Using Video in Your IDA Dental Website

With so much video content available online, more and more dentists are adding video to their dental websites. The New Patient Marketing Machine from the Internet Dental Alliance lets dental practices do just that. You can add your own videos to your website, or choose from IDA’s library of dental marketing videos.

Here’s how IDA can help you with dental website video marketing.

60-second overview of Gen4 video

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.

Video Libraries and Subscriptions

With so much video content available online, more and more dentists are adding video to their dental websites. The New Patient Marketing Machine from the Internet Dental Alliance lets dental practices do just that. You can add your own videos to your website, or choose from IDA’s library of dental marketing videos.

In your New Patient Control Panel, select “Video Libraries” on the left to preview videos from IDA’s gallery. You can see all available videos on the “Stock Videos” page. Click the Play button next to any video to watch it.

You’ll see that some of the stock videos in the IDA Library tell patients more about specific types of dentistry like dental implants, veneers, or sedation. Other stock videos offer patient education on dental products such as Invisalign, NTI-tss Plus, and Zoom tooth whitening.

There are also dental health videos on universal topics such as tooth decay and gum disease. Other stock videos focus on general interest topics, like wedding day dental makeovers or mouth guards for athletes.

Some of the stock videos in IDA’s 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’ll notice that some videos are labeled “IDA Basic Library,” and others are labeled “IDA Premium Library.” You can click “Subscriptions” on the left-hand menu underneath “Video Libraries” to learn more.

The Basic Library is automatically included in your IDA membership. You can add any of these videos to your dental websites at no additional cost.

For access to even more dental videos, try the Premium Video Library. These longer, more detailed videos can add depth and variety to your dental practice website. When you subscribe, you’ll be able to add as many Premium videos to your websites as you’d like.

You can view all the videos in all the libraries by clicking “Stock Videos.” You can use the filter menu at the top right to view only videos within a particular library.

And remember, you’re not limited to just the videos in our libraries! You can add whatever video content you want to your IDA websites by uploading your own videos or embedding YouTube clips.

Uploading Videos to the Control Panel

To get the most from their internet dental marketing, many doctors record their own videos. A short welcome video from you can really add value to your website by letting prospective patients get to know the doctor and the practice.

You can record more videos of yourself to use on the website. Tell patients more about yourself, your dental practice, and the services you offer. In addition to a short welcome video for your home page, we also recommend recording a slightly longer video that focuses on the website’s target dental market.

It’s also a good idea for each dentist at the practice record a short personal video for their “Meet the Doctor” profile.

You can also embed videos from YouTube, Vimeo, or other video sharing sites right in your IDA website.

If you have your own videos you’d like to add to your dental website, begin by clicking “My Videos” underneath “Photos, Videos & Files” on the lefthand menu. If you’ve already uploaded any videos, you’ll see them here.

The “Add Video” button lets you add your own videos.

If you have the video on your computer as an MP4 file (the most common type of video file), select “Upload MP4.” Then select your video from your computer. The Control Panel will upload the video and show you its details. When you click “Next,” you’ll be asked to choose a thumbnail image for this video. This is the picture that your video will display when it’s not playing. You might select the video’s first frame, or you might choose a good-looking frame later in the video, or you can even upload your own thumbnail image for maximum control.

Then it’s time to add some additional information to your video. Visitors to your website will be able to see the video’s title and read its description. So will the search engines! You can further improve your search engine results positioning by including tags separated with commas. These should be keywords that describe your video. In addition, IDA’s system will automatically tag your video with information about you and your practice.

Then click “Save” to finish uploading the video. Close the dialog box, and you’ll see the video has been added to “My Videos.”

You can also add videos that are already posted on video sharing sites elsewhere on the internet. YouTube is, of course, the most popular.

To import a video already hosted on YouTube, you’ll need to know the Video ID. When you go to YouTube and view the video, you can see the ID in the web address. You can also find it by clicking the “Share” button. Just copy the ID – that’s the part after http://youtu.be/ – and then paste this into the Control Panel. When you click “Import,” your video will show up below.

Next, you can review the video’s title, description and tags. The information from YouTube has automatically been entered here, but you can change it. However, you cannot change the thumbnail for this video, since it has already been selected in YouTube. Then click “Save” to finish.

IDA also lets you add videos that are on Vimeo, another popular video sharing website. This process is the same as for YouTube: paste in the video ID to import the video, edit the title, description, and tags, then save and finish.

You can add videos hosted on sites other than YouTube or Vimeo by selecting “Paste HTML.” Here, you’ll paste the snippet of code provided by that video sharing website.

Click “Download Video Specifications” to view a PDF that explains more technical details about how to produce, render and export your videos. We have instructions for Camtasia Studio, Adobe Premiere, and Sony Vegas, that include information like the recommended frame rate, bit rate and aspect ratio.

If you’re not satisfied with how your videos look or play on your website, check out the Video Troubleshooting guide to fine-tune your dental website video marketing.

Inserting Video into Your Website

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.

Uploading Video via HTML Snippets

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.

About Julie Frey

Julie Frey is Marketing Director for Internet Dental Alliance, Inc. Her help videos assist dentist clients with getting the most out of their New Patient Control Panel with their IDA internet dental marketing program.