Your dental office website enables you to establish an interactive and impressive online presence. It's an online platform where existing and prospective patients can communicate with you. Your website can also hold details about the staff to familiarize the patient with your team, show off the technology you invested in for your patients, and even answer questions about insurances or financial policies, so there are no surprises for your patients. Additionally, it can give critical information on payment alternatives, directions, parking, etc.
Whether patients learn about treatments to commit to drastic smile changes, learn about your practice and the doctors involved in it, or request appointments online, a well-designed and laid-out dental website can serve as a digital liaison between patients and your practice.
The Importance of a Website For Your Dental Practice.
If your dental practice is currently without a website, you might be missing out on valuable opportunities to service your patients while attracting new ones. Although developing a new website might require expert assistance, the work is well worth the result. So what exactly makes a website so crucial for your dental office? Moreover, what essential elements go into making an effective and useful one?
Here is a breakdown of all this information. Understanding these points will help you decide how to design and plan or upgrade your dental office website. It's a great way to get the word of your dental practice out there. Your website is the base on which you build your online presence. It's the place that existing clients visit for additional information about the services they need.
Potential clients will browse through various pages, customer testimonials, payment options, etc., to determine whether your services suit their needs. Ideally, your website should have a detailed menu and comprehensive information about your services. You have to lay out the information in an easy-to-understand manner.
As mentioned, potential patients will also want to know what your existing clients have to say about your business, so you need to have patient testimonials and reviews on the site. Team bios will give clients a view of your team, their qualifications, and specializations. Dental offices with well-planned and well-designed websites always attract more traffic than those with standard, template-based sites.
Essential Elements to Have In a High-Quality Website.
An excellent website needs to have all the appropriate elements such as:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so that your target audience can quickly locate you online.
A proper structure and layout for search engines and patients.
Relevant information that is easy to understand.
Engaging content to keep visitors on the pages for a longer time, encouraging them to browse the site.
A professional and attractive website to distinguish you from others in the industry.
An efficient and straightforward call to action buttons to help the patient schedule right away.
These factors create an effective website that will drive more patients to your practice. Let's take an in-depth look at some of the most crucial ones:
1. SERVICES-RELATED INFORMATION
Your dental website must have one page for each service that you offer. Your potential patients will access these pages to understand what each treatment involves, and accurately optimized pages will help get them there. Include videos and images for each service. Highlight the salient features of a service and your USPs (Unique Selling Propositions) so patients will be encouraged to schedule an appointment. Services pages serve various purposes, including:
Answering questions that potential clients have about your services
Enabling people to make a better-informed decision about your practice
2. HIGH-QUALITY CONTENT
Your dental website's success relies heavily on the type of content it has. It is essential to provide information to visitors, but you also want your website to be visible on the internet. Therefore, it must rank high on the SERPs or Search Engine Results Pages. Although most visitors will not read every bit of your web content, the search engine bots will display their recommendations after crawling your web pages. This aspect makes it necessary that:
Your web content is engaging and provoking your prospective clients' interests.
The content provides relevant and valuable information.
You have concisely written the content in an easy-to-read format. It is fundamental to do this because visitors will only quickly skim through the text and not read every word.
Your content is of high quality as it demonstrates your expertise in the field.
Quality content has a much higher chance of attracting more patients to your dental office, as it will produce excellent ROI (Return of Investment).
3. CLIENT TESTIMONIALS THAT BUILD RECOGNITION AND AUTHORITY
Place testimonials from happy and satisfied patients on your dental website; these act as proof and a good way of showcasing your expertise and excellent service. Although your website content will talk about your superb facilities, high-quality care, and the best technology and service, when visitors see that your patients are vouching for these, it makes a better impact. People trust this information more than when they read what you say about yourself.
4. PLACE CONVERSION BUTTONS AT STRATEGIC POINTS
Include a compelling CTA (Call-to-Action) on each webpage on your site. These CTAs should encourage visitors to make a call or book an appointment. Placing these buttons at strategic points throughout the site will help people quickly contact you. Place the CTA buttons in a color that catches attention above the fold for immediate action from website visitors. These aspects matter when it comes to making an impact with little details on your site.
