Building up your dental practice online requires the same kind of attention to detail you’d need if you were building any other Internet-based brand. You might not want to hear that, considering that dentistry is supposed to be a medical practice and therefore held to a higher standard than most commercial operations would be. Hiring an SEO agency that takes care of your dental office’s online presence might be the best option. For instance, working on and building an orthodontic marketing strategy could help you get more visibility, improve your website’s reach, and, ultimately, get more patients to your practice.
That doesn’t change the fact that it’s true, however. Private dental offices are businesses, and they need to be promoted as such. You will need a solid website such as the one that Quality Dental Team has. Whether you’ve just opened your office or are trying to take an existing practice to the next level, you’re going to need to start revamping the way you deal with your online clientele.
Don’t be afraid to redesign your site in the process. Some offices have gone so far as to hire a Dental Marketing Guy, which can help to ensure that they always have a strong presence in cyberspace. Those who plan on going it alone might want to consider the following three pieces of advice.
Never Let People View You as Boring
An overwhelming majority of medical sites online are extremely dull. They simply provide information to healthcare consumers and very little else. For that matter, some private practices run exceptionally dry sites that don’t even work correctly.
If you have any sort of online booking or scheduling widgets, then you need to make sure that they work correctly. You don’t want to make a name for your office because of a perceived lack of maintenance!
At the same time, don’t feel like you can’t spice up a site that otherwise works really well. Feel free to experiment a bit.
Medical infographics don’t necessarily have to be as silly looking as you might imagine. For instance, there’s an image that illustrates some facts on oral health. It’s been floating around the Internet for some time now.
That might not be much, but it’s attracted some level of popularity over the last two years because it looks a little bit more fun than most in its field.
In fact, you should probably have access to dozens of such charts that you have the right to use considering the way that medical supply companies let doctors republish content. Leverage what you already have.
Go With an Edgy Theme
You might be thinking to yourself that there’s nothing fun about dentistry. In fact, you might be giving some thought to the fact that many people are somewhat distrustful of dentists. Out of all of the various medical specialties, dentistry might be the least liked by members of the general population.
As a result, you might try to think up a creative edgy theme that will keep people’s mind off of the whole issue. Consider the example of Ethan Harris, who started Rock ‘n’ Roll Dental in San Ramon, California.
He combined his love for rock music with his professional practice along with plenty of memorabilia that would better fit a concert stage than a dentist’s office.
As a result, his practice really stands out.
For that matter, at least one group of people once ran a Star Trek-themed dental office fittingly called Starfleet Dental. Companies that have very creative design language like this can take it to the next level by applying it to their web design.
One organization even tried using a cutesy graphic to educate healthcare consumers on the benefits of preventative dentistry.
Naturally, people will also want to share these kinds of things with one another as well if they’re interesting enough. That’s why you won’t want to forget about the fact that you should be cultivating a great social media presence online as well.
Consider Your Instagram Presence as Well
Over time, it seems like other dentists have jumped onboard the rocker theme, judging by certain Instragram posts. You wouldn’t even know some of these came from a dentist’s office. However, you don’t need to have something this extreme just to cultivate an online presence.
Some people have done so by involving themselves with certain causes. For instance, one popular social post took off because it challenged the safety of amalgam fillings. This has always been a controversial issue, but it’s not one patients are often educated about.
Another relied on design language based on the board game Operation.
Regardless of how you plan on proceeding, make sure that whatever you’re doing is unique. That will help you stand out not only among you competitors but also against the huge volume of information being posted online every single day.
