Your website is an extension of your practice. It shares your treatment philosophy, your team, and your knowledge within the industry. These website must-haves for your dental practice outlines what you need to create an engaging and secure platform that will help grow your practice.
An Easy-to-Understand Services Page
Medical terminology gets confusing, and we need to remember that our patients don’t live it like we do. To improve patient education, write a Services page with plain language that answers the most frequent questions you receive.
This includes regular cleanings, crowns, fillings, periodontics, and all other services your practice offers. This applies to in-office visits, too. When patients are well-educated about their options and how different procedures are done, there will be fewer misunderstandings.
A Friendly About Us Page
Your About Us page showcases more than your team. It shares your treatment philosophy and how you approach dentistry. You want patients to choose you because they feel aligned, and this page is where you highlight it. Be respectful of other treatment beliefs, but share why you treat in the way you do.
There are a few key pieces to focus on for your team. Include accomplishments, qualifications, areas of study, and a few personal highlights to make each member accessible.
Some practices choose to only share biographies of their dentists, but we encourage you to create short pieces for each member. After all, your patients interact with more than just you and their hygienist. They talk with the receptionist, billing specialist, and at times the office manager.
The better you can lay the foundation for a great practice-patient relationship, the happier your patients will be.
A Sidebar Contact Form
The goal of your website is to make it as easy as possible to contact you. When you add a sidebar on relevant pages, it reduces the friction between them wanting to contact you and doing so.
We’ve found the best results by including a contact form on these pages:
- Services
- About Us
- Select blog posts
Your Services page is where they head if they’re genuinely interested in your practice. If you offer what they need, they’re going to reach out. But only if you make it easy! By adding a contact form to this page, they can easily contact you to set up an appointment.
Your About Us page is another place people visit if they’re interested in your practice. If these potential new patients like what they see, then they’re going to reach out.
We recommend only adding a sidebar contact form to certain blog posts. You want to remain an informed voice on issues surrounding dentistry, but you don’t want to take advantage of the situation. Because of this, a contact form should only be on practice-relevant pages. This includes announcing a new product, service, or amenities you offer.
The sales funnel is another reason for this. Blog posts are one of the best ways to bring people to your site, and if they’re interested they’ll click around. You first want to establish your knowledge in the industry, educate, then sell your services. If you add a call-to-action too early in the process, you may lose potential patients.
A HIPAA-Compliant Website
HIPAA is for more than in-office procedures, and breaking HIPAA guidelines can be a costly mistake. This is particularly important if you accept patient information through your website.
These are the core components of a HIPAA-compliant website:
- Securing your website with an SSL Certificate. (Your website already has this in place if it begins with “https” rather than “http”.)
- Requiring third-party vendors sign a Business Associates Agreement. This ensures they have the required security for transmitting PHI.
- Authorizations before sharing patient testimonials. Always have patients sign an authorization form before sharing even the simplest testimonial, and only use their first name and last initial.
Working with established dental industry website designers can help minimize the stress in creating a HIPAA-compliant website. They will know everything that’s needed, both on the website’s backend and for patient-facing information.
These website must-haves for your dental practice will help you better connect with patients while also maintaining a secure website. It’s the front page of your business online, so make sure it represents you well! From the best pages to have a contact form on to HIPAA-compliance, these points will guide you in designing (or redesigning) your website.