Jon Hollenberg, our Founder, recently sat down with Stuart Turner from ADA NSW to chat about dental website services and how these can have a huge impact on the dental industry.
It’s 2022 – everyone knows the importance of good website services now, right? Well, possibly not.
For dental practices, developing the most appropriate website within their means can be a hugely powerful tool for increasing customer engagement, increasing awareness of their brand, providing accurate information about oral health and ultimately attracting more patients. So is your dental practice website doing that? Would you even know if it is?
Why is taking time to invest in my dental practice website design and build important?
A ‘good’ dentist website builder is quite subjective which is why when my company Five by Five engages with a new client we very much focus on strategy. It’s about drilling down – if you’ll excuse the pun – on who you are and where your practice sits in the dentistry space. Are you trying to appeal to families? Are you particularly helping patients who are dentally anxious? Having these discussions and being very clear from the outset about how to measure the success of your custom dental website and overall digital strategy is vital.
How often should I provide new content for the best dental website?
I know a Gold Coast dentist who meets a copywriter once a month to discuss new content ideas. It really comes down to what’s practical for you, but most of our proactive clients in dentistry have content creation plans and publish fresh content once or twice a month. This can then be repurposed for their social media outlets and other communications like email newsletters and ultimately drive more traffic to their dental website.
What language is appropriate for a dental website?
It’s important for any website copy to align with the key word strategy for web search reasons but also that it reads like it’s been written by a human being! You’re explaining procedures for patients – you can’t be too ‘robotic’ with your language. Those good preventative and educational oral health messages through your dental website will service your business, newsletters and video content, using ‘common sense’ language, is an effective way to communicate with patients.
The all-important Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the key for custom dental websites
SEO can really help your practice leverage brand awareness and reach more patients. We helped a dentist in regional Victoria secure a 900% increase (in website visitors) purely through ensuring those keyword opportunities were being utilised most effectively. Before you build your custom dental website, research what people are typing in Google to find services you provide – for example, maybe it’s location-based or issues such as “dental hygiene” or “infected tooth symptoms.” It’s just jumping on opportunities through Google searches to best drive people to what you offer. You can get help to best achieve this.
At least cover the basics when collaborating with a website builder for your dentist website
If possible, I definitely think some focus on your team is important on your dental website. Who are the people behind the business? What are their stories? Who is it ‘behind the mask’? Patients might not want your life story but I think telling those personal stories and revealing a little bit about yourself will help build further trust with patients and in turn increase your brand awareness. Some of the other basics to discuss with your website builder include plenty of white space, calls to action, being mobile friendly, building on a user-friendly platform such as WordPress and ensuring it’s easy to load. I would limit use of stock photographs – some of the generic ones can be a real turn-off and don’t cut it these days. Engaging a professional photographer will ensure a good job.
Don’t rest on your laurels when it comes to custom websites for dentists
There’ll always be a place for word of mouth to continue driving referrals but without at least thinking about how you can best use the digital space and getting a custom website, then you won’t see the same growth for your practice. There’s also always younger dentists coming through the ranks who will continue to innovate and widen the gap between their ability to attract more referrals than yours. If you want to avoid stagnating, you’ve got to be in this space.
