Welcome

Welcome to Your Control Panel

Welcome to Your IDA Control Panel: Here, we’ll tell you how to start customizing your IDA New Patient Marketing Machine.

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Welcome! Your IDA New Patient Marketing Plan is totally customizable within this Control Panel. To make this as simple as possible for you, we have pre-built each one of your marketing Portals based on the market categories you selected. If you decide to change one of your portals to a different market, it’s super-simple.

The first thing that we strongly suggest is that you go to each of your Portals and select “Dental Markets.” There you will see your Primary Dental Market. This is the one you selected as part of your marketing plan. Your Portal has been totally customized with up to 200 pages of content and designed for search engine optimization for this market.

You can change this Portal’s market at any time. However, we don’t suggest you do this casually or often, as it can hurt your search engine ranking and interrupt your new patient flow for up to a month or more. To get the best rankings, home in on a specific market and stick with it. If you need a different market, order another portal.

You’ll also notice on this page that you have Secondary Dental Markets. We have pre-selected those most often associated with the primary market you selected. Each of these secondary markets is supported by up to 10 pages of patient information. First of all, you can change these easily by deleting the ones you don’t want and clicking “New Dental Market.” We suggest this is one of the first things you do in customizing your Portals.

Note that your portal is search engine optimized only for your Primary Dental Market, not your secondary markets. Why do we do this, you might ask? Well, pushing too many dental markets on one portal confuses the search engines, and it can cost you SEO ranking for your primary dental market – which can cost you new patients, too. So we focus our Search Engine Optimization on 1 portal per market so we can maximize your new patient response.

Another key feature of IDA’s SEO is the geo-targeting of each of your New Patient Portals. We automatically target the city where your practice is located, but to get more new local patients, you should also add four more surrounding cities, neighborhoods or areas that are geographically adjacent to your primary location city.

Another thing you’ll definitely want to check out on your new Portals are the Home Page Features. We’ve pre-selected content that we think will be relevant to your practice. You can delete any of these with the click of a button, drag over other Home Page Features you like, or even design your own.

There’s a lot of other stuff you might want to investigate in the Control Panel – uploading doctor photos, adding your office hours, and much more. We suggest you take a moment to watch the next video that will help you learn more about using and navigating your New Patient Control Panel.

Navigating the Control Panel

Navigating the New Patient Control Panel: Click the triangle next to any item on the left-hand menu item to expand and see more options.

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On the left side of the Control Panel, you’ll see a navigation menu. Click on the triangle next to any menu item to expand and see more options.

After “Overview,” the first item you’ll see will be “Doctors.” This is the master list where you can enter doctor information for all doctors associate with your practices.

Next, you’ll see “Practice Locations.” On that page you’ll see a list of all your practice locations you listed. You can also click the navigation triangle to see these locations listed in the left-hand menu. If you click on a particular practice location, you’ll be able to add or change information associated with that location – things like office hours, doctors, and more.

You can use the green arrow in the top right corner to quickly move through the customization process. It will take you right to the next navigation screen.

The next item on the navigation menu is “Customize Portals.” Again, if you click on any portal, you can view and change its associated information – everything from Dental Markets and Portal Design to Home Page Features and Promotions.

Further navigation items let you control your Dental Directory Marketing, your patient newsletters, your photos and media.

The “Appointment Management” and “Reports” tabs are both fun and important. There, you can set up tracking features and monitor your new patient traffic.

The last items on the navigation menu are “Email Hosting” and “Domain Ownership.”

Now, if you have detailed questions about any of this, just click the “Help” button in the top right corner and take a look at our online help videos.

Also in the top right corner, you’ll see a “Support” button if you have any questions, and a “My Account” section where you can manage you billing and contact information.

What Are New Patient Portals?

What Are New Patient Marketing Portals?: Think of your New Patient Portals as next-generation dental websites that attract more new patients.

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Your IDA New Patient Marketing Program is a multi-faceted online plan to generate more new patients for your practice.

Your New Patient Portals are key to this program. Think of them as next-generation dental websites.

Each portal is in fact a website, and each of these websites have their own URL web address, search engine optimization, and over 100 pages of targeted and personalized content – everything you’d expect from a dental practice website.

But there’s a reason why we don’t call them just plain old “websites.” Twentieth-century websites were a valuable dental marketing tool, but they had their limitations. IDA is bringing you the future of online dental marketing.

You don’t need to wait for a web designer to make changes to your site. You’re not married to a single design or color scheme. You can target the exact patients you want by dental market and geographic area. Make a single change here in the Control Panel, and every single page of your portal will be updated in a heartbeat.

It’s important to realize that your Portals are websites – but it’s also important to realize that they’re far more powerful, dynamic, and customizable than old-fashioned websites.

Doctors

Complete List of Doctors: Enter a master list of all the doctors associated with your dental practice.

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The “Doctors” section of the Control Panel is where you enter a master list of all the doctors associated with your practice.

In the “Locations” section of the Control Panel, you can select which doctors work at which practice locations. In the “Customize Websites” section, you can determine which doctors will be shown on any particular website.

To add a new doctor, go to the “Doctors” section and click “New Doctor.” Enter the doctor’s name as you would like it to be displayed. Select the accreditation and gender. Choose a prefix like “doctor,” enter the person’s full name, and check the box to indicate if they are a partner at the practice. It’s also good to upload a picture of the doctor that is 120 pixels wide by 150 pixels tall.

This is in the “Doctor Info” tab. If we move over to the “Logos” tab, we can select logos of organizations of which this doctor is a member. There are suggestions on the right, and a drop-box that lets you sort by category. You can also click “New Item” and upload your own logo image file. The “Credentials & Memberships” tab is similar, but lists the names of the organizations rather than their logos. When you click “New Item,” “New Association” will appear on your list. Just click the pencil icon to edit the text. In both these tabs, you can use the arrow buttons to re-order your list, and the trash can icon to delete an item.

Under the “Philosophy” tab, you can optionally include a philosophy statement from that doctor. We’ve provided suggestions at right that you can use, or you can edit the text, or enter your own.

You can always edit a doctor’s information just by clicking the pencil icon. Remember, the “Doctors” section of the Control Panel is your master list of all doctors. You’ll choose from this master list when associating doctors with locations and websites in other sections of the Control Panel.

Locations

Locations Overview

Dental Practice Locations Overview: Manage your practice’s geographic locations, whether you have one facility or dozens.

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In your IDA Control Panel, all of the geographic locations associated with your dental practice are listed under “Practice Locations.” The control panel works the same whether your practice has only one location or dozens of facilities.

The information in the “Locations” section is different from that in the “Customize Websites” section. If you have multiple locations and websites, this is a really important distinction – and it’s one that gives you powerful flexibility.

The “Reference Name” associated with each location is how that location will display, internally, in the sidebar menu of the IDA Control Panel. Clicking the reference name will take you straight to the overview page for that location. You can edit the location information on that page, or you can go back to where we were before and click the pencil icon to edit a location’s information. The “Geographic Region” and “County” are important ways of geo-targeting your website with search engines.

You can click the trash can icon to delete a location, or click the “New Location” button to add one.

You’ll also see how many websites are associated with each location. Changing information here, in the “Locations” level, will automatically update your location information on your find-a-dentist portal listings, but if you are trying to change the content that appears on a particular website, go to the “Customize Websites” section.

Logo & Promotional Photos

Practice Logo & Promotional Photos: Upload a logo and promotional photo (of the doctor, doctors, or office) for each location.

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There are two “Logo & Promotional Photos” areas in the IDA Control Panel. One is at the location level, and the other is at the website level. Your 1stDDS portal listings are linked to you location or locations, and they will reference the information you enter at the location level in the “Practice Locations” section. Your website, on the other hand, will display the information you enter at the website level in the “Customize Websites” section.

This offers extra flexibility to large practices with multiple locations and websites. If your practice has one doctor, one location, and one website, you’ll be most concerned with making changes in the “Customize Websites” section.

In terms of how your practice’s name will appear on the website, you’ll probably want to drop the “LLC” or what have you from your formal practice name. You also may want to add “Certification” text like “General Dentistry.” If you don’t have a practice logo, don’t worry – you don’t need one. If you do, select it here. It should be a 200 by 100 pixel image. In a single-doctor practice, the promotional photo can be the same as the doctor’s photo. If it’s a group practice, you’ll probably want to use a group photo.

Remember, if you’re trying to change what’s displayed on your website, you need to go to the “Customize Websites” section of the Control Panel. Check out the “Logo & Promotional Photos” area, plus go into the “Website Design” area and make changes under the “Options” tab.

Selected Doctors for Location

Selected Doctors for Practice Location: Select which doctors are associated with each particular geographic practice location.

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All doctor profiles are stored in the “Doctors” section of the Control Panel. Right now, we’re in the “Practice Locations” section. So what we’re doing here is selecting which doctors are associated with this particular geographic practice location. The information you enter here, in the “Selected Doctors” area of the “Practice Locations” section, is used to create your dental directory listings on the 1stDDS portal network.

This is different from the “Selected Doctors” area in the “Customize Websites” section. The distinction isn’t important to a single-doctor practice with only one facility, but it’s crucial for large practices with multiple doctors, locations and websites. For instance, there may be four different doctors who work out of the same location, so you would list all four here in the “Practice Locations” section. Then, in the “Customize Websites” section, you can decide which of those four doctors you want to display on a website associated with that location. For example, you might list all four doctors on the Family Dentistry website, but you might only list the orthodontist on your Braces website.

Office Photo & Hours

Dental Office Photo & Hours: Upload a photo of your office and enter the hours and days when your practice is open.

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In the “Office Photo & Hours” area of the “Practice Locations” section, the “Business hours” tab is where you can enter the hours and days when your practice is open. Just click any field to edit it. If you’re not open at that time, write “Closed.” Click the “Holidays” tab to list holidays when you’re not open. If you click “New Holiday,” you can either type in the name of the holiday, or choose a predefined holiday from the drop-down list. Remember to click “Save” at the bottom of the page. Your office hours and holidays are listed on the “Map & Hours” page of your website. Your hours also appear in the lower right hand sidebar of some pages of your website.

Let’s return to the “Office Photo & Hours” area of the Control Panel. You don’t need to add a photo of your office to your website, but it’s a nice touch. Your office photo should be a 320 by 240 pixel image in landscape orientation. After you select your office photo, check out how it looks on your live website.

