• educating patients before they come into your practice so that you have to spend less time educating them, and trying to convince them why certain procedures or services are necessary;
• convincing prospects that your practice is a comfortable, warm and caring environment in which they will be taken care of by professionals with experience and education;
• keeping patients informed about what’s happening in your practice and events or programs that you might be offering or participating in;
• making it easier to deal with you by bringing some of the procedures and paperwork to the website so that they can complete them on their time, in advance of their appointment – taking less time from your team when they come in;
• facilitating referrals from existing patients by making it easy for a patient to refer your practice to their friends and family;
• attracting new patients that are looking for a new dentist in your area, either because they’ve moved recently or are unhappy with their current dentist.

The list goes on and on! Just because you’re not selling books or CDs on the Internet doesn’t mean that a website can’t give you amazing return and value, and add to your bottom line.

A website is just an expense
 
Many dentists compare the cost of their website against the revenue generated directly by prospects who call their office after somehow finding their site. While it’s true that one of the main reasons of having a website is to increase profitability, there are many other hidden ways that a website makes a smart investment, not just a big expense.

First of all, you are able to provide a higher level of service to your existing patients by providing valuable information to them, when and where they want it. With good content on your site, your patients can actually become more knowledgeable in their dental health and as part of that, will understand the commitment of regular visits to your practice. For example, you can place a feedback survey on the site that patients can fill out after they’ve visited you. This is more confidential and comfortable for them to do, and they can do it on their time.

Second, by reducing the time required by your team to deal with certain processes, it’s possible to reduce your service costs, while at the same time increasing the service level to the patient. For example, instead of having to just explain the new patient process to a new patient, you can put a checklist and "what to expect" document on your site. This way, new patients can read through it and already be aware of how your practice operates – saving valuable in-person time having to explain these processes. Another example – explain how you deal with insurance on your website so your patient knows exactly what to bring with them, and what to expect when they arrive. Your team will spend less time explaining and more time caring – everyone wins!

The value of having well educated patients is proven – when a patient understands the ramifications and consequences of delaying or avoiding treatment, they’re more likely to provide approval – you get less resistance from patients and can spend more time producing revenue than trying to explain or educate.

A website is an investment in your patients that can increase your service levels and reduce your operating costs, not an expense that costs you money.

Build it, and they will come

Many people think that once a website is built, the work’s done – they can sit back and enjoy all the extra business and traffic that it will generate. In reality, putting a website online without properly marketing it (both online and offline) is just like building a brand new practice 50 miles outside your city or town – without putting any signs up, putting your phone number in the phone book, or doing any advertising. How can you expect people to find it if you don’t give them numerous ways to do so?

Most websites fail simply because little or no effort is put into marketing the sites and building awareness that they exist. A critical component of your website strategy is to ensure that you’re actively marketing the site and bringing not only new prospects to it, but also attracting your existing patients to the site as well. To do that, there has to be good reason for them to come – and that’s why marketing of the site is so important.

If you’re going to make a commitment to building a website, make sure that you’re incorporating a strong marketing plan that will attract and encourage new visitors to the site. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, and where the services of a professional online marketing company can come in handy.

Design doesn’t matter .. all that matters is content

The Internet is a very unique thing, because it brings together the technical world (computer programmers) with creative designers. For a website to be effective, it needs to be not only technically strong, but also creatively. Unfortunately, most websites are built by programmers who do not understand creative or design, and the sites simply do not generate any interest or results because they’ve been designed poorly.

Most web developers place very little value on strong creative and design – mostly because they’re not capable of providing it! It can’t be overestimated how critical it is to make sure that your site truly reflects the professional reputation and image that you’ve worked hard to create in your market. A poