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Corporate Profile: Officite Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine

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by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine

Practice Web sites are more than a commodity; they are in many cases, a new patient's introduction to your practice. How someone perceives your Web site may determine how they perceive your overall practice… and you never get a second chance to make a first impression. It's rare for a dentist or an office manager to be able to set aside time to develop and manage a practice Web site. Fortunately, there's help. Since 2002, Officite has taken the reins of more than 5,000 medical practices' Web sites and has become integral in helping grow those practices with online customization and practical marketing solutions. Dentaltown Magazine sat down with Officite President, CEO and Co-founder Glenn Lombardi to learn more.

What is your current business philosophy? In other words, if you were to meet a dentist on the street, how would you describe how Officite can help dentists succeed?
Glenn Lombardi: Officite can provide dentists with a full turnkey, easy-to-use Internet strategy to set up their entire online presence and new patient solution. From premium Web site designs and patient education to search engine marketing, social networking, and patient reviews optimization and management – we've got it all. Our sites are designed with all of the information a patient would ever need, including new patient registration forms, doctor bios, service descriptions and appointment scheduling, making an Officite Web site a 24/7 storefront for the practice and a patient's portal to the practice even when the office is closed.

Glenn, when we showcase companies on the cover of Dentaltown Magazine, we typically feature a cover photo of the company's executive team. Why did you prefer we use the photograph of three of your dental clients instead?
Lombardi: As the leading dental Web site provider, Officite has experienced tremendous growth and success since its inception in 2002. The success stories of Grove Dental Associates, Dr. Lou Graham and Dr. Mar y Sue Stonisch are just a small representation of the thousands of dental practices we have worked with in the past decade. To put it simply, their stories are our success (see sidebar testimonials).

What key innovations has Officite brought to the dental profession?
Lombardi: We've made getting on the Internet and managing your entire online presence easy for any dental professional. We take a comprehensive approach to Internet marketing, seamlessly integrating a client's Web site with print materials, search marketing strategies and social networking so that it can all be managed from one central location – the Doctor Portal.



Can you tell us more about the Doctor Portal?
Lombardi: From making changes to your Web site and tracking new patient appointments to reviewing your search marketing campaign, we've integrated it all. The Doctor Portal gives dentists one easy, seamless dashboard for managing and reviewing their entire Internet strategy, including e-mail, Web stats and Google applications and reports. From the Doctor Portal, clients also have access to a full array of support resources including video tutorials, marketing articles and valuable tips for improving a Web site's performance.

How do your Web sites generate new patients differently than the average site?
Lombardi: An Officite Web site delivers results. We customize a new patient strategy that's unique for each dental practice based on their goals, local competitors and market. This might include a call-to-action campaign, a demographic focused search engine optimization strategy or a targeted paid advertising campaign specific to service electives, like veneers, implants, snoring or sedation dentistry. But most importantly, we track our clients' progress and performance, providing results so the dentist can instantly update and measure their return on investment (ROI). Clients always have the ability to easily monitor and measure their Web site's performance when teamed with Officite.

What changes have you seen in the Internet since you started creating sites in 2002?
Lombardi: One of the most significant changes has been the switch from dial-up to broadband. This transition greatly enhanced the number of people using the Web, including the number of current and potential patients searching for local dentists. As a result, a Web site has become a critical marketing tool for dentists looking to generate new patients. In fact, the search term "dentist" is searched for more than two million times a month on Google.

The second major change was the emergence of Google and other major search engines. Officite harnesses the power of search engines to increase Web site visibility for our clients, as seen with our current full service Internet marketing programs, such as search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising and local maps optimization.

A third change has been the incredible growth of social networking. When we first started in 2002, everyone was buying a Web site to have an online brochure. These sites offered only basic information about the practice with little value and limited ability for a patient to interact with the practice. With the integration of our social networking and blog technology with a dental practice's Web site, these platforms have become powerful vehicles to communicate not only with new patients, but more importantly with current patients to build retention and referrals.




Explain your strategy and goals with search engine optimization. Is it true that once a dentist goes down this road he/she must constantly chase more optimization?
Lombardi: Once you start search engine optimization (SEO) you need to continue it if you want to maintain a high ranking in the search engine search results. But you also need to choose the right partner with a proven track record of an ROI before signing up for the program in the first place. A lot of companies will offer very expensive SEO strategies and after six months if it doesn't work they will offer the service for free. If a company wasn't able to improve your ranking and performance in the first six months, how effective are they going to be in the following months? With that said, you can't invest in SEO unless you're certain you're going to work with an expert who has a proven track record working with and providing an ROI for their clients. If we don't think SEO can be successfully maintained for the long-term after researching a client's competitive market, then we don't recommend it. We typically would offer other strategies based on our clients' needs, including pay-per-click advertising, local maps and direct mail that also deliver results.

