Your Outdated Dental Website Is Costing You Money

Your Outdated Dental Website Is Costing You Money

Here’s why persevering with an outmoded website is a big mistake.

It’s likely that a lot of dentists who don’t update their old, failing websites secretly know that it’s costing them money. Perhaps what they don’t realise however, is just how much it’s costing them and the key reasons why. In today’s blog I’ll list the main reasons why old websites are a drain on your budget as well as failing to convert web visitors into useful treatment enquiries. I’ll also illustrate why your old website is very likely pushing potential new patients across to your competitors.

Dated dental websites are uninspiring and don’t engage visitors

In this fickle world we live in, increasing numbers of people are shopping around when seeking out dental treatments, particularly where those treatments require a significant level of investment such as orthodontics and dental implants. It can’t be stressed enough that “first impressions count” and a potential new patient’s first port of call will often be your website.

Consider then, what happens next? Will the patient be engaged and impressed by your dated website that doesn’t showcase your facilities, skills and patient successes appropriately and professionally. Or will they more likely enquire at the local competitor practice with the new, professional dental website which shows off the practice and services to best effect? The answer is clear and also backed-up by the huge amount of statistical data we see from the numerous marketing campaigns we manage.

Missing out on a few high value treatment cases because patients were enticed to look elsewhere means a lot of lost revenue on a recurring basis, funds that could easily have covered the cost of a new website and much more to boot. It’s really easy to demonstrate this but unfortunately a lot of dentists still ignore the advice and subsequently miss out.

You’re likely still paying your existing web designer over the odds for looking after an underperforming website

This is another classic “fail” and one we see far too many times. When the dentist and/or practice manager finally realises that the practice has been forking out hundreds of pounds per month to support a failing website, a substantial sum has already been wasted. Most dental website companies charge onerous monthly retainer fees which they’ll keep taking irrespective of how well your website is performing. You can consider an old, failing website a bit of a “money pit” in this regard. It’s much better to cut your losses as quickly as possible and invest in a new high-performing website and preferably using a long-standing company like Dental Media which doesn’t charge onerous monthly fees. The performance of the website will improve markedly and you’ll save a lot of money ongoing too.

Your old dental website is progressively failing in Google

Google ranking positions are so important for dental businesses as many new enquiries come directly from people searching on the web. Those enquiries tend to be “well-qualified” too i.e. not just a speculative enquiry from an ad on a social feed for example. Bottom line is that you can’t afford to ignore Google.

Unfortunately, Google has introduced numerous ranking updates over the last few years which focus on the technical aspects of a website, for example how fast pages load and how easy is it to navigate the site. These technical issues have also become ranking factors and Google is increasingly rewarding those sites which perform well compared to those sites which do not. While there are other important factors in play as well, e.g. how well does the website answer a user’s question, what we are seeing is that modern websites which meet Google’s latest technical guidelines are starting to perform better in search rankings than older websites.

Whilst an excellent new website doesn’t necessarily mean that you will make a jump up Google, an outmoded website could mean your rankings start slipping away. This, combined with presenting something old-fashioned for users, generally means that your new patient enquiries from the web quickly start reducing; not a situation you want to find yourself in!

How do you really know when your dental website starts to fail?

This is very important and relatively straightforward to determine, although it’s not something which many dentists or practice managers appear to track. There are a few main indicators:

  • The number of enquiries generated by the website – if this starts to fall away, then something is wrong. If all is well with the technical aspects, e.g. is the website on line and the contact form working, then the next place to look is your Google positions.
  • If your Google positions have fallen away, then you need to determine why. If it’s a newer website which has been built competently, then it’s likely that your search optimisation isn’t up-to-scratch and needs review. At this point it’s well worth talking to the Dental Media team for a no-obligation website audit.
  • Conversion rates – this is a key measurement available from Google Analytics which shows the ratio of enquiries to visits for your website. This can be measured overall but also at the page level. If you are seeing less than 3% conversion ratio, then it is indicative that your website isn’t performing as well as it might. This is a particularly good indicator for websites which have become old, stale and no longer engaging for users – simply put, they visited your site, weren’t impressed and looked elsewhere. This is just one key metric that we monitor for marketing clients here at Dental Media.

Summary

Persisting with an outdated, poorly-performing dental practice website really is false economy. Not only are you losing out on new patient enquiries, you’re likely giving the wrong impression to existing patients too. Additionally you’re compromising your Google rankings as your website slowly gets demoted in favour of ones that perform better.

Whilst a new website is an investment, it’s a very sensible one and typically pays back very quickly indeed. Plus it doesn’t need to cost the earth and certainly not the £8 – £12k that some UK dental website designers seem to believe is a fair price.

If your website is past its sell-by date and perhaps you’re still spending silly monthly fees on it, please give the team at Dental Media a call on 01332 6725458 to see how we can get you back on track.