What every practice needs in a web site
Two types of people visit web sites. Good web site design and support is necessary to generate return on investment (ROI) from both types. Shoppers use search engines, like Google, MSN and Yahoo to find providers for the goods and services they need. A shopper goes to Google.com, and enters the words, “sedation dentist, Akron”. The web sites that show up prominently on the results page have the best chance to be seen by that shopper. Search Engine Optimization positions your site to be noticed, and drives shoppers to your site instead of your competitor’s.
Investigators already know your web address, and have entered it manually to view your site and find out more about you. They learned the address through your internal or external marketing. Whether it was on your business card, stationary, yellow pages ad, billboard, or TV commercial, the investigator remembered it and typed it into the web browser to gather more information. An attractive, informative, and user-friendly web site turns investigators into customers.
Since web sites are marketing devices, you must approach their design and execution from the patient’s point of view, not your own. This is the first lesson in marketing – concentrate on benefits instead of features. Why spend your time and energy, and the prospective patient’s limited attention span, on announcing your new CEREC brand CAD/CAM technology, when all the patient wants to know is that he can get his work done in fewer appointments? He really couldn’t care less what your machine is called. Concentrate on the things that matter to him, not things you think are important.
Use the features/benefits analysis to help you decide what your web site should look like and what content it needs. Try to picture who will be looking at your web site, and design the site to transition these people, whether they initially started as investigators or shoppers, into patients.
A good web site therefore, needs to do two things: it must generate shopper traffic, and it also must educate investigators with an attractive, user-friendly design that gives them the information they are looking for. Web site providers that execute both of these tasks at an efficient price offer some of the best ROI available.
