Your website is one of the most critical marketing assets of your dental practice. As your company’s digital storefront, it does a lot of heavy lifting. Of course, it’s essential to manage and update your website regularly, but it might not be worth producing excellent written content and stunning photos if your site is not easy for visitors to use. That’s why one of the most critical features of a functional site is its responsiveness.
Responsive Web Design (RWD) is website architecture and coding approach that provides your website with an optimized viewing experience across a wide variety of devices, making your site easy to read and navigate with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones).
Why your dental practice needs responsive web design
Not only do responsive websites look better, but they also have some crucial advantages over non-responsive sites. Here are some reasons why now is the time to make a move if your site is not already fitted with responsive technology:
Google prefers it
The use of responsive web design has been publicly promoted by Google, as it perfectly adheres to its high-quality content standards.
You only need a single URL for each page with a Responsive Web design. This makes it simpler for Google to crawl, index, and organize your website’s content. On the other hand, a separate mobile site runs on a different URL and has code distinct from its desktop edition, which means Google has to crawl and index different versions of your site.
Google also recommends responsive web design because a single URL makes it easier for users to connect with the content that resides on your website, link to it, and share it. Users also do not need any redirect code to get your site’s device-optimized view, which reduces the web page’s load time. On the other hand, a redirect link will degrade the user experience of your website as it will take longer for pages to load.
Less maintenance
A standard web development practice involved making a separate mobile version of your site not so long ago. However, it takes more time to create a mobile version of your site, and it will also cost more as there is more development time involved. With a responsive website, your developers will spend less time on maintenance tasks, lowering your overall costs.
It makes your website mobile-ready.
This year, mobile device sales are projected to reach 100 million, meaning that responsive design has never been so critical for those looking to optimize their content online.
Better user experience
For any website visitor, the user experience is essential. You want your site to be enjoyed by users, and you want it to be easy to use to persuade them to come back.
If someone on a mobile device visits your website and takes forever to load, or your photos do not have the correct quality, it may make your dental practice look unprofessional. No one wants to do business with an unprofessional company.
But responsive design, which provides a much better user interface, will encourage individuals to give your business a chance. Users can access content more efficiently, and they can have a much more favorable overall experience.
More conversions, lower bounce rate
If one of your aims is to increase the number of appointments from your contact form, a responsive website is effectively a sales-ready one. Your conversion rates depend on whether your user has a satisfying experience. The user should be able to convert regardless of which device they are on, considering that they are likely to visit from either device.
For example, if a visitor to your website arrives on a smartphone and the user has to click or zoom into the website to search for something, they will probably exit the site. You can get your bounce rates down by providing a better user experience. The customer will spend more time on the website and more likely to navigate its other web pages.
Let us help you enact responsive web design
Our team can help if you are looking to create a brand new website or revamp your current website that integrates responsive web design. Get in touch to find out how we can help your dental practice grow.