Sep 15, 2021 | Dental Marketing, Google, Web Design
Over 38% of people judge a business based on how their website looks at first glance. Another 38% stop interacting with poorly designed websites. If your dentistry website doesn’t wow potential patients, they might leave.
As people continue leaving your website, your search engine rankings will drop. You might struggle to reach patients in the future as a result.
Don’t let it come to that! Instead, read on to discover the nine essentials you need to consider for your new dental website. After reading this guide, you can create the perfect dental site with your target audience in mind.
Then, you can generate more dental leads, book more appointments, and boost business.
Set your dental practice up for success. Improve your website with these nine tips today.
1. Establish Your Goals
Before you start designing and developing your dental website, take a moment to consider your short- and long-term goals. Otherwise, your dental site won’t align with your business and marketing objectives.
For example, maybe you want to:
- Establish your credibility in the industry
- Post more articles and unique content
- Share before and after photos
- Educate people about your services
- Share patient reviews
- Generate brand awareness
- Improve search engine rankings
- Book more appointments online
Establishing your goals will determine what elements you need to include on your website.
For example, let’s say you want to book more appointments through your dental site. Consider adding more than one conversion opportunity. You can add an online booking system, too.
If you want to establish your credibility, use blog posts and patient reviews.
Once you establish your goals, you can start creating your dental website.
2. Maintain Brand Consistency
As you start working on your dentistry website, make sure to consider your brand.
A distinct brand will help you stand out from other dentists in the area. Patients will start to recognize your brand on sight. You can generate brand awareness and recognition on different marketing channels.
Without brand consistency, however, you could confuse patients. They might confuse you with another dentist. Meanwhile, they won’t connect your marketing materials on different channels.
You could struggle to create an omnichannel marketing strategy if that’s the case.
You can maintain brand consistency by creating and following brand guidelines. These guidelines should include your:
- Logo
- Imagery styles
- Vision statement
- Mission statement
- Brand voice and tone
- Brand personality
- Color palette
- Font styles
Once you establish your brand guidelines, make sure your branding is consistent across every page of your site. Otherwise, someone might click from one page to the next and think they’re on a different dental site.
3. Improve the User Experience
As you begin working on your dentist site, make sure to keep the user experience (UX) in mind.
A positive user experience will encourage visitors to explore your content. They’ll click around, increasing your dwell times and clickthrough rate. Your search engine rankings could rise as a result.
Higher search engine rankings will help you generate more brand awareness. Your dental site will appear before others in a search, too. You could boost your brand credibility as a result.
You can improve the UX on your site by:
- Using short sentences and paragraphs
- Organizing content in headings and subheadings
- Improving page load times
- Getting mobile optimized
- Adding an SSL certificate for security
Run your website through Google’s PageSpeed Insights and Mobile-Friendly Test. Make sure your site is fast and easy to use on smaller screens.
4. Start Blogging
Remember, adding a blog to your website can boost your credibility. You can demonstrate your experience and expertise to boost brand trust. Blogging could improve your search engine rankings, too.
Add a blog to your dental website and start creating fresh content on a schedule.
5. Get Mobile-Optimized
Mobile optimization will ensure you don’t neglect part of your target audience.
In fact, mobile devices account for nearly 70% of all internet traffic. About 90% of people use multiple screens sequentially, too. Nearly 70% of companies that develop a mobile-first website see a rise in sales.
If your website isn’t optimized for smaller devices, people might leave.
6. Use SEO
Once you start blogging, optimize your website for search engine optimization (SEO). SEO can boost your search engine rankings. You can appear in front of more people who are looking for a local dentist.
Your search engine rankings can improve as you start blogging.
Consider working with an experienced digital marketing agency that offers SEO services. They can help you boost your rankings and generate more traffic.
7. Add Conversion Opportunities
Make sure to add more than one conversion opportunity on your website. For example, you can use a form, allowing visitors to ask questions.
You can also use a chatbot and appointment scheduler.
Adding more than one conversion opportunity could improve the UX. Visitors will have an easier time contacting you online. Otherwise, you might miss a chance to generate leads from your dental website.
8. Post Reviews
Consider adding reviews to your dentistry website as well. Happy patient reviews can boost your credibility. On-the-fence patients will see your current patients already love and trust your practice.
You can feed your Google My Business reviews to your website using a plugin. Don’t forget to encourage people to post reviews throughout the year!
9. Work With a Pro
If you’re feeling stuck while working on your dental website, don’t feel stressed out. Instead, consider hiring a professional team.
A professional web design and development agency can improve your dental site with your goals in mind. You can improve the front and backend of your site. Your dental website will look and function as intended.
Then, you can generate more dental leads and set your practice up for long-term success.
Toothy Leads: 9 Tips for Creating the Perfect Dentistry Website
Improving your dentistry website will help you generate fresh leads throughout the year. You can book more appointments and help more patients. As your search engine rankings improve, you can boost brand awareness, too.