Back in the “Office Photo & Hours” area of the Control Panel, we can add some more information. In the “directions” tab, we can write directions to help patients find the office. In the “Vacation” tab, we can write a custom message about any current or future vacation plans. In the “Emergency Contact” tab, we can provide an emergency telephone number for patients to call. In the “Languages” tab, we can specify what languages are spoken at this location. Again, remember to click “Save.”

All of this information will appear on your website’s “Map & Hours” page, and it’s all optional. If you leave a section blank, that section will simply not appear on your website. For example, if we delete the emergency contact information in the Control Panel, all mention of emergency contacts automatically disappears from the website.

Financial Terms

Convenient Financial Terms: Include your financial terms for patients who are concerned with how to pay for treatment.

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Patients are always concerned with how to pay for treatment. The sidebar navigation on your dental practice website includes “Convenient Financial Terms.” You can change the text shown there in the “Financial Terms” section of the practice location by editing the “Financial Arrangement Statement” in the Control Panel. We’ve already provided generic text that you can edit, or write your own from scratch. You can always click “Reset” to get back to the original generic text. The office phone number will automatically appear wherever “phone” is written in curly brackets. Just change the text here, and it will automatically be updated on your live website.

To show patients what credit cards they can use, select a card from the list at right, then click the arrow to add it to the list of cards you accept. If you want to add a card that’s not already listed, just click “New Card.” You’ll need to select a 60 by 40 pixel image, either one you’ve already added to your “My Images” library, or by uploading it directly from your computer. Just select the image you want to add the card to your list. Next, click the pencil icon to edit the name of the card as it will be displayed. All of the credit cards you select will appear on the live website.

Services & Benefits

Dental Practice Services & Benefits: Provide more details about the services and benefits your practice offers.

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The “Services & Benefits” area in the “Practice Locations” section is where you offer more details about what your practice offers. It appears as a bullet point list on the lower right hand side of your website’s home page.

We have dozens of options for you to choose from, arranged by category; just click the arrow button to add it to your own list. Or you can click “New Service” and write your own. Click the pencil icon to edit the text, or the trash can icon to delete it. Use the arrow keys to re-order your list of Services & Benefits.” Then check out your changes on your live website.

Referral Sources

Tracking Sources of Patient Referrals: Monitor the success of various marketing efforts by tracking how patients were referred.

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The “Referral Sources” area in the “Practice Locations” section is a valuable tool for tracking the success of various marketing efforts.

When a patient visits your website and makes a request for an appointment or for more information, they are asked, “How did you hear about us?” In the “Referral Sources” area, you just list all of the choices for that location, and patients select from these choices in drop-down menu.

Your location’s Referral Sources are listed on the left. Just use the arrow key to select suggestions from the right-hand side of the page. You can click “New Source” to add your own; just click the pencil icon to edit it. Plus, delete items with the trash can icon, and use the arrow buttons at the button to re-order your list.

For every appointment request, you’ll know where that patient learned about you. Seeing which sources bring in the most new patients will help you make quantitatively smart decisions about your marketing budget.

Patient Forms

Downloadable Dental Patient Forms: Choose what to include in the “New Patient Forms” area of your portal.

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The “Patient Forms” area in the “Practice Locations” section is where you choose what to display in the “New Patient Forms” area of your website. If you have multiple locations, you might have different forms for each location – that’s why each location has its own “Patient Forms” area.

You’ll see a list of all the PDF documents you’ve uploaded to the “My Documents” area in the “My Photos & Media” section; if you don’t know how to make a PDF, you’ll find more information there, as well as document templates.

Just the check the “Active” box, and that form will automatically appear on all websites associated with that location. Unchecking the box will remove the form from all sites.

It’s easiest to upload forms if you go to the “My Documents” area in the “My Photos & Media” section, but you can also upload a PDF directly by clicking the “New Document” button. You will need to upload a PDF from your computer, give it a title and description as well, then click “Add to Library.”

Remember, the “Active” checkboxes will determine which patient forms appear on your website. Also, it’s important to realize that these are NOT forms that patients will submit electronically. These are forms patients can print out, complete, and bring with them to the office.

Employment Opportunities

Employment Opportunities: Attract quality team members by displaying available employment opportunities.

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The “Employment Ads” area in the “Practice Locations” section is an invaluable feature when it comes to attracting quality team members.

On your live website, you can see “Employment Opportunities” listed in the navigation menu. There are detailed job descriptions on that page, and interested candidates can apply online just by filling out a form and submitting their resume.

Back in the “Employment Ads” area of the Control Panel, you can choose which positions to list. Remember, you don’t have to be actively hiring to include a position on your website! Why not post it and collect a backlog of qualified candidates?

On the right-hand side of the page, you’ll see a list of suggestions. Just drag any one of these over to the left-hand side to add the pre-written position to your list. Then click the pencil icon to edit the text. Leave the HTML tags in angled brackets alone, but make sure the text is to your liking – particularly any mention of compensation, then click “Save.” Use the arrow keys to re-order the list of your positions.

You can also write your own text by clicking “New Position.” You’ll need to give the position a name, and enter descriptive text in HTML. You’ll probably find it easier to edit a pre-written position description than starting from scratch.

The “Human Resources Information” at the bottom of the page is an essential piece of data. Enter the email and optional fax of the person in your practice who is authorized to receive employment applications. You will probably enter the doctor or HR head’s private email address; you quite possibly won’t want these applications to be sent to the front desk.

Whenever a candidate applies online, they’ll get a confirmation email, and you’ll get an email with their resume and information – and a fax, too, if you have chosen to include a fax number.

HIPAA Policy

Official Statement of HIPAA Policy: Edit the “HIPAA Policy” page of your portal, or just use IDA’s default copy.

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The “HIPAA Policy” area in the “Practice Locations” section is where you can edit the “HIPAA Policy” page of your website. We have provided suggested language that you can edit as you wish.

You’ll see that the text is in HTML. The tags like H2, H3 and P indicate headlines and paragraphs, so try to make your edits without disturbing the tags.

Click “Save,” and your live website will be updated within 60 seconds. If you change your mind about edits you’ve made, just click “Reset” to get back to the original suggested text.

Many doctors also choose to list their HIPAA Policy in a downloadable patient form, as selected in the “Patient Forms” area of the Control Panel.

Customize Portals

Overview

Portals

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In your IDA Control Panel, all of your separate websites are listed under “Customize Websites.” The control panel works the same whether you have only one website or dozens.

You can click the trash can icon to delete a location, or click the “New Location” button to add one.

Publish Your Portal (without Wizard)

Publishing Your Web Portals: Your portal gets a domain name and goes live when you push the “Publish” button.

Clicking “Customize Portals” will show you a full list of all your IDA web portals. If you see a warning sign, that means that one or more of your portals have not been published to the internet.

The “Domain” column lists the web URL for each portal. If the site has been published, you’ll see its domain name here. If it hasn’t been published yet, you’ll see the portal’s temporary URL, which is hosted on IDAwebsites.com.

The “Publish” button on the right is how you make a portal go live on the internet.

Before you publish, the website is hosted privately by IDA. You can view your entire site by clicking that temporary URL and review any changes you make. If you look at the URL in your web browser, you’ll see that it’s hosted on IDAwebsites.com. At this point, you can review your website, but it’s not public on the internet yet. That means that patients and search engines can’t find it.

You can make changes to your web portal at any time, but you’ll want to make the most important decisions before you publish your website.

The absolute most important things to decide are how you want to target this web portal. First, what dental market are you targeting? Second, what’s your primary city? These two pieces of information are absolutely critical for search engine optimization.

Enter your primary city on the “Geographic Markets” page. On the “Dental Markets” page, decide what kind of new patients you want to get from this portal: family dentistry, cosmetics, implants, sedation, braces, et cetera.

Once you’re satisfied with how you’re targeting your portal and ready to go live, it’s time to push the “Publish” button. It may take a minute to process, as there’s a lot going on behind the scenes!

First, IDA’s system automatically generates a domain name for your website. Right now, the system is searching for the best available web address. This URL will be search engine optimized by including your dental market and geographic location.

When you publish a web portal, IDA automatically assigns it a search engine optimized domain name that will maximize the portal’s placement at the top of the search engine listings for your geographic market and areas of specialty. We handle the entire registration process, pay the initial domain name registration fee, and manage renewal – you don’t have to worry about any of it. The URLs for your portals are selected automatically, and they cannot be changed.

Next, the system sets up your brand-new web portal at that domain name and automatically notifies the search engines.

You should know that you don’t need to use your portal’s auto-generated URL as your dental practice’s primary web address! As part of your complete IDA marketing campaign, you can choose your own marketing domain name, or use a URL you already own. Many doctors choose URLs like “DrBobSmiles,” “SmithDDS,” or “OakTreeDentistry.” You can set this URL to automatically redirect to any one of your web portals. You can use your marketing domain name on your communications and collateral, send patients there, even set up e-mail accounts.

Under “My Account,” click “Terms of Service” for full details on IDA’s internet domain name policy. Should you leave IDA, IDA will keep ownership of all Search Engine Optimized Domain Names auto-generated by IDA. You will be able to keep your marketing domain name if you would like to maintain control of the URL you selected.

The Control Panel will let you know when your website has been completely published.

Now that you’ve published the site, it is totally live on the internet. It’s being indexed by Google and Yahoo right now. When patients search online, your site will now be included in the results.

After you’ve published your portal, you can continue to make changes. Add promotions, home page features, photos, and whatever else you’d like. Change your design as often as you want.

But take care when it comes to your primary dental market! Your entire portal – and its URL – is designed to target a single dental market. Changing a portal’s market focus after you’ve published it can have serious negative consequences for your internet dental marketing. The portal will lose search engine positioning, and its permanent marketing URL may no longer match its market focus.

Let’s say, for example, that you want to start targeting dental implant patients. You don’t want to just take your portal targeted at braces patients and change it to focus on implants instead…you would lose braces patients, and not get as many implant patients as you could.

Instead, you should add a new portal that targets implant patients. You can add another portal at any time just by clicking the “Add New Portal” button on the “Customize Portals” page.

Publish Your Portal (with Wizard)

Publish Your Dental Websites: Your dental website will be live on the internet when you publish and choose a domain name.

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Publishing your dental website makes it go live on the public internet.

Before you can publish, you need to build your portal. The most important part of this process is deciding how you will target this website – that is, choosing your targeted geographic area and type of dentistry.

