If you’re a dental practice on Twitter, these digest e-mails may help to generate more followers and interaction which can be only be a good thing. As a side issue, it does raise the question, how many e-mails is too many e-mails? How often are you contacting your patients?

If you need any advice on Twitter, e-mail marketing,  or anything else ‘marketing’ for that matter, don’t hesitate to give us a call on 01202 677 277 – we’re here to help.

Twitter is set to deliver weekly email digests to its users to showcase the most popular content on its site and the stories their personal network was most engaged with.

The digests will offer brands more opportunities for their content to be discovered, especially by the less frequent visitors to the social network.

It could mean that those brands that have paid for promoted tweets have a greater chance to extend their advert’s reach beyond the allotted time period it would appear on the site, if it was particularly engaging.

The roundup resonates the design of the recently updated Discover tab on Twitter’s desktop site and will feature click-through headlines and the opportunity to tweet direct from the email.

As an extra discovery tool, the emails will also include a “most engaging tweets seen by the people you follow” feature, which could encourage users to follow more brands and individuals.

The emails use technology from social summary tool Summify, which Twitter acquired in January this year.

Users will start receiving the new email over the next few weeks and can manage their preferences in their notification settings on the desktop site.

Separately, Twitter announced today (15 May), almost a year after it opened its first UK office, that it has more than 10 million active users in the region, 80% of which are active on mobile.

1. Google Analytics Tracking Code

What version of the Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC) is currently being used if any and where is it placed?  Is data currently being populated in the account?  Is the GATC on all pages of your website (including 404 pages, footer pages such as disclaimer, terms of service, or other similar pages, etc).

2. Sub-Domain and/or Cross-Domain Tracking

Do you have multiple sub-domains? Do you have access to change the source code for the pages on all sub-domains and are all webmasters on board with the change?  If not, realize that Google Analytics can only track the sub-domains that include the GATC.  Do you have multiple domains that you want to track?  Realise that the links between them will need to be set-up correctly.  If in the future you wish to add any additional sub-domains or domains, make sure that they are properly set up as well.

3. Goal Configuration

You can have a maximum of twenty goals, sorted into four sets of five goals each.  While setting up goals, you can also setup funnels.  Goal funnels can help you visualize the path that a visitor took to completing the goal.  They can also help you see from what part of the funnel process visitors are exiting and if they are leaving the site entirely or navigating to a different page.

5. Google AdWords Linking

If you currently use Google AdWords, linking your account with a Google Analytics account can allow you to better understand your data.

6. Google Webmaster Tools Syncing

If you are currently use Google Webmaster Tools, syncing your account with Google Analytics can reveal a wealth of knowledge about your website in the easily manipulated Google Analytics interface.

7. Event Tracking

Coding your site to track specific events (such as a PDF download) can help you better understand how visitors interact with your site.  Additionally, events can be set up as goals.  This allows you to set up a funnel for an event.

8. Social Tracking

Google Analytics offers social tracking reports so you can better understand how social media impacts your website.

9. Site Search Configuration

If you have onsite search setup, Google Analytics can help capture what your visitors are searching for.  Consider looking to this report for navigation change or new pages about topics that are often searched for on your site.

10. A Word About Filters

Google Analytics allows you to add filters to your data – however, it should be noted that once a filter has been added, the data that has been filtered over a time period can not be unfiltered.  For example, if you create a Google Analytics account in January and then add a filter February 1st – but realize on March 1st that the filter was written incorrectly and would exclude some data you wanted to include you will not be able to get the February data back.  Unfortunately, even if you delete the filter going forward, any reports that cover the February time period will only be able to show the filtered data.

If you would like anymore information on Google Analytics, please contact us here at Dental Design on 01202 677277.

They have been testing a range of charges for promoting user’s content, some posts cost £1.25 with others only 50p or 20p. These payments can be made through pay pal or credit cards.

“We’re constantly testing new features across the site,” said the spokesperson. “This particular test is simply to gauge people’s interest in this method of sharing with their friends.”

