Your website serves many purposes. It provides your patients with around-the-clock education about dental health; it increases awareness about the services you offer; and it helps improve efficiencies in the office by reducing calls and streamlining paperwork. But above all, your website’s primary objective should be to convert visitors into loyal patients.
When visitors arrive at your site, you only have a few minutes to make a good first impression and gain their trust. Here are a few tips for turning those first-time visitors into referring patients.
Eye-catching design
Your site’s design alone can sway a potential patient’s decision to stay on your home page or instantly click back to the search results. Your website should be professional-looking and attractive. It should also be up-to-date and unique in look and feel — reflective of your practice and differentiating you from your competition. A site that is hard on the eyes and outdated may give the message that your practice isn’t up-to-speed.
Killer content
When a visitor lands on your home page, you want to present quality, concise content to win their trust. Your website messaging should be informative and satisfy visitors’ needs by providing them with just enough helpful information to get them to click through to your other pages to learn more.
Equally important as great content are your call-to-actions. Use call-to-action buttons to draw attention to particular content and guide the visitor through requesting an appointment or contacting your office for more information. Give visitors a clear offer, incentive, or action to take when they arrive on your site, such as “Find out more about our teeth whitening promotion” or “Click here to Like Us on Facebook.”
Smooth navigation
Don’t make your potential patients jump through hoops to learn more about your services or request an appointment. If your current website doesn’t have clearly labeled pages and tabs, then visitors are likely to turn somewhere else. Your website navigation should be well-constructed and organized so that users can easily and quickly locate the information they seek.
Your website is a critical part of your marketing mix. Don’t miss a great opportunity to drive new patients who are seeking your services online. Examine your current site, and put yourself in your visitors’ shoes. When potential patients visit, you want to give them a positive impression of what your practice is all about and the confidence to choose you as their dentist. Talk to a dental website provider who can help you create a unique website presence for your practice that delivers new patients.
Author bio
Glenn Lombardi is president of Officite, LLC, the No. 1 provider of dental website design and Internet marketing strategies for the dental community. Officite has built more than 7,000 websites that have generated hundreds of thousands of appointment requests since 2002. To learn more, visit www.officite.com or call (800) 908-2483.
