It’s all about that first impression! Within the first seven seconds of interacting with a member of your team, viewing your social media or website, or simply stumbling across company material, your potential patients have already made up their minds about you based on the content you have provided them with.
This could entail a variety of different things. They could decide your website is full of too much clutter, thus confusing them and forcing them to look to the competition for guidance and simplified user experience. They could like what they see and hear from you and advance to learn more, or they could refer a friend to you based on positive things they noticed within your content. This all depends on how you’ve built your website, the main thing people often search for when they’re looking to learn more about a company – so, let’s make a good first impression! Here are 8 ways to do so, and maintain this immaculate image!
1. Let’s start with the basics – a strong ‘about us’ page. Your potential patients should be able to easily access all company information in one designated place, including but not limited to the dental services you offer, your mission statement, contact information, address, hours, maybe even visual aids to showcase the work that you’ve done for your happy patients. This is essential for the user experience, and to make sure you’ll be found by your potential leads! If they have to spend a large amount of time attempting to locate your contact information, you risk losing a potential patient to someone with a simpler finished product – furthermore, if they’re unsure of what specific services you can provide them, they’ll move on to a practice that can make it clear for them.
2. It doesn’t hurt to add photos of your team, from everyone to your dental receptionist(s), to the dental assistants, and surgeons. This will add a personal touch to your website, and establish credibility for your dental office. Potential clients will have the image of a happy, functional practice delivered directly to their cell phones, computers, or tablets, and when they visit your office, they’ll feel as if they know you already. Photos also add a personal touch that can’t be achieved through simply having bios of plain text; consumers like to see a human element to a brand, and showcasing candid photos of your team will remind them that you’re not just a brand or a practice, that you have real people there to provide an important service to them, and build personal connections.
3. Consider adding customer testimonials. You’ll want to showcase a handful of select positive reviews from satisfied patients that best reflect your dental practice and the quality of services you provide. It can be as simple as asking to quote your patients if they tell you about something positive you’ve done for them, or sending out automated e-mails after cleanings and procedures to ask them to leave a review that quickly details their experience. A valuable testimonial is one that tells a story of how their life was bettered due to a service you provided for them, or a positive change was made for their dental health– these are the kind of reviews you’ll feel proud to show off!
4. Throughout the design process, you’ll want to ensure you’re maintaining a clean, neat format. If a potential patient is looking for your hours and location, the information should be readily available to them. A prominent drop-down menu should be included to direct your potential patients to any information you believe they may find valuable or would be crucial for easy conversion. Having too much unrelated, seemingly random information combined in a single area could be overwhelming, and a potential turn-off to the user. And remember; white space is your friend!
5. Don’t forget to have a clear CTA, or appointment form! Once you’ve gone through all the effort of effectively designing a website, it just makes sense to give your potential patients an opportunity to contact you. Placing a prominent CTA, or call to action, in the form of an appointment booking form will give the user the option to easily book in minutes while acting as a prompt for them to do so. There’s nothing wrong with a little push in the direction they’re already wanting to go in. If search engine optimization brought them to you, there’s a good chance they’re already in the market to book, and soon!
6. When building a website, ensure you are choosing experienced professionals to do the design. It’s always best to select web designers that have experience with creating high-quality dental content. Choose a design company with a strong background that will accommodate your needs – there are many award-winning developers to choose from, so choose the one that will best communicate your message through great content!
Not only will you benefit by having well-designed web pages – but your internet marketing will also be given the potential to drastically improve through professional features and functions, specifically created by professional designers and developers.
7. Use A/B Testing.
This process often referred to as ‘split testing’, consists of comparing two different versions of your web page to see which performs better with your target audience. Which gives a better conversion rate? Which site generates more traffic? What’s getting more clicks, what’s getting none at all?
Whichever page favours in either of these categories or any additional ones your company creates is the design you should implement, and stick with until testing time rolls around again.
8. Evaluate and Readjust as Needed.
Though it does sound preferable, you can’t design your website, open it to the public, and then leave it to take care of itself forever.
Your website may be doing its’ job one day, and need tweaking or updating the next; the market is always changing, so the way we market to and approach our target marketing will always be constantly evolving, too.
You don’t need a constant stream of updates, or to evaluate your page every week, however, periodic testing and altering should be done to keep things fresh and relevant.
Maybe you’ll routinely find that your website is effective, with no immediate need to innovate or make drastic changes. That’s great – now you have concrete proof that your strategy and design work, and can feel confident in continuing to use it.
Alternatively, maybe you’ll often find that there are small improvements you could make, and now you can anticipate this, and easily work them in so as not to lose out on any potential leads.
Once you’ve achieved your custom web design and are prepared for your website launch, you can look forward to having a well-established online presence, and begin to reap the benefits of it!
