Almost 40% of website visitors will leave your site instead of navigating a poorly planned, organized, or designed website. Over 38% will even judge your business after only a glance. Without a proper dental website design, that engages your audience, you could struggle to attract new patients to your dental practice.

A well-designed, user-friendly website can impact your dental practice marketing strategy, too.

How exactly can web design impact marketing for dentists? Read on to find out! After reviewing this guide, you can determine if it’s time for a new website. 

Keep Your Doors Open

Potential patients might want to learn more about your dental practice at odd hours of the day, even when you’re closed. Some of your current patients might want to schedule an appointment after your doors shut for the day as well. With an effective dental website, you can keep your virtual doors open 24/7.

Otherwise, new and existing patients might struggle to interact with your business.

Creating a dental website can benefit your entire dental office marketing strategy around the clock.

For example, maybe potential patients are searching for local practices online. Your website could appear as a search result, prompting them to learn about your practice. If your website doesn’t offer the information they need, they’ll turn away.

If people start leaving your website without exploring other pages, your site’s bounce rate can increase. A high bounce rate can hurt other areas of your dental marketing strategy. For example, your search engine rankings might drop.

Your pay-per-click (PPC) advertising cost-per-click (CPC) will also increase, leading to wasted ad spend.

Before that happens to you, talk to an expert digital dental marketing agency, like Wildcat Software Design, that offers web design and development services. You can work with them to create a website that markets your business around the clock.

Once your new site is live, potential patients can learn about your business, even if you’re closed. They can also fill out a form to contact you or use a scheduling plugin to schedule an appointment.

Keeping your virtual doors open around the clock can help you generate more leads than ever before. 

Generate Brand Awareness

If locals don’t know your dental practice exists, they won’t reach out to schedule an appointment. Having an effective dental website can help you generate brand awareness. 

It can take over seven impressions before people begin to remember your dental practice. The more often they see your brand, the more brand awareness will grow. Then, you’ll have an easier time remaining at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

Each time a potential patient thinks about scheduling a dental appointment, they might recall seeing your website. 

Without a website, as the foundation of your dental marketing strategy, you will struggle to gain brand visibility online. Consistently presented brands are 3.5 times more likely to generate brand visibility than others. In fact, consistency can boost your revenue by 23%! 

You can also use your website to encourage more people to trust your brand. For example, potential clients can learn about your education, training, and work history. In time, brand trust can help you generate more leads. 

It can also help you retain loyal patients. Over 43% of consumers spend more money on brands they’re loyal to. Retaining patients long-term can help you grow your practice over time. 

Communicate Your Expertise

Patients might not feel ready to trust your practice if they can’t learn more about who you are or what you do. You can use your website to communicate your experience and expertise in the dental industry. Recognizing your credentials and experience can encourage more people to trust you.

You can also use your website to share engaging blog posts, or even better yet videos, that communicate EAT (expertise, authority, trustworthiness). Sharing quality blog and video content can communicate your credibility as an expert.

Otherwise, consider sharing case studies and industry-specific news. Showcase your accomplishments, too.

Communicating your expertise could give you a competitive advantage. Potential clients might feel more inclined to trust you over other dental practices in the area. Then, you can attract new patients before your competitors get the chance. 

Improve Your Search Rankings

You can enhance your blog content with search engine optimization (SEO) to reach new patients online. SEO can help improve your organic rankings on search engines like Google, Bing, and Duckduckgo. Appearing at the top of a search page can help you generate: 

• Brand Awareness and Recognition
• Brand Trust and Loyalty
• Credibility
• Website Traffic
• Leads

In fact, 68% of all online experiences start on a search engine like Google. Fewer than 1% of search engine users click on results on the second page, though. If you’re not on the first page, there’s a chance you’re not generating website traffic. 

Since SEO is cost-effective, it can also improve your marketing ROI. SEO leads even have a 14.6% close rate. 

Your website’s design and backend can have a major impact on your search engine rankings, though.

Google looks for websites that are user-friendly, fast, and mobile-optimized. If your site doesn’t appeal to Google’s Core Web Vitals, your rankings will drop. People might start leaving your website if you offer a negative user experience, too.

Updating your website can benefit your technical SEO efforts, which could boost your organic rankings.

As your rankings improve, you can start appearing on search engine result pages before your competitors. Patients will have an easier time finding your practice before any other during an online search. Just remember, that SEO is a slow and steady process and takes 3-6 months to see results. The more competition you have in the industry, all fighting for the same keywords searched, makes moving up hard but not impossible. The good news is, once you get the page 1 ranking you desire, the ROI will be worth the wait!

Display Your Services

Prospective patients might not schedule an appointment at your practice if they’re unsure what services you offer. You can use your website to showcase your services and educate your patients about the benefits of each one.

If you offer a range of dental services, your website could help your practice stand out from competitors who only offer the basics.

Let your patients know if you utilize any advanced technology at your practice, too. This usually implies a more modern experience, which certain patients look for.

Discovering what you have to offer could encourage more people to schedule an appointment at your dental practice. 

Share Patient Reviews

About 93% of consumers read reviews of local businesses to determine their quality. 

Businesses that have more than nine current reviews earn 52% more revenue on average. Businesses with over 25 current reviews generate 108% more revenue. 

Reputation makes up over 25% of your market value. You can share reviews from your recent patients to boost your brand’s reputation. A strong reputation can encourage future patients to trust your brand.

You can use your website to create a dedicated landing page that showcases your latest patient reviews. Encourage patients to show before and after photos on their reviews, too. This will show prospective patients the quality of your services so it meets their needs and expectations. 

Generate Leads and Appointments

You can also use forms or plugins on your website to generate leads and book appointments.

Your website can even give you multiple opportunities to generate leads. For example, you can add a Contact Us page with a form. You can also add a button to the top corner of the navigation bar or a form to the footer.

Adding more than one “call to action” to convert visitors into leads can help you attract new patients to your practice. It can also improve the user experience, allowing visitors to decide which actions they want to take.

Allowing patients to book appointments from your website can offer additional ease and convenience. They won’t have to wait on hold while calling your practice. You could make life easier for your employees at the same time, too. 

Gather Helpful Data

Attracting more people to your website can help you gather helpful data. Then, you can use the information you gather to improve your digital marketing campaigns.

For example, you can learn about consumers based on demographics like age, gender, and household income. You can also determine how people find you online. Maybe they’re visiting from a Google search, social media platform, or another website.

Gathering this data can help you make more informed decisions regarding your digital marketing strategy. It can also help you create personalized content based on consumer research and search behaviors.

Grow Your Practice

Without a website, you might miss opportunities to generate brand awareness, trust, or leads. Without fresh leads, you might struggle to grow your dental practice, too.

Instead, use your website to boost your brand’s online visibility. You can attract new people to your practice while improving your ROI with cost-effective digital marketing strategies.

As your ROI improves, you can start expanding your practice.

Connect Strategies

Your dental website will become the foundation of your digital marketing strategies.

For example, you can use a lead magnet on your website to generate a list of email subscribers. Then, you can email appointment reminders and blog posts to remain top of mind.

Your blog content and SEO strategy can help you reach new patients, too. Meanwhile, you’ll need an eye-catching website for PPC and Direct Mail advertising.

Updating your website can help you create an omnichannel digital marketing strategy, giving you new opportunities to attract patients to your practice. 

Sparkling Success: Invest in a Dental Website Design Today

Don’t neglect your dental marketing strategy this year. Instead, take the time to invest in a dental website design. An updated website can set the rest of your dental practice marketing strategy up for success. 

Need help improving your website? We’re happy to lend a hand. 

Contact us today to learn more.