When we launched our health Q&A and directory last year, many dentists asked when they could participate.  I’m pleased to announce that today we have launched a new dentist directory, as well as the ability for dentists across the country to participate in our expert-only Q&A forum.  I speak for everyone here at Avvo when I say how excited I am to expand Avvo’s proven platform to dentistry.

With the addition of dentists, we are providing a 360 degree approach to total wellness.  Extensive research has been done around the correlation between dental health and overall wellness.  Here are some interesting facts:

• 120 disease symptoms can be detected in your mouth by a dentist.(1)
• 1 out of every 2 people in the U.S. has some form of periodontal (gum) disease.(2)
• More than 75% of people over age 35 will be affected by some type of periodontal disease.(3)
• Periodontal disease has been associated with a higher overall rate of heart disease.(4)
• Treatment of periodontal disease has been shown to improve the control of blood sugar levels in diabetics.(5)
• Pregnant women with periodontal disease may be seven times more likely to deliver preterm, low-birth-weight babies, but the right dental treatment may cut their risk by 70 percent.(6)

There’s also an important correlation between dental care and the cost of healthcare.  A two-year study (7) by the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine found that patients who received early periodontal treatment had medical care costs that were lower by 16 percent annually for patients with heart disease, 11 percent annually for patients with stroke, and 9 percent annually for patients with diabetes.

This clear link between oral and overall health creates new opportunities for dentists and physicians to work together to help improve the health of their patients.  By bringing together experts across a broad range of medical disciplines, Avvo provides better information and an even more valuable experience for our customers.

Please keep in mind that we are taking a phased approach to rolling out our dentist directory.  While starting today dentists from across the country are on hand to answer questions, we are introducing rated dentist profiles in seven states:  California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Washington, Ohio and Pennsylvania.  In the other states, dentists may claim their profile and their Avvo Rating by searching for their name in the dentist directory. We expect to have all 50 states represented with rated profiles by the end of the year.

Further, as with any new online service that relies on user engagement, the quality of information we provide is only as good as you – our customers and professionals – make it, and we need your help getting started.  Go ahead, ask a question.  Take a look at our dentist directory and provide a review of those you know.  If you’re a practicing dentist, claim your profile and make sure it’s current and complete.  And most importantly, give us feedback.  We want to hear from you what we can do to make Avvo the best source of medical and legal information on the Web.  That was our commitment when we launched Avvo in 2007, and it continues to be our commitment today.

To celebrate our dentist launch, we are running an awesome “Kids Smile” photo contest.  Submit a photo of your child smiling in anticipation of a visit from the Tooth Fairy and you might win a $500 Amazon gift card.  Sadly, Amazon is not yet selling orthodontics, but $500 is nothing to sneeze at.  Just click on our Facebook page and follow the contest instructions.

Smile!

Mark

(1) Oral Health in America: A Report of the Surgeon General, 2000.
(2) ADHA, Dealing with Gum Disease, A Life-Threatening Health Risk, 2004.
(3) M.P. McQueen. “Health Plans Expand Dental Benefits,” The Wall Street Journal, 2006.
(4) “Periodontal Diseases – What you need to know.” The American Academy of Periodontology, 2006.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Jeffcoat MK, Geurs NC, Reddy MS, Cliver SP, Goldenberg RL, Hauth JC. Periodontal infection and preterm birth: Results of a prospective study. J Am Dent Assoc. 2001 Jul; 132(7):875-80 / Lopez NJ, Smith PC, Gutierrez J. Higher risk of preterm birth and low birth weight in women with periodontal disease. J Dent Res. 2002 Jan; 81(l):5 8-63 / Jeffcoat, MK, Hauth, JC, Geurs, NC, Reddy, MS, Cliver, SP, Hodgkins, PM, Goldenberg, RL. Periodontal disease and preterm birth: Results of a pilot interventional study. J Periodontol. 2003 Aug; 74(8):1214-1218.
(7) The Columbia University Study involved over 144,000 insureds with medical and dental coverage; M.P. McQueen.  “Health Plans Expand Dental Benefits,” The Wall Street Journal, 2006.

This week we are hosting our free legal marketing webinar tomorrow Tuesday, January 24th at 10:00AM PT. We’re also looking forward to having a new guest joining us: David Lorenzo, the leading business strategist to attorneys, and Chairman and Founder of Rainmaker Lawyer Consulting.

Here’s what attendees can expect: 

Five Simple Systems to Boost Your Productivity, Improve Your Client Relationships, and Save You At Least an Hour a Day

In this 45 minute talk, Dave Lorenzo shares five of the most powerful practice management systems he teaches to his clients.

Lawyers who attend this webinar will learn about:

- How to eliminate the dreaded email overload plaguing 80% of practicing attorneys
- The three key questions a client must answer before he meets with you
- How to quote a fee and have the client cheerfully pay it, even if it is higher than other lawyers in your practice area
- The little-used attorney/client communication strategy that helps keep your conversations with clients productive and focused
- Three ways to eliminate interruptions during your work day
- The best way to politely decline business and not feel guilty
- Why spending more time with your family and friends actually increases productivity

Sign up here!

