An effective dental website model can ease the pain of inefficient search engines, foster trust between you and your potential patients and help you gain traction in a fast paced and fiercely competitive market. However, there are a few tried and true methods that successful business models have adopted. Here are a few key pieces of advice that will get you and your new website for dentists off the ground.
1) Choose a Solid Domain Name
A name says a lot about you and your business and one of the first things your visitors will see. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of businesses competing for the interest and attention of visitors. Choose for your dentist website something forgettable can doom you to the sea of anonymity. Keep it simple and easy to remember. Confusing names that fail to communicate what you are about and overly long or complicated acronyms can be the death of a small business websites, so there are a few things to keep in mind.
- Choose a .com over a .net or .org if it possible
- If your chosen URL is already taken, try adding your city and/or state to differentiate
- Keep your URL is kept short, striking and simple
- Avoid using symbols, numbers and hyphens whenever possible.
- Keep it original and not already copyrighted. Litigation over something as simple and easily avoided as a domain name can be the death of a small businesses.
- Register your domain name with a reputable service provider for a lengthy period of time.
2) Contact Information
Keep your contact information especially your phone number somewhere prominent, usually at the top of every page where it can be easily found even
if they leave the home page.
The internet has also made the world a smaller place in terms of communication; to that end, it is imperative you keep your usual operation hours and location posted, along with your time zone (if appropriate for your business) in case your potential customer lives overseas and wants to contact you at a respectable business hour rather than 4 AM in the morning. Easily accessed contact information saves both you and your potential customers potential headaches.
3) Logo, Images and Video
Show your visitors who you are, and what you are about. For that, there are a few things to keep in mind. Have a company logo prominently displayed somewhere on the home page. Put up a few
professional pictures of yourself, your workplace and the finished product. If applicable, a video introducing yourself and your company goes a long way in putting a human face on your website, boosting both credibility and approachability. A short welcome video can help acclimate visitors to your website, and studies have shown that this increases the amount of time visitors will spend on your website. (In case you’re wondering, the Cacioppo & Gandhi DDS logo is one I designed for a New York Dentist. You can see a few more cool logo’s over on my portolio page.
4) Relevant Pages
Along with your home page, there are a few other pages to keep in mind, the first and most obvious should be the products and services pages rich with informative descriptions, along with an ‘about’ page to let your customers know about your business and goals. Last but not least, you should leave a page open for testimonials ( I prefer the term ‘reviews’ for multiple reasons, but I’ll save that for another post) and news articles featuring your business. This particular page lends to the credibility of your business and can leave a good first impression upon visitors.
5) Social Networking and Subscriptions
You shouldn’t underestimate the power of social networking. Sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Google +, and Youtube can be great places to get feedback and potentially attract new visitors and customers. As always, it helps to leave a helpful link to all your social networking sites next to your contact information or in the header of your website. Let visitors know that if they would like to get more updates, they should subscribe or follow your channels for the latest updates.
6) Search Engine Optimization
As stated previously, the internet is a rapidly growing medium, and most people will be finding you through a search engine. To that end, optimizing your dental SEO strategy can generate leads and traffic that a poorly executed one would not. Speak with your web designer and try to have them construct a format that works smoothly with the most commonly used search engines. Be careful though, MOST web designers are NOT SEO professionals. Most web designers build websites, not perform SEO. Don’t confuse a web designer with an SEO professional. They are USUALLY completely different roles and areas of expertise.
As for the keywords, 3-5 about your business and primary objective should suffice. (Reminder-a keyword is a term that somebody will use to find you in the search engines.) Avoid any oversaturation (keyword stuffing) of keywords in a sentence. These things are frequently shuffled away through a spam filter most major search engines have. Keep it short, sweet and relevant with a minimal amount of clutter. Position the key words near the beginning of every page so the engine will take note of their importance and direct visitors that way. It usually makes sense to hire out for the SEO portion of the promotion of your website, it is extremely techical and time consuming, and if done right can really explode the growth of your practice.
Follow these 6 steps and you’ll be well on your way to success. Don’t want to do them yourself, contact me and we may be able to work together.
Titan Web Agency-Specializing in Healthcare SEO for Doctors, Dentists, Orthodontist, and more.