Everything else is easy to change at any time, even after you publish your website. You can switch designs, add web pages, upload videos, and lots more.

In the “Customize Portals” section of the Control Panel, you can easily see if you have any unpublished portals. If you’re satisfied with the portal’s targeted dental market and city, then you’re ready to push the “Publish” button.

The first part of publishing is to secure a domain name for your new website. A good domain name can dramatically improve search engine positioning. For a search engine, a good domain name is one that accurately reflects the services you offer and the geographic area you serve.

The Publish wizard will automatically search for the best available domain name for your website. Review your choices and select the one you like best for your permanent domain name.

Once you click the “Publish” button, your website will be published live on the internet. Anyone can see your website at the domain name you selected. It will now start to be indexed by the search engines.

You should expect your search engine results positioning to take a few months. You don’t need to take action – Internet Dental Alliance’s system will do all the work. We’ll submit your site to the search engines and start building your web presence.

Even after your site has been published, you can still make changes to it any time. However, I would caution you strongly against changing your targeted dental market or primary city. Remember, the domain name you selected will always be associated with this website, so you want to make sure the content lines up with the URL.

Once your site is published, you can share the web address with other people. You might link to your website from your Facebook profile, your Google Local Business page, your blog, etc.

While we’re talking about domain names, I’d like to point out the “Redirected Domains” feature. If you have set up any redirected domains, you’ll see them listed on the “Customize Portals” page. You can also see them under “Domain Management” on the “Redirected Domains” page.

A lot of doctors like having a domain name that includes the name of the practice or doctor. These URLs are patient-friendly, but don’t rank particularly well with search engines.

If you navigate to “Purchase Domains,” you can search available domain names for the URL of your choice – maybe something like “DrTimothyMcMichaels” or “OakTreeSmiles.” You can then purchase that domain name, and set it to automatically redirect to one of your websites.

That means you can use your patient-friendly URL on your collateral materials. Anyone who types that URL into their browser will automatically be redirected to the targeted website of your choice.

Remember, the “Customize Portals” section of the Control Panel is where you can build and publish your websites. If any of your portals haven’t been published yet, I highly recommend you review their target markets and cities, and then push that “Publish” button!

Add Portal

Adding a web portal to your IDA Marketing Program is easy. Just click “Add New Portal” inside of the Control Panel. The “Launch Add Portal Form” button will walk you through the entire process.

IDA recommends including at least 3-5 portals in a dental practice’s marketing plan, with each portal targeted at a particular type of high-value new patients. For example, a cosmetic dental practice might start out with just 2 portals – one focused on general dentistry, the other on cosmetics. Then, that practice might later expand their internet marketing by adding 2 more portals focusing on Invisalign and tooth whitening. It’s all about the particular types of new patients your practice wants to attract!

The “Remaining Prepaid Portals” box lets you know if you’ve already paid for any portals that you haven’t set up yet. Otherwise, your additional new portal will cost you $68 or $88 a month. Since we already have your billing information on file, you won’t need to enter it again.

The confirmation page tells you how many portals you already have in your marketing campaign. Just use the drop-box to choose how many more portals you want to add. The page will automatically tell you what your additional costs would be.

Then, check the agreement box, and push “Add.” It’s as simple as that!

After you add your new portal, you’ll see it listed in your Control Panel under “Customize Portals.” The first thing to do is to choose which dental market you want to target with this website. It’s also important that you enter your primary city and additional geographic markets.

You’ll also want to pick a website design, but you can change it any time.

Remember, the “Add Portal” button adds a new web portal to your IDA Control Panel. The next step is to quickly set up the website and publish it to the internet.

Portal Design

Web Portal Design, Look & Feel: Control of the look and feel of the graphic design of each of your portals.

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The “Website Design” area in the “Customize Website” section gives you total control of the look and feel of your website. The first tab you’ll see is “Choose a Skin.” Whatever skin you choose will be the basic design template for your entire website.

On the right hand side, you’ll see a library of website skins. You can use the drop-down “Filter” menu to limit your results to specific skins – for example, filter for blue designs. If you see one that you like, you can mouse over the magnifying glass icon to see a larger image. Or, select a skin and then click “Preview” to open up a new browser window and see a sample website with this skin design. If you decide you like it, just click the “Select” button. Your new skin will appear under “Selected Skin,” and your entire website will instantly be updated. You can always change the skin of your website with the click of a button.

The next tab is “Customize Images.” Each skin automatically includes default stock images, but every image is listed here, and you can change any image you want, either to a different stock photo, or to your own custom image. Use the drop-down “Filter” menu in the upper right corner to choose which category of images you want to edit. You’ll see a list of all images in that category – a thumbnail of the image itself, a description of where it is on the website, its dimensions, and other details. If you’re not sure just where this image shows up on your website, click “Show Me” to see an example. You can click “View” to see the full-size version of the image.

If you want to change an image, just click the pencil icon all the way on the right hand side. We have a huge library of stock photos for you to choose from. You can use the drop-down “Category” selector to filter the stock photos. If you don’t want to use our “Stock Images,” you can even upload your own by clicking the “My Images” tab – just be sure to select an image that is the right size.

Now, if you go back to the “Choose a Skin” tab and change to a different skin, the customized images you specified in the “Customize Images” tab will be overwritten with the default images for the new skin you select. So, before you spend a lot of time customizing your images, make sure you’re happy with the skin you’ve selected.

The “Options” tab is important for determining the header of your website. Enter the “Practice Name” as you want it to appear on the website. You can also add “Certification” text like “General Dentist.” Finally, you can also change the slogans that appear in your Flash header. You can write your own, but make sure to keep them short so they will display properly.

Finally, you’ll want to head over to your website to see how it looks! Any website design changes you make in the Control Panel will be reflected on your live site almost instantly. If there are any further changes you want to make, just head on back to the “Website Design” area in the “Customize Website” section until you’re 100% satisfied.

Dental Markets

Dental Markets (Implants, Braces, etc.): Target each portal at one Primary Dental Market and for up to 3 additional markets.

http://www.idahelp.com/dental-markets/

Each IDA website is targeted at one Primary Dental Market, and optionally for up to 3 additional focus areas. You’ll find this information in the “Dental Markets” area of the “Customize Websites” section. Your Primary Dental Market is the one single dental treatment service that you want to target with this website. It may be general dentistry, cosmetic dentistry, implants, braces – whatever types of patients you want to reach.

Choosing your Primary Dental Market is a critical decision. You can change it in the Control Panel at any time, but be careful! Changing your Primary Dental market will automatically change all of the text on your website, and may overwrite some of your customized text. If that website is already ranking in search engines for that target market, changing your primary dental market can cost you search engine ranking – so you should seriously consider adding another website rather than changing the Primary Dental Market.

In addition, you can optionally choose up to three Secondary Dental Markets to feature in your website – you’ll probably want to do that when you set up the website in the Control Panel for the first time. This lets patients know you offer additional services. But remember, each website is specifically geared to make you show up in search engines for the Primary Dental Market.

Geographic Markets

Targeting Local Geographic Markets: Geo-target your portal for your particular area to help local patients find you online.

http://www.idahelp.com/geographic-markets/

The “Geographic Markets” area in the “Customize Websites” section is where you geo-target your website for your particular area -essential to getting local patients to find you online.

A website’s Primary Geographic Market is always the location of the primary practice associated with that website, and will be automatically loaded when the website is first built. You can also add up to four more additional geographic areas that will be listed on your site. This information will help your website appear in the search engines for local searches.

When adding geographic areas, you should target those areas from which you are currently getting the most new patients. These will frequently be neighboring towns or cities, but not always! It all depends how people in your area search for local information. In a big city, you might use neighborhood names; in a rural area, you might use regional identifiers.

Click “New City or Area” to add a geographic market to your list. Enter the name of the city or area, the state, and a ZIP code at the center of that area. The ZIP codes won’t be visible on your website, but they’re added to your website’s programming to help search engines find you. You can use the arrow keys to re-prioritize your list of Geographical Markets.

Portal Logo & Promotional Photos

Web Portal Logo & Promotional Photos: Choose the logo, promotional photos and exact practice name to display on each portal.

http://www.idahelp.com/website-logo-promo-photos/

The “Logo & Promotional Photos” area in the “Customize Websites” section will almost always be very similar to the “Logo & Promotional Photos” area in the “Practice Locations” section, but remember, it’s what you enter here – at the website level, in the “Customize websites” section – that will determine the text that appears on your website. “Practice Name” is how your practice will be referred to on your website, so you’ll probably want to drop the “LLC” or what have you from your formal practice name. The “Certification” level is optional, but certain states may require you to specify that you are, for example, a “general dentist.”

If you don’t have a practice logo, don’t worry – you don’t need one. If you do, select it here. It should be a 200 by 100 pixel image. If you upload a different size, your website may not display quite right. Keep in mind that your logo will look different on your website depending on which website design you choose in the “Website Design” area.

In a single-doctor practice, the promotional photo can be the same as the doctor’s photo. If it’s a group practice, you may want to use a group photo, or just one doctor’s photo – for example, if it’s a cosmetic site, you may feature the practice’s cosmetic dentist. But keep in mind, the promotional photo can be whatever you want – your building, your dog, or even no photo at all. Take a look at the photo on your live site to decide if you like how it looks.

Selected Doctors for Portal

Select Doctors to Display on Portal: Select which doctors are associated with each New Patient Marketing Portal.

http://www.idahelp.com/website-selected-doctors/

All doctor profiles are stored in the “Doctors” section of the Control Panel. In the “Practice Locations” section, you select which doctors are associated with each practice location. Right now, we’re in the “Selected Doctors” area in the “Customize Websites” section, so we’re working on what will be displayed on this particular website.

The list of doctors we have to choose from are all of the doctors associated with this website’s primary practice location. But we may not want every doctor at that location to be shown on this website. For example, if it’s a dentures website, you probably wouldn’t want to list a pediatric dentist on that site.

Multi-doctor practices can customize their website content to reference multiple doctors. By default, your website will read, for example, “Dr. Smith is highly trained in a range of dental options.” If you check the “Use the names below to reference multiple doctors” box, you can change how the copy reads. “Drs. Smith and Jones” – “The doctors at Tiburon Dental Care” – “John & Mary” – Just make sure to choose something plural. Now the website copy reads, “Drs. Smith and Jones are highly trained in a range of dental options.” All copy throughout your website will automatically and instantly be updated when you check this box.