Facebook are keen on finding new ways to make money due to the recent slowdown in revenue over the past six months in comparison to the rapid growth it had seen previously. However, owner Mark Zuckerberg has always said that he wants to make money to run the company, rather than run the company to make money.

Do you think that highlighting stories in this way could have benefit for your practice’s Facebook page or do you think these needs are already catered by using Facebook Ads?

My opinion is that stories are already shown in the newsfeeds of those that have already liked you and for those that haven’t yet liked you, they can be accessed through Facebook ads; so is there really a need for this ‘pay to promote’ feature from a user’s perspective?

Leave a comment with your thoughts!

When it comes to design, things don’t have to be complicated in order to be effective. Although, it can be tempting to over design and try to work in lots of detail, it’s not always the best way. This is especially true when it comes to logo design. Usually, the best are the ones that do more with less. Here is a collection of very inspiring logos that take this approach, and rely on cleverness rather than eye candy.

The following article features some amazing creations for ‘about us’ pages that you too could use on your dental websites!

About pages are important because they are the place where the user goes to discover more about who/what is behind the site they are visiting. From design studios to apps and online shops, users like to browse a page to find the good old who, where, what, how information about you. And of course there’s many different approaches that can be taken when designing an about page. From the very formal to the fun and creative, it’s important to go the direction that’s fits the personality of you or your company. Today we gathered a some inspiring examples of about pages to show you how different websites are allowing visitor to learn more about them.

FancyRhino

I always like the creative-humorous approach using pictures. It’s nice to see faces behind ideas.

12th of Never

A nice and minimal approach in a landing page with a “more coming soon” note.

H-Art

A nice combo of beautiful images and well designed info-graphics to give us more details about their work.

Oliver Russell

Nice and elegant approach to the “what we do” page. Beautiful typography and colors.

Doberman

A cool mix of illustrated elements, typography and images to present their work, values and team.

Playtend

And of course a creative studio focused on encouraging imagination would go for an imaginative about page, well done.

Pulp Fingers

Another colorful creative approach to present who is behind work.

Level

A clean who we are page with beautiful colors and typography explaining their ideas and services.

Pursuit

For a stylish suit shop nothing better then a well suited team page.

Ghosthorses

Ghosthorses decided to use a nice typography combo to tell us more about their work and the outcome is really nice.

FO

FO divided their about in two beautifully done parts: who we are – explaining their values, creative force – showing their founders.

Fear the Grizzly

Clean and minimalist layout with a few images and texts explaining their work.

WeMake

A beautiful single page design with a nice about section with text and faces.

shoplocket

Great colors, textures, typography and icons to explain their work and ideas.

FiftyThree

Beautiful typography based about page.

Nelson Cash

Nice images, icons and typography combination to show us more about their work, history and team.

COOP

For a coworking space, nothing better than using a beautiful background image showing the space. They are also using nice colors and transparency to tell more about their story.

Trailer Park Truck

A creative and less formal approach to the old and good who we are page.

Haus

Haus is using a delicate palette with nice images and text in a timeline to present their team and milestones along the way.

Blind Pig Design

Blind Pig Design counts with a photo of Aaron Awad (the founder) in action and a nice text to tell us more about the studio. They also count with a beautiful textured side bar menu.

When Google announced their new social reports this week, we were excited to find out exactly what new insights we could gain to help you improve not only practice’s social media presence but also its contribution to your website traffic and overall return on investment.

Now Google’s social reports allow you to see specifically which social networks provide the most traffic to your website, allowing you to concentrate your efforts on the network which provides you with the most traffic to your site. In addition to this, you can see the ‘social media funnel’ and see exactly where patients started on their journey (eg Facebook /twitter/ LinkedIn) and which pages they visit, going as far as to see whether they filled in a contact form. This is therefore a fantastic way to measure the ROI from social media.

