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?

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?

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.

Trust is the cornerstone of your dental specialty practice. Patients return to you because they trust your expertise and your treatments. But building trust with patients starts long before they call your practice for an appointment. Here are three ways to build trust among people before they come into your dental office.

Speaking regularly with pediatric dentists throughout the United States and Canada, we are often told that they prefer to receive patient referrals from pediatricians rather than from general dentists. The reason, they say, is that general dentists tend to refer the “difficult” children and keep the easy ones. On the other hand, pediatricians, of course, refer all dental patients.

USP, an acronym for “Unique Selling Proposition,” is a concept often used in marketing. Your USP is what sets you apart from all other practitioners in your dental specialty.

We are often asked why marketing for a dental specialist is different from the marketing activities of a general dentist. The key difference is the way patients determine which endodontist, oral surgeon or other dental specialist to choose.

If you are an endodontist doing a lot of single-session root canals, patient recall may not be a prime issue for your practice. However, for most periodontists, prosthodontists, orthodontists and pediatric dentists, increasing patient recall is critical to the financial well being of their practices.

When Roger Levin graduated from the University of Maryland College of Dentistry in 1982, he had no idea what career changes lay in store for him. Like any new DDS, Levin imagined his life as a full-time practicing dentist. But once he was firmly established in his family’s practice, he soon developed a new passion, and one that would change the professional lives of hundreds of dentists: practice management and marketing.