Dental Website Design is a unique market that has been targeted by numerous large companies over the years. You’ve undoubtedly received offers from some of the big names, promising you lucrative sites in a matter of minutes, with a hefty monthly price tag attached. Once your site is up and running, they do little for you, except maybe run an expensive Adwords campaign. And if you decide to leave, you lose everything. They take down your website and you get to start over.
Your website should be an investment that’s yours to keep and will grow in value over time.
You may already have a website from one of these big dental marketing companies, often no more than a template that looks just like 50 other dentists’ sites. They lure you in with promises of pre-written content, flash animation, or embedded videos. What they don’t tell you is that using this type of content won’t grow your business. Here’s why:
If nobody sees your website, the most beautiful site in the world won’t bring you new patients.
How will new patients find you?
In order for potential patients to find you, your site needs to rank well in the search engines. More precisely, you want to be on the front page of Google for your particular keywords. We don’t mean showing up at the top of the paid listings, either. Studies prove that the organic search results, the regular results that start just after the ads, convert better than the top-ranking ads. People have it figured out. They don’t click on the ads as much because they know they’re more likely to find what they’re looking for by clicking the organic search results. You can’t buy this type of ranking. You have to earn it.
Some of the most important areas that help you rank well in organic search are relevance, quality and freshness.
Relevance means your site, or certain pages within your site, focus on a specific topic, namely the keyword phrase the searcher is entering into the search box. To determine relevance, search engines look for lots of unique, relevant content on your site. This could include text, video and images. But if it’s not unique, if YOU weren’t the first one to publish that content, it doesn’t really count towards your relevancy. Additionally, if the search engine’s automated web-crawlers, or spiders, can’t view your content, it doesn’t count. This is often the case with any flash content. Depending on how your videos are embedded, they may not count as your content, either.
Quality is determined largely by ‘votes’ for your company in the online world. These were originally counted by the links coming into your site, and now include social media interaction as well. If people are linking to you, engaging with you, and sharing what you have to say, Google takes those as strong indicators that you offer quality – something worth sharing.
Freshness means how recently your site has been updated. Do you need to contact your web company every time you want to make a change? Does it take them a month to get it done? Can you edit site content yourself? To really create a dynamic website, you need to not only be able to login and update your content, but to also have systems in place to add new content and interact with your visitors. A blog is an ideal tool to accomplish this, but event calendars, special offers, announcements, testimonials, and press releases are all good options as well.
The Alternative: Dental Web Design Done Right
Are you ready for something different?
We offer the alternative. You still work with someone who understands the unique needs of dentistry website design, but we don’t sell you our product—we create a solution specific to your unique situation. We work with you personally to get to know you and your practice, and you get to know us.
Your website will contain the pages and features you choose to include. It will be custom-designed to coordinate with your office and your brand. Your Digital Marketing Plan may also include social media integration, video syndication, blogging, or search engine optimization services.
It’s all yours!
Everything will be in your name, with your own hosting account & your own domain name. We use open source Content Management Systems (CMS) such as WordPress and Drupal that do not hold you hostage with our company. You take them with you for life.
It’s all up to you. After all, it’s your business, and we’re here to serve you.