Your Patients Will Never Find You The Same Way Again

Read Time: 2 Minute, 13 Seconds

What's up! It’s Kyle, back again.

Next week, it’s MAILBAG TIME! Send in any questions you have about dental, marketing, operations or Seinfeld and I’ll knock them out. You can just reply to this email with your question and I’ll answer as many as I can in next weeks email. I’ll change all names to keep the senders anonymous.

Now, back to this weeks topic. This is the first time I’m largely recycling the theme from our client only newsletter that goes out each week. But it’s that important and that big of an update.

And I’m sure you are tired of hearing about the ‘AI to this, AI to that’ news. Trust me, even I’m tired of it. But it doesn’t change what’s happening and the job that I do.

That being said, I need to be brutally honest with you this week.

While most dentists are still trying to figure out "what's this AI thing," Google just went live with AI Mode in Search. Not testing. Not beta. Live. Actionable.

And if you're not paying attention, you're about to get blindsided. The future of your business relies on getting this right. As does the future of my business. And your neighbors business. It’s that big of a shift.

Here's What Happened 🤯

When someone searches "dentist near me" today, they're getting two completely different experiences.

Old Google: 10 blue links, your website competes with everyone else and is subject to change based on Core Updates, direction of the wind, etc.

AI Mode Google: AI-generated, conversational answers + strategic ad placements with way less competition.

Check this out. When I searched "chicago dentist" on Google, I got two different experiences. Let’s break them down.

Here is the traditional Google you are familiar with, albeit with a couple caveats.

1. You’ll notice AI Mode available. Soon, this will no longer be an option. It will just be the experience. We’ll get to that in a minute.

2. But the other thing I want to point out? That’s A LOT of real estate for Sponsored ads. You need to scroll to see a single organic or map listing! As zero-scroll becomes more prevalent, this is painting a pretty clear picture.

Google Ads have become more valuable, not less valuable.

And here it is, AI Mode. You’ll notice that they pulled five results, optimized for LLM models, and that’s it. From there, it’s a conversation. Could you populate further down the conversation funnel? For sure. But it’s going to be tough sledding if you aren’t one of those five.

And that box on the right? I’d be a solid amount of cash that that’s where the Sponsored ads will live moving forward. Prime real estate, yet again.

Why This Is Actually Great News For You 💃

While your competitors panic about AI "making us invisible," here's what smart practices are doing right now.

✅ Doubling Down On Google Ads - We're seeing 15-25% performance improvements when ads show within the same scroll as AI overviews. That’s a massive bump.

✅ Optimizing For AI answers - Making sure practice info feeds correctly into AI responses, ideally in long-form content.

✅ Rewriting Ad Copy - Complementing AI answers instead of competing with them, matching the users intent and giving them a seamless conversion experience.

✅ Taking Action - This is most important. This is not a ‘wait, wait, wait, ok let’s try’ situation. Take action now, figure it out as you go.

I Don’t Know Marketing, What Can I Be Doing? 🤔

🎯 Audit Your Google Ads Performance - If you are doing this internally, ask your team members what trends they are seeing. If you are using an agency, ask them the same. If you are doing neither, it’s time to heavily consider changing that.

🎯 Check Your Business Listings - AI pulls from your Google Business Profile and the other listing sites. Make sure your NAP (Name, Address, Phone) is consistent across the board. If you don’t want to pay an agency, use a tool like Moz.

🎯 Test AI Mode Yourself - Search for dentists in your area and see what comes up and how those dentists are writing copy. Do not judge the performance of your own practice on these tests, it’s a dead end for too many reasons to list here. Please. Competitor analysis only.

🎯 Optimize For Questions - AI loves answering "What's the best dentist for [specific need]?" If you are handling your website internally, ask your team members responsible to add more long-form content answering questions. If you are using an agency, this should already be in the works or published.

And here's the kicker! Over at ChatGPT? They already announced they're adding ads to their free tier next year. This is just the beginning of the AI advertising gold rush.

The Bottom Line 🤝

Most dental practices will spend the rest of this year scrambling to figure this out.

Don’t be one of them.

The future isn't coming anymore. It's here.

And the early adopters always win.

-Kyle

🤫 PS: Remember to send over your questions! Hit reply and I’ll answer as many as I can next week. I’ll be using fake names for all of the senders, no worries there.

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