Let’s face it; dental clinic websites are no small investment. According to research, the average cost of hiring a professional to build a small business website in Australia is somewhere between $3000 and $6000 – considerably more if you want all the bells and whistles. Not exactly what you’d call small potatoes, right?
Therefore, dental websites need to earn their keep. In other words, they need to be utilised in the right way to harness every last drop of their marketing power. So how exactly do you do that? Let’s take a closer look.
#1 – Make your site mobile responsive
It really is an understatement when we say that dental practices will benefit from a mobile responsive website. Put it this way, by 2025, more than two-thirds of all consumers will use their devices to access the internet. That’s around 5 billion people, by the way. Okay, so they aren’t all likely to be potential patients, but you get the message.
The bottom line is that any dental practices that don’t have mobile-responsive dental websites may miss out on many potential visitors. If a reader lands on your site using their mobile device but finds it difficult to read or navigate, they’re likely to abandon you and hotfoot it over to your direct competition.
Furthermore, negative mobile experiences can affect your ranking factors, making it harder for dental websites to get noticed in the search engines.
If you haven’t already done so, you’ll need to choose a mobile-friendly theme. Alternatively, you can update your existing theme, make all images and CSS as light as possible, space out links, and use larger and readable fonts. Oh, and eliminate those annoying pop-ups where possible.
#2 – Make your dental website easy to find
If you look at dental clinic websites as often as we do, you’ll see some great-looking and detailed websites that are buried deep in the search engines. It’s a real shame because someone somewhere has put a lot of time and effort into creating them. And guess what? No one is likely to see them because they haven’t been optimised for search.
If you’re starting from scratch, the best dental websites have a name that matches their business or industry somehow.
Then ensure your website is optimised for popular search terms, particularly in your area. For instance, if you’re an implant dentist and you have one or more dental practices in Sydney, it makes sense that you would want to try and rank for the term ‘implant dentist Sydney, or connotations thereof.
If you aren’t au fait with SEO, you might want to consider outsourcing this element to an SEO professional.
#3 – Make finding you easy!
As a dentist, you need a steady influx of new patients. In fact, to achieve consistent growth, dental practices need somewhere between 25 to 40 new patients each month, so you need to make it easy for them to contact you.
You’d be surprised by the number of dental clinic websites we see, where there are no contact details. Remember, it’s all about the user experience, and visitors don’t want to search around for a phone number or email to contact you.
For best results, ensure that all contact details are visible on every page and appear above the fold (the section of the website that appears before you scroll down).
This way, practice contact details are easy to find and quickly visible to anyone looking for a dentist in (enter your location here).
#4 – Make it a marketing machine
So many dental practices adopt what we call a set-and-forget policy. In other words, dental websites are filled with content, and then they simply sit there gathering dust. Here’s the thing; dental websites are a great marketing tool as long as they’re continually updated.
Remember, search engines like Google love content. They can’t get enough of it, particularly if it is quality content that adds real value. As such, Google will reward websites that are continually updated. It’s one of their ranking factors.
So how do you create added content?
By blogging, of course. Did you know, for example, that dental websites with a successful blog generate 67% more leads than those that don’t?
Moreover, every time dental clinic websites add a new blog to their website, it acts as another page that the search engines can crawl and, therefore, another chance for you to be found. Regular blogging is akin to scattering your net far and wide to catch fish; only, the more you blog, the bigger your net and, therefore, the more fish you’ll catch.
#5 – Make it a multi-channel marketing machine
Dental websites don’t just have to be one-trick ponies. Instead, they can be used in multiple ways to drive new patients to your door. For instance, you can build out a series of landing pages about specific treatments like teeth whitening, dental implants, or clear aligners – all of which can link back to your website.
Alternatively, look to build out multiple pages targeting specific suburbs in and around your catchment area. Again, each one can link back to your main website. Dental practices that do this can have a greater chance of gaining more new leads because, according to research, 46% of all internet searches are local.
#6 – Make it instructional
Each page on your website should entice the reader to do something. This may be to
- book an appointment,
- call for a consultation,
- download a newsletter, or
- contact the team to find out more information.
Whatever you want them to do, you’ll need to give them noticeable action to take further steps. This is known as a call to action (CTA) and is a helpful way of getting people to take the next step.
Dental websites that don’t utilise calls to action are, in effect, simply authority sites with a contact number at the top. Not really what you want when you’re trying to make your dental practice website work for you.
So there you have it – six tips on how to get the best out of dental clinic websites. Remember, as well as being your shop window, dental websites are a great marketing tool in their own right. If you can understand the concept of website marketing and unleash its full potential, then you’ll be having a steady stream of new patients before you know it.
If you aren’t currently happy with your influx of new patients and need a hand with any aspect of patient growth, contact Mediboost. We work solely in the healthcare niche and know-how to generate patients in your industry.
Ready to improve your bottom line? Book a strategy call with the Mediboost team on 1300 163 058 today.
References
GoDaddy.com.au – Cost Of Building A Website In Australia
https://au.godaddy.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-build-a-website-in-australia
TechJury.Net – 45+ Mobile Usage Stats You Need To Know
https://techjury.net/blog/mobile-internet-usage/
Oral Health Group – Know Your Numbers For Dental Practice Growth
https://www.oralhealthgroup.com/features/know-your-numbers-for-dental-practice-growth-top-5-metrics-to-help-you-prevail-through-turbulent-times/#:~:text=The%20average%20new%20patient%20is,month%20to%20achieve%20consistent%20growth.
Monster Insights – Google Ranking Factors 2021
https://www.monsterinsights.com/google-ranking-factors
Market Path – Why Blog? Statistics Show The Benefits
https://webservices.marketpath.com/digital-marketing-insights/why-blog-statistics-show-the-benefits
Social Media Today – 12 Local Business Stats Every Owner Should Know
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/12-local-seo-stats-every-business-owner-and-marketer-should-know-in-2019-i/549079