5. PROVIDE ONLINE APPOINTMENT FUNCTIONALITY
Make it convenient for visitors to book appointments online. This process is convenient and something that many patients expect and prefer. Online paperwork, appointments, and text reminders are the best way to minimize cancellations and no-shows, thus increasing your overall patient numbers. Ensure that your online appointments and CTAs are optimized for mobile users, as a large percentage of people use mobile devices to browse websites.
6. FOCUS ON STRUCTURING YOUR WEBSITE WELL
Only a well-structured website will benefit your practice - place pages, tabs, and buttons in the right places. The sections/pages your dental website must include:
Home (Website's Summary)
About Us
Services
New Patient Forms
Payment Options
Insurance Details
Location Pages (If you have multi-location offices)
Contact Us
You will also need to have a well-planned navigation menu, graphics, and content that work together and apply to responsive web pages. Make sure it has all the necessary SEO elements for increased visibility.
7. PERSONALIZE YOUR BRANDING
People need to see what you are all about, and that's where personalized branding comes in. Include images of your facilities, premises, and team. Add service-related videos to add life to your website and to create a positive first impression on visitors. You can incorporate treatment-related before and after images to make the content more informative. Photos, videos, and graphics provide some relief from blocks of text, making it easier for visitors to access the information they need. In other words, potential patients need to get a clear idea of your office.
8. HIGHLIGHT YOUR BRAND WITH YOUR STORY
We can't overstate the importance of an impactful About Us page. People want to know the history of your business and its background. Adding your dental practice's story on your website is one way to win over your audiences while increasing your brand value. Professional website designers offer their suggestions about how to position information on your About Us page, and it can help in:
Developing a solid marketing strategy
Turning your business name into a recognizable brand
Earning your audiences' loyalty and affection
Driving profits
Visitors will better understand your vision, culture, business ideology, and priorities - it is crucial in creating a well-established dental practice.
9. INCLUDE A SEPARATE INSURANCE PAGE
You need to include an insurance page as a part of your website structure. Every credible dental office will mention the connected insurance network names. In addition to these details, add some relevant and well-thought-out FAQs to your insurance page. Consider which questions matter to your potential patients and include them in the FAQs.
The Use of Patient Psychology In Website Design
Psychology has a crucial role in all types of web content and web design. Specific psychological triggers can go a long way in influencing patient choices, increasing your return on investment. Many different effects and techniques can help you achieve the required results from your website's content and design, such as:
Plan the site's navigation menu in a way that the most important links are near the top of the beginning
Optimize your webpages
Outline all the notable benefits
Follow the Von Restorff Effect concept to make your site's visitors remember the details that catch their attention.
Highlight the services you want to promote and place the CTA buttons strategically.
Motivate visitors by using the Zeigarnik Effect to complete tasks they didn't complete during their previous visit, such as returning for additional information, completing the sign-up process, or filling up a Contact Us form.
Offer incentives, place a progress bar, and keep visitors informed about irreversible changes.
Include these types of psychological triggers on your dental office website to encourage potential patients to take action. It's a simple yet effective way of driving traffic to your website.
This article focuses on designing and planning websites that keep your visitors engaged while providing the information they are searching for is essential. At Geek Dental Marketing®, we have mastered the skill and art of marketing strategies that always drive results for dental practices of all shapes and sizes, but it always starts with the foundation - your website! So, don't forget to pay attention to these tips when creating a new website for your practice.
About the author:
Cesar Navarro, MS, is presently the Marketing Director & CEO of Geek Dental Marketing®, a marketing, development, and technology company for dental offices. With the vision to grow practices, improve management and visibility online, Cesar launched a full marketing company that focuses solely on dentistry to help dentists stand out from the crowd. Cesar holds over ten years of experience in the dental marketing field. He has also served as a group practice administrator and treatment coordinator, where he began his journey and passion for dentistry. Before dentistry, Cesar served as an NCO in the United States Army for several years, where he gathered many skills that most marketers lack. Combining all his skills like attention to detail and experiences, he has presented several CE courses to help dentists globally, such as “Leadership in a Dental Office,” “Branding Mastery Course,” “The How Much Patient? Converting & Selling”, “A New Era: Social Media Marketing,” and many more, and with it thousands of hours as a practice marketing consultant.