Question number one:

Why are we getting website traffic but no calls?

Naren Arulrajah: That’s—

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, I think, Gary—uh, um—one answer, I think we should tag team this. But one answer is maybe your call conversion rate.

90% of you listening to this podcast—perhaps you don’t even know what that call conversion rate is.

Or more importantly—you don’t.

Gary Takacs: If you’re calling—they got the call—what if you’re not getting the calls?

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

So the question is, "Why are we getting website traffic but no calls?"

Yes, yes, yes. So if you’re getting website traffic and no calls, that means the phone is not ringing, right?

So if the phone is not ringing—and again, you need numbers. Don’t take anecdotal evidence.

Like, you need to know how many calls came in versus not.

So you need to track this using some kind—

Gary Takacs: It could be that you’re getting the call, but it’s not getting answered.

Naren Arulrajah: Yes. That could be part of it.

Because, you know, yeah—you could, if you ask your team member, they might say, "We are not getting the calls," but—

Gary Takacs: "We never miss any calls."

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, exactly.

But that could be wrong, because we have practices that miss 40–50% of their calls.

So get some kind of technology—like for our clients, we do call tracking by default as part of our service.

So the technology should tell you how many people are calling you every month, right?

That’s the basic, basic, basic thing.

Don’t rely on your team members—just get the tech to tell you that.

Now, let’s assume the tech is telling you you’re getting enough calls—

Then you need to look at why they’re not, um, you know—

So let’s say the tech is telling you you’re not getting enough calls—

Then the root cause is the entire episode we just went through, right?

You know, either because you’re not ranking on Google, so nobody’s finding you—

Therefore, you know—and the ones who are—

So that could be one case.

Naren Arulrajah: That means you need to really beef up your SEO and start working on it, and eventually rank for a hundred or more keywords.

That could be one problem to solve.

The other problem is, you are ranking on Google with SEO, but your landing pages don’t do the things we talked about, right?

The ten-second rule.

So when I go to that page on Invisalign—because you’re ranking—

But I don’t see the cases, I don’t see the welcome video, I don’t see the phone number.

It’s hard to navigate.

Or even—we talked about—you know, if you’re not optimized for mobile and it’s not easy to use on a mobile device, and fast to use on a mobile device—I’m leaving.

Which means Google may not even rank you.

Gary Takacs: In a simple sense—I mean, I run the risk of being too simplistic here—but yeah, if you’re getting website traffic but no calls, you’re making it too difficult for the consumer.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. You’re not convincing them. You’re not influencing them.

Gary Takacs: Remember that easy button?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. There’s no easy button.

Exactly. You just have to—

Exactly.

And you have to look for those holes, and you have to fix it.

Gary Takacs: Alright, let me go to question number two.

What should we prioritize on our homepage?

Naren Arulrajah: That’s a great question, Gary.

Um, I do think first is: how are you doing on your website and overall internet marketing to, um, rank?

And obviously, if your other pages are ranking, your homepage also should rank.

So, for example, the keywords I would focus on for the homepage would be, you know, "dentist," "general dentist near me," city name, the surrounding towns.

So you wanna—

Gary Takacs: So homepage is broad.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, it’s broad. And it’s kind of like your—

Gary Takacs: Landing pages are narrow.

Naren Arulrajah: Narrow, yeah.

That’s the Invisalign, you know, or, you know, single-day crowns—whatever the particular type of service or problem or TMJ you are solving, or particular technology you have.

So the landing pages are narrow, and the homepage is broad.

Of course, the homepage should have—like we already touched on—visual cues to build instant trust, right?

Smiling team photos as opposed to stock photos, words that trigger comfort and credibility.

We talked about even simple words like "Welcome," you know, "Good morning," "Good afternoon," right?

So they feel like you are different from every other website they’ve been to.

You are welcoming them, and it’s almost like they’re virtually meeting you.

And they’re like—you remember the Dale Carnegie quote we talked about—

We do business with those we like.

So those are the things I would focus on: getting people to like us, and making a good first impression.

