You need a new website. It’s been years since you invested in a new site, and you remember the experience as painstaking and brutally long. Dental practice website design does not have to be agony! With the right team in your corner, designing and building your new dental website can actually be fun. I’m serious! Even if you’re too busy. Even if you don’t know what colors you like best. Even if you have no clue what’s trending in web design these days.

A great graphic designer will guide you to selecting the best colors and layout for your dental website, factoring in your preferences and target market. She’ll ask simple questions, and your answers will tell her all she needs to know about the types of photos, style, and layout you want for your new site. At Identiwrite Creative, we tune in to what our clients want, all the while making the web design process simple, quick, and enjoyable.

Our designers and techs came up with three hot trends that you need to know about if you’re going to delve into a new dental website for your practice. Unlike fashion trends, website trends usually have logic behind them. Check this out…

No More “Above the Fold” with Parallax

Parallax is a dental website design trend born out of necessity. Starting around 2012, marketers learned that web visitors only look at the part of a website that displays before you scroll down. Very few users actually scrolled down to see what was “below the fold.” This term, “below the fold,” comes from how a newspaper is seen when on display. Only the top of the first page, above the fold, can be seen. Therefore, all vital information should be “above the fold.”

A monitor is not nearly enough space to show potential patients all the reasons they should choose you as their dentist, right? Advertisers have much more to show consumers!

To combat the “above the fold” rule, technicians and designers put their heads together and created parallax. This design element requires that a user scroll down to see information; however, as you scroll, you’re visually stimulated, which prompts you to continue scrolling. Parallax creates a layered effect on a website. It’s a 2D graphic element originally used in video games. The background remains stationary, while the text and images on top move as you scroll — or vice versa.

True parallax tells a story. However, a hybrid style is necessary for optimal communication and SEO on a dental website. Benefits of parallax include:

  • You can convey a lot of information while having a lower bounce rate and increased on-site time
  • Entices viewers to scroll down the page, where they will be introduced to more information
  • Can direct viewers toward a specific call to action – call us or complete a contact form, for instance
  • No legitimate negative aspects that cannot be overcome (ie: slower load time = use Cloudflare)
  • Impresses viewers, which underscores a dentist’s credibility

The only negative that cannot yet be overcome is that parallax does not function correctly on mobile devices. Identiwrite Creative uses WordPress themes that always render properly on mobile by simply stripping out the parallax elements.

People Believe Online Reviews, So You Need a Reviews Page

Studies show that more than 70% of consumers believe online reviews. This means, dentists’ websites need lots of great reviews! Putting your positive patient reviews in front of web visitors increases the potential for conversion (getting new patients from your website).

At Identiwrite Creative, we conduct a ton of competitive analyses and website evaluations for dentists and dental consultants. Through these, we’ve seen Yelp! become a heavy hitter for page-on Google rankings, for high-competition keywords, like city + dentist.

Dentists need as many positive Yelp! reviews as they can get, and good reviews on Facebook, HealthGrades, and Google+ are also beneficial. This brings up two services that are becoming quite popular in dental marketing: Yelp! website integration and patient review emails.

We can install a testimonials page on your website to feature real-time Yelp! reviews via a feed. We can also include quick links for your patients to leave reviews on Yelp!, Google+, Facebook, HealthGrades, and any other site you’d like to highlight. The benefit of an integrated review page is that your most current patient testimonials are readily available to site visitors. Since we know that over 70% of Internet users believe online reviews, Yelp! integration helps prompt web visitors to schedule an appointment.

Acquiring positive reviews can be challenging. You don’t want to beg paying patients to take time out of their busy schedules to write nice things about you online. That’s obnoxious, and it can be a real turn-off. We suggest an automated email system that requests reviews. Our patient review module sends out emails with a simple and low-key request that the recipient leave a review for your office. Quicklinks are provided for easy access to your profile page on Yelp! and other review sites. There’s no pressure. When a review is left for you, you’re alerted, so you can thank the patient if you so choose.

What about negative reviews? Our system helps by burying negative reviews. While we can’t make them magically disappear, we can load your Yelp! account up with positive reviews, so the negative gets pushed to page two or three, which will probably never be seen.

“But Wait, There’s More!” — Don’t Love Those Pop-Ups?

If you want to feature a special offer or get site visitors to sign up for your newsletter, a pop-up box is a great way to do it. You’ve surely experienced a pop-up box on a website. Basically, you’re reading a site and then – poof – up comes a box that prompts you to do something. You simply click out of the box or click an X, and the box disappears.

The “before you go” pop-up box on a contact page is a less obnoxious alternative to homepage pop-up boxes. When a site visitor goes to your contact page (or any page that you specify), a pop-up box appears. If someone is already on your contact page, they’re interested in your services, so they’re prepared to enter their information.

Another option – one that I personally find preferable – is the sidebar box. This isn’t a true pop-up, because it remains stationary on the sidebar of any page you specify. As the website visitor scrolls down a page, the sidebar slides down the sidebar to remain in view. A sidebar box eliminates the peskiness of a pop-up, but maintains the visibility.

Your Dental Practice Website Design

Need expert advice for your new dental website? Call Identiwrite Creative at 940-395-5115. I’m Shauna Duty, owner of Identiwrite Creative, and that’s my cell phone number. You can also reach me by text or email: shauna@identiwrite.com.

I’ll be happy to take a look at your current website, discuss your needs, and provide a proposal for your new site. I’ll include ongoing services to help maintain the site and maximize SEO. We offer hosting, technical support, security, blogging, content management, social media marketing, and more. Your proposal will be based on your unique needs, customized to give you just what you want and nothing you don’t want!

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