Set your practice up for growth and success with these dental site tips today.
Need help developing your digital marketing strategy? We’re here for you.
Contact us today to get started.
May 19, 2021 | Photo & Video
What will give your business the extra momentum it needs to grow? Marketing plans often promise a lot, but it can still feel like a risk to commit to the strategies. Specifically, custom business photos may seem like an “extra” that your business can do without.
Yet that’s not an area where you want to choose low-quality options. Instead, custom photos are the best choice for your business because they offer a wealth of advantages stock photos can’t match. Take a look below for a full list of why custom photos are a great boost for your company.
Discover Your Business’s Unique Appeal
Your business has something unique to offer your customers that no one else can. So why use photos that everyone else has access to?
One of the pitfalls of using stock photos is that someone else may have the same photo as you on their website or blog post. Worse, that business may be a competitor of yours. What if a customer sees the other business’s photo and thinks they’re booking with you?
You want to stand out so that you win those customers. When you choose custom business photos instead of stock photography, you’re getting a product that you’re sure is unique. You can be confident that you won’t be mistaken for another business and all the customers you gain are meant to be yours.
Earn Clients by Letting Them In
Having a photographer shoot in your space opens your office up to the outside world. Someone who has never visited your office gets a glimpse into your workspace and your personal area. They may learn something about you that convinces them to become a client.
A customer who sees a custom photo for an artist may see a piece they really like and want to purchase. A customer who sees a custom photo for an attorney may see a child’s area of the waiting room and discover you take family law cases. You never know what a personalized photo will reveal about your business that convinces someone to become a customer.
Custom Photos Define Your Visual Identity
In the marketing world, the word “branding” is almost a buzzword. It’s all in the name of helping your business make the best possible impression, though. Potential customers can get the wrong idea from stock images if you’re not careful.
Custom photos can help you define your company’s visual identity and build your brand. Cement in your customer’s mind who you are as a business. Teach them through your photos and clarify in their minds how you can fill their needs.
Make Customers Comfortable with Your Own Photos
When your potential customers see your photos online, you want them to feel at ease with your business. Show them real people in your photos, the actual people they’ll see when they come to the office.
Is your doctor’s office called Johnson-Hughes Family Practice? Post some pictures of Drs. Johnson and Hughes on your website. When customers see online the actual doctors or practitioners who they will see in the office, they feel more comfortable before they’re even shown to the exam room.
They feel like they know you, like they’ve met their doctor already, even if they’re a new patient. Custom photos are humanizing for any industry. If you want to make your customers more comfortable, go with custom business photography.
The Best Reputation
Make a good impression, just like you always clean your house when you have company over or you always wash your car when your dad comes to town. Custom photos can help you maintain a great business reputation, both with existing customers and potential new ones.
Keeping that credibility with stock photos is a lot harder. If they can’t see who you really are and they don’t recognize the office from the photos, it’s hard to appear genuine and honest.
Did you know that what people learn about your reputation later can cause them to remember you differently? Even if you make a favorable first impression, if they see something unfavorable about you afterward, their memories can change.
Research shows they’ll remember you less favorably than when they first met you. In fact, it makes a big difference in the business world, especially as you attend networking events and meet new contacts.
Instead of turning them off, make them see you’re serious about your business. Use professional, custom photos as part of your marketing strategy and ensure you’re known for your dependability.
Marketing Through Custom Photos
You may know a little bit about keyword optimization for web articles and your website. Yet did you know that even images can be part of SEO strategies? Your business photography can be part of your marketing strategy, helping you rank higher in web searches.
Gain traffic from your optimized articles and photos. The more traffic you have, it’s likely the more conversions you’ll see. Using custom photos can be a big part of your marketing strategy.
Reusable Materials
Once you pay for a custom business photo, you have the rights to use it again and again. That means you now have photography for flyers, brochures, mailings, and other marketing materials. They become versatile assets for your business, rather than just another line-item expense.
While you don’t want to repeat photos on your website too many times, you can use them in various places online. For example, using your business photos on your website and then again on social media isn’t too repetitive. It’s actually a great way to streamline your brand and make sure that the crossover is smooth and unobtrusive for users.
When you’re building a marketing strategy, you don’t want something that will get you by. You want the best options because that’s how you’re going to become the best option for your customers. Even if you already are the best option, if they don’t know that, you won’t get the sale.
Using custom photos can help you convince your client base that you’re unique and genuine. Besides that, you’ll have some valuable, reusable assets when you’re finished.
Capture who you really are with custom business photography from Harris and Ward.
Jan 26, 2021 | Dental Marketing, Google, Web Design
Are you a small business wondering how to go about designing a website?
You might be relying on your Facebook page as a substitute, or even wondering if you need a website in the first place. Have you considered the price you’d pay for not having one?
Website design and development involves a large devotion of time and energy, but the rewards are huge. Shockingly, almost half of entrepreneurs still don’t have a small business website. Furthermore, only a third of those who do, use their website to communicate news to customers and leads.