Home Page Features

New Patient Portal Home Page Features: Include pictures, text and links as “Home Page Features” on the main page of each portal.

http://www.idahelp.com/home-page-features/

It’s easiest to understand how much you can do with the “Home Page Features” area of the “Customize Websites” section if you see it on a live website. If you scroll down just a bit on the website’s home page, you can see a list of pictures, text and links. These are “Home Page Features.” When your website is first built, it will not have any home page features. If you do want to display home page features on your website, just go to the Control Panel and check the “Display on Website” box in the top right corner.

You’ll see a list of suggested home page features on the right. If you like one, just select it and click the arrow to add it to the list of current live features on your website. Or click the “New Feature” button to create your own home page feature. I’m going to create a “Smiles for Life” charity promotion now. First, I’ll give the feature a title – that’s the headline that will be displayed on the website. Next, I’ll write descriptive copy in the “Post” box. If you want to, you can also include a link to a page where patients can learn more by pasting the web address into the “URL” box and entering “Link text” like “Click to learn more,” but that’s optional.

Adding a picture to your new feature is also optional, but if you have a photo, why not add it? Click the “Optional Image” tab, then click “Select” add choose an image from your image library, or upload one from your computer. The image should be 125 pixels wide. Click “Save” to save your changes, then check out the new feature on your live site to make sure you’re happy with how it looks.

Edit any feature by clicking the pencil icon, or delete by clicking the trash can icon. Reorder your features with the arrow buttons.

I really want to emphasize what a powerful tool the home page features are when it comes to customizing the content of your website. You can highlight anything you want – products, services, events, awards – whatever you like. You can have home page features that link to your doctor profile, that link to articles you’ve written, even that link to your Facebook page. It’s a fun and easy way to add some zest to your website!

Add Videos to Website

Insert Videos into Your Website: You can insert videos into many places and pages in your website.

http://www.idahelp.com/insert-videos/

In your online Control Panel, you can insert videos into each of your dental websites by clicking “Insert Videos” underneath “Customize Portals.”

You’ll see a list of all the places in this website where you can insert a video. Clicking the “View Portal Page” button will open another window where you can see exactly which page of your website is referenced.

The Home Page is the most important page of your website. There are three places on your home page where you can put video content. You can put a large video in the left column of the page, or you can have a smaller video on the right side of the page, or you can replace the rotating promotion box with a video.

To insert a video into your website, click “Select,” then choose the video you want to put in that location. You can select one of the videos you’re already uploaded, or choose one of IDA’s stock videos. In the “Select video” window, you can view details about each video, see how long it is, and even watch the video itself.

Select the video you want, then click “Save.” You’ll then see your selected video within the Control Panel. Click “View Portal Page” again to see how the video looks on your live website.

If you’re not satisfied, just click the trash can icon to remove that video from your website. The video will still be available in your Video Library, but it will no longer be displayed in that location on your site.

There are three places where you can put videos on your home page, but you don’t want to fill every spot. If you put video everywhere, your website will look cluttered and confusing. No one will know what to watch or where to click.

The exact placement of your video may be slightly different in different website design templates. Which videos you use and where you put them will depend on your web design and marketing goals.

Besides your home page, there are many other pages where you can add video…the Meet the Doctor page…the What We Offer page…the Appointments page…the Dental Info Center page…the Article pages…the dental market main page…the Smile Analysis page…the Financial Arrangements page…the Newsletter Sign-up page…the Employment Opportunities page…and the Post-Treatment instructions and article pages.

Some of the stock videos in the IDA Library are designed for specific pages on your website. These videos quickly tell patients about what they can do on that particular web page…whether it’s the Financial Arrangements page…the Meet Our Doctors page…the What We Offer page…the Dental Articles and Info Center page…you get the idea. You yourself may want to record your own short videos for some of these pages.

You can also fill some of these slots with videos about general dental topics – like tooth decay or dental makeovers – or the specific types of dentistry or dental products you offer – things like dental veneers, implants, or sedation.

You can use ready-made videos from the IDA Basic Library or Premium Subscription Library. You can embed relevant videos from YouTube or other video sharing sites. Or you can record your very own website videos.

If your practice has multiple doctors, it’s a good idea to record an individual video of each doctor.

In the “Doctors” section of the Control Panel, you can manage each doctor’s profile. If you click the “Edit” icon, you’ll see that the dentist’s profile includes space for a doctor video. This video will be shown on that dentist’s “Meet the Doctor” page.

This should be a video of the individual doctor introducing him- or herself…talking about their background…their clinical skills…their accreditations…their personal philosophy…and even mentioning their hobbies, just to give it that personal touch. This lets potential patients feel like they know the doctor, which makes them more likely to request an appointment.

If we go back to “Insert Videos” underneath “Customize Portals,” you’ll see that one of the places where you can add video are the dental market pages. These are search engine optimized pages that offer more information on your primary and secondary dental markets: dental implants, family dentistry, cosmetics, dentures, etc. This is a great place for a video that tells patients more about that particular type of dentistry.

Remember, after you add a video, click “View Portal Page” to preview it on your live website.

Underneath “Customize Portals,” you’ll also see “Video Gallery.” This is a free-form web page where you can add as many videos as you’d like – and it’s totally separate from any videos you added using “Insert Videos.”

To add a video to your gallery, click “Add Video,” select one from “My Videos” or “Stock Videos,” then click “Save.”

Once you add one or more videos, the “Video Gallery” page will appear on your website, with a link to it on the home page of your website. Your videos, their titles and descriptions will be displayed on this page.

It’s up to you what video content you want to display on this page. For example, some doctors use this space for dental patient video testimonials.

You can uncheck the “Display on Portal” box in the top right to hide this page on your website.

To increase the visibility of your Video Gallery, you can add a Home Page Feature to your website that highlights your Video Gallery. If you’re using that page for patient video testimonials, you might add a “Meet Our Patients” or “Video Testimonials” feature to your home page.

If you’re not satisfied with how your videos look or play on your website, go to “My Videos” under “Photos, Videos & Files,” and check out the “Video Troubleshooting Guide.” On this page, you’ll also see any videos you’ve added to your library. Under “Video Libraries,” you can review IDA stock videos available to you.

Display Additional Office

Display Additional Office on Portal: Indicate if you would like to include a secondary practice location on each portal.

http://www.idahelp.com/display-additional-office/

In the “Display Additional Office” area of the “Customize Websites” section, you can indicate if you would like to include a secondary practice location on that website. If you do list an additional location, you’ll see its address displayed on your website right below the first address. It’s a courtesy listing that lets patients know they can choose from multiple locations. But remember, each website is only SEO optimized for that site’s primary location.

Remember, if you don’t see the location you want listed, you can add a new location in the “Practice Locations” section of the Control Panel.

Dental Products

Dental Products & Services: Highlight popular dental products and services that your practice offers.

http://www.idahelp.com/dental-products/

In the “Dental Products” area of the “Customize Websites” section, you can choose to highlight popular products and services that you offer.

You can feature as many of these products as you wish on the “What We Offer” page of your dental website. You can also include up to 6 of them in your website page footers.

Patients can click the logo of any product to learn more about it. These pages are pre-written and will automatically be included in your website according to your product selections. For legal reasons, the text of these pages cannot be edited.

If you want to highlight a product or service that is not on this list of options, you can create your own custom content. In the “Customize Websites” section of the IDA Control Panel, you could add it as a “Home Page Feature,” or you might make it one of your “Promotions.”

Selected Dental Articles

Selected Dental Info Center Articles: Choose which articles to display as part of the “Dental Info Center” on each portal.

http://www.idahelp.com/selected-articles/

In the “Selected Articles” area of the “Customize Websites” section, you can choose which articles to display as part of the “Dental Info Center” on your website. If you do NOT want to include a “Dental Info Center” page on your website, make sure the “Display on Website” box in the top right corner is NOT checked.

We have hundreds of stock articles for you to choose from. Just click the checkbox to the left of the article title if you want to include that one on your website. You can always click “View” on the right to view the text of any article.

With over 300 stock articles to choose from, you might feel overwhelmed with choices. The drop-down “Filter” menu at the top right can really help. You can view articles by topic area, so you can review all the cosmetic dentistry articles and decide which to include. You can also use the filter to view your selected articles, or all the ones you haven’t selected, or all your custom articles.

In the “My Articles” area of the “My Photos & Media” section of the IDA Control Panel, you can edit the stock articles and create your own customized articles. Remember to select them in the “Selected Articles” area of the “Customize Websites” section if you want them to appear on your live website.

Post-Treatment Articles

Post-Treatment Articles for Patients: Include post-treatment instructions from our pre-written library, or write your own.

http://www.idahelp.com/post-treatment-articles/

In the “Post Treatment Articles” area of the “Customize Websites” section, you can select which instructions from our pre-written library you would like to include in the “Post-Treatment Instructions” page of your website. This page will only be a part of your website if the “Display on Website” box in the top right corner is checked. Simply uncheck the box if you do NOT want to have Post-Treatment Instructions on your website.

You can use the drop-down “Filter” menu at the top right to sort through our library. You can view articles by topic area – like “Oral Surgery Post-Op Instructions” – or you can view your selected articles, or all the ones you haven’t selected, or other topic areas. Click “View” to preview the text of any article. Check the box to the left of an article to include it on your website.

When you navigate to the “Post-Treatment Instructions” page of your live website, you’ll see all the instructions you selected in the IDA Control Panel.

Page Footers

Customized Portal Page Footers: Add customized footer content to your portal pages if desired or required by law.

http://www.idahelp.com/footers/

In the “Page Footers” area of the “Customize Websites” section, you can add customized footers to your website pages. Your website already includes basic footer content like copyright and privacy policy; there’s also footer navigation with your practice information automatically merged in.

In the “Page Footers” area of the IDA Control Panel, you can customize the footer on all pages as well as on specific pages of your website. Anything you enter in the “Default Footer” will be displayed on every page of your website as soon as you click “Save.”

You can also add custom footers to any page on your website. You might want to provide extra information, add HTML links, or your state might require you to include specific language for certain dental markets. Whatever it is, you can control here.

You’ll see a list of all the pages on your website. Just click in the cell next to any page to customize its footer text. When you click out of that cell, your information is automatically saved.

For example, if we add a custom footer to the “Dental Info Center” page, we can go to the live website and see that footer instantly updated.

Remember, IDA automatically adds navigation and other footers to your website. The “Page Footers” area is where you can add any custom footer information to your website.

Promotions

Rotating Portal Promotions: Choose the content of rotating promotional offers on each of your web portals.

http://www.idahelp.com/promotions/

The “Promotions” area in the “Customize Websites” section is a powerful and exciting tool. This is where you can choose the content of rotating promotional offers on your site. You don’t need to include them, but it’s a great way to make your site more visually interesting to prospective patients.

There are two different promotional tracks, each appearing on different pages of your website. We recommend using Promotion Track 1 for promotions relating to that website’s Primary Dental Market, and using Promotion Track 2 for more general promotions.

Your website will automatically show a different offer every 10 seconds. Each promotional track can include up to 3 offers; if you already have 3 listed and you want to add another, you’ll have to delete one first. Click the “Suggestions” button if you’d like to select a pre-written offer. Then, once you’ve added it, you can click the pencil icon to edit it. To change the copy, click on the text you want to change in the image at left, then type your edits into the text editor.

You can even change the image by clicking the “Select Background Image” button. You’ll be asked to select a 300 by 250 pixel image. We have a library of stock images for you to choose from, or, if you’re feeling really adventurous, you can even select your own picture from “My Images.” You could even make a promotion that was just your image, and delete all text – it’s all about what you want to promote.

It’s also up to you if you would like the promotion to include a button that patients can click for more information. The “Offer Details” tab is where you will enter more specific details about that offer. Once we’ve completed the promotion, we’ll want to preview it on the live website. If you have entered too much text, the offer may not display properly.

If a patient clicks on the promotional offer to see more, they’re taken to your website’s “Current Specials” page. The patient sees the Headings you entered for each of your offers, selects which promotion interests them, fills out some contact information, and the request is instantly passed on to your office based on the preferences you entered in the “Notifications” area of the “Appointment Management” section. The patient then sees the full details of the offer, and can print out that page to bring with them to their appointment. The patient also gets an email confirmation of their request.

Just one more note: it’s your responsibility to make sure that your offers are consistent with the laws of your state.

Tell a Friend

Tell a Friend about the Dentist: Optionally display a page on your portal where patients can recommend you to their friends.

http://www.idahelp.com/tell-a-friend/

The “Tell a Friend” area in the “Customize Websites” section of the Control Panel lets you optionally display a page on your website where patients can recommend you and your site to their friends. The patient’s friend gets an email recommending the dentist that also includes a special introductory offer. The patient who made the recommendation also gets an email confirmation.

If you want to include this feature on your website, go to the “Tell a Friend” area of the Control Panel and make sure the “Display on Website” box in the top right corner is checked. If you do not want a “Tell a Friend” page on your website, uncheck this box.

What you see on this page is the content of the email that will be sent to the patient’s friend. It includes merge fields in curly brackets where your information will automatically appear. You can customize the email’s subject line and the message text. IDA also recommends including a special offer. You can choose one of our pre-written suggestions by selecting it from the drop-down list. Edit it however you like, or write your own. Click save when you’re finished. If you don’t like your changes, you can always hit “Reset” to return to the default text.

How to Choose a Dentist

Top 10 Ways to Choose a Dentist: Customize the content of the “Top 10 Critical Things To Know Before You Select a Dentist.”

http://www.idahelp.com/how-to-choose-a-dentist/

The “How to Choose a Dentist” area of the “Customize Websites” section links to the “Top 10 Critical Things You Should Know Before You Select a Dentist” button on your website.

When patients click that button on your website, they’ll be taken to a printable flyer that offers more information on how to choose a dentist in this particular dental market. This page includes your practice’s contact information.

If you want this to be displayed on your website, make sure the “Display on Website” box in the top right corner is checked. If you uncheck this box, “The Top 10 Things” will disappear from your website.

You can write a few introductory sentences of your own, or you can use the General Statement we have provided. Then, choose items to add to your Top 10 List from our list of suggestions at right. You’ll notice that these are all related to the website’s Primary Dental Market.

You can use the arrow keys to re-order your list of 10 items. Edit any item by clicking the pencil icon, or delete it with the trash can icon. If you’d like to write your own, just click “New Item.” Enter a heading and write a few sentences, then click “Save” to add it to your list. You can always click “Reset” to get back to our standard default text.

This is a powerful addition to your website, because it gives patients an actual page they can print out and hold onto. The page includes your practice name, address, phone number and website, as well as your practice’s logo and promotional photo.

If you would like to change the image on the “Top 10 Critical Things You Should Know Before You Select a Dentist” button, go to the “Website design” area of the “Customize Websites” section and click the “Customize Images” tab. Select “Miscellaneous Images” from the drop-down filter menu, and you’ll see this image. Click the pencil icon next to it to edit it. IDA has a library of stock images you can choose for the background. Choose an image, click “select,” and your live website will be updated right away.

Smile Analysis

Free Smile Analysis Offer: Include an offer for a “Smile Analysis” or “Free Smile Analysis” on your portal.

http://www.idahelp.com/smile-analysis/

In the “Smile Analysis” area of the “Customize Websites” section, you can include an offer for a “Free Smile Analysis” on your website. IDA highly recommends this, as free consultations often convert to high-value new patients. Prospective patients just fill out an online form and your office is automatically notified.

In the “Smile Analysis” area of the IDA Control Panel, you can control how this appears on your website. If you uncheck the “Display on Website” box in the top right corner, the Smile Analysis page will disappear from your website. But since it’s a valuable tool for attracting new patients, you’ll probably want to leave that box checked.

You can also decide if you want to offer a “Free” Smile Analysis or not. Check the box to indicate if you would like your website’s navigation to say “Free Smile Analysis” or just “Smile Analysis.”

In the “Web” tab, you can edit the heading and text that will appear on that page of your website. If you’ve decided not to offer free consults, you’ll want to remove the word “Free,” then click “Save.”

In the “Confirmation” tab, you can edit the text of the confirmation page your patients will see on your website after they submit the smile analysis form on your site.

After the patient submits the form online, they are automatically sent a confirmation email, and your office is notified.

If you’d like to attract even more new patients with this offer, you could add this link to your newsletters, your website home page features, or your rotating promotions.

Office Tour

Online Dental Office Tour: Add an “Office Tour” to your portal with photos of your office and treatment rooms.

http://www.idahelp.com/office-tour/

In the “Office Tour” area of the “Customize Websites” section, you can optionally add an “Office Tour” to your website. To include an Office Tour on your website, make sure the “Display on website” box in the top right-hand corner is checked. Use the drop-down menu under “Layout” to choose your page layout, either slideshow format, or all on one page.

Click “New Photo” to add an image. For best results, choose pictures in landscape orientation that are 400 pixels wide. You can also write descriptive text, then click “Save.” You can edit photos and text by clicking the pencil icon, delete them with the trash can icon, and use the arrow keys to re-order them. There is no limit to how many photos you can put in, but we suggest no more than 15.

If you would like to copy the Office Tour from one of your websites to another, just click the “Copy from another website” link at the bottom of the page. You can instantly import the entire Office Tour with the click of a button.

When you’re finished, check out the Office Tour on your live website. Your Office Tour is an easy way to make new patients feel welcome at your practice even before they walk in the door.

Smile Gallery

Patient Smile Gallery: Decide if you would like to display pictures of your best work in a “Smile Gallery.”

http://www.idahelp.com/smile-gallery/

In the “Smile Gallery” area of the “Customize Websites” section, you can decide if you would like to display pictures of your best work.

If you would like to include a Smile Gallery on your website, make sure the “Display on website” box in the top right-hand corner is checked. Then, use the drop-down menu under “Layout” to choose which page layout style you’d like to use. You might choose to display before photos side-by-side with after photos, or you might want to highlight only the “After” photos, or you may want to include descriptive text. Whatever layout you choose will apply to all the photos in your Smile Gallery, which will be displayed in slideshow format on your website.

The Smile Gallery will not show up on your website until you’ve added photos by clicking “Upload Photo Set.” You’ll be prompted to upload from one to three photos; the uploader will tell you what size they should be to display properly. A very important note: you must obtain written consent from patients before you can use their images on your website. This is your responsibility.

In addition to uploading photos, you can also write text or captions that describe more, then click “Save.” You can edit photo sets by clicking the pencil icon, delete them with the trash can icon, and use the arrow keys to re-order them.

Then check out the Smile Gallery on your live website. If you don’t like the layout, you can select another layout style. However, since different styles have different photo requirements, you will need to re-upload your photo sets if you change layout styles.

If you would like to copy the Smile Gallery from one of your websites to another, just click the “Copy from another website” link at the bottom of the page. You can automatically import the entire Smile Gallery with just the click of a button.

Patient Testimonials

Patient Testimonials: Choose if you’d like to display pictures and comments from satisfied patients.

http://www.idahelp.com/testimonials/

In the “Testimonials” area of the “Customize Websites” section, you can choose if you’d like to display pictures and comments from satisfied patients. Make sure the “Display on website” box in the top right-hand corner is checked if you want to include a “What Patients Say” page on your website. The drop-down menu under “Layout” lets you pick your page layout style – that is, if you want the photos to be on the right or left side of the text.

Click “New Testimonial” to add one. You must enter the patient’s name – probably just a first name or initials. You also must enter the text of their testimonial. Adding the patient’s photo is optional, but a photo really increases the impact of a testimonial. But remember, it is your responsibility to obtain written consent from patients before using their images on your website.

You can edit testimonials by clicking the pencil icon, delete them with the trash can icon, and use the arrow keys to re-order them. If you would like to copy testimonials from one of your websites to another, just click the “Copy from another website” link at the bottom of the page to instantly import all testimonials.

Then check out the “What Patients Say” page on your live website. Looks great, right? Testimonials are a powerful way to attract new patients. Plus, your testimonials are automatically tagged with HTML code that improves your search engine positioning.

Meet Our Team

Meet Our Team Members: Optionally display pictures and more information about your team members.

http://www.idahelp.com/meet-our-team/

In the “Meet Our Team” area of the “Customize Websites” section, you can optionally decide to display pictures and more information about your team members.

Make sure the “Display on website” box in the top right-hand corner is checked to include a “Meet Our Team” page on your website. Use the drop-down menu under “Layout” to select your page layout style: larger photos with a description beneath, or individual photos placed either to the right or to the left of the text.

Click “New Photo” to add an image. For best results, choose a picture in landscape orientation that is 400 pixels wide – and remember, it is your responsibility to get written consent from anyone whose picture is on your website. You will also probably want to write some descriptive text describing who is shown in the photo.

