Today we’ll look at dental website examples and hear from a graphic designer, technical developer, and dental copywriter who have worked with many dental practices. We’ll look at responsive design, graphic elements that move and bring interactivity to site visitors, and we’ll explore how to draw a brand into site design. We’ll discuss SEO, because it is essential to getting your site ranked on page one of Google search – and along with on-page SEO, we’ll touch on off-page SEO, like online reviews and backlinks.
Dental websites in 2018 are not what they were five, even two years ago. The web is more competitive, we have local search, reputation factors, and ranking factors – then there’s attention span issues. How do you keep a visitor engaged and pointed toward the transition, which is contacting your office?
Purchasing a dental website is a challenge, not just a task. You should not just rely on your gut – what looks good to you.
Let’s consider at what the experts say.
Graphic Design Advice
In the video tours above, you’ll notice how hovering over some of the elements causes boxes to flip or change colors. These actions prompt the viewer to participate with the website, so viewing the site becomes more than a one-sided activity, like watching a television commercial. It becomes interactive, like a video game. Interactivity encourages the viewer to stay on the site longer. This has two benefits. One, the longer a person remains on a website, the greater the chance that he or she will become a patron of that business. Two, length of time on a site, per visitor, factors into search credit. So, keeping visitors on your site longer can actually help boost your search rankings. And let’s face it, the power of being able to move things and make them change color is just cool.
Call Identiwrite Creative now to discuss your website. 940-395-5115
Veteran graphic artist Anthony Sotelo is our Identiwrite Creative website designer. He shares his advice on the most important visual part of a website’s homepage:
“Depending on how the site is designed, it would be the billboard area (or banner) below the menu. It establishes proper messaging hierarchy and is essentially a first impression, messaging wise. It sets the tone and manner for the business. It conveys branding. Most dental sites tend to overwhelm with information – so it comes off as confident when you give priority to a strong message with a copy line in this area. After that, for practical purposes, it’s important to have the contact info in the header.”
In the samples below, note the circled items — the contact info in the headers and the clickable information elements in or near the billboard/banner.
Branding in Website Design
Another important part of design, as seen in the dental website example below, is integrating the practice’s brand. Here, you see that we’re working on a dental lab website. The logo is green, but the client did not want to go with a primarily green website. The phsychology behind blue is that it conveys order, security, and calmness — just what’s needed when a dentist is depending on a lab for reliability and quality. So with navy as the main color, conveying security and reliability, the green of the brand is used as a highlight.
Also, the lab’s logo features a hexagon, which Anthony subtly replicated in the design as an overlay on the featured product boxes. So you see, the brand is being tastefully woven into the design, rather than being left only to the logo or being plastered all over the site. There’s a sophistication and classic elegance to this design style that works very well in the dental industry.
Technical Advice
David Blide, experienced web technician and developer, shares his expertise with dentists:
“I think maintenance would probably be the most important aspect of technical website development. A website that doesn’t function or load properly will chase away potential patients. So, in the development phase of dental website design, this means that the site needs to be created in such a way that it loads quickly, preferably in 4 to 5 seconds for people who have good internet speed. Forms need to function properly, emails need to go through – and be answered within 24 hours. Dropdown menus, links, interactive elements all need to work properly. Photos need to load properly. The site needs to look great on all devices – meaning it should be responsive – and in all browsers, like Chrome, Safari, and Explorer.”
Other technical issues that must be addressed include: domain, hosting, SSL, website format (WordPress, proprietary), support and updates, and email. Once you have a website, you will need someone on call to help you with issues that arise. What will you do if the site goes down? Or gets hacked? Or does not show up in search?
So responsiveness is visually explained in the dental website example on the right. Elements of the Silver Spring Smiles site (which is still in development) stack on top of one another in the mobile version, creating a linear version of the website that looks great on a small, handheld screen. Without responsive design, the site would shrink to fit on the screen, making the text too tiny to read. Or, the site may remain large, which would require awkward horizontal scrolling to see and read the presentation. Google’s indexing robots now use a mobile-first system, so sites that have mobile-ready design do better in search than those without responsive or mobile-friendly design. Others will be indexed, but will not rank as high.
Responsive web design explained in greater detail in this previous blog post.
Other technical issues that must be addressed include: domain, hosting, SSL, website format (WordPress, proprietary), support and updates, and email. Once you have a website, you will need someone on call to help you with issues that arise. What will you do if the site goes down? Or gets hacked? Or does not show up in search?
SEO Copywriting Advice
Mandy Wilson, our lead dental copywriter and editor, has worked with many dentists in her career. She started out as a dental assistant in a periodontal practice before following her desire to write and coming onboard at Identiwrite Creative. Here’s her wisdom regarding wordsmithing for our clients:
“Your dental practice is unique. Your website should be too. By learning more about your personal mission and philosophy, I can handpick keywords that will appeal to potential clients and search engines alike. The result? A fully customized site that can help you grow your practice while boosting your SEO in the process.”
At Identiwrite Creative, our copywriters aim to please two audiences – first, the potential patient, and second, Google. Search engine indexing algorithms have evolved tremendously in the past decade, so that now, by writing for potential patients, as if we’re speaking directly to them, we can also make a site rank high in search results. Sure, there’s a lot of strategy that goes into it, but we no longer have to look at keyword percentages and silly things that make writing boring for human consumers.
We take time to talk with our client dentists. We learn about their passion for patient care, their philosophy and favorite parts of dentistry, whether it’s the science, the art, or the human interaction. Then we take all of that information, and we write web content, bringing in the human aspect of the dentist’s passion and the clinical aspect of dentistry, plus the marketing that can be accomplished through patient education.
Add to the original copywriting some off-page SEO, and you’ll begin to build a strong website with high rankings. On-page refers to keyword integration, interlinking between pages, having enough original, quality text on pages to be of value to Google, and using heading tags and alt-image tags and meta descriptions. Off-page refers to participating in social media, acquiring links to your site from other quality websites, claiming listings on third-party websites, and having patients post reviews on Yelp!, Google, Facebook, and HealthGrades. All of these things work together to help you build a presence online. Ultimately, if you want to rank high in search, for a wide range of terms, you need to have your finger in all the pies.
To talk shop with me, Shauna Duty, managing director and owner of Identiwrite Creative, call me at 940-395-5115 or email [email protected]. I’ll be happy to analyze your site, provide a competitive analysis of local dentists’ websites, and talk strategy with you.
