The world has gone digital, and you have to upgrade with the changing times. Back in the day, patients searched phonebooks to find the contact details of a dental practice around them; now, they search Google.
So, how does this affect your dental practice?
It means an excellent opportunity to access new patients and improve productivity. You are no longer stuck to your local environment, as your prospective patients can come from anywhere, including outside your region. When it comes to visiting the dentist, patients get skeptical. They want the best treatment and can spend hours online searching for the perfect dental practice that understands their needs and appeals to them the most.
Now, how do you get your practice in front of prospective patients?
Simple; first, you must have a professional website that is properly optimized for SEO. One question we frequently get asked by clients is, what to include on a dental website?
In this article, we cover everything you need to know about creating a great dental website.
P.S. Read to the end to get our 5 tips on what makes a good dental website.
WHAT MAKES A BEAUTIFUL DENTAL WEBSITE?
1. WEBSITE PURPOSE
Your website must accommodate the needs of your users and offer value.
What is the purpose of your dental brand and website? Is your brand purpose clear to your visitors and prospective clients?
What dental services do you offer? Are you a general dentist, or are you focused on cosmetic/restorative services?
Have a clear and defined message. Do not confuse your prospects. Having a simple apparent intention on all pages will help the user interact with what you offer.
2. EXCEPTIONAL DESIGN
A merely “good” website layout or design is not enough. Your design must be outstanding. Your design can either make or ruin your dental website. What is the impression visitors get of your website when they land on your homepage?
Your website should be visually appealing, polished, and professional. Allow white spaces in-between paragraphs; your layout should be uncluttered.
Simplicity is the perfect way to optimize the user experience and the usability of your website. A pleasing color combination will make your website more attractive, make your visitors feel good, and increase engagement. Your typography and imagery are other factors to consider when creating the layout of your website design. Typefaces should be legible and only use a maximum of three different fonts on your website.
Employ unique and welcoming photography highlighting inside and outside of your practice, the doctors, and your team. Your imagery should be expressive and capture the spirit of your dental brand. You must use high-quality imagery to give the impression of professionalism and credibility in the visitors’ minds.
3. FUNCTIONALITY AND NAVIGATION (USER EXPERIENCE UX)
Website visitors are always in a rush, so don’t delay them any further. Your website should function optimally and at top speed. Do not make your prospective patients wait or have to work hard to get information or navigate your website.
According to research, the average visitor expects a website to load in 4 seconds or less. When your website takes longer to load, the visitor moves to your competitor’s website. This is called a bounce rate. A high bounce rate leads to a decline in organic traffic and SEO rankings. Optimizing your image size will help your website load faster.
Also, navigation plays a crucial role in helping visitors understand your website. You should create obvious logical navigation by using consistent layouts and visual cues for functionality across your site. Your website visitors should find the information they are looking for in 3 clicks or less.
You should design your website to quickly display essential information about your practice, such as office hours, review links, Google map, and availability for emergency patients.
Enable an on-site chat mechanism that can feature a live chat or a chatbot. This will improve user experience in providing answers to visitors’ questions, guiding them to the content they seek, giving support, and capturing leads.
4. OPTIMIZED FOR MOBILE
A website must recognize the size of a visitor’s screen and respond by dynamically showing page content in a way that fits the screen. This makes the browsing experience practical and intuitive.
Your dental website must look great and work well on every platform and device, whether a phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer. The use of mobile and tablet devices is ever on the rise, and your next website visitor could be using any of these.
Ensuring your website is mobile-friendly improves the overall user experience, boosts organic traffic, and improves your SEO ranking.
5. QUALITY AND EVERGREEN CONTENT
You have certainly heard the phrase, “content is king.” Yes, it isn’t just another overhyped cliché.
The content you post on your website matters a lot. Your content can either boost organic traffic and generate more leads or put your visitors off. This is why, at New Patients Inc, one of our primary focuses is your content marketing strategy because we know that an excellent dental brand equals quality content.
Keep in mind that your visitors have a short attention span, so your content should be accurate, updated regularly, and free from all forms of grammatical and spelling errors.