If you don’t want to see your small business screaming into the void, it’s time to consider a website. If you don’t have one, how will you win customers from the half of your rivals that do?
We’ll explain how to know your audience, develop a strategy, hone your content, and track the results. Read on!
Know Your Audience
When you’re designing a website, the first thing to keep in mind is your target audience. If you have anything less than a crystal-clear image of your buyer persona, then you need to first invest time in researching the profile of your typical customers.
Once you have established a firm understanding of who you are aiming your website towards, you are better able to be in-sync with them. Successful website design and development will require accurate information to feed every stage of the process.
When you’ve internalized a personification of your average buyer, creative decisions, like tone, color, and imagery, flow with relative ease. If your small business has never conducted audience research, then the results will uncover a wealth of knowledge to define or evolve your brand identity.
It’s important to note that after defining and establishing the tone of your business, you should be consistent throughout the website. Staying “on brand” ensures that your message resonates with clarity and cohesion. Website visitors are all too easily distracted and don’t need much of an excuse to get confused and leave.
Research the websites of your successful competitors, who will have invested resources in honing their messaging already. Identify what is working for them, but also uncover gaps in their strategy. You can incorporate these findings to meet and exceed the competition.
Mood boards are useful to visualize creative approaches and see how well ideas communicate.
Develop a Strategy
Website design strategies that work focus on one primary goal and secondary goals that reinforce the main-agenda.
The primary goal of a small business website might be to turn leads into customers. A secondary goal could include turning existing customers into repeat business. The third goal of your website may center on engagement – encouraging your visitors to share your content on social media, for instance.
A simple layout wins in nearly all cases at capturing the limited attention of your target audience. It’s important to have a responsive website design. This entails having your website optimized to resize and restructure for various browsers and platforms.
Desktop users were once the majority of website visitors, but now, the lion’s share of site viewers will use various mobile devices. Tablets and phones of all shapes and sizes mean that a flexible and adaptable design is essential.
Map out the buyer journey when conceiving the structure of your website. Create a flowchart to prototype your site so that important pages are easy to navigate. Later, a more detailed sitemap can come together as the structure becomes more fully formed.
Attention, Interest, Decision, and Acquisition (AIDA) is a principle that can help shape the buyer funnel.
Focus on Content
There’s another variant of the AIDA principle: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. This can work within the website pages themselves to ensure that all selling pages are effective at driving action.
A website built in a content management system (CMS) like WordPress will make it easier to create, delete, and maintain content.
Choose appropriate keywords that are popular in your industry, and build your website content around them. Use them in the title, meta descriptions, and headings, but don’t over-insert them awkwardly. Your copy must have a human linguistic flow so that search engines can easily read and index your pages.
To improve your rankings, implement a successful SEO content strategy that focuses on regular keyword-driven content to increase organic visibility. Your goal should be visibility high in the results on the first page of Google, for your industry and in your area. Regular articles, written in a blog format, are very effective at accomplishing this.
Create regular content with a focus on your keywords to increase your organic search engine optimization (SEO) rankings. Your goal should be visibility high in the results on the first page of Google, for your industry and in your area. Regular articles, written in a blog format, are very effective at accomplishing this.
When developing a website, make sure that the information on each page is presented in an easy-to-read fashion. Good use of white space is important, so as not to overload the eyes.
Break up the copy so that it is most effective in a hierarchical sense. Frequent one-line spaces between paragraphs make the copy easy to scan. Keep paragraphs 2-3 sentences long for the same reason, and make good use of headings, subheadings, etc.
Track Results
Winning website development strategies often treat all pages as if they were landing pages. Sometimes, unexpected pages may rank very well, causing high numbers of visitors to land on them.
By tracking your results using Google Analytics, you can optimize these pages further still. Website speed is important so as not to lose visitors who might get frustrated by the loading time. Website analytics are useful at monitoring performance and engagement.
It’s a good idea to have a call-to-action (CTA) at the top of pages, perhaps in the menu. This CTA is intended for buyers who are further along in the decision-making process. A second and more prominent CTA would be well-placed near the end of the page contents, with the rest of the page built around it.
A/B testing involves serving up two slightly different pages to a split audience. The page style with the best results wins.
Remember, the goal of any website geared around selling is to win out over the competition. Competitive analysis tools are useful in website design and development to serve this objective.
Finally, you must always evolve and tweak your website because a successful website is never a finished, static entity.
Website Design and Development
We’ve shown that website design and development requires careful planning if you want to hit your goals. Don’t be overwhelmed by the hard work that’s necessary to beat your competitors.
If you’re a small business owner developing a website, we can help you. We specialize in website design and provide creative marketing services to small businesses across the nation. Our core services are web development and hosting, but we also offer custom photography, videography, and search engine optimization (SEO).
Contact us today, and we’ll connect you with your audience.
