I just came home from an exciting dental conference in Craig, Montana, where I was asked to speak about the variety of dental web designers and how to incorporate web marketing into a dental practice.

The trip was great, and I learned as much just talking to the other dentists present as I did through the lectures.  And, oh yeah, the fishing wasn’t bad on the Missouri River, either.

 I was first asked to speak at this conference as a change of pace from the normal dental lectures.  I found that although many of the dentists had mature practices that they felt were doing well, they had little idea of how to pick a website that represented them and their individual practice needs.  I think this is the boat that many dentists are in. 

So the first question you should ask when evaluating your needs is: Why do I need a website?  Simply put, a website should accurately give the public a view of your practice, educate potential and existing patients, and bring new patients to your practice.  If you have a patient base that is exactly where you want it and you feel would not benefit from online education, then a website may not be for you.  There are many successful practices that do not have websites.  But, if you have a patient population that uses the Internet or could use more quality referrals, then a website has many benefits. 

The next questions to ask are: What aspect of my practice do I want to emphasize and how much do I want to spend?  For example, if you love cosmetic dentistry and want to do more, you should show your cases to potential and existing patients that use the website.  Also, if you just want a web presence you are looking at a lot more than if you want #1 search engine rankings. 

After you answer these questions, it is a wise idea to talk to different companies and see what they can do for you.  A local company can give you custom design features and present some of your cases online.  They likely won’t have the dental background that some specialty companies will have. 

One of the most important things to look at is search engine optimization (SEO).  SEO is the process of making your site friendly for search engines.  It is very involved and should involve an analysis of the market and what words and terms people search for.  Search engines like Google and Yahoo take a variety of factors into consideration (such as keywords, titles, domain name, age of domain name, and other sites linking to your site) to decide how to rank pages when someone makes a query.  Making your page an accurate representation of what you represent and providing helpful content will make the search engine’s job easier and rank your page higher.

Basically, do your homework.  There are a number of companies out there, so don’t pay too much and get what you want.  I believe that a content management system is the best.  Usually, you will pick a design that comes with some premade content about dentistry.  Then you can add your own information and update it as needed.  This allows flexibility to be as involved as you want.  This is what we offer and believe it is the best way to go. 

Here is a list of pertinant questions to ask the web company before jumping in:

• What type of search engine optimization do you offer?  What keywords do you optimize for and how is the competition for these words.
• Do you offer content management?  If not, how much does it cost to make changes to my site?
• What are examples of your other work?
• Can I customize the look of my site or is it a template (search engines like unique and helpful content)?

Westslope Design offers a custom website design on one of two easy-to-use content management platforms, plus these other practice building options:

• Logo design
• Letterhead and envolope design
• Checkabiz surveys and patient satisfaction solutions
• Secure patient health history forms or online editable PDF forms
• Search engine optimization through intelligent design and local partnerships
• Brochure design
• Business card design
• E-mail newsletter set-up
• Online patient education videos

I left the participants of the meeting with a few ways to integrate technology into their practices.  First, learn to take good pictures of your work.  Patients like to see what you have done, not stock photos of some model.  Then take those pictures and put them in your office (after obtaining written consent).  You can print them out and mount them in simple black frames.  You can create an online book at Shutterfly and put it in your office.  You can take the photos and put them on a digital picture frame and have them scroll through in the operatories. 

Dental website and healthcare website design is a unique project and we would love to show you how to expand your practice to include the online generation.