Today, the #1 source for consumers seeking comprehensive, trustworthy information about healthcare providers is Healthgrades.com, with more than 225 million annual visitors. Over the past twelve months Healthgrades tracked more than 20 million searches for dental care providers—the third most popular search category on the site. Let us show you how your practice can harness this channel and fill your schedule.

1. GPS //
Guide to Practice Success
5
Ways to Use a
Healthgrades Enhanced Profile
to Drive New Patient Appointments
A Sesame Guide to Practice Success

2. GPS //
Guide to Practice Success
Healthgrades — Prospective Patients Found Here
According to research from Pew Internet, 93% of online activities begin with a
search.1 Health is a popular topic: 72% of Internet users looked online for health
related information within the last year.2
As you may expect, Google dominates search with a market share of about 65%.
But Google isn’t the only game in town. Millions of consumers are turning to
healthcare-specific search portals when they’re looking for a new dental care provider.
Sesame Guides to Practice Success
As a leader in education and research in the
dental industry, Sesame Communications has
created the Guides to Practice Success (GPS), a
series of educational resources with bite-sized,
actionable tips you can start using to grow your
practice today!
Today, the #1 source for consumers seeking comprehensive, trustworthy
information about healthcare providers is Healthgrades.com, with more than 225
million annual visitors. Over the past twelve months Healthgrades tracked more
than 20 million searches for dental care providers—the third most popular search
category on the site.
Let us show you how your practice can harness this channel and fill your schedule.
Visitors to Healthgrades.com conducted
20+ million searches
for dental care providers over the past 12 months.
Copyright 2013 Sesame Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. The Sesame logo is a trademark of Sesame Communications.

3. GPS //
Guide to Practice Success
Healthgrades — Your Ideal Patient Demographic
Healthgrades.com visitors represent the ideal demographic for dentistry—they
are overwhelmingly female (72%), highly educated (84% have some post-secondary education) and affluent (52% have annual household incomes greater
than $75,000).
Most importantly, Healthgrades users don’t just search—they schedule
appointments. More than half (54%) of Healthgrades visitors will schedule
an appointment. Among those who schedule, an astounding 95% make an
appointment within the first week they search, and 38% schedule the same day.
Any way you slice it, Healthgrades offers dental practices a large, highly
focused and highly valuable audience of prospective patients.
Who is Using Healthgrades.com?
72%
of Healthgrades.com users
are female
52%
of Healthgrades.com users
have household incomes
greater than $75,000
54%
of Healthgrades.com users
will schedule an appointment
38%
of Healthgrades.com users
schedule the same day they search
Copyright 2013 Sesame Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. The Sesame logo is a trademark of Sesame Communications.

4. GPS //
Guide to Practice Success
Why Your Practice Needs a Healthgrades Enhanced Profile
Healthgrades offers a basic profile that practitioners can “claim” for free. It includes limited information
about your practice such as name and address. However, it also includes third-party and competitive
practice ads. Most critically, it does not provide visitors with a way to schedule an appointment with your
practice. Healthgrades visitors can submit a review of your practice, but they are not verified as your
patients. While a basic profile is better than no profile, it severely limits your ability to represent your
brand effectively, control your online reputation, gain top ranking, or convert visitors into new patients.
Through a new partnership with Sesame Communications, Healthgrades now offers dentists—for
the first time ever—Enhanced Profiles, which offer several strategic advantages over standard profiles.
The top five ways an Enhanced Profile gives your practice better access and exposure to prospective
patients seeking a new dentist are:
Copyright 2013 Sesame Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. The Sesame logo is a trademark of Sesame Communications.

5. GPS //
Guide to Practice Success
1
Priority Placement in
Healthgrades.com Search Results
On average, a Healthgrades.com visitor will view just 1.9 profiles per
visit, so it’s imperative that your practice be one of the first ones they
see at the top of search results.
A Healthgrades Enhanced Profile gives your practice higher
placement and greater visibility to patients searching for a new
dentist in your area. Enhanced Profiles garner premium placement in
the “Featured Listing” section at the top of patients’ search pages.
More visibility means more opportunities for prospective patients to
select your practice and schedule an appointment.
A Healthgrades Enhanced Profile will also rank organically in the
search results. This mean the practice has the opportunity to be
featured twice on the first page of results—a significant advantage
over your competition.
Copyright 2013 Sesame Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. The Sesame logo is a trademark of Sesame Communications.