You can edit entries by clicking the pencil icon, delete them with the trash can icon, and use the arrow keys to re-order them. If you would like to copy the “Meet Our Team” page from one of your websites to another, just click the “Copy from another website” link at the bottom of the page.

Then take a look at the “Meet Our Team” page on your live website. You could display a single group photo, or you can list team members individually – whatever works best for your practice.

Family Album

Dental Practice Family Album: Showcase more details about yourself, your patients, team, family, pets, hobbies, etc.

http://www.idahelp.com/family-album/

In the “Family Album” area of the “Customize Websites” section, you can showcase more details about yourself, your patients, your team, your family, your pets, your hobbies, your favorite charities – whatever you want. To include this page on your site, make sure the “Display on Website” box in the top right-hand corner is checked.

Select from three different layouts to determine how this page will look, and if your pictures will be displayed as a list or slideshow. Then, just click “New Photo.” You’ll be prompted to select an image that is 450 pixels wide, and you can optionally include a caption.

Edit text and photos by clicking the pencil icon, delete them with the trash can icon, and use the arrow keys to re-order them. If you would like to copy the “Family Album” from another of your websites, just click the “Copy from another website” link at the bottom of the page.

Then head over to your live website and take a look at the “Family Album.” Remember, it’s your responsibility to obtain written consent from anyone whose image you use on your website. But keep in mind, you don’t have to feature pictures of patients or family here – you can make an album of whatever you like!

Video Gallery

http://www.idahelp.com/dental-website-video-gallery/

There are many ways to incorporate video into your IDA dental website.

Under “Video Libraries,” you’ll see that you can use stock videos from our Basic Video Library, or subscribe to our Premium Library for access to even more pre-made videos.

Under “My Videos,” you can upload the MP4 files of any videos you’ve made yourself, or you can embed videos from YouTube, Vimeo, or other video sharing websites.

Under “Insert Videos,” you can insert videos not just on your home page but into many different pages of your web portal.

Under “Video Gallery,” you can create a page on your website that features any videos you like, such as patient video testimonials.

Under “Home Page Features,” you can add a link on your home page that highlights your Video Gallery.

Under “Doctors,” you can add a personal video to each doctor’s profile.

Remember, adding video to your website helps you attract more new dental patients.

Doctor’s Blog Display Link

Doctor’s Blog Display Link: Optionally add the content of the doctor’s external blog to your IDA portals.

http://www.idahelp.com/blog-display-link/

If you already have your own blog, you can optionally add that content through the “Blog Display Link” area of the “Customize Websites” section. First, make sure to check the “Display on Website” box in the top right corner. Next, you can add a title and subtitle, and select which doctor is the author of this blog. Then, just paste the URL web address of your blog’s RSS feed. You can find this link by going to your blog and clicking the “RSS feed” button.

This is not where you go to add new posts to your blog. Your blog posts will be displayed on the “Doctor’s Blog” page of your dental practice website, but the content is actually coming from your external blog – the RSS URL you’ve specified here. You must continue to maintain your blog separately from this control panel, but all posts will now automatically show up on this website as well.

If you don’t have a blog already, but you want to add one to your website, take a look at the “Practice News” area of the “Customize Websites” section, where you can make blog-style posts, upload pictures, add links, and more.

Practice News

Dental Practice News: Easily add your own custom content to your portals in the “Practice News” area.

http://www.idahelp.com/practice-news/

The “Practice News” area of the “Customize Websites” section lets you easily add custom content to your website. To include a “News & Articles” page on your site, make sure the “Display on Website” box in the top right-hand corner is checked.

To add a news item, click “New Post.” Add a title, specify the author, and change the date if you want to. Type in the content of your post. If you want, you can add an image to your post. When you’re done, click “Save.” You can always go back and edit a post by clicking the pencil icon, or delete one by clicking the trash can icon.

Then head over to your live website and take a look at the “News & Articles” page to see how it looks. This page offers you lots of flexibility, letting you highlight whatever’s most important to you and your practice. You can use the “Practice News” area almost like a blog to keep your patients up to date on your latest news.

More Information

Display More Information: Add customized content to your marketing portals, like links to other portals.

http://www.idahelp.com/more-information/

The “More Information” area of the “Customize Websites” section lets you add customized content to your site, like links to other websites. To include a “More Information” page on your site, make sure the “Display on Website” box in the top right-hand corner is checked.

To add a news item, click “New Post.” Add a title and type in the content of your post. If you want, you can add an image. If you want to include a link, paste the URL web address you want to link to in the “URL” box, and enter how you want the link to appear in the “Link Text” box. When you’re done, click “Save.” You can always go back and edit a post by clicking the pencil icon, delete one by clicking the trash can icon, or use the arrow keys to re-order them

Then head over to your live website and take a look at the “More Information” page to see how it looks. This page lets you easily share links and other information with your patients. You can include links to whatever websites you want – organizations, informational resources, community pages, your friends’ pages, or any other website you want to share.

Community Information

Local Community Information: Add geo-targeted text with local keywords about the communities you serve.

http://www.idahelp.com/community-information/

The “Community Info” area of the “Customize Websites” section is where you can optionally add more information about the communities you serve. Having geo-targeted text that includes local keywords will improve your search engine optimization for local searches.

The communities listed are the 5 cities, towns or areas that you specified in the “Geographic Markets” area of the Control Panel, as well as your county. You can write up to three paragraphs of text for each, but you don’t need to enter anything here. The Control Panel offers suggestions as to what you might write, like the physical appearance of the location, its history, industries and resources.

This information will appear on the local geo-targeted pages of your website. If you scroll to the very bottom of your website, you’ll see links that include your geographic markets. Click one to see that area’s geo-targeted page. Scroll down, and on the right-hand sidebar you’ll see the “Community Information” text you entered in the Control Panel.

To improve your website’s search engine positioning, make sure your text includes the name of the city or town, maybe the state, and any other keyword terms local people might search for on the Internet.

Media File Locker

My Photos & Media Overview

My Photos & Media Overview: Upload or edit customized content like photos, logos, forms, documents, and articles.

http://www.idahelp.com/my-photos-and-media/

The “My Photos & Media” section is your personal library where you can upload all the customized content you want on your website -photos and logos, forms and documents, and articles you’ve written or edited.

Uploading content to the “My Photos & Media” section does not automatically add that content to your website. In other areas of the Control Panel, you select where to display that content.

The first thing you’ll probably want to upload here are doctor photos, because they add an important personal touch to your website. We provide lots of stock images for you to choose from, but if you want to display any of your own images, you will need to upload them from your computer first. All these custom images are stored in the “My Images” section.

If you want to let patients download forms, instructions, or other documents from your website, you first need to upload them to “My Documents.” The documents must be in Adobe PDF format.

The “My Articles” section is where you can save your own articles for your website’s Dental Info Center. You can save your personal edits to our stock articles, or you can write your own articles from scratch.

Remember, adding custom content to your website is a two-step process: first, upload it to “My Photos & Media;” then, select where you want to display it from the relevant area of the Control Panel.

My Images

Custom Image Library: Upload custom images to display on your portals, like logo, doctors, and smile gallery.

http://www.idahelp.com/my-images/

All of the images displayed on your website are stored in the “My Images” area, where they’re organized alphabetically by file name. You’ll want to upload some of your own custom images from your computer to your “My Images” section: doctor photos, logo, pictures of your facility – even a smile gallery or family photos – it’s up to you.

Click “Upload image” to add a new picture to your image library. Click “Browse” to find the image you want on your computer; we accept jpeg, gif or png formats. Then click “Add Image to Library,” and it will appear in your library of images.

Remember, any image you want to show on your site must be uploaded here first. Getting a picture to show up on your website is a two-step process. First, you upload the image to the “My Images” section of the control panel. Next, you choose where you want the image to appear; you’ll make those selections in other sections of the Control Panel.

You can select particular images in the “Customize Websites” area. If the image is associated with a particular facility location, you can select it in the “Practice Locations” section. If the image is associated with a particular doctor, like a photo, you can link it to the doctor in the “Doctors” section.

Below each image, you’ll see two numbers that indicate how many pixels wide and tall the image is. It’s very important to be aware of the size of your images, because your website will look best if you’ve sized your images correctly. For instance, when uploading a doctor photo, you will be instructed to select an image that is 120 pixels wide by 150 pixels tall. Most image or photo editing software lets you easily crop and resize images, or IDA can assist you.

It’s pretty hard to make an IDA website look bad, but it’s important to use the right size images to make your website look as good as possible.

My Videos: Paste HTML

Upload Videos via HTML Snippets: Add videos from video-sharing websites other than YouTube or Vimeo with HTML snippets.

http://www.idahelp.com/my-dental-website-videos/

Adding video to your dental website is easy with the online Control Panel. You can use IDA’s stock videos, or add your own videos.

Go to “My Videos” underneath “Photos, Videos & Files.” Click the “Add Video” to add your own. You can upload an MP4 file from your computer, or embed videos from YouTube or Vimeo.

To add videos hosted on sites other than YouTube or Vimeo, select the “Paste HTML” option. Here, you’ll paste the snippet of code provided by that video sharing website. You can usually find this by clicking a button labeled “Embed,” “Code,” or “Share.”

You’ll see HTML embed code that starts with an angled bracket. Copy all of this code and paste it into the Control Panel.

If you can’t click the “Next” button, try minimizing the browser or opening another program. When you go back, the “Next” button should be clickable.

Then add your video title. It’s also a good idea to write a description; this will be shown on your website. You can also add tags, which won’t be visible, but will improve your search engine results positioning.

When you click “Next,” you’ll see that the thumbnail image says, “No Image Available,” and the clip is of an unknown duration. That’s okay. Since the video is hosted on an outside website, the Control Panel does not know this information. Click “Save” and then close the window.

The HTML Snippet videos look a little different inside of your Control Panel. But don’t worry. When you add one of these videos to your website, it will in fact have a still image, and it won’t be zero seconds long. That’s just how it appears within the Control Panel.

You can than add this video to your website by using the “Insert Videos” interface underneath “Customize Portals.” Videos can also be added to your portal’s “Video Gallery,” or to individual doctor profiles. If you’re not satisfied with how your videos look or play on your website, check out the “Video Troubleshooting Guide” and “Video Specifications” for technical details, including recommended video size.

