A dental website does a lot of stuff. It allows patients to book appointments, accepts new forms from patients, and educates dental health readers. Whether you are setting up a new dental practice or modifying your website, there are a few features that you need to have that will enable your website to do all of this, and more.
As experts in dental marketing, we know what it takes to create a successful website for a dental practice. Here are our 10 features you must have:
10 Must-have Dental Web Features
1. Medical Body Compliance
Compliance with a recognized medical organization, such as HIPAA in the US, is a vital concern for all healthcare providers including dentists. This is particularly essential if you have online payment options. Ensuring protected health information (PHI) -any demographic information capable of identifying a patient - is safe is more than just good practice, it is legally necessary.
It means any information conveyed through your website is encrypted and protected. One way to do this is via an SSL certificate. We strongly recommend SSL certificates for all websites but for health care providers such as dentists in particular. A safety feature such as an SSL certificate protects the patients and the clinic. Imagine what would happen if information about a patient was stolen on the website of your dental practice because of poor protection.
2. Pages for each Service / Treatment
You know what services you are delivering but prospective patients do not. So be sure to create pages for services you provide. You may even want to go a step further by categorizing the services you offer, as can be seen on Osstem NZ, to make the browsing experience easy for your prospective client.
Moreover, having an optimized section for each service gives you an SEO edge. If anyone is searching for "root canal in (your area)" that page will have a chance to show up in search results. The more people who find you by search results, the more patients that you are likely to get without wasting money on advertising. This will be a win-win!
3. Dentists’ Bios
Before patients even pick up the phone or walk through your door, providing bios for every dentist at your practice goes a long way in building confidence and credibility. Once patients know who is going to examine or treat their teeth, they will feel more at ease in trusting you with something as essential as their oral health.
Be sure to include your qualifications in your dentist profile, how long you have been practicing, and whatever professional associations you belong to. Laying out your credentials will remove any reluctance.
4. Explanatory Videos of the treatment
Explanatory videos of the treatment are just what they sound like: videos that clarify procedures. They are ideal for putting on the individual patient pages and will ease the mind of anyone who is unsure about what a specific procedure involves. Making the dentist clarify everything from root canals to easy cleanings and tests is just one more way of building trust and demonstrating your expertise.
5. Online Reviews
We've covered a lot of dental website features that help create trust, but this is probably the most successful. Why? Let's look at some of the web review statistics:
• 72 per cent of people will not act until they read reviews
• Fifteen per cent of users do not trust companies that have no reviews
• Google accounts for 57.5 per cent of all reviews globally
Sure, people on Yelp or Google might read your reviews but what if they don't visit those profiles? Perhaps they never know what awesome reviews you have! Having them improves your chances of attracting prospective patients. And because most people trust online feedback almost as much as they trust a recommendation from someone they know personally, it can be a blessing for your practice to find your feedback easily
6. Online scheduling
Patients, prospective as well as current, wish to book online appointments. Some of them typically expect that. Your website works 24/7 for you and you can book appointments around the clock by adding an online scheduling feature. Patients will appreciate the comfort!
7. Forms for New Patients
New patient forms are another convenient option online. Ideally, a new patient should fill out the forms and send them online. File formats that can be printed and completed are better than none but aim for digital forms.
Make sure your dental practice management tool is tied to these forms. It will save the staff time and streamline processes by getting a file created automatically for a new patient when they upload their forms online.
8. Before and After Galleries
Few items are more important than images before and after. Having photo galleries on your website before and after shows the outcomes of the procedure and helps people to visualize getting the same results for themselves. (Always get written permission from your patients to use their images in this manner.)
9. Call Tracking
Call monitoring lets you see exactly where your incoming calls to practice come from. This helps you to understand your marketing campaigns' ROI so you can do more of the things that work. Several call monitoring tools are available.
It's easy to set up call monitoring on your website but it takes some technical knowledge. Or you can just tell your developer to add it.
10. Icons of social media in the Footer
This is a simple improvement that can make a huge difference in keeping up on your social media. Putting social media icons in your website footer makes it easy for patients to find you on their favorite forum and follow you online.