Anyone with fingers and a brain can build a website. Not anyone can build a professional, user-friendly, interactive dental website design with optimized, clinically-accurate content and excellent SEO.
You are probably inquisitive by nature, if you’re a dentist. If you’d like to learn the ins and outs of website design, without getting into the specifics and nuances of coding, this article is for you.
To make informed decisions about your dental website, you need to learn a bit about design, user experience, information out, and information coming into the site. This article should help you learn enough to feel confident choosing a website company that will build a website that shares your unique voice and mission with the world.
In this blog, which is article one of a series you should definitely read, will explore these topics:
- What Is Dental Website Design?
- Do You Need a Dental Website Writer?
- What Is Dental Website Development?
- What’s the Timeline for Website Publication?
Article two will cover:
- What’s Involved in Dental Website SEO?
- On-page SEO
- Off-page SEO
- Organic SEO
- Paid SEO
- Can a Website be Optimized at the Time It’s Built, then Left to Mature?
Article three will cover:
- What’s Dental Website ROI?
- What Is the Average Dental Website Cost?
- Choosing Great Dental Website Companies
Let’s dig in!
What Is Dental Website Design?
Creating a website requires first design and then development. A designer is usually a graphic artist who focuses on creating websites, including the important element of UX (user experience).
UX: An Internet user’s experience with using a website or app; the new and more complex form of “user-friendliness”
Significant labor goes into designing a dental website. The first decision that must be made is the platform on which the website will be built. Choose from simple, DIY websites by Wix and similar companies; go with a website design company that offers proprietary templates; or–and this is the best and most popular option–build on WordPress.
Dental Website Platform Options:
- Wix and others like it: cheap and easy for the novice to use; looks rather cheap, in most cases; limited UX; can be used as an interim until a better site is built
- Proprietary Template: professional designs that you choose from; you won’t own your website, in most cases, and you may have to provide the text (or writing) for the site; incorporates library articles that are used on many websites, thus this option does not offer great SEO
- WordPress: the best of both worlds: you can DIY with the user-friendly back-end editors or select a professional designer, developer, copywriter, and SEO expert to build your dental website; you own the site; SEO and UX plugins available to enhance the site in many ways
Selecting a WordPress Template
Next, the designer selects a template. WordPress templates are in the hundreds of thousands, so design and functionality options are virtually limitless. A designer then customizes the template with your colors, logo and branding, text, images, videos, etc.
Additionally, WordPress websites feature plugins and widgets.
Plugins: A small software component that adds specific functionality to a website.
For instance:
- Yoast SEO provides fill-in-the-blanks for optimizing a site and its pages
- Smush compresses images
- Flamingo stores contact form entries
Widgets: Copy-and-paste code blocks that add a component to a website or app. For example, a contact form or social media feed may be added to a site by way of widgets.
Do You Need a Dental Website Writer?
Before agreeing to write the text for your dental website, consider your knowledge of SEO. Even more important, consider how much time you have to invest in writing pages for your site. Most dentists either go with stock library articles (which offer no SEO value) or hire a writer to compose the content.
If you opt for a professional, finding a good dental copywriter is your next agenda item. Here’s a secret that most dentists don’t know: the ADA has marketing guidelines that, if neglected, could cost a dentist his or her license! Knowing this, among other things, separates a regular copywriter from a dental copywriter.
At Identiwrite Creative, my dental writers know what can and cannot be said on a dentist’s website. They also understand dental procedures, treatments, and technology; search engine optimization best practices; and how to compose engaging, informative text that lures readers.
You can hire Identiwrite Creative for complete dental website design and development or just to write SEO copy for the agency that’s building your site. Call Identiwrite Creative at 972-679-6885 or email [email protected]. We will answer all of your questions and provide a detailed proposal for your project.
What Is Dental Website Development?
Design involves the look and UX of a website, and development refers to building a website. Development has to do with coding, and these days coding goes worlds beyond HTML. I’ve been in the dental website business for nearly two decades, and I must call on my developers for some tasks. Building a website on my own would be a ridiculous waste of time. In other words, you need a web developer.
The dental website developer will take the template and text, combine them on a staging area (invisible to search engines), and call on the designer and copywriter as needed. A developer also tests a website, to make sure it functions properly across all devices and screen sizes, and in the most popular browsers. He or she checks links, forms, and interactive elements for proper function – and corrects errors. A dental website developer is basically an Internet architect.
You can hire Identiwrite Creative for complete dental website design and development or just to write SEO copy for the agency that’s building your site. Call Identiwrite Creative at 972-679-6885 or email [email protected]. We will answer all of your questions and provide a detailed proposal for your project.
What’s the Timeline for Website Publication?
This question’s answer depends upon many factors, so I’ll give you the basics.
If you’re building a Wix website, or something like it, the amount of time from conception to publication depends upon how quickly you can work through the instructions. It’s simple and fast, but as mentioned earlier, not necessarily professional or robust.
Should you choose a dental website design company, they should share their timeline with you. Here, I’ll review Identiwrite Creative’s timeline for website development.
- Immediately upon sale, we schedule interviews, request logins, and make sure that your URL and hosting are ready.
- Then it takes TWO WEEKS after the interviews to write content and create two design concepts.
- The time between the first two and second two weeks depends on how quickly the client (that’s you) makes decisions about the design, UX, text, URL, hosting, and completion of the site.
- After your approval of the copy and design, expect TWO WEEKS for a developer to build the website.
- Next, you’ll evaluate the site and either submit change requests or approve publication.
- We make the site live.
- We optimize the site, attach Google Search Console and Google Analytics, test forms, etc. Then the website goes on one of our SEO Power Blogs and/or site maintenance packages.
Usually, the total time to “go-live” is eight weeks, but we have built a site in four weeks.
Call for a Complimentary Phone Consultation
I’d like to invite you to call Identiwrite Creative at 972-679-6885 or email [email protected]. We will answer all of your questions and provide a detailed proposal for your project.
A top-quality dental website is essential for your practice to appear professional and tech-savvy. If optimized properly, your website can become your most cost-effective means of acquiring new patients. Give us a call today!
