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6 Fatal Flaws Of Dental WebsitesMike Pedersen

Af ter having looked at hundreds of dental websites, I’ve come across some f atal mistakes (f laws) many ofthem have, and the majority of these are being produced by big, national dental marketing f irms, so shame onyou!

When you launch your website on the internet you must have a goal you want to achieve with it. I know this maysound like common sense, but many of these dentists websites are not f ollowing this golden rule.

Hiding Your Phone Number

Take a look at a current dental website I came across on the Internet. This commits almost all the f laws Imention below. This is the entire homepage and look how huge that image is.

No text f or visitors or google to f ind. Dark background with lighter f ont color, which is very hard to read. Phonenumber no where that’s visible. No blog. This is what your website should not look like! This was done by a big,national dental marketing f irm.

Dental practices want new patients. The internet is where they are, so your website better do its job of enticingpeople to pick up the phone and call your of f ice. If not, your website is just another wasted piece of internetreal estate.

What I see on many dental websites is a hidden phone number. You are making the visitor work to f ind it. Guesswhat? They’re gone if this happens! Instead, have your number high up on every web page of your site, so it ’svisible. Don’t make them look f or it.

No Call To Action

You’ve got to take your visitor by the hand and tell them what you want them to do on each and every page ofyour website. If you don’t, they won’t know what to do, and you’ll have wasted all that good content f or not.We ref er to this as a direct response website.

The main call to action as mentioned above is to have them call your of f ice to make an appointment. Youachieve this by not only having the number high on the page, but also having a statement like, “Contact OurOffice At 480-555-1212 To Schedule Your Complimentary Consultation” at the end of very content page,including your About page, which many dentists don’t do, and that page gets a lot of views f rom a new visitor.

Chaotic Design

What I see the majority of the time is homepages, as well as interior pages that have to much stuf f , making itvery dif f icult f or a visitor to know what you want them to do. Instead, have lots of white space, with black text,which makes it very easy to read and consume.

Many dental design f irms go f or pretty, with lots of color, but this def eats the purpose of a user- f riendlywebsite. The biggest “no-no” in web design is a dark colored background with a lighter f ont. Especially if apercentage of your patients is 50 years or older. They will struggle to read your content, get f rustrated, andleave, never to come back again. This is a lost opportunity you don’t want to experience.

No Blog

I would say 80% or more of the dental sites I’ve seen do not have a blog. This is a massive lost opportunity tohave valuable content, not only f or your visitor to consume, but f or google to consume and rank in organicresults, which will bring your practice much more traf f ic f rom those searches, result ing in more potential phonecalls and patients.

Nowadays, people will do their research bef ore they make a decision. Having a blog with highly valuableinf ormation on it, will create a perception that you are the authority in your area. When people f eel this way,they will call you and not the dentist down the street.

Over-Sized Images On Homepage

95% of all dental websites are guilty of this one! Why design f irms do this, I don’t know, but this is a hugewaste of valuable real estate on your homepage. Not to mention, it ’s usually of a stock photo (model) thatevery other website has, making your site look like all the rest.

These big images are of no value to google in regards to ranking, and they take up a massive amount of spacethat could be f illed with your highly prof itable services, etc. To not to take up more than 1/8 of your homepagewith any single image you have. And more importantly, try to make it an actual patient, and not a stock photo,f ound all over the web.

Duplicate Content

Many of the big dental marketing f irms provide template websites that all look the same, and unf ortunately theyprovide the bulk of the content making it very desirable f or the busy dentist.

The problem with this is you now have a website like your competitors, with the same content on it. This iscalled duplicate content, and google does not this! They will see your website is not unique and original, andtheref ore not reward you with high rankings.

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+Mike Pedersen has been an Internet Marketing Specialist f or 13 years, and is now helping local dentistsattract more patients using strategic Internet and Mobile Marketing plans specif ic to the needs of the practice.