6. GPS //
Guide to Practice Success
2
Comprehensive Branded Doctor
and Practice Information
Healthgrades research shows that visitors spend
four times longer on Enhanced Profiles than
on standard profiles. Enhanced Profiles offer
comprehensive doctor and practice branding,
including full bio, address, procedures, location
directions and detailed contact information.
More content gives prospective patients a
better understanding of your practice and
capabilities. Based on the search algorithms, a
comprehensive profile also helps your profile
appear more prominently in local search results
on Healthgrades.com.
3
Easy, Click-to-Request
Appointments
Enhanced Profiles allow patients to request an
appointment with your practice by simply clicking
a button on your Healthgrades profile. Considering the fact 54% of visitors schedule an appointment, this is a critical feature.
A quick, automated process to request an
appointment and prominently feature the practice
phone number removes a potential barrier for
patients looking to make an appointment. This
key functionality allows your practice to optimize
your conversion of new patients.
Copyright 2013 Sesame Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. The Sesame logo is a trademark of Sesame Communications.

7. GPS //
Guide to Practice Success
4
Automatically Publish Verified Online Patient
Reviews to Your Healthgrades Profile
For many dental care providers, a practice website or micro-site is
the sole destination for reviews they solicit from their patients. As a
result, dental practices are relying on search engine optimization to
drive traffic to these reviews, putting a cap on their value.
With a Healthgrades Enhanced Profile, verified, high quality reviews
are automatically published from Dental Sesame. This ensures that
the vast majority of patient reviews are verified (confirmed reviews
from your active patients) and represent the true value your practice
delivers. It also helps prospective new patients have confidence that
the review ratings are accurate and credible.
Lastly, by populating dozens of reviews automatically the practice
is able to gain and retain more prominent display of its profile on
Healthgrades.com search result rankings.
Copyright 2013 Sesame Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. The Sesame logo is a trademark of Sesame Communications.

8. GPS //
Guide to Practice Success
5
Track ROI of Your Healthgrades Presence
Activating an Enhanced Profile allows your practice to track
every new patient call and online appointment request
received through Healthgrades.com. This important data
lets you easily see how effective your practice’s Healthgrades
profile is at bringing in new patients.
Copyright 2013 Sesame Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. The Sesame logo is a trademark of Sesame Communications.

9. GPS //
Guide to Practice Success
Final Thoughts
New patient acquisition is the bloodline of practice growth and
profitability. For many dental practices, online search has become
a primary source for new patient opportunities. Healthgrades.com
offers a highly compelling channel, with millions of prospective
patients ready to schedule an appointment the moment they
find the right dentist. A Healthgrades Enhanced Profile is your
best opportunity to engage this valuable audience and fill your
schedule with new patients.
About Sesame Communications
Sesame Communications helps dental and orthodontic practices harness
the power of the Internet to accelerate new patient acquisition, build patient
loyalty and transform the patient experience. The Sesame Solution Suite helps
practices grow and thrive in the digital age by offering solutions in the areas of
Responsive Design, SEO, SEM, Social Media, Online Patient Login, and more.
While you can claim a basic profile, today Healthgrades Enhanced
Profiles are only available from Sesame Communications. To get
more information on Healthgrades Enhanced Profiles visit
www.sesamecommunications.com/healthgrades
References
1.
2.
3.
http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Search-Engine-Use-2012/Summary-of-findings.aspx
http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Health-online/Summary-of-Findings.aspx
http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2013/9/comScore_Releases_August_2013_U.S._Search_Engine_Rankings
Copyright 2013 Sesame Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. The Sesame logo is a trademark of Sesame Communications.