Just like the first five seconds of a phone call makes a big difference—this first thing they see on your website makes a lot of difference.

Gary Takacs: Now, this next question—I think some of our listeners are, uh, not gonna be thrilled about—but, um, if they wanna be more effective, they’re gonna pay attention.

Yes. So here’s the third question:

Do we really need a video of the dentist welcoming patients?

Naren Arulrajah: You know what, I think—obviously—it’ll help, because, you know, we want to feel comfortable with the dentist before we go to the dental practice.

And the reason I say that is, there’s this subconscious belief that a lot of people have: that doctors are not friendly, not easy to talk to.

And it’s nothing to do with dentists per se—it’s just the whole healthcare field, right?

Gary Takacs: It’s a perception.

It’s a perception.

Many, many, many patients think that the dentists aren’t approachable.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Partly because, you know, they may have had a bad experience—with any kind of a doctor, right?

Not just a dentist, but any kind of a doctor.

And now they’re thinking, "Oh, this next guy is gonna be like that."

So they’re trying to make sure the next guy won’t be like the bad experience.

So when you use simple language—this welcome video—where you’re like,

"Hello, I’m Dr. Smith. I’ve been helping patients with Invisalign for the last, you know, 15 years. Look at these 20 cases I have on my webpage.

We have a wonderful team. We would love to help you. Call my office," you know—

Gary Takacs: And use the word "welcome."

"Welcome."

Naren Arulrajah: Just the word "welcome."

Gary Takacs: You know, "I’m so glad you landed on our website. Welcome."

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

"Thank you. Welcome."

Gary Takacs: You answered that a little soft at the beginning, right?

Uh, you were kind of tap dancing. Do we really—

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, so what I’m saying—

Gary Takacs: Is the dentist welcoming—welcoming people?

The answer is: yes.

Naren Arulrajah: Yes, yes, yes. A hundred percent.

Gary Takacs: You were—you were kind of…

Naren Arulrajah: I guess what I was kind of trying to say is, it’s not just one single welcome video on the homepage.

But it’s welcome videos on every landing page, you know what I mean?

Because I need to welcome the Invisalign person—talking about Invisalign.

I need to welcome the, you know, veneer patient—talking about changing their smile.

I need to welcome the patient in pain—talking about how I can help them with pain.

See, today, people want what they want—you know what I mean?

So a dental office is kind of like a supermarket. You can do 17 things, right?

But each section needs to talk to that group of people—each department, so to speak.

So, same way—you have to have welcome videos, but not a single welcome video.

Rather, individual welcome videos for each landing page.

How long? That is personalized—45 seconds at the most.

Because people don’t watch long videos.

It’s not about you—

Gary Takacs: Hire, uh, you know, a production crew to come in with five techs and all the lighting and everything?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely not.

And the reason is—they want authentic.

Gary Takacs: What do we need to use?

Naren Arulrajah: Just use a smartphone.

I mean, look at some people who have 3 million views on their Instagram account, right?

What did they use? They used a smartphone, right?

And did they hire a production crew? They didn’t.

It’s so authentic. It’s so natural. It’s so real. That’s what people are looking for.

Same thing here.

Gary Takacs: You know, there’s an added benefit to this, Naren.

Certainly there’s a marketing benefit to have that video on your website, right?

But the added benefit is—doctor, I want you to pay attention to this—

The added benefit is getting you comfortable talking.

Getting you comfortable talking to patients.

And you know, you’re not actually talking to a patient—you’re talking to your phone.

But as you get better and better and better at this, it’s gonna make you much more comfortable being able to instantly connect with any patient you meet.

And so you’re gonna find this to be an extended benefit to you.

Not only will it help in marketing—bring more patients to you—

But it’s gonna help you more comfortably connect with virtually any patient you encounter in your practice.

So I feel maybe stronger than you do about the need for a video by the dentist welcoming patients.

Yes.

Gary Takacs: Alright, fourth question—last question.

Kind of a technical one, but it’s a good one:

How often should we update our Google profile photos and posts?

Naren Arulrajah: This is a great question, and sometimes the wrong question can lead us the wrong way.

I will answer this technical question, but before I answer it, I wanna talk about what you really want, right?

Which is—you want more people to discover you through Google, right?

Google My Business page—which is where you update the, you know, the Google profile page, which is also called the Google My Business page—will send you half of that traffic, and the regular SEO will send you the other half.

But at the end of the day, both of them are SEO.

SEO is what determines how many times either your Google My Business page or your website is shown.

In other words, they’re kind of like the left hand and the right hand on the same person. They’re not two different hands.

So, if your goal—I assume the person here is asking me, "How do I get my Google My Business page to show up?"—and he’s asking, "Maybe I should be updating my photos and posts more often…"

If you want your website to show up, there are six things you need to continue to improve:

New articles and new content added to the website the proper way.

Google used to have something called Google Lighthouse Core; now it’s called Google CRUX, which is Chrome UX.

Google will give you a tool on, are you optimizing things properly?

Who’s linking to you? Are they relevant? Are they quality?

If they are not as good as Google thinks they are, you will get penalized.

So continuing to work on who is linking to you—and if it’s relevant, and if they’re maintaining their quality.

Google E-E-A-T — really, really, really, really, really important in the age of AI.

Google is looking for authoritative people and accurate information—not just any people.

Especially in healthcare.

If you don’t include the Google E–E-A-T signals, then Google is gonna punish you, right?

Google reviews — we already touched on it.

You need to have 10 or more Google reviews…

Gary Takacs: A month.

Naren Arulrajah: A month—oh, 10 or more love letter paragraph—

Gary Takacs: We call that velocity.

Velocity.

And, you know, it’s important to have the sheer number of reviews.

The more you have, the better.

But you also wanna make sure you’re hitting the velocity quotient, which is an average of two a week.

Most months have four weeks—so four times two is eight.

But two months of the year will have five weeks—five times two is ten.

Yeah, so if you’re hitting 10 new reviews a month, you’re hitting the velocity quotient.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah.

And the sixth one is NAP, which is Name, Address, Phone number consistency.

Your business name, address, and phone numbers—all over the place—are people…

Is this being managed? Is it exactly consistent?

And you need a team to work on it, just like everything else that I just talked about.

Now, we do five of these things for our clients.

And the one thing we cannot do—but we give them tools and techniques—is the Google reviews.

That, you have to do.

Because you know who your happy patients are.

But if you do these things, you are gonna show up on Google My Business thousands of times.

Your Google My Business page is gonna show up thousands of times.

So the question—how often should we update our Google profile photos and posts?

If I’m gonna be blunt—update it when you need to.

If it has the wrong photos, update it.

If it has the wrong information, update it.

Just because you update it every week—

It’s kind of like, "I update my Google profile every week, but I don’t get any Google reviews,"

Which means Google is thinking, "Nobody’s going to this business."

Are they gonna get excited by you because you’re updating it?

Like—they’re not stupid. They’re very smart.

Gary Takacs: So really the answer is: continuously.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, exactly.

So update it as needed, and then do these six fundamental things if you want to show up more and more and more.

And again—the marketing strategy meeting, it’s no cost.

Have us take a look and tell you where you stand: ekwa.com/msm

Gary Takacs: Or you could have a marketing company that can help you with all that.

Naren Arulrajah: Right?

Gary Takacs: You don’t have to do it all yourself.

Naren Arulrajah: A hundred percent. Yeah, a hundred percent.

Gary Takacs: Well, Naren, thank you.

Those are great questions from our listeners, and they allowed us to go into a little bit more depth.

Well, this has been a fun episode—How Patients Decide If You’re the Right Dental Office… in Seconds.

Hope you’ve learned some things that’ll help you become more effective in attracting more quality new patients to your practice.

Well, as we wrap up today, Naren and I thank you for the privilege of your time.

Thanks for being a Thriving Dentist Show listener, and we look forward to connecting with you on the next Thriving Dentist Show.