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Case Presentation without Selling • Creating a Web Site • Dental Practice Web Sites • Internet Advertising


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Creating a Web Site for Your Dental Practice

by David A. Hall, DDS

What is the most effective way for you to create a dental practice web site?

To help answer this question, we need to understand people and web sites. People go to the web for information. If you understand that fundamental, you can create an effective dental practice web site.

In creating your web site, put yourself in the place of your web site visitor. Here is what the visitor wants:

What your web site visitors want to know

Primarily, your web site visitor wants to know something about you, your services, and your office. Have you received any special honors or recognitions? What is the extent of your education? Do you provide any special services such as implant dentistry, sedation, porcelain veneers? Tell a little about your staff. Names with photos will help them get to know the staff—people like that. Provide a map to your dental office, parking information, payment options, and any other useful information.

If you do cosmetic dentistry, put photographs of your success stories on your web site. Ask patients for testimonials, and post those on the web site. Remember, provide useful information to your visitors. On the web, we have graduated from the initial excitement and fluff stage, and web surfers are becoming more savvy. They want substance from your web site. Provide it.

A domain name for your dental practice web site

If you want people to find you on the web, make your domain name searchable. Here's a big internet secret—while search engines index the words on your site, they key most prominently into the title and description of your site and the domain name and page file names. So choose a domain name that reflects how you want your web site to be found. Are you an implant dentist in Peoria? Then make your site www.implantdentistpeoria.com. Surfers will then find you. Yes, it really is that simple.

Capture information on your dental practice web site

Your web site visitors are also looking for convenience. If they can register on your web site, if they can request an appointment time, and if they can ask you a question, they like that. Remember that people may be surfing the web at odd hours. Your office may not be open, and, for certain web site visitors, it is a convenience for them, if they find that they like your office, for them to be able to leave their contact information and have you call them to set up an appointment. You multiply the usefulness of your dental practice web site if you capture information from your visitors while they are on the site.

Annoying things to avoid on your dental practice web site

Don't do music. You may think it adds a nice touch, but many web surfers are annoyed by it. Think about thiswhat if your web site visitor is sneaking a peak at your site at the office? Your music comes on and now it is advertised to everyone within earshot that they are visiting your web site. Not cool. Some visitors will like your music and some will be highly annoyed by it. Be visitor-friendly and safe by avoiding it.

Avoid time-consuming glitzy features. Have a simple, professional introductory page, but avoid the elaborate flash presentations. Think about it—the driving force behind the new models of computers and the new internet connection services is speed. People visiting your web site are impatient. They don't want to wait thirty seconds for your site to load. There is a tendency among dental web site developers to add these multimedia introductory presentations. It impresses the dentist, but it doesn't impress the web site visitor nearly as much. Yes, make sure your web site gives a very professional impression. But yes, also make sure your web site does it quickly. If you do want to provide multimedia presentations, provide it as an optional link where visitors who want that can go there, not as an automatic entrance to your web site.

 

Dr. David Hall, besides being an accredited cosmetic dentist, has been effectively marketing cosmetic dentistry on the internet since 1995. He is the creator of www.mynewsmile.com, a very effective internet marketing web site for many cosmetic dentists.

More articles
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