Does your dental website have these essential design features? See what your website should be including in its design.

Running a dental practice is competitive enough. But staying visible and enticing to potential customers online? That’s a completely different ball game entirely. From SEO to specific design features, there are a ton of different tasks you need to stay up on in order to have a viable online presence.

Staying vibrant and relevant is a time-consuming task, but it’s one that you can’t afford to skip. With that in mind, let’s take a deeper look at some key design elements every dental practice website needs.

Don’t Skimp on Design Features

The most important lesson to learn here is not skimp on website design.

That doesn’t mean you need to spend tens of thousands of dollars. Instead, it means that you should make your site design look as great as possible in while maximizing the money you spend on it.

Correctly-Sized Photos

If your site photos aren’t sized correctly, you’ll have a few issues. First, images won’t appear in a consistent fashion across devices. That’s incredibly important since more than half of all web traffic comes from mobile.

Second, incorrect sizing will slow down your load time. For quick page load times, your photos need to be sized in a responsive image container, and they need to be uploaded at a file size optimized.

Simple Navigation

Another of the top website design features your site needs is simple, straightforward navigation. Users should be able to find your hours, services, and booking pages without hunting for them.

Ideally, simple navigation looks like a navigation bar at the top of a desktop or tablet site. For mobile, these menus are usually condensed. They expand when you press on the universal three horizontal lines icon that indicates a condensed menu.

Testimonials

Patient testimonials are a huge part of running any successful practice. Those testimonials work in a variety of advertising mediums – but they’re especially effective online.

Users see other reviews of your dental practice as incentive-free validation of the promises your practice makes.

Featuring these testimonials in a highly visual place on your website is a good idea. Some dentists like them set to images in a carousel on the homepage. Others prefer a separate page for testimonials entirely.

You’ll also want to make sure these testimonials show up on your Google Business listing as well.

Regardless of how you choose to implement them, you can’t afford to not use testimonials when designing your dental website.

Clean Design

Lastly, you want to make sure that all of your design elements are compiled into a clean, simple design. A site that’s stuffed with too many widgets, sidebars, and headlines is one that drives customers away.

Instead, focus on a design that’s clean, inviting, and works to incorporate your personality into the site’s messaging.

Design the Right Website for Your Dental Practice

Without a great website, you won’t succeed in business today. Even if your site only serves as a place to host reviews and an overview of services, it’s worth the expense.

We specialize in helping dentists create websites that are inviting, convert visitors to patients, and work to help generate revenue for your practice. To learn more, contact us today.

Web design concerns more than aesthetics, but performance. Invest in responsive web design and conquer mobile search results!

As recently as 2015, desktops were our preferred (not that we had many options) device for browsing the web. As such, websites and blogs were designed with desktop screens in mind.

Today, we have a variety of internet-enabled devices, from desktops to mobile phones, tablets, and even televisions. In fact, over 52 percent of internet users now use mobile phones to go online.

As a result, website owners and developers have to ensure their sites are viewable across all devices without a decline in user experience. Here is where responsive web design comes in.

In this article, we’re telling you how a responsive website is good for business.

What Is Responsive Web Design?

Responsive web design is a design strategy that enables a website to respond and adapt to the screen size, platform and orientation of an internet-enabled device.

Now on to its importance.

Improves User Experience

As a dentist, your primary concern is the quality of experience patients have in your dental office. However, you should also be concerned about the experience people who visit your practice’s website have – otherwise you’ll see a significant drop in foot traffic!

You see, at least 77 percent of internet users begin their search for a health service provider online. If their search takes them to your website and they don’t like what they see – maybe it loads slowly or doesn’t load properly on a mobile phone – they will promptly click away.

Having a responsive website is one of the ways to improve user experience and keep them there longer.

Good for SEO

Now that you know most of your potential clients begin their search for dental services online, you definitely want to ensure your website achieves high search engine rankings.

The only problem?

There are thousands of dental websites vying for the few first-page slots. You have to fend off fierce competition to achieve and maintain a high ranking.

While there are several steps you have to take to rank highly, making your website responsive is crucial. Search engines want to improve the experience of searchers, and to do that they ensure the most functional websites with relevant information come up top. Google, for instance, rewards responsive/mobile-friendly sites.

With a responsive site, your practice stands a good chance of outranking practices with static websites.

Low Development/Maintenance Costs

Let’s say you don’t want a responsive site. What should you do to cater for both mobile and desktop users? Simple. Build two sites: a desktop version and a mobile version.

But it’s not that simple – at least not on your wallet. Developing and maintaining two sites will cost you more than it would take to have one website.

The good news is responsive web design enables you to have one site, thus lowering your development and maintenance costs.

Dental Practices Need Responsive Websites

As a dentist, we understand that website development isn’t one of your strong suits. You might even not be aware of responsive web design.

Worry not, though. That’s why we are here!

At Pat Hanley Consulting, we offer a range of digital services, from web design to SEO optimization. Get in touch and let us help your practice shine on the web.

5 Web Design Trends You Need to Look Out For in 2018

The world of digital marketing is always evolving. Keep reading to see the web design trends for 2018. What can you use to drive promote your dental practice?

“Don’t judge a book by its cover”

Most, if not all people know of that famous English idiom…but few actually practice it.

For example, when a person walks into a dental practice, they start to judge as soon as they walk through the door. Is it clean, modern and professional?

Its the same with your website. If its messy, hard to configure and looks old-fashioned, it won’t give a professional modern look. And that might lose you valuable clients.

So how can you get up to date with the latest web design trends?

Read on to find out.

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