6 key design pre-requisites for a great dental website
Focus on 6 key elements to ensure your practice website delivers what you expect
If you’re just setting out on the journey to build a new practice website it really does pay to do some homework to ensure that the project delivers to your expectations. A great dental practice website is still the main cornerstone for all of your digital marketing and irrespective of how potential new patients hear about you, they will still check out what you are all about via a visit to your website. If this isn’t up-to-scratch, then the chances are that your new patient will simply look elsewhere.
Unfortunately there is a lot of misinformation in the world of dental website design and it’s very easy to go down the wrong track and end up with a mess. This can range from cheap, generic websites built on DIY platforms like WIX and Squarespace, to hugely expensive sites built by so-called “elite” designers that are technically poor and under-perform in Google. You really do need to take appropriate care at the outset to select the correct designer and platform to give you a website you’ll be proud of and which earns its keep (and more) in new patient bookings.
So what are the key 6 things you need to keep firmly in mind when for your new dentist’s website? Let’s take a closer look.
Aesthetics
It goes without saying that your website needs to look good and be engaging for users. There are lots of dentists upping their game with digital marketing generally and like it or not, you’ll need to compete if you want your share of the new patients using the web to seek out new dental services. Remember that a lot of folk are quite fickle and easily “hooked” by something that looks good – many don’t read past what they see after the first glance and so you need your website to make exactly the right impression very quickly.
Personalisation
We’ve probably all seen the glitzy dentists’ websites that rely on stock images of models with beautiful teeth, clothes and lifestyles which have become quite commonplace in the last few years. However, these types of sites are in many ways unrealistic and non-representative of the business they represent. Equally they all appear quite similar and the over-reliance on stock images means that they fall short in the engagement stakes.
It is proven that the websites which work best are the ones where personalisation is a key part of the design. By this I mean the use of photography/video of the practice and team members, not lots of “samey” stock images. People react best when they can see who and what they will be dealing with, so it’s essential to build this element into your website through the use of appropriate visuals.
Even if your practice is a bit tired, you can still get some great images of the team, close-ups of the equipment etc whilst you bring other areas of the practice up to scratch. This is very important, so please don’t just rely on your designer to fill your new website with the same old stock images that they’ve likely used before.
Empathise
It used to be the case that dental websites were a bit like a catalogue where fairly dry descriptions of treatments were listed together with factual explanation of how they are performed. There is still a place of this as we’ll see later when we deal with SEO, but nowadays, your web content needs to be much more empathetic.
What I mean by this is that you need to focus on how those treatments you provide will solve people’s dental problems and in some cases, quite literally change their lives. Whilst this may sound over the top, it isn’t, and for sure this approach really is the best way to plan and organise your content for maximum effect.
Validate
Anyone can claim to be great at what they do but discerning users are going to be looking deeper than this, particularly for more complex treatments such as implants and orthodontics. It’s no use just saying that you are an excellent clinician; you need third-party validation of this using tools such as patient testimonials, case studies and even video snippets of patients explaining how pleased they have been with your services. Content like this must be displayed strategically at key points within your website and not just tucked away on a traditional “testimonials” page.
You also need to understand the concept of “social proof” whereby a consumer will be influenced by the behavior of others. For example, when selecting a restaurant in an area where there are several, we may be inclined to use the one where there are more tables occupied? If we can utilise these kinds of influences on a website, e.g. testimonials, reviews, expert’s seal of approval, endorsements etc, then it’s clear to see why users are more likely to be attracted to that than a website which doesn’t use those techniques.
Technical excellence and usability
You might think that “simple” things like the correct configuration of navigation on a website are easily mastered by all designers, but unfortunately that’s not the case. There are still too many new websites that are launched which are very frustrating for users to navigate. There is also a tendency for designers to build the “next best thing” and try to cram all types of bells and whistles in to a website to try to impress their clients, whilst at the same time forgetting the overall usability. The key here is not to overdo it and understand that irrespective of how pretty your website looks, if it frustrates the user, then it will fail.
There are many aspects to this, another key one being how quickly a website loads. If this is too slow, not only will it frustrate users, but also it will significantly compromise how well the website performs in Google. It must be stressed that Google is becoming increasingly stringent when it comes to the technical performance of websites and if your designer isn’t meeting these requirements, then expect your site to struggle with search engine ranking.
It would be remiss not to mention mobile usability here and how that needs to be prioritised first before considering how a website looks on a desk-top PC screen. Good designers have been designing “mobile first” for several years and you should make sure that this is the case for your website project too.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
There are many facets to this but how your new website is configured technically and the nature of the content within it, are key to how the site will perform in Google.
Setting up a site correctly to form an excellent platform for ongoing SEO is essential, particularly so in areas of high competition. This is an area in which many websites fail, often those very expensive, glitzy ones you may see from the so-called “elite” design agencies. Close inspection of these websites shows that they often fail in Google simply because they ignore the technical performance aspects in favour of aesthetics – both of these things are critical and warrant equal attention to make sure you satisfy users and Google.
Google ranking issues can also occur where websites adopt a “minimalist” approach to content and don’t provide enough factual information for Google to digest and then rank. Skimping on content simply for the sake of aesthetics is a big mistake, but one we often see. Where you are configuring the content for a treatment page for example, you need to consider all of the aspects we’ve already discussed such as aesthetics, usability, personalisation etc. In addition to this you also need to include a reasonable amount of factual content for Google to digest and also for those users who want to dig a little more into the detail. This balance is important.
Summary
Designing a new website for a dental practice is not a trivial task and takes a great deal of experience and considerable time to get right. There are a number of key elements to consider when undertaking a design like this, the main ones we’ve discussed above. Skimp on any of those areas and the overall performance of the website will be compromised, so please keep a close eye on your designers and challenge them to meet all of the criteria and be prepared to demonstrate how they’ve achieved it.
If you are considering a new website for your own dental practice and need some experienced help, please call the web design team at Dental Media on 01332 672548 – we’ll be pleased to help.