There’s still time to sign up for our free guest webinar tomorrow with Mark Merenda, president of Smart Marketing. Mark has been a guest before, so we’re thrilled to have him back, and know he will provide attendees with great ideas. Here are the details:

Thursday, January 19, 1PM ET/10AM PT:
Four Ways to Grow your Law Practice in 2012 with Mark Merenda

Mark Merenda, president of Smart Marketing, reveals the four keys to earning more revenue this year. His presentation will cover such subjects as branding & image; growing a professional referral network; marketing directly to the public; Internet marketing; and pricing your services.

Sign up here!

Here at Avvo we often receive questions from physicians who want to engage with patients online, but have concerns about HIPAA.  (And legitimately so!) In response to this, Leigh McMillan, VP of Marketing at Avvo, compiled 5 steps for physicians and health care marketers to create fully compliant digital media programs.The article was recently published on Ragan’s Health Care Communication News blog and highlights are included here:

5 steps for physicians and health care marketers to create fully compliant digital media programs

Lawyers and legal marketers: it’s time to register for Avvocating 2012!

We’re thrilled to have the conference back in Seattle for two days (May 3rd and 4th) to cover everything there is to know about integrated online marketing and digital media for the legal industry. Our lineup of speakers will enlighten, educate and entertain you – and the opportunity to meet practicing attorneys and legal marketers in attendance from around the country will be of tremendous value. We also hope to have some sunny Seattle weather!

Tickets are on sale now for the early bird price of $525 – that’s a $100 savings. Register now before the discount expires on January 31st.

For those who have not experienced Avvocating, here’s a video our friends at New Epic Media put together:

New Epic Media – 2011 Avvo Conference from New Epic Media on Vimeo.

Hope your New Year is off to a great start! Here at Avvo we’re looking forward to a stellar lineup of free legal marketing webinars this month. We’ll cover Google Analytics (always of great interest – still time to sign up for tomorrow!) and you’ll also hear Mark Britton, Avvo Founder and CEO, discuss social media marketing and blogging.

In the second half of the month we’ll have two guest hosts: Mark Merenda, President of Smart Marketing and David Lorenzo, Founder of Rainmaker Lawyer Consulting. All the details and registration information are included below. Hope you can join us!

JANUARY 5, 10AM PT: Website Analytics for Lawyers

Do you know how many people visit your website? Where those visitors come from? Which marketing efforts are sending you the most referrals? Or how to measure the quality of those referrals? Questions like these can be answered with website analytics, which allows you to track the efforts of your online marketing. Luckily, Google provides a free and easy to use tool, called Google Analytics, which sheds light into your website’s performance. Don’t be a part of the 90% of lawyers who are flying blind without analytics or who are using antiquated hit counters.

Lawyers who attend this webinar will learn about:

- What is Google Analytics and how to get it
- How Google Analytics can help you market your practice more effectively
- Beginner and Intermediate tips

Sign up here!

JANUARY 12, 10AM PT: Working the Social Networks for Lawyers

Social media marketing and blogging are all the rage, but many lawyers are drowning in the sea of options. Avvo’s CEO, Mark Britton has designed this webinar to help attorneys and legal marketers better understand their options and develop a strategy regarding social media and blogging.

Lawyers who attend this webinar will learn about:

- How social media and blogging can generate clients and influence
- How to strategically engage social media, including preserving your “Core Web Presence”
- Which social media tools are most popular with lawyers, and why
- Common social media marketing and blogging myths
- How social media marketing and blogging compliment traditional marketing

Sign up here!

JANUARY 19, 10AM PT: Four Ways to Grow your Law Practice in 2012 with Mark Merenda

Mark Merenda, president of Smart Marketing, reveals the four keys to more revenue this year. His presentation will cover such subjects as branding & image; growing a professional referral network; marketing directly to the public; Internet marketing; and pricing your services.

Sign up here!

JANUARY 24, 10AM PT: Five Simple Systems to Boost Your Productivity, Improve Your Client Relationships, and Save You At Least an Hour a Day

In this 45 minute talk, Dave Lorenzo, the leading business strategist to attorneys, and Chairman and Founder of Rainmaker Lawyer Consulting shares five of the most powerful practice management systems he teaches to his clients.

Lawyers who attend this webinar will learn about:

- How to eliminate the dreaded email overload plaguing 80% of practicing attorneys
- The three key questions a client must answer before he meets with you
- How to quote a fee and have the client cheerfully pay it, even if it is higher than other lawyers in your practice area
- The little-used attorney/client communication strategy that helps keep your conversations with clients productive and focused
- Three ways to eliminate interruptions during your work day
- The best way to politely decline business and not feel guilty
- Why spending more time with your family and friends actually increases productivity

Sign up here!ikoni

After partnering with Seattle Met this year to power its Top Doctors list, we teamed up with our friends “down the road” at Portland Monthly magazine to compile its list of Top Doctors for 2012. More than 300 of Portland’s best physicians, across 50 specialties, are featured in the January issue and online now.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Avvo is excited to announce that we have made some changes to the Avvo Leaderboard and Contributor levels for doctors and lawyers answering questions and contributing content across the site.