My Documents

Documents & Patient Forms: Upload or customize forms or documents: medical history, privacy policy, brochures, etc.

http://www.idahelp.com/my-documents-2/

The “My Documents” section is where you can upload your own patient forms or other documents you’d like to make available on your website. Most likely, these forms will be things like new patient registration forms, medical history, privacy policy notifications, post-treatment instructions, brochures, etc. We’ve provided generic forms that you can customize in Microsoft Word. Just click “Download” to save the file to your computer, then edit it and add your custom practice information.

All of your forms MUST be uploaded in Adobe PDF format. There are a lot of ways to make PDFs, but one of the easiest ways is to use Microsoft Word. In some older versions, there is a “Print to PDF” option. In the newest version, all you do is click “Save As…,” then select “PDF” from the drop-down list. Since it’s an online form, we don’t want the file size to be too big, so we’ll select “Minimum size (publishing online).” Click “Save,” and boom – you’ve created a PDF.

Uploading a PDF is easy. Click “Upload Document,” then “Browse” to find the file you want to upload. Give the form a title and brief description, then click “Add to library.” The form will then show up on your alphabetical list of “My Documents.” Once the documents are in your “My Documents” library, you can choose which ones to share with patients by going to the “Practice Locations” section of the Control Panel and selecting “Patient Forms.”

My Articles

Customizable Article Library: Choose, write, or edit articles to include in the “Dental Info Center” on your portal.

http://www.idahelp.com/my-articles/

Any articles you choose to make available to your patients will be displayed as part of the “Dental Info Center” on your website. You don’t even have to do any writing; we provide hundreds of stock articles for you to choose from, organized by topic area; just click “View” to preview each article. You can use them as they are, or you can click “Customize” to edit the articles however you please, then “Add” them to your library of articles. Or, click “New Article” to write your own article from scratch.

You’ll see your list of articles at the top of the page. Click the trash can icon to remove an article from your library, or click the pencil icon to edit it. You’ll see that each article is assigned to a topic area. You’ll also notice that each article has a status of either “Draft” or “Final.” Your website will not include any articles with “Draft” status, so when you’re ready to publish the article, change its status to “Final.” The text of the article is shown in HTML, but you don’t need be a programmer to edit the text. All you need to know is that the little “p” tags indicate paragraph breaks.

If you click the “SEO” tab (that’s short for “search engine optimization”), you’ll see the title, description and keywords for the article. If you choose to edit this content, don’t mess with the text in curly brackets – those are merge codes where your personal information will automatically appear. Finally, there’s a “Notes” tab where you can keep private notes that will not be visible to website visitors.

Uploading an article to the “My Articles” section does NOT automatically include the article in your website – that takes just one more step. In the “Customize Websites” section of the control panel, click “Selected Articles” to choose exactly which articles from your library will appear on that particular website.

If you want to include stock articles, there is no need to load them in the “My Articles” section. You can select stock articles directly from the “Selected Articles” area of the “Customize Website” section.

Reports & Tracking

Appointment Notifications

Appointment Notifications: Select exactly how you want to be notified for each type of new patient leads.

http://www.idahelp.com/notifications/

The “Notifications” area of the “Appointment Management” section is a very important part of the Control Panel. Here, you select exactly how you’ll be notified of new patient leads – and you must set this up for your lead tracking to work properly!

At the top of the page, you’ll see a list of all your locations. You can edit the contact information for each location by clicking the pencil icon. You can enter an email address, a fax number, a cell phone number for SMS text messages, and a telephone number for voice messages. This information will probably be different for each of your practice locations.

Click on any location, and the Notification options for that location will be displayed on the bottom half of the page. You’ll see a list of all the various types of leads that your IDA website can generate – things like Appointment Requests, Emails to the Doctor, or Newsletter Signups. For each type of lead, you choose how you’d like to be notified. Check the boxes to indicate if you’d like to get an automatic email, fax, text message or voicemail.

To offer you the most flexibility with your notifications, the contact information you enter here will not be overwritten if you change your contact information elsewhere in the Control Panel. And remember, even if you add your personal email or cell phone number to the Notifications list, patients never see the contact information you enter here in the “Notifications” area.

Call Tracking

Call Tracking & Call Recording: Turn on Call Recording and Call Tracking to record calls and track caller information.

http://www.idahelp.com/call-tracking/

In the “Call Tracking” area of the “Appointment Management” section, you can turn on Call Recording and Call Tracking for new patient leads. We can track information about incoming calls, including the caller’s name, location, phone number, the length of their call – even a recording of the call itself that you can review at any time – all of which lets you make sure your team follows up on appointment requests.

You’ll see a list of your websites and campaigns in the “Call Tracking” area. Your 1stDDS dental directory campaign will probably already be listed, but you’ll probably also want to add your website or sites by selecting from the drop-down list at the bottom of the page and clicking “Add Selected Website.”

Adding a website takes a moment, because IDA is automatically assigning a toll-free appointment request phone number to your website. This number lets us track the information about patient requests that is displayed in the “Lead Tracking” area of the “Reports” section.

Call Recording will automatically be enabled, but you can turn it off if you do not want these phone calls to be recorded. You can also choose to “Pause” the tracking on that phone number if you want.

If you’re planning to record calls, you should have each team member sign a release form acknowledging that they may be recorded on the telephone.

Remember, the “Call Tracking” area of the “Appointment Management” section is where you can turn on and off Call Recording and Call Tracking. You can review the tracking information and listen to the recordings in the “Lead Tracking” area of the “Reports” section.

Lead Tracking Reports

Lead Tracking Reports: Review a comprehensive list of all of the new patient leads from your IDA marketing.

http://www.idahelp.com/lead-tracking/

You can review all leads generated by your IDA marketing in the “Reports” section of the IDA Control Panel: listen to call recordings, view new patient graphs, and download your lead tracking data.

The first report, on the overall “Review Leads” page, summarizes all your new patient leads.

At the top of the page, you’ll see a graph that displays all of your leads, grouped by month. Expand or reduce the shaded area to control the time period you want to include in this comprehensive list of all your new patient leads.

In the drop-down “Lead Sources” box, you can further filter your results. Review leads from a particular web portal, from your directory marketing, or for a specific practice location.

The checkboxes let you choose if you want your filtered results to include leads from web forms, emails, and telephone calls.

To the right, you’ll see your “Lead Counts.” The “Total Leads” are all patient leads generated by your IDA marketing for as long as your account has been active. The “Filtered Leads” are the ones that match the criteria you’ve selected. Each lead is listed individually below.

If you’ve turned on Call Tracking and Call Recording in the “Call Tracking” area of the “Appointment Management” section, you’ll also see a list of everyone who called the toll-free number on your website to request an appointment. In your report, you’ll see a speaker icon next to the call. That means you can listen to a recording of that call – just use the player below to control it. Monitoring these calls can give you valuable insights into how well your front office is converting these calls to actual appointments.

You’ll see a variety of information about each lead, including when the lead came in. If available, the report will include the contact’s name. You can also see the contact’s city, state and ZIP code, plus their phone number, and maybe their email address. The duration of phone calls is listed.

The “Source” column tells you which web portal generated the lead. The “Type” column shows what sort of lead it is – a phone inquiry, appointment request, response to a website promotion, smile analysis, or what have you.

You can export this data to another program such as Microsoft Excel or Word, or as a CSV database file – so you can conduct whatever sort of data analysis or review you want.

But for most doctors, the IDA Control Panel provides all the lead reporting you could ever need!

You can also review lead reports based on City, Postal Code, Dental Market, and Lead Type. You have the same filtering options, and you can export these reports, too.

The “Leads by City” report page shows you a pie chart of all the cities from which you’ve gotten leads. Which cities are generating the most new patients for you? Are these the same cities you’re targeting in the “Geographic Markets” area of the “Customize Portals” section? If not, you might want to reconsider your geo-targeting! If you’re getting lots of new patients from a city, you should include that city as a targeted geographic market.

The “Leads by Postal Code” report is similar, except it tracks ZIP codes instead of city names. This gives you even more precise geographic information – especially in large cities with many ZIP codes.

In the “Geographic Markets” area, you don’t just choose five cities to target – you choose ZIP codes, too. IDA uses both the city names and the ZIP codes to maximize your search engine visibility.

The “Leads by Dental Market” lets you see how the different dental markets you’re targeting compare to each other. Here, you can see that the Cosmetic Dentistry portal is generating the most new patients, followed by the portal targeted at Orthodontic patients. The Dentures and Dental Implants portals are generating comparatively fewer patients.

In the “Leads by Type” report, you’ll learn more about what’s motivating patients to contact you. See how many phone inquiries you get, compared to how many online appointment requests. You’ll also see if you’re getting free smile analysis or recare appointment requests.

Remember, the “Notifications” area of the “Appointment Management” section is where you can specify how you would like your office or offices to be notified of each new lead.

Just visit the “Reports” section of the Control Panel, anytime, to view customized reports with the latest data. And don’t forget that you can review all of your call recordings on the overall “Review Leads” page. Turn call Tracking and recording on and off in the “Appointment Management” section.

Email

Email Post Office

Email Post Office Capabilities: Set up a virtual “Post Office” on a domain you own, and check your email.

http://www.idahelp.com/post-office/

The “Post Office” area of the “Email Hosting” section is where you can turn on email capabilities for your website domains. To set up email, first you need to set up a virtual “Post Office” on a domain you own. Next, you’ll go to the “Mailboxes” area to set up individual email accounts.

Initially, you won’t have any post office domains listed. To begin, click “Add domain to post office.” The first domain name you add will become your primary post office domain. You can add more URLs later, but these will secondary post office domain names.

Select one of your active URLs – this is what will appear after the “@” in your new email address – then click “Add.” And that’s all you have to do on this page! You’ll head over to the “Mailboxes” area next to set up email accounts on this post office.

Once you’ve set up those accounts, you can access your email online through the webmail link shown. You’ll use this same link, on this primary post office domain name, to access webmail for all of your email accounts, even if the email address is associated with one of your other domains. You might want to bookmark this link. You can also use the information shown under “Email client settings” to access this email through your own email program.

Many doctors set up email for themselves and their team members on their primary domain name. But if you have multiple website domain names, you can set up email mailboxes on multiple domains – it’s entirely up to you.

Now that you’ve set up your virtual “Post Office,” head on over to the “Mailboxes” area to create individual email accounts.

