When did you last update your practice website? For most dentists the answer is… I don’t know.
As a general rule websites should be updated at least once a year and the best sites are updated constantly. Then every two to three years you should consider a complete web makeover.
Tim Healy the Director of Operations for TNT Dental a leading provider of dental websites says. “A dental website ages a lot like a dog, every year that goes by is like seven people years.”
Like it or not your patients and even more importantly your potential new patients are using the web to find you and find out about you. The second worst thing that can happen is for a potential new patient, with a great referral from a neighbor, to look you up on Google and find you do not have a web page. To most people that tells them you are out of date.
On the other hand the worst thing is for them to find your web page and see that it is an old dog, obviously out of date, promoting your whitening special from August of 2004.
There are several reasons to update your website:
- New systems and technology are introduced constantly. These can be used to improve the appearance and functionality of your website. A website designed just a few years ago can easily be well behind the times.
- Google and other search engines seek out change. If a website has remained unchanged for a long period of time the cyber brains that run Google assume it is abandoned and won’t send people to it.
- Real people not just Google Bots look for change. Your practice website only has value if people look at it. If the content is the same static online brochure you slapped up four years ago there is no reason for a patient to visit your site more than once.
- As an extra bonus search engines also notice traffic and your website gets extra relevance points if people actually use it.
Healy said, “I have seen a complete website redesign double and even triple traffic and calls alone from improved appearance and layout plus using newer code underneath the pretty exterior is just as attractive to search engines which results in more traffic to your site.”
There are two things to consider in order to get people to visit your site; relevance and interactivity. In many ways they are closely tied. Interactivity makes a page more useful, in other words more relevant, so more people will visit and visit more often to use the online interactive services.
Relevance: Research from Sesame Communications found that the most visited pages of a dental website in order are:
- Home Page
- Meet the Doctor
- Meet the Team
- Contact Information
- First Visit Office Policy
A patient visiting the office online is interested in who will be taking care of them, how to get to the office and what to expect when they get there. They are not interested in detailed descriptions of treatment options or clinical photos.
Interactivity: An interactive website is not just a static page but a site that users interact with to generate content or access personal protected information, users can get information or enter information.
What kinds of things can dental patients do online? Fill out forms. Check on their balance and make a payment. Confirm an upcoming appointment. Check on insurance benefits. Request an appointment and more. When asked, the number one online service patients requested was online payment.
First of course you need to be using a good practice management system Like DENTRIX or Practice Works so that you are capturing patient information in a digital format. A patient can’t expect to check online for their next appointment if the appointments are being kept in a paper book rather than an electronic book.
Next you need a link between your dental practice server and your website. This link allows patients access to the data stored in your office computer, like their balance or next appointment and it allows patients to send data to your office computer such as a payment or an updated medical form.
This link is the tricky part. It must be able to navigate your practice data, it must be able to add data in a proper manner and it must be secure. That is it must be password protected so that a patient can only see their own information. Dentrix and the others can provide these links as part of an e-Services package.
Don’t be content with yesterday’s website, the future is coming and it will be amazing!
Dr. Larry Emmott is the leading authority on dental high tech and one of the most entertaining speakers in dentistry. He is also a writer and consultant.