Turn Views Into Visits: Crafting A Practice Website That Converts 

Having a website that drives new patients is essential for dental practices. It builds your brand, establishes credibility and trust with existing clients, and reaches prospective ones where they are searching for your services. 

Here are some tips to build a website that converts viewers into clients: 

• Speak to your ideal client. 
• Design with the user in mind. 
• Highlight client reviews and testimonials. 

Let’s get into it. 

Speak to Your Ideal Client 

When it comes to your client’s journey, only those that are a good fit for your practice will progress from the lead generation phase to a conversion. And being a “good fit” depends on your practice niche. 

Your website should accurately reflect your niche and use language that speaks to your ideal client on every page. Make it clear to browsers who you serve and what you can do for them because, like any business, you don’t want to spend time in a back-and-forth with someone you’re not suited to fit and, vice-versa, you don’t want to waste their time. 

Hint: While it might sound appealing (and advantageous to attract more clients) not to define a niche, focusing on a particular area of dentistry, like family dentistry, pediatric dentistry, orthodontics, endodontic, cosmetic dentistry, or anywhere in between, allows you to become an expert in that field, stand out in a crowded market, and tailor your marketing efforts to a specific audience. 

Tips for how to speak to a specific niche: 

• Craft a compelling message specific to your niche that directly addresses their needs and highlights the unique solutions your practice offers. Its tone and language should resonate with your target audience. This should be highlighted on your homepage and integrated throughout the rest of your website. 
• Create relevant content that educates, engages, and appeals to your intended audience. You can do this via blog posts, videos, social media, infographics, case studies, and success stories.  
• Focus your marketing efforts and dollars on channels where your target audience are most active to maximize your reach and engagement. This could include social media platforms, online forums, industry publications, and community groups. 
• Research and include the keywords related to your specialty throughout your website. In doing so, though, be sure you still are writing website content for people, rather than rankings because search engines will note if you aren’t doing so and dock you points for SEO (we’ll revisit this later). 

Doing the above effectively requires ongoing evaluation and refinement, so stay connected with your target audience, actively listen to their feedback, and adapt your marketing efforts based on that feedback. 

Specializing will also increase your chances of being referred to. As you become known for your expertise, other dentists in different specialties will likely begin referring clients they can’t serve to others more suited in the area. And you can do the same until you’ve built a strong referral network that can serve as a simple, consistent stream of new business.  

Related tip: Referral marketing is a key factor in growing any business. In addition to other practitioners, those referrals can come from other existing clients. Some referral marketing strategies to consider are referral programs that reward current clients for referring new clients to your practice; incentives, such as discounts or gift cards, to clients who refer to you; and offering business cards to your clients, so they can easily share your practice information with their family and friends. 

When you target a specific niche, your marketing efforts become more cost-effective as well. Instead of employing broad-based marketing strategies that reach a wide but less relevant audience, you can focus your resources on reaching those who are more likely to convert into clients.  

And most importantly, selecting a niche leads to more personalized care better client outcomes, and in turn, higher client satisfaction and better reviews (which we’ll get to more of later). 

Make the Design Professional, Appealing, and User-Friendly 

Your website is often people’s first impression of your dental practice and who you are as a provider. In fact, studies suggest that 76% of consumers look at a company’s online presence before visiting in person. And just like a large portion of people search online for what medical condition they might have, it’s no different with searching online for a provider. 

So, what do you want people to see when they find your practice online?  

At first glance, you want the design of your website to instantly show up as professional, clean, and appealing, one that provides a positive user experience, establishes credibility, and reinforces your brand. You can achieve this by: 

• Creating a clean and straightforward layout. 
• Positioning the name of your practice at the top of the page so users know they’re in the right place. This will start building brand recognition right off the bat. 
• Choosing a color scheme that is simple and reflects your branding (nothing too loud). 
• Using high-quality images and graphics that are visually appealing and relevant to your practice/website content to break up large test blocks. Actual photos and videos of your practice will resonate more than stock photos. 
• Highlighting a clear and concise message that communicates your practice’s values and services. 

Next, you want to be sure your website is user-friendly and easy to navigate.  

Different pages, such as a “Services,” “Our Team,” and “Contact Us” page, should be linked in the header of your website’s homepage so users can easily find information about your practice. This is especially important for contact information and online appointment scheduling (if you offer it). Your contact information should include a phone number, email address, and office location – Include a photo of your storefront so people know what to look for when coming in for their first visit.  

Another huge component of a user-friendly website is one that is mobile-friendly. A responsive website is one that will look great, and adjust well to different screen sizes depending on which device is being used. It should: 

• Have a simple and easy-to-use navigation menu 
• Use clear and legible fonts, short paragraphs, and photos/videos optimized for mobile 
• Have fast loading times 
• Be designed with tough-friendly elements, such as large buttons and links 

Finally, each page on your website should have at least one “Call To Action” (CTA). By using clear, compelling CTAs, like “Schedule a Consultation” or “Speak With Us Today,” you can create a sense of urgency end encourage visitors to take action right away and improve conversion rates by making it easy for visitors to take a desired action. 

Highlight Client Reviews and Testimonials 

Featuring real reviews from satisfied clients on your website will help attract new clients and grow your practice. A study by the National Institute of Health said that online client reviews have become an “increasingly important role in clients’ choice of health care providers.” In fact, 84% of the public trust online reviews to help them make decisions and 88% of surveyed dentists have reported receiving online client reviews. So, if people aren’t finding reviews on your practice, they’ll surely find them on your competition’s.  

Why are reviews so important?  

First, they build trust. When visitors see positive reviews from real clients, they are more likely to trust your practice and choose you as their dentist.  

Reviews from real clients also demonstrate that your practice is reputable and provides high-quality services.  

And finally, search engines like Google prioritize websites with fresh, unique, and relevant content (we’ll get into this more later in the guide). Client reviews can help provide this and can also signal to search engines that your website is active and engaging. 

While you can encourage clients to leave reviews of your dental practice by providing excellent service, making it easy to leave reviews online, and speaking with them in person, it is important to be careful about how you do so. Many review platforms have guidelines that prohibit businesses from soliciting reviews or offering incentives in exchange for reviews.  

So when it comes to design, if you focus on the above factors to build a website that’s professional, appealing, engaging, user-friendly, and builds credibility, the bounce rate, or percentage of users who leave your site after viewing only one page, will decrease. Why does this matter? 

Good question. 

Bounce rates measure the effectiveness of your website – the whole purpose of creating a strong digital marketing strategy. A high bounce rate may indicate that visitors aren’t finding what they’re looking for on your website. Maybe your design isn’t up to par, you have a slow loading time, irrelevant content, or confusing navigation. 

When users leave your page, they’re likely missing opportunities to get in touch or schedule a consultation – or convert. So, a high bounce rate likely equals missed opportunities. 

Tip: A good rule of thumb is to aim for a bounce rate of 40% or lower. 

Next Steps:  

So, this is part one. In the next part of our five-part series, we’ll dive into search engine optimization and how to ensure that once you make this beautiful website, it gets found online. Stay tuned or download the full guide below.

If you’d like to learn about how Socius Marketing can help your dental practice craft a website that converts, schedule a consultation here.