descriptions of treatments<\/a> were listed together with factual explanation of how they are performed. There is still a place of this as we\u2019ll see later when we deal with SEO, but nowadays, your web content needs to be much more empathetic.<\/p>\nWhat I mean by this is that you need to focus on how those treatments you provide will solve people\u2019s dental problems and in some cases, quite literally change their lives. Whilst this may sound over the top, it isn\u2019t, and for sure this approach really is the best way to plan and organise your content for maximum effect.<\/p>\n
Validate<\/h3>\n
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\u2019s 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 \u201ctestimonials\u201d page.<\/p>\n
You also need to understand the concept of \u201csocial proof\u201d 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\u2019s seal of approval, endorsements etc, then it\u2019s clear to see why users are more likely to be attracted to that than a website which doesn\u2019t use those techniques.<\/p>\n
Technical excellence and usability<\/h3>\n
You might think that \u201csimple\u201d things like the correct configuration of navigation on a website are easily mastered by all designers, but unfortunately that\u2019s 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 \u201cnext best thing\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t meeting these requirements, then expect your site to struggle with search engine ranking.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cmobile first\u201d for several years and you should make sure that this is the case for your website project too.<\/p>\n
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)<\/h3>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u201celite\u201d 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 \u2013 both of these things are critical and warrant equal attention to make sure you satisfy users and<\/strong> Google.<\/p>\nGoogle ranking issues can also occur where websites adopt a \u201cminimalist\u201d approach to content and don\u2019t 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\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n
Summary<\/h3>\n
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\u2019ve 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\u2019ve achieved it.<\/p>\n
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<\/strong> \u2013 we\u2019ll be pleased to help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Focus on 6 key elements to ensure your practice website delivers what you expect If you\u2019re just setting out on the journey to build a new practice website it really does pay to do some homework to ensure that the …<\/p>\n
6 key design pre-requisites for a great dental website<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-website"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dental-media.co.uk\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dental-media.co.uk\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dental-media.co.uk\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dental-media.co.uk\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dental-media.co.uk\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11828"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.dental-media.co.uk\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11832,"href":"https:\/\/www.dental-media.co.uk\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11828\/revisions\/11832"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dental-media.co.uk\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dental-media.co.uk\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dental-media.co.uk\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dental-media.co.uk\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}