As a dental specialist, you are probably interested in making sure your Web site appears at the top of Web searches. Hiring someone to optimize your site for search engines is a good move for some people, but for others, free information is available all over the Internet, including from Google itself.

Building a blog for your dental specialty practice is a great way to bring your dental practice Web site to the top of the search engine lists. In addition, a well-categorized blog will, over time, serve as a library of information for your dental patients or dental referral sources. How can a blog best benefit your dental specialty practice?

Electronic newsletters are timely, inexpensive to send and easy to track. But e-mail newsletters abound, and chances are the recipient of your electronic dental newsletter is being bombarded with others. As a dental specialist marketing your practice, how do you make your e-mail newsletter stand out from the others? How do you put it in the in-boxes of people reluctant to subscribe to yet another newsletter? Here are five steps to help accomplish your goal:

The state of health care in the United States is constantly changing, meaning it is more important than ever to market your dental specialty practice. If you are an orthodontist, you might find that Invisalign has eaten into your business. If you are an endodontist or pediatric dentist, chances are that dentists who once referred patients to you now take those cases themselves. Bottom line: Marketing your dental specialty practice is crucial 12 months of the year.

Some dental Web sites rank high in the search engine lists, generate new patients and referral sources, and have visitors coming back on a regular basis. Others sit on the Web, stale, forgotten and of little use. Which category does your dental specialty practice’s Web site fit into?

A Facebook page has been created to attack Dr. Edward Dove, a pediatric dentist from Bakersfield, Calif. Chris Cook alleges that Dove extracted a tooth from his 5-year-old son without first properly sedating him. Dove denies the allegation. The page has gone viral, and as of the last report has 356 members and 371 posts.

Did you create a Facebook page that now sits idle with few updates and little activity? Or are you considering putting your orthodontic, pediatric dentistry or other dental specialty practice on Facebook—but are unsure about the best way to keep the page active?

Sending a dental newsletter is a long-term investment. Your first issue may not bring in a slew of new patients, but sent on a regular basis, a newsletter keeps your dental specialty practice top-of-mind with your referring dentists and physicians. Still, with the right strategies, you may find some fast results from your newsletter marketing efforts. For quick results from your newsletter, keep these three points in mind:

Our newsletter marketing company works with hundreds of medical and dental specialty practices. Some, we are surprised to see, have no Web site at all. This is not a good idea because people of all ages look to the Internet for more information once they have been referred to a practice.

As a dental specialist, you know many ways to keep patients coming back to your practice. The ingredients for a successful pediatric dentistry practice might include a child-friendly waiting room. For an orthodontics practice, you might engage your young patients and their parents with social media. For all dental specialty practices, success includes a professional staff, a comfortable waiting room and up-to-date technology.