Your content must add value to your readers. It should answer their questions and offer a solution to their problems. Posting value-loaded content regularly sets you apart as an expert and improves your website ranking on Google. At New Patients Inc, we always recommend you maintain a perfect content marketing strategy. You can send us a message to get started today.
Publishing blogs, podcasts, and infographics are a great way to get started on your content marketing strategy. While writing, ensure you use an active voice. Write in short paragraphs and break your contents into manageable sections to make it more scan able. Also, use bullet points and numbered lists.
When crafting content, take care to include just the right amount of education. Inform patients without scaring them. Visiting the dentist is a pretty scary experience for most patients, so don’t further complicate things by adding pictures of sharp instruments, showing procedure videos or retracted lip photos. Oh, and never show a dental drill.
Most importantly, have a clear and engaging headline and subheading that are perfectly optimized for SEO. You should regularly ask yourself; will this headline assure visitors that they are in the right place?
6. EASILY ACCESSIBLE CONTACT PAGE
Your audience will not chase you down. If visitors cannot readily find a contact address, social media handle, or some other ways to reach you, they will jump right into the willing and waiting hands of your competitor, who has what they need.
Offer multiple points of contact: email, phone number, social media handle, online appointment scheduling, and an easy-to-fill contact form for new patients and emergencies.
Your dental contact form should only ask for the visitor’s name, email, and message. The message field should be optional as your client may not know how to describe their dental problems or needs.
A Google map is an excellent bonus to your dental website. Ensure all your info is easy to find on your contact page. It is highly recommended that you provide your contact info at the top and bottom (header and footer) of every website page, as it saves your visitor the stress of having to scroll or search your contact page before they can contact you.
Keep in mind that website visitors nowadays are lazy, so it is better to do the hard lifting for them.
7. HAVE A CLEAR CALL TO ACTION
Research has shown that people will only act when prompted to do so most of the time. If your site asks nothing of visitors, then they will do nothing. At best, they will navigate around your page aimlessly and then move on to your competitors.
Every website has an action it wants visitors to take. For example, informational websites desire readers to read, share their articles, follow and like their social media pages, etc.
Include a concise and compelling call to action. It is not enough to put words together; your call to action must be understandable and persuasive. You can use a call to action like: Book A Call, Request a Free Consultation, Schedule an Online Appointment, etc.
8. OPTIMIZED FOR SEARCH AND THE WEB
Your website aims to attract potential patients. For this to happen, your website must be visible and discoverable by visitors. Imagine a sweet website design with an incredible blend of colors and everything, yet it is not discoverable on Google search…
You should ensure that your website is adequately optimized for search engines. Your website and web pages should be SEO-friendly. Employ the best SEO practices to ensure that your website can easily be found when potential visitors type a keyword related to your dental practice.
9. F-SHAPED READING PATTERN
This is an element of website design that your website should utilize. The F-shaped design is the most common way visitors scan text on a website. It mimics our natural Western reading pattern (from left to right and top to bottom). Based on research, eye-tracking studies have shown that most of what visitors see is in the top and left areas of the screen.
10. SECURITY
Ensure your website is encrypted. Use a good website hosting platform with proper technical support that can guarantee the security of your website.
With the rate of data breach, data phishing, hacking, and other internet crimes, visitors are more cautious now more than ever when viewing a website. Ensure your website is protected using a SSL certificate and is HTTPS protected. This ensures that the communication between a visitor’s browser and your website is encrypted.
TIPS TO HAVING THE BEST DENTAL WEBSITE
A. VISIBILITY
Ensure your website is visible to your prospects. Maximize the best SEO practices to enhance discoverability.
B. USABILITY
Your website should optimize the user experience and add value to your target audience. Your content must be relevant to their needs to deliver a positive experience.
C. CREDIBILITY
Gain your visitor’s trust by ensuring your website is secure and their data is protected. You should also add social proofs such as testimonials, customer stories, etc., to foster trust.
D. SELLABILITY
Let the purpose of your dental website be clear. Employ a compelling call to action.
E. SCALABILITY
Monitor your website progress to accommodate ongoing expansion. Use analytics tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
To know more about growing your dental practice check out our other blog posts and listen to our podcasts, all designed to ensure you scale your dental business. Sign up today to build your customized dental marketing plan and get started on your dental marketing campaign.