What this means:  If you already participate on Avvo, your level went up and there are now even more ways to earn points and demonstrate your expertise to potential patients and clients, and your peers.

So why did we change?

We heard from professionals like you that quality and visibility matter, and that Avvo can help raise the bar by rewarding quality work.  We agree.

We added a Leaderboard to our health community and enhanced it in legal. (For those of you not familiar, the Leaderboard shows the ranking of all professionals participating on the site, and by specialty or practice area.  The Leaderboard also reflects the current week as well as all-time activity.) The Contributor levels have also expanded to incorporate more of the actions on Avvo that reflect quality and expertise.

There are now three main ways to earn points on Avvo:

1) Contribute to the Avvo community.

You still get points for answering questions in our Q&A forum and writing helpful guides to assist other Avvo users.  Now you also get points for highlighting other professionals’ quality contributions.

2) Get recognized for quality contributions.

You now receive points when consumers or other professionals mark your answers and guides as ‘good’. (This means you can earn points while you sleep!) You are also awarded additional points when guides are selected as an Avvo Staff Pick or you participate as an Avvo guest blogger or speaker.

3) Showcase  your expertise to the community outside of Avvo.

You also receive points for sharing your Avvo content with a broader community on social networks, such as Facebook or Twitter.

We’ve also added a few pages.

• You can view your Points History by clicking your total points on your dashboard.
  
• Your Contributor level is now visible at the top of your profile with a link to all of your contributions.
  

 As always, please let us know what you think. Thank you for all you do on Avvo!

Have you heard the news?  Avvo has launched a new blog, Lawyernomics, focused on legal marketing and practice management.  My welcoming blog post really explains it all, so please check out Lawyernomics and let us know what you think.

What does this mean for the Avvo Blog?  Well, increasingly, we have struggled with the identity of the Avvo Blog because it has been one part law marketing/management, one part health marketing/management, one part corporate mouthpiece and and one part public policy.  That’s a lot of parts, and we had many lawyers tell us they wanted more of the law marketing/management part.

To oblige, we built Lawyernomics and all of the lawyer parts will go over there.  The medical parts will get their own home soon enough as well.  The Avvo Blog will then focus on the Avvo corporate and public policy discussions that don’t fit squarely into legal or medical.  Sound like a plan?

One thing:  When you visit Lawyernomics, please check out our “Search Engine Marketing & Social Media Cheat Sheet for Lawyers.”  It’s free, and the purpose of the guide is to provide lawyers and legal marketers with a complete overview of online marketing best practices and tactics.  Highlights include how to:

• Leverage SEO to attract new clients
• Profitability use paid advertising
• Tap into the power of social media

Our Cheat Sheet is the only time I will encourage you to cheat — it won’t even affect your Avvo Rating. Seriously though, it’s a great guide from a team that knows a thing or two about SEO and Social Media . . . and you can’t beat the price.

Regards,
Mark

Registration is now open for Avvocating 2012! The 3rd annual online legal marketing conference is being held on Thursday, May 3 and Friday, May 4, 2012 at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle, Washington.

Rich Barton, the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Zillow and Founder of Expedia, will give the keynote presentation, followed by an impressive lineup of technology and legal industry leaders:

• Mark Britton: Founder, CEO and President, Avvo

• Carolyn Elefant: Lawyer, Blogger at MyShingle.com and Author of Solo by Choice: How to Be the Lawyer You Always Wanted to Be and Co-Author of Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier.

• Michael Blumenthal: Small Business Consultant, Google Maps and Local Search Industry Expert and Blogger at Blumenthals.com/blog

• Tyson Snow: Founding partner at Mumford West & Snow LLC in Salt Lake City, Utah. His practice areas include employment law and intellectual property litigation.Tyson is also the founder of Social Media, Esq.,a blog about social media for attorneys.

• Rich Sierra: Florida business attorney and founder of The Law Firm of Richard Sierra & Associates.

• Vanessa Fox: Author of Marketing in the Age of Google, Creator of Google Webmaster Tools and Founder of Nine by Blue.

• Ari Kaplan: Lawyer, Author of Reinventing Professional Services: Building Your Business in the Digital Marketplace and Founder of Ari Kaplan Advisors.

• Josh King: General Counsel and Vice President Business Development, Avvo

• Duane Forrester:Senior Product Manager for Microsoft Bing Webmaster Outreach Program,Author and Columnist at Searchengineland.com.

• Mark Kelly: President, Chair 10 Marketing a Seattle-based Internet marketing consulting firm.

• Matt Homann: Innovational Speaker, Creative Facilitator, Lawyer and Founder of LexThinkand the author of the legal blog “the [non]billable hour”.

To register for Avvocating 2012, please visit online: www.avvocating.com. For information about sponsorship, please contact Megan Olendorf at megan@avvo.com.