Starting in October 2017, Google Chrome will begin showing large red colored “NOT SECURE” warnings when users try to complete a form on a website that doesn’t have secure SSL encryption set up. SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. It is used for establishing a secure link between a browser (like Chrome) and a web server that hosts a website like jodena.com. SSL is an industry standard used by more and more websites these days to protect online transactions with visitors. The insecure designation will show up in some way for all browsers but at the moment will be most visible in Chrome.

An SSL certificate can be added to your website by your webmaster or hosting company that verifies authenticity of a website and shows up as a “locked” or secure site once installed. Secure sites have https in front of the domain rather than http – and the S is a big deal.

SSL is a ranking factor. Research now shows that https sites typically rank higher than their http counterparts. This means that if two websites are equally relevant in all other factors, the https or secure site will rank better in many cases. SSL also leads to increased trust with visitors to your site. Seeing that prominent NOT SECURE next to your website address is not a real confidence booster to patients visiting your site for the first time. And SSL is safer for your visitors as https protects user data and ensures that you are connecting to an authentic site and not a fake one.

My site is now secure. You can see the picture of the lock next to my url. And if you click on the url you can see that it is now https. A good certificate for a dental website is not expensive – probably shouldn’t cost you more than $10 per month.

One last point – and a very important one. There is a significant amount of work involved to make this changeover for sites that are optimized for search. You can’t simply add the SSL lock without suffering catastrophic failure of top search results. Http to https is like changing your domain. You must create a roadmap (.htaccess file) that tells search engines that everything that used to be http is now https. If you forget this step you will lose rank big time. So you need to hire a professional to do this for you. I would heartily endorse and recommend my friends at TNT Dental. You can give Tim Healy a call at 214-680-1270.

In the blink of an eye, the New Year will be here. December is usually a very very busy month. Patients trying to maximize their yearly insurance benefits makes for a hectic schedule. A good problem to have, but one that creates an inordinate amount of pressure on everyone. And the holidays in general, with shopping, and parties, and family gatherings and kids out of school, are quite stressful. Certainly not the best environment to be able to sit down and take the time to carefully plan for 2018 and develop strategies on how to improve the performance of your dental practice.

From my vantage point as a coach working with many successful dental practices seeking ways to become more successful, I get to see first hand on a daily basis the good and the bad, the elation and the frustration, what works well and what doesn’t. Here is a list of five common problems – in no particular order – that I repeatedly observe. Finding a fix will go a long way towards creating growth and increasing your profitability.

• Front desk overload.

• Inability to consistently stay on time.

• Inconsistent and/or schizophrenic Internal Marketing.

• Lack of leadership and poor communication with staff by the doctor.

• Not enough second visit treatment plan consultation appointments.

My plan is to write a weekly blog post – rather than my normal every other week – and attempt to address each of these five topics with as much detail as possible. Hopefully these posts and the suggestions they contain will be good source material for some January staff meetings.

So go ahead and enjoy this Holiday Season, but please be prepared to set aside the necessary time as 2018 unfolds  to introduce some system changes in your office that will give you the maximum opportunity to make  2018 your best year ever.