There’s no environment that changes faster than the online environment. The internet is a hotbed of innovation, new design, and the next greatest thing. It’s an environment in which few dentists flourish.
Your website says a lot about you and your practice, and all of it may not be good if your site isn’t updated regularly.
Style matters, even for dentists. Today’s internet users can pick out a “cookie-cutter” website within seconds, and they won’t be impressed. Stale, dated design immediately brands you and your practice as old-fashioned. That may appeal to some senior citizens, but they’ll be in the minority. Many, if not most, of your prospects will simply go elsewhere.
Your site navigation is also important. Dental prospects expect to be able to find authoritative and useful content on your site without having to hunt for it. A single bad link is enough to cause them to leave your site. And, they expect to easily communicate with your practice and to book an appointment from your website if they wish.
If the site and the site’s navigation don’t cause them to leave, there’s the question of your site’s tone and readability. Too many dental websites are still built to impress other dentists. Your prospects don’t have orthodontic problems; they have crooked or gapped teeth. They don’t have periodontitis; their gums bleed, their teeth are loose, and their breath is foul. They don’t care about the fine differences between brands of dental implants; they want to smile without embarrassment and eat the foods they love without pain.
Search engine optimization is crucial these days. Your website has to be both findable in organic search and mobile compatible. In fact, Google has moved to a “mobile first” search emphasis because more online searches are initiated from portable devices than from desktop or laptop computers. If you’re not mobile these days, you’re nowhere.
Doctor and patient testimonial videos are a must for today’s online audience. Attention spans are shorter than ever; many people prefer to watch a video rather than read an article. Your website videos have to be well done, informative, and present you and your practice in the best possible light.
Dentists Don’t Have Time for All This
Your website is the final stop for most of your new patients. It’s critically important to your marketing efforts, but the surprising truth is that your website doesn’t make you any money. You make money by seeing patients and solving their dental problems. You don’t make money by spending weeks and months figuring out how to revamp your website and then overseeing the work.
But there is a solution.
If you’d like SmartBox to evaluate your website and tell you how it can be improved, go to www.smartboxwebmarketing.com, go to the Resources tab, click Products, and then click on The Swift Kick Dental Website Review. You can order a customized 30-minute video critique of your site, social media presence, online patient reviews, dental videos, and more using our 131-point dental web marketing checklist.
Don’t let your website make you and your practice look old. Today’s savvy internet users don’t like old.