What Do Patients Look for in Their Dentist’s Website?

Your dental practice website design determines whether prospective patients go to your practice website or a competitor’s. Your practice website is the patients’ first impression of your practice. Make sure it’s a good one.  

There are a host of reasons why viewers could see your dental practice website as outdated or frustrating to navigate. Let’s be clear: outdated is bad. An outdated practice website can cause viewers to imagine that the practice is also outdated. As a result, you may lose prospective patients. Outdated is not a look any practice should have.

An excellent dental practice website design must deliver superb content, accessed through navigation that viewers appreciate. Your dental marketing depends on a highly effective website to drive new patients to your office. So what do patients look for in their dentist’s website?

4 Things That Your Dental Practice Website Design Must Do To Please Patients

1. Offer a Mobile-Friendly Design That’s Intuitive

At first, a website was essential. Now, a mobile-friendly website has become something dental practices must have. If your website design isn’t responsive to mobile devices, a poor viewing experience will be the result. Consequently, your practice will look somehow less than professional, which isn’t a look you want your practice to have.

Not many dentists have a profound knowledge of website design, and they shouldn’t have to. Therefore, it’s wise to steer away from free website templates and DIY approaches to web development. In short, let the pros handle your dental practice marketing agency services. By doing so, you and your staff can stay focused on providing quality patient care.

2. Post New Content On a Regular Basis

Part of dental practice website design is a plan for how often new content is uploaded. Some dentists make the mistake of believing that once a website is published that the work is down. Nothing can be further from the truth. The truth is that the work has only just started. Every month, your website needs fresh dental content, most often in the form of blogs. Failure to do this means your website grows stale fast. Search engines like Google want to see new content posted on a regular basis. If they don’t see it, your ranking will likely drop.

New content is how your office’s website gains authority with patients and search engines. For patients, you become a valuable source of information about things like cosmetic dentistry, for example. You want patients looking to you for advice about things like professional whitening, veneers and implants and not your competitors. In fact, your website needs to become their go-to resource for all things dental. Of course, this is one way to build patient trust, even before a patient actually meets you.

3. Highlight The Dentist’s Reputation

We’ve already talked about using your website to bolster your reputation. Don’t forget that this extends to things like online reviews. While it would be inappropriate to sing your own praises, it’s perfectly OK to let others do it for you. For new patients, it’s gratifying to hear others compliment you and your practice. It’s this social proof that serves to distinguish one practice from another. It’s also an excellent way to bring new patients and retain your existing patient base. 

Patient reviews are powerful word-of-mouth advertising. Dental practice website design needs to take into account these reviews and highlight them prominently. When something positive is said about your practice on social media, for example, it’s important to highlight such comments on your website.

4. A Clear Plan of Action

Attracting web traffic to your website is only part of the battle. Once there, they need to do more than read what’s on it. You need them to do something, which is typically to pick up the phone and call for an appointment. There’s no guarantee that they’ll do so without being asked. Your landing pages and blogs should contain effective calls to action. These tell viewers what their next course of action should be. Effective dental practice website design will incorporate calls to action across the website in order to reach all incoming visitors.

Remember that if viewers land on your website but don’t take action, your website serves little purpose. Your content and your calls to action should motivate readers to call your office. At the very least, it should compel them to return to the website again.

Is Your Dental Practice Website Design Getting the Job Done?

Your dental marketing revolves around your website. Therefore, it’s imperative that you make sure it does what it’s supposed to do. That’s why partnering with a digital marketing agency that understands the unique nature of dentistry is so essential. Dreamscape Marketing knows your chief concerns, and we can turn your website into the new patient-generating machine it was meant to be. Call us today at 888.307.7304 and let us show you how excellent dental practice website design gets the job done.