The 7 Best web design practices for your dental website

Is there such a thing as a dental practice without a website these days? The answer is probably yes and knowing the power of the internet, dental practices with websites have a leg up on those who don’t.

Having a website for your dental practice, however, is not enough. With so much competition, you need a dental website that stands out.

Truth be told, making your dental website a cut above the rest takes a lot of hard work. Implementing the best web design practices can at least get you started for now. Here are some of the web design practices you must implement for your dental practice website.

A clear and informative “About” page

When people search for a dentist, they naturally want to entrust their dental care to someone they know, or at least someone they feel like they know. An “About” page that contains relevant information about yourself and your practice is a step towards that direction. 

You can also use the “About” page to express your views about dentistry in general. It’s also a good idea to include fun facts about yourself so patients will find you interesting at least. If you can feature of photos of yourself, your staff or even your family, the better.

Responsive design

The number of mobile users has already exceeded that of desktop users, so it only makes sense to make your website mobile responsive. But a responsive website is more than just making it easier for users to access your website via their smartphones and tablets.

It’s also about pleasing Google, which is now rewarding mobile-friendly sites by ranking them higher than mobile-unfriendly ones. So, make your dental website mobile responsive, and you can hit two birds with one stone.

Visual appeal

Some people will probably argue that visual appeal is no longer important, but that is the farthest thing from the truth. Whether we admit it or not, we readily leave a website that isn’t pleasing to behold. It could be cluttered text and images, not enough white space, fonts that are too small, colors that are too loud, etc.

For your dental website, the design must be clean and crisp, and the content neatly organized. Use warm colors, as they give readers the impression that the dentist is warm and welcoming too. 

Useful patient engagement tools

If there’s one thing that customers would want most from their service providers, it’s convenience. For dental patients, making an appointment, accessing their records, and making payments should be easy, and should be done whether in the comfort of their homes or even when they’re on the go. You would do well to incorporate patient engagement tools into the design of your dental practice website. Just make sure that these tools are well-organized, easy to find, and a breeze to navigate.

Fast-loading pages

A visually appealing website doesn’t matter if its pages take forever to load. Unoptimized images, heavy image sizes, too many themes and plugins, and excessive use of social media scripts are some of the most common reasons for sluggish loading speeds.

Do something about the elements mentioned above, or potential patients will just up and leave and move on to another dental website.

Use real pictures

By real pictures, we mean those that aren’t stock photos. Stock images are just too fake, and that fakeness sticks out like a sore thumb in a dental practice website. Instead of using pictures of models with unbelievably perfect pearly-whites, post before-and-after dental treatment images of your patients (with their permission, of course). Potential patients will also appreciate pictures of your staff, your dental practice and state-of-the-art equipment more.

Videos

Photos are great ways of introducing your practice to visitors, but videos are even better because they are more appealing and informative, especially when you talk about dental procedures. In all honesty, people already expect such videos on healthcare website like yours, so don’t disappoint them. 

Aside from videos tackling dental procedures, you can also create brief ones where you introduce your staff. That way, you can build familiarity with potential patients in the most engaging way.

These are just some of the best web design practices that you can implement for your website. Put these web design practices in place, and your dental practice will be poised to achieve its goals.