So to conclude, the old excuse of social media not being measurable and therefore not a valid exercise is no longer applicable. Try and use social networking to your advantage by keeping your pages up to date, engaging with your patients and measuring the results.

If you have any questions about social media or any other aspect of your digital marketing strategy for your practice. Please don’t hesitate to give Dental Design a call on 01202 677 277.

While Panda primarily targeted shallow content, Penguin is specifically an anti-spam update that is punishing sites for techniques like keyword stuffing (using the exact same keyword an excessive amount of times on a page) and cloaking (showing a version of a webpage to a crawler that is different from what a human user sees). It’s easy to see if your site has been affected by Penguin. Just look at your Google Analytics page. Watch the data for April 24, when Penguin went live. Affected sites will see a sharp, immediate drop in traffic – indicating a Penguin penalization.

There has been some buzz about Google launching an update to penalize sites that have been “over-optimized.” Penguin looks to be just that, however the term “over-optimization” is a bit of misnomer. Sites that have followed a balanced, white-hat SEO plan will be negatively affected by Penguin. Sites that have excessively optimized via keyword stuffing need to watch out for Penguin.

It is possible you may have been keyword stuffing by accident with no intent to spam or otherwise game the system. Take the following URL as an example:

www.example.com/widgets product page/blue widgets/size10widgets.aspx

It seems like a perfectly normal e-commerce site ticking off product category progression, right? However, Penguin may see it as stuffed with the keyword “widget.” A preferable URL would be:

www.example.com/widgets product page/blue/size10.aspx

Another stuffing technique Penguin is looking for is internal links on your site that point to the same webpage using the same anchor text every time. When writing the copy for your pages, you’ll want to use synonyms for your primary keywords for the best optimization. This not only helps people using different search terms find your content, but it helps you avoid keyword stuffing as well. By balancing your SEO plan and producing quality content, you will be able to rank higher and avoid any Penguin penalties.

If you would like any further information about seo, please contact us here at Dental Design on 01202 677277.

The results of the study are below:

Of all of the people asked how they researched for local businesses:

47% say they rely most on the internet, including:

• 36% on search engines.
• 16% specialty websites.
• 1% rely on social network sites like Twitter.

31% rely most on newspapers, of which only 2% rely on the online version.

22% rely most on word of mouth from family and friends.

8% rely most on local TV, either broadcasts or the websites of local stations.

5% rely most on local radio.

So how do you take advantage of this information? Get your business online if it isn’t already! Your practice needs a website and if it is ranking highly for your selected keywords you will attract new patients. Whilst other more traditional forms of advertising such yellow pages and word of mouth are still important, if your practice doesn’t have an online presence then you are missing out on new patient enquiries (up to 50% according to this research)

Dental Design has over 10 years designing dental specific websites and running online marketing campaigns to attract new patients. If you want advice or more information please contact us on 01202677277

Keep Active!

Whenever you log into LinkedIn you’ll probably notice it’s the same people regularly appearing in your newsfeed. This means that they are getting lots of exposure and are at the top of people’s minds. In order to keep active you should regularly update your status, share and comment on your peer’s updates,  participate in LinkedIn groups and try to answer questions in ‘LinkedIn Answers’

Build up your connections

Try and look for LinkedIn connection opportunities as often as possible, either when you’re out and about at events, or simply by using the people you may know feature. Send an invitation with a personal message rather than the standard LinkedIn message to be more sincere and to ensure that people remember you.

Use your time strategically

It has been found that the majority of LinkedIn members are the most active during the afternoons and use the mobile site during the evenings. Therefore, use your time wisely and update more often at these times in order to gain the most exposure.

Be relevant

What you share matters. Try and build your reputation as a trusted authority in the dental profession by sharing relevant industry related news and insights. A good source of information is LinkedIn today; here you can tailor a ‘newspaper’ based on the interests you indicate.

If you would like further tips on using the time you spend on LinkedIn to your full advantage, give Dental Design a call on 01202 677 277.