We optimize your GBP and website in the right order, but only the parts that actually make your phone ring.

Nicole Kolesar

10+ year content strategist, writer, author, and SEO consultant. I work exclusively with dental practices that want to grow and dominate their local areas.

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Local Service Ads For Dentists

Local Service Ads For Dentists: Do They Work For Fee-For-Service Practices?

You’ve seen them. Those listings sitting at the very top of Google, above the regular ads, above the map, with the green Google Screened checkmark next to a smiling dentist. And you’ve wondered whether that spot is worth buying for your practice. Here’s the problem with almost everything written about local service ads for dentists: […]

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questions to ask a dental marketing agency

What To Ask Before Hiring A Dental Marketing Agency (FFS Edition)

You’re about to hand a marketing agency real money, and you’ve got your list of questions ready:  Somebody told you those were the smart things to ask, so you’re asking them. Here’s the problem. Those are the same questions every dentist asks, and a slick, well-run agency will sail through all of them and still

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dental marketing agencies fail fee-for-service practices

Why Most Dental Marketing Agencies Fail Fee-For-Service Practices

You hired the agency.  They checked every box.  Built the website, ran the ads, polished your Google profile, and sent a tidy monthly report with green arrows pointing up.  And your schedule still isn’t full of the patients you actually want. So you start questioning yourself.  Maybe your fees are too high. Maybe your market

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Fee-For-Service Dental Marketing Budget

How Much Should A Fee-For-Service Practice Spend On Marketing?

Here’s the real math. There’s no flat percentage that answers how much a fee-for-service practice should spend on marketing.  The right number comes from two things: what a new patient is worth to you, and what it costs to acquire one.  Set your fee-for-service dental marketing budget that way and it usually lands between 5%

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Hybrid Dental Practice Model

The Hybrid Dental Practice Model: Keeping 1-2 PPOs Strategically

You want out of insurance. You’re tired of the write-offs, the denied claims, and the feeling that a faceless network gets to decide how you treat your own patients.  But every time you picture dropping all your PPOs at once, your stomach drops with them.  What happens to the schedule? What happens to the mortgage?

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Dental Membership Plans vs Financing

Dental Membership Plans vs Financing: Which One Actually Works for Your FFS Dental Practice?

You decided to drop your PPO plans. Smart move.  Your margins are about to stop bleeding.  But there’s a fear sitting in the back of your mind, and it’s loud: the second patients hear you’re out of network, they’ll walk. Here’s the truth, and it’s the whole point of this guide on dental membership plans

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PPO to FFS Transitions Fail

Why Most PPO To FFS Transitions Fail (And How To Be The Exception)

A PPO to FFS transition is the move from accepting discounted insurance contracts to setting your own fees and getting paid in full by patients directly.  Most of them fail.  Not because fee-for-service is a bad model, but because dentists treat the switch like flipping a price tag instead of rebuilding a foundation. Here’s the

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The True Cost of PPO

The True Cost of PPO: How Insurance Plans Are Silently Bankrupting Dental Practices 

The true cost of PPO participation isn’t the 30-60% fee cut you see on every explanation of benefits. It’s closer to 70-80% of what you should be earning, once the hidden costs surface. That’s the answer most dental consultants won’t give you straight. Here’s what that looks like in real life. You know that “successful”

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How to drop a PPO plan

How To Drop A PPO Plan Without Losing Your Best Patients

Most dentists planning how to drop a PPO plan obsess over the same thing.  They write a script.  They rehearse it.  They train the team.  They lose sleep over what their hygienist will say when a longtime patient asks why their insurance isn’t accepted anymore. Then they drop the plan, lose patients anyway, and can’t

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How To Hire Dental Staff for an FFS Practice

How To Hire Dental Staff For An FFS Practice (And Keep The Good Ones)

You can run the cleanest Google Business Profile in your zip code. Rank number one for “fee-for-service dentist near me.” Spend $8,000 a month on marketing that actually works. But if your front desk treats a $14,000 implant consult like an insurance verification call, none of it matters. Knowing how to hire dental staff for

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