When you are setting up the website for your dental surgery, you may be wondering what the most important factors are. After all, it is likely that you are a dentist or a dental surgery manager and not a marketing expert or a professional website designer.
Indeed, the branding, colour and overall aesthetic appeal of your website are important. But there are crucial elements that consistently cause dental surgery sites to fall off the radar of search engines.
But don’t worry! In the following guide, you will be provided with top tips on how to design successful dental websites and attract new patients to your surgery. So, read on to learn more.
It’s got to be quick!
It may come as a surprise, but studies have found that dental patients spend around 5 seconds on average on your surgery’s homepage before deciding whether they should click further or leave. This is known as a bounce rate. For most dental surgeries, the bounce rate is around 70%; this means that 7 out of 10 people visiting your site are not clicking further links. So, it is important to consider what you want to convey on your homepage. This could be something as simple as a phone number, a “contact us” link, some of the treatments that you can provide, your clinic’s address or a Google review. Your website also has to be quick and will need to have the homepage loaded in around 3 seconds.
Contact
Coming back to the 70% bounce rate, 3 of those 10 patients are choosing to stay on your page. So, how do they know how to contact you? You will have to assess the menu on your website and look at contact links. You could put a “book an appointment” or “contact us” button on your homepage. It is worth noting that on websites, researchers found that people’s eyes are instinctively drawn to the top right-hand side of the page, so this would be the ideal place to put contact information.
Treatments
The wording is also important on a website. If you have a drop-down menu, you should refer to what you offer as a treatment, not a service. You should also have a page dedicated to each treatment that you provide. If you offer services like dental implants or porcelain veneers, do not hide these away as these are currently very popular areas that patients are looking for.
Animations
Every dental surgery site has a blog; however, it is unfortunately rather rare that it will be clicked on. When it comes to your treatment pages, it is best to have a short written guide about the procedure and an animation, displaying how it is done and what the treatment entails. This will help to keep the site’s visitors engaged and informed.
Awards
If your dental surgery has won any awards, be sure that they are displayed on the homepage, as this highlights the efforts that you and your team have put into your dental care. It is also more likely to attract new patients to become members.
