How to best Optimize YouTube for your Dental Practice

Many people understand the need for utilizing YouTube to assist with the marketing of your dental practice. If you are unsure, here are the top reasons.

1. YouTube is the #2 or #3 most used search engine depending on the month.

2. When searching Google, video results often rank higher than text results.

3. People will often click on the video results before they click on the text results.

4. If other dental offices in your area have no videos, you will quickly out rank them by utilizing video.

5. Lastly, we have become a visual society. Seeing is believing.

Here is what I would suggest you do with YouTube to help you market and communicate with your patients more effectively.

Record a lot of happy dental patient testimonials. If a patient is comparing two offices and one has tons of happy patients, which one do you think they will choose?
Record before after videos and put still images of the before after within the videos. You can do all of this really easy with software such as iMovie.
Record post op instructions for the patients to view.
Record FAQs. How to properly brush your teeth.
Post procedures on your site. I would use professionally done videos for this as you don't want to show blood.

Next I will describe the steps to post your vidoes to YouTube and how to embedd them onto your website. I will also include our video on how to do this.

When putting videos on your website, it would be very smart to host them via YouTube as it then becomes searchable media via Google and will help your organic search results. Below are the steps to take to make this the most effective for your practice.

Create a YouTube Channel
1. Make sure you load an appropriate name (title) for the channel branded the same as the practice.
2. Use a good description that will help you rank with Google. For example, Top Rated Cosmetic Dentist in Sioux City that does the following procedures: Invisalign, One-Appointment Crowns, etc.
3. Add tags that have the key words that you want to rank for (one appointment crowns, invisalign, dental implants, implant, etc)
4. Include a website in the URL field.
5. Create Play lists by category: Dental Procedures, Dental Testimonials (notice how I am suggesting terms a patient might search). Set one as the default, probably the Procedure playlist
When loading video
1. Create a meaningful Title that both Google and a patient will find interesting and relevant (See how Dr. XXXX patients love the convenience of a one appointment crown). Make sure to think of terms a patient would search and include them in the title.
2. Create a meaningful description to go with this. The title is the most important and the description is the second most important. Ex. “Darren didn’t realize how convenient getting a crown in one appointment can be. He was amazed at our technology. He said he would never do it the old fashioned way again!!” Of course make sure the description fits what is actually said in the video. Include your website in the description.
3. Add tags that fit the content of the video. Make sure to include tags that cover most everything (cosmetic dentistry, dental office, etc)
4. Once the video is uploaded, within your Youtube channel, click on the cc captions link and then click on automatic captions. Click download the caption text. It will download it onto your desktop, then click upload the caption file. I realize this seems silly but it will make the entire audio file searchable. This is worth the brain damage.
5. Add the video to the appropriate playlist
6. Send the video link to all friends, family and employees to watch it. This is a very critical step. The more views you get quickly, the higher the video will rank. If you can get 50 views in 24 hours, huge bonus!!!
7. Share the video out via FB and any other social media you are a part of.
8. Under the share this video/embed, make sure to deslect the “show suggested videos when the video finishes”
9. Also under the share section, copy the embed code to paste into your website.