Email Mailboxes

Setting Up Email Mailboxes: Set up and manage individual email addresses for all of your IDA marketing domain names.

http://www.idahelp.com/mailboxes/

In the “Mailboxes” area of the “Email Hosting” section, you can set up and manage individual email addresses for all of your domain names. To do this, you’ll need to have first set up a virtual post office in the “Post Office” area for every domain name that you want to have email.

Just click “Add Mailbox.” The “Mailbox Name” is what will appear before the “@” in the email address itself, while “Owner” is the person’s full name. Select a password here, then click “Create.” On the right hand side of the page, you’ll see the new email address you just created. You can edit an email account’s information by clicking the pencil icon, or delete it with the trash can icon.

If you’re trying to find the webmail link so you can check your email online, you’ll find that in the “Post Office” area. If you’re trying to set up email accounts on multiple domains, refer to the advanced strategy video.

Advanced Email Setup

Advanced Email Setup: Add email accounts to additional IDA web marketing domains you own.

http://www.idahelp.com/mailboxes/

If you’re trying to set up email accounts on multiple domains, you’ll need to go the “Post Office” area of the “Email Hosting” section. The first domain name you add will become your primary post office domain. Then you can add more URLs as secondary post office domain names, setting up a virtual post office for every domain name that you want to have email.

Then, in the “Mailboxes” area, you can set up your first email account mailbox by clicking “Add Mailbox.” You can add additional accounts by clicking the “Add Mailbox” button.

However, these email accounts will all be on the same domain name. What if you want to set up an email account in a different domain name? Instead of clicking the “Add Mailbox” button on the lower left, you’ll instead select the person’s mailbox from on the left hand side, then click the “Add Email” button on the lower right. You’ll be prompted to enter a mailbox name – that’s what will appear before the “@” in the email address itself – and choose from the drop-down menu of your domain names. To get a domain name to show up on this list, you must set up a virtual post office in the “Post Office” area. Click “Create,” and you’ve made the email address!

You’ll see that that multiple email addresses, listed on the left, can be associated with a single person’s mailbox. This lets you and your team members have a single email inbox where you receive emails sent to any of your email addresses.

You can change the password of any email mailbox just by clicking the pencil icon. If you want to delete email addresses – for example, because a team member has left your practice – just click the trash can icon.

All of these email accounts can be checked online. If you’re trying to find the webmail link so you can check your email online, you can always find that in the “Post Office” area. The webmail link there, on the primary post office domain name, will let you access webmail for all of your email accounts, even if the email address is associated with another of your other domains.

External Email Hosting

External Email Hosting: Host email externally for any of your IDA web marketing domains.

http://www.idahelp.com/external-hosting/

The “External Hosting” area of the “Email Hosting” section is for if you’re already hosting your email with another provider. You can check your email online with the webmail link listed in the “Post Office” area, but if you don’t want to use the built-in post office functionality, you don’t have to.

To add an external email provider, just click “Add Domain.” Choose a domain from the drop-down list. The only domains you will see on this drop-down list are domains that do not have virtual Post Offices set up on them. Next, choose your email provider from the drop-down list that includes the most commonly used email providers.

If you do not see your email provider listed, select “Other.” You’ll need to provide the DNS MX and DNS SPF settings for your provider.

And that’s all you need to do here in the IDA Control Panel. You’ll now be able to manage email on that domain name from the external website you use as your email provider.

Domains

About Domain Names

Domains

Domain names – also known as URLs – are the internet “addresses” for websites that often end in “.com.”

Each of your IDA web portals has its own URL. When you publish a portal, IDA’s system automatically generates a domain name for your website. This search engine optimized domain name will maximize your portal’s placement in search engine listings for your geographic and dental markets.

IDA handles the entire registration process, pays the initial domain name registration fee, and manages renewal.

The URLs for your portals are selected automatically when you publish them. These domain names are search engine optimized to rank highly on Google, Yahoo and Bing by including your dental market and geographic location. These auto-generated URLs cannot be changed.

Since your entire portal – and its URL – is designed to target a single dental market, you should take care when it comes to your primary dental market! Changing a portal’s market focus after you’ve published it can have serious negative consequences for your internet dental marketing. The portal will lose search engine positioning, and its permanent marketing URL may no longer match its market focus.

Instead of changing the focus of a portal that’s already live on the internet, we highly recommend adding a new portal. You can do that at any time just by clicking the “Add New Portal” button on the “Customize Portals” page.

While every portal gets its own Search Engine Optimized Domain Name, you don’t need to use that URL as your dental practice’s primary web address! As part of your complete IDA marketing campaign, you can choose your own marketing domain name. Many doctors choose URLs like “DrBobSmiles,” “SmithDDS,” or “OakTreeDentistry.” You can set this URL to automatically redirect to any one of your web portals. You can use your marketing domain name on your communications and collateral, send patients there, even set up e-mail accounts. You can even choose additional marketing domain names for a nominal fee.

If you already have your own domain name, you can attach it to an IDA web portal. Patients who visit that URL will automatically be redirected to the IDA web portal of your choice.

Should you leave IDA, you will be able to keep any domain names you already own, as well as your marketing domain name if you would like to maintain control of the URL you selected. IDA will keep ownership of all Search Engine Optimized Domain Names auto- generated by IDA.

Under “My Account,” click “Terms of Service” for full details on IDA’s internet domain name policy. Our policies are designed to protect our clients’ website security, maximize the search engine positioning of our web portals, and to make the administrative maintenance of the portals as efficient as possible.

The “Domain Management” section of the Control Panel puts you in charge.

On the “Purchase Domains” page, you can select your own URL and check its availability. Remember, this isn’t the same thing as adding a new portal. You’re not making a website. All you’re doing here is purchasing a domain name – a URL – a website address, not the website itself.

If you find a domain name you want, and it’s available, just click the “Purchase” button to buy it. You get one prepaid marketing domain name at no cost as part of your IDA membership, and you can buy more for a minimal annual fee.

When you purchase a domain name, it’s up to you what you want to do with it. You can manage this on the “Redirected Domains” page. If you’ve set up any website forwarding, you’ll see it here.

A domain redirect means that when a patient enters in one web address, they are automatically sent to another website. If you imagine that a website is like an office building, then domain names are like phone numbers. You can set up as many different phone numbers as you want that all feed into the same office building.

So you can choose your own marketing URL – or use one you already own – and have it redirect to one of your IDA web portals. In fact, you could have dozens of web domains that all redirect to the same website. If you have any extra URLs, you can click “New Redirected Domain” to choose which website will be displayed when people visit that URL.

When you realize that websites and domain names aren’t the same thing, you can truly start to unlock the power of internet marketing.

Redirected Domains

Redirected Web Domains: Set up website forwarding, so that one URL automatically redirects to another address.

http://www.idahelp.com/redirected-domains/

The “Redirected Domains” area of the “Domain Ownership” section lets you set up website forwarding, so that anyone who goes to a particular URL web address is automatically redirected to another web address.

If you click “New Redirected Domain,” you’ll be asked to assign the redirected domain name. The first domain name you select is the one that will be redirected. The second domain name you select is the one where people will actually be sent. So all of the actual website content lives on the second URL, but people can get to it even if they type in the first URL -that is, if they go to the first domain, they will be automatically redirected to the second domain.

You can add as many new domains as you’d like in the “Purchase Domains” area. Purchasing additional domain names can increase your Internet presence. And remember, the “Redirected Domains” area lets you associate multiple domain names with a single website.

Purchase Domains

Purchase Marketing Domains: Purchase additional marketing domain names to increase your web presence.

http://www.idahelp.com/purchase-domains/

In the “Purchase Domains” area of the “Domain Ownership” section, you can quickly and easily purchase additional domain names.

To see if a domain is available, type in the domain name you want – and don’t forget to add the “.com” on the end – then click the “Check availability” button. The Control Panel will let you know if that URL is available or not. If it is, all you have to do is click “Purchase” to buy the domain name. Additional domain names only cost you $10 a year and will automatically be billed to your account.

Once you’ve purchased a new domain name, you can click “Domain Ownership” and see it listed with the other domains you own. Click the button next to any domain to get a full list of technical details.

So then what do you do with your new domain name? Well, you can go to the “Customize Websites” section to see all of your websites. If any of these sites aren’t yet live on the Internet, you can click “Assign Domain Name” to give the website its own live URL.

Or you might go to the “Redirected Domains” area of the “Domain Ownership” section. Click “New Redirected Domain.” First, select the new domain name you just bought. Then, specify which of your websites you would like people to be redirected to. Click “Redirect,” and the system will automatically redirect everything, so anyone who goes to the new domain URL will instantly be redirected to your other website. This lets you increase your web presence with multiple domains without having to add a separate website for each.

Dental Directories

Online Dental Directory System: Dentist profiles on IDA’s national and local dental directories increase visibility.

http://www.idahelp.com/dental-directories/

First let’s take a look at the national dental directories.

If a patient goes to a search engine and enters “Find a root canal dentist,” they’ll be led to 1stRootCanal.com, one of IDA’s national dental directories. There, the patient enters their zip code to see a list of qualified dentists in their area.

The home page includes lots of relevant information for root canal patients, and the informative articles are search-engine-optimized to lead patients to the site.

This directory is just one of our national directories targeted at particular types of dental care. Other directories focus on braces, cosmetic dentistry, dental implants, financing, and much more. Each one is full of profiles of dentists who offer that type of dentistry.

These national directories are how we capture leads for patients who enter a general search term about the type of care they need. Our local dental directories capture leads when patients include a geo-locator like a town, city, or geographic area in their search.

While one patient may search for “find a cosmetic dentist,” another may type “Tiburon cosmetic dentist” into the search engine, knowing that entering their city will help them find a local dentist.

Now you’re looking at a geo-targeted local directory designed just for patients seeking cosmetic dentistry in the Tiburon area. Patients can quickly review information about local dentists. For each practice, there’s a photo, a map, a link to the practice’s website, and even an online appointment request form.

In fact, each listing has a complete dentist profile on the local directory. These dentist profiles have a similar look and feel to IDA’s dental practice websites, and the information is pulled directly from the doctor’s online control panel.

IDA knows that dental websites are just one part of internet dental marketing. Find-a-dentist profiles on local and national dentist directories increase your web presence… which can really increase your bottom line!

Video

Video: The 60-Second Overview

Using Video on Your Website: This 60-second overview shows how to use video content to enhance your website.

http://www.idahelp.com/video/