How does Officite set itself apart from competitors?
Lombardi: We deliver results. We have facilitated more than 275,000 new patient appointment requests for our clients and we know that because we continually track, maintain and monitor new patient activity for each of our clients' Web sites.

We have built a highly innovative and easy-to-use site building and editing tool in the market space – the "point and click" site editor. It is built with the latest and most innovative technologies, which gives our clients the greatest flexibility and ease of use.

We offer a comprehensive turnkey marketing solution for any dental practice. From Web sites and search marketing to social media, patients' reviews optimization and management, print marketing, and direct mail, Officite can manage the entire marketing process for a practice.

Do you write the blog entries for your dental clients? How does this process work?
Lombardi: Dentists can either blog for themselves with our integrated blog technology from our easy-to-access Doctor Portal. Or, Officite can manage the client's blog for them through our blog management program. Through a partnership with Dear Doctor – the leading patient magazine – clients can choose up to five prewritten, customized blog articles per month generated from the Dear Doctor Digital Library of almost a thousand patient-specific articles. Then Officite will automate the entire process of customizing and posting the articles to the client's blog and social media sites so their entire network is updated continuously on a monthly basis. The process requires no effort on behalf of the dentist because we take care of the content creation and postings.

Aside from a Web site, what is the best "bang for your buck" when it comes to marketing?
Lombardi: An integrated Internet marketing strategy is easily the best "bang-for-your-buck" marketing today. This includes search marketing, social media, local maps and reviews optimization and management. Tying all these search solutions together is really what makes the Web site an effective marketing tool.

What are your thoughts on online reviews? How do you manage online reviews for your clients?
Lombardi: Online patient reviews are the number-one new opportunity for dentists right now, even bigger than social media. Patients now have the ability to go online and review any local dentist at any time through numerous online directory resources, such as Google, Yahoo, Yelp, City Search and more. Let's face it, patients trust other patients more than any other form of marketing, so it's important that dentists take control of this increasingly popular review process. We offer our clients exclusive access to our review toolkit service, which they can use to encourage reviews about their practice. And we help our clients manage and audit their online presence through numerous tools, including our new reputation auditing service. Today, most dentists have only a small number of reviews, and in most cases these reviews are negative as these patients are the most motivated to leave a review in the first place. The best way to combat negative reviews is to increase the number of positive reviews about your practice. By using our reviews optimization and management program, we give you the tools and resources to streamline the process for patients to post reviews about your practice online so that six months to a year from now you can expect 100 and even 200 positive reviews that will offset the two or three negative ones. Online reviews are one of the newest and biggest opportunities today for dentists to move forward.

What are your thoughts on online reviews? How do you manage online reviews for your clients?
Lombardi: Online patient reviews are the number-one new opportunity for dentists right now, even bigger than social media. Patients now have the ability to go online and review any local dentist at any time through numerous online directory resources, such as Google, Yahoo, Yelp, City Search and more. Let's face it, patients trust other patients more than any other form of marketing, so it's important that dentists take control of this increasingly popular review process. We offer our clients exclusive access to our review toolkit service, which they can use to encourage reviews about their practice. And we help our clients manage and audit their online presence through numerous tools, including our new reputation auditing service. Today, most dentists have only a small number of reviews, and in most cases these reviews are negative as these patients are the most motivated to leave a review in the first place. The best way to combat negative reviews is to increase the number of positive reviews about your practice. By using our reviews optimization and management program, we give you the tools and resources to streamline the process for patients to post reviews about your practice online so that six months to a year from now you can expect 100 and even 200 positive reviews that will offset the two or three negative ones. Online reviews are one of the newest and biggest opportunities today for dentists to move forward.

How do you see dentistry changing in the future and how will Officite contribute?
Lombardi: From CEREC to digital X-rays, technology in the practice is constantly growing and evolving. And with the recent mandate from the government for electronic medical records (EMR) systems, practice management will further be driven by online processes. Officite is constantly staying abreast of the latest trends and we continue to innovate faster, easier and more efficient ways for our clients and their patients, including our mobile ready Web pages, site editing technology and online performance tracking. We can integrate a client's entire Web site and Internet strategy with their current practice management processes. An integrated approach with a Web site functioning as the foundation of all practice marketing is where the future is going to happen, and you can count on Officite to be at the forefront of these latest innovations.

For more information about Officite, visit www.officite.com or call 888-749-3779.
Dentaltown Magazine
September 2025
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