The internet is changing at a rapid rate. You need to continually update and adapt to help your users to learn about you and navigate their way through your website easily.
Is your website helping or hindering your business? If it is outdated, it won’t help you increase revenues and sales. Worse still, it might be completely disconnected from the brand you are trying to create. This is where a redesign could help your dental practice grow.
But how do you know when an overhaul of your website is needed? Here are three signs to watch out for:
You Don’t Have an SSL Certificate.
That little padlock icon in the address bar of your browser made you feel safe while browsing a website, and it will certainly make your future customers feel secure as well.
The padlock is not just for show – it shows that the site has a secure connection, meaning that any information that you pass on to it will also be protected. This SSL certificate is no longer a luxury; it is a necessity for any modern dental practice website.
Here’s how an SSL certificate can help your dental website:
- It protects your customer’s data as IDs, passwords, and credit card numbers.
- It helps rank your website in search engines. In 2014 Google made changes to its algorithm to give sites with SSL the upper hand.
- It improves customer confidence. If they know your website is legitimate, they are much more likely to do business with you or even revisit your site.
Your Site Is Not Mobile-Friendly.
You’ve heard increasing numbers of users are using their mobile devices to search for services when out. The number is even bigger than you realize – almost 60 percent of searches are conducted on mobile devices.
This is bringing about a monumental shift in how Google ranks websites. Over the past year, Google has begun to switch to mobile-first indexing, meaning your website rank in the search results is based on the performance of your website’s mobile site, not its desktop site.
Google crawls and indexes your web page based on its makeup on a cell phone rather than a desktop computer. Currently, over 50 percent of what is indexed by Google is mobile-based. If there is ever a time for a mobile redesign, it is now.
Your Content is Out of Date.
First and foremost, your web site should be about your users. It needs to be designed in a way that is familiar to your users: how they consume media, and how they access dental services. It should also focus on solving their issues and understanding their journey and what they need. This is where good website design goes hand-in-hand with good content.
The content of your website is a big part of the reason search engines index your pages. This is what they see when your users land on your page. If it’s outdated with irrelevant terms and incorrect data, you aren’t providing what your users need, and it will paint your brand in a negative light.
After all, if you don’t have the energy to provide relevant content and improved design, your customers will think you won’t care about them and their needs either.
Ensure that you delete outdated items and old contact details and renew and bring new life to current blog posts and other website content. Here’s what you should be looking to update:
- Contact information, including location, hours, phone numbers and e-mail addresses
- Information about the business, including your team, updates, and stories to share.
- Service details like new or seasonal offerings and services you aren’t providing anymore.
- images and videos that aren’t relevant anymore due to staff changes.
- comments, testimonials, and case studies, including feedback, quotes, and endorsements online. Make sure they are from the current year!
- Blog entries.
- Content which is too short, long, or isn’t SEO-friendly.
- Broken links, including updating existing links and removing all broken links as needed.
- Social media accounts.
If you need help redesigning your site, please contact us. We’re here to help you achieve your goals as a dental practice owner, and have years of experience helping small healthcare business owners improve their client base.