SEO for Dentists Only Half The Battle
Search engine optimization (SEO) and better ranking for your dental website in the search engines is indeed important, however, it is not the complete solution.
Sure, people who arrive on your site from a Google query are pre-qualified prospects; still, if your website does a poor job of converting them into patients, your site is not operating efficiently and it’s not making best use of the traffic it receives.
I see and hear it everyday; conversion ratio (visitors to patients) is just not a priority. Dentists know they want and need better search engine positions, even so, they choose to ignore the fact that their website is often sorely in need of a design makeover to help improve their conversions.
The dentist will keep their practice, their office and their own personal appearance neat as a pin, so why would they not want to capitalize on a more accessible and pleasing website design? Often, just improving the site’s navigation and its page load speeds can help dramatically.
First impressions are crucial. Potential patients visiting your website will adopt an opinion of your practice based on their experience. If your website does not give them what they need (quickly), frustrates, or wastes their time, they are subject to leave — and perhaps, may never return.
If a department store has a high-visibility location, but the interior of the store is disorganized, filthy, has poor lightening, nothing is labeled, the aisles are blocked and there’s inadequate sales staff available, wouldn’t you leave immediately? Would you consider telling your friends about them?
Thus my point.
The successful dental website will have both exceptional search engine rankings PLUS an essential design that engages prospective patients in the trust process, encourages them to find out more, and continually directs them toward the central ‘call to action’ — which is to schedule an appointment.
Here’s to your dental website performing its best! ~ John Barremore
June 27th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
The dental community needs to start placing patient care and what is best for the patient as their priority. Furthermore, dentists that have knowledge of wrong-doing by other dental clinicians must start speaking up and protecting the patient! Dental boards and dental associations need to start protecting the patient not themselves. We are talking about peoples health and lives!
Thanks
June 27th, 2010 at 11:54 pm
Yes Jack — how true, how crucial to the public’s health indeed.
jb
January 17th, 2011 at 10:32 pm
Absolutely in agreement. Some of the high ranking websites are so cluttered with information, options, flash … they may even be entertaining and impressive. But they often do seem to lose sight that communication should be two-sided … in particular, it should be easy to schedule an appointment or ask a question.
I am constantly trying to remove redundant links or information, to keep the layout simple and informative, and the page speed fast. Images outside css should really only for an important call-to-action - in orange and prominent.
Cheers and thanks again for raising awareness of conversion. By the way, I find in the in-page Google analytics “content module” pretty neat - it tells for each page, and every link on it, the percentage of all clicks away from that page through that particular link.
June 23rd, 2011 at 3:36 pm
For those dentists wishing to evaluate the potential improvements in their web conversions, the following 108 tips may be of interest:
http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/articles/101-google-website-optimizer-tips/
Each tip is an opportunity - there is no need to implement every one. Altogether, they also offer a diagnostic - if too many are violated, it is worth considering updating one’s website here and there. (No affiliation.)