The Smart Dentist’s Guide to Bringing Website Visitors to Your Clinic

As a dental practice owner, you can leverage your website for many purposes. You can use it to provide updates to existing patients – for example, about the COVID-19 safety measures you’re implementing. You can also use it to share educational information with the broader public – for instance, via an informative, fact-based blog. Finally, you can utilize a well-designed website to attract potential patients and convince them that you’re the dentistry professional to meet their needs.

This dentist’s guide to convert website visitors shows you how it’s done.
 

Create a User-Friendly Website

The first step to convert a website visitor is to craft an appealing webpage. If a potential patient ends up on your website, you want to win them over immediately with an engaging and user-friendly platform. Here’s how to make a dental practice website.
 

Visual Design

Your website should be streamlined and organized. Add a visible navigation menu at the top to direct patients and prospects to relevant pages, including an appointment page.

Keep your design simple and avoid overcrowding the page with too many blocks, buttons, animations, or images. That said, you need more than words. Insert a few engaging images  showing friendly dentistry scenes. It would be preferable to use actual images of your office environment to build trust and authenticity.
 

Content

Decide on a tone for your website. Using “you” to address the visitor gives off a friendly and approachable impression. Avoid dental jargon and complicated language.

In addition to an introductory homepage, you will probably also have pages listing your services, presenting information about your team (e.g., educational credentials), and providing a booking form. 
 

Unique Brand

As you craft your web content, focus on what makes you unique – and try to convey that. Are you a family-friendly dental practice? Say so!

You can supplement your messaging with visuals. For example, you might include imagery of a pediatric dental patient or add a photo of the dedicated “kids zone” you have set up in your waiting room to keep younger patients entertained.
 

Don’t Forget Mobile

Today, more than half of all online traffic comes from mobile devices. You want to ensure your web design is mobile compatible. This could mean adjusting font size (using a larger size for smaller screens) and avoiding lengthy paragraphs, which look overwhelming on mobile devices.
Google Search Console offers a free test you can use to check if your site is mobile-friendly.
 

Drive Traffic to Your Website

The next step in this dentist guide to convert website visitors: getting people to your website. Read on for a few options.
 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You can drive organic visitors to your dentist website using search engine optimization (SEO). This helps you to perform better in search engine results. Keywords are one way to do this. You might optimize your content for the keyword “Manhattan orthodontist,” for example. Then, if someone Googles the term “Manhattan orthodontist,” they will hopefully find your website in the first pages of search results.

SEO can be far more complicated than that, taking into account everything from whichweb pages link back to yours to how the pictures on your website are labeled. If you want to harness the full power of SEO, you might want to hire a digital marketing professional. They can also advise whether paid search marketing is an option for your practice.
 

Social Media

This is another way to promote your dental practice website – and it’s free. You can use social media to share news and educational resources with your patients and the general public. Focus on sharing value-added content, not just promoting your practice. Examples might include oral hygiene tips and awareness campaigns around World Oral Health Day or Oral Cancer Awareness month.

Focusing on education instead of promotion can be more appealing to potential patients. People don’t like to feel like they’re being sold to. Knowledge-based content can also help to establish you as a trustworthy authority in your field – something patients and colleagues alike will respect. Finally, focusing on facts instead of sales helps to support compliance with healthcare advertising laws.
 

Make It Easy for Website Visitors to Book an Appointment

The first part of this dentist guide to convert website visitors focused on how to get a potential patient to your webpage – and get them to stay on the page once they arrive. Below, we look at what it takes to get them to convert and book the appointment that can bring them through your front door.
 

Set Up a Secure Booking System

You can get patients from your website into your dental practice by providing a secure online booking system. Use software specifically for medical and health center bookings. Safeguarding protected health information (PHI) is mandatory under HIPAA. HIPAA-compliant appointment software provides stricter security measures (added authentication, built-in encryption, etc.) than standard business solutions.
 

Include Downloadable Patient Forms

When your patients arrive at your clinic, they have to complete paperwork with basic details like contact and insurance information. You can expedite this process by providing the forms they will need as downloadable PDFs on your website. You can also note what information they should bring with them along with the completed paperwork, like a health insurance card.
 

Provide Location Details

You created a website, got a potential patient to visit it, and convinced them to make a booking. Congratulations. You’ve successfully implemented the dentist guide to convert website visitors. There’s one last step: getting them through the door. Make sure your patients know where to go: Give them detailed location information. Include your address on the website and pin your business location on Google Maps. Including parking details and photographs of your front entrance can also be helpful.
 

A Final Word: Healthcare Websites and HIPAA

If your website collects, stores, or transmits any PHI, it must be HIPAA compliant. For example, you will need to implement SSL certificates for your dental clinic website and partner with HIPAA-compliant hosting companies. There are also general HIPAA guidelines to consider beyond PHI. When it comes to photos, for example, you can’t share patient pictures without their consent. This is why stock imagery is advisable.
 

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Dentist’s Advantage helps dental practice owners protect their investments with comprehensive insurance coverage. A tailored business owner’s policy can protect against everything from malpractice claims to staff injuries and cyber theft. Coverage is also available for large group practices.

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