Your website is your company’s digital face and can be one of your best sources for attracting new dental patients. In a nutshell, there has never been a better or more critical time to invest in a website for your dental practice. A website provides a wide range of benefits for small businesses. Like the Internet itself, most of these benefits grow in value exponentially with time.
But what if you already have a website? When is it time to update it? We consider several factors when determining whether or not a dental practice needs a website redesign. Take a look to see if any apply to your website.
Sign #1: Your website looks outdated
It’s been demonstrated repeatedly that how people see your organization is strongly influenced by how they perceive your website. Consider your website to be a virtual shop on Main Street. Make sure the sign is well-lit, the sidewalk is cleaned, the walls are newly painted, and the style of the establishment does not make you appear to be in a different decade. The most common time frame for substantial web website changes is generally every 3-4 years.
Sign #2: You don’t have an SSL certificate
An SSL certificate helps turn your website user’s personal information entered on a website page into code that can only be translated when received by its intended destination by employing encryption methods.
Hearing clinic owners often assume that if their website does not enable transactions, they do not require an SSL certificate. But SSL encryption has several significant advantages for dental practice owners, including data security, increased customer trust, and enhanced search engine rankings.
Your consumers will see a green padlock icon or a green address bar with an SSL certificate, indicating well-trusted encryption. When visitors and potential consumers browse your website, this provides them more peace of mind. Google also wants to make sure that its users are safe. As a result, they will prioritize websites with an SSL certificate on their search engine results pages.
Sign #3: Your website is not mobile-friendly
Because most internet users own a smartphone, it’s no wonder that mobile search traffic has increased dramatically in recent years. In 2016, mobile traffic surpassed desktop traffic for the first time. According to Merchant Savvy, 58% of all multi-device purchases use mobile to close the sale.
This means that your site should be simple to navigate and display on both desktop and mobile devices. A responsive website is the simplest way to accomplish this. This type of website adapts its content to fit different screen widths.
Sign #4: Your website loads slowly
One of the most common difficulties we encounter with older websites is how slow the pages load. If your dental patient prospects are anything like the rest of us, they’re used to getting what they want when they want it, which means they won’t wait for those cool pictures to load.
Bounce rates will increase if load times are too long. Not only that, but when it comes to determining a website’s search ranking, Google favors load times. This is noteworthy because Google accounts for 94% of organic search traffic.
Sign #5: Your website content is no longer relevant
Interest in maintaining a website can decrease over time. We typically observe an inverse link between the website’s age and the level of interest in correcting any apparent flaws. Perhaps dental practice has grown to cover a whole new set of products or services, but you don’t have the time to update your website to reflect that. As such, your website is full of errors, inconsistencies, and outdated information, and it needs to be discarded. In other words, out with the old and in with the new.
If one or more of the above criteria apply to your website, it may be time to explore acquiring a new one that better fits your dental practice needs and puts you ahead of the competition. We’re here to help you! Get in touch with the Dr. Websites team to discuss how we can increase the number of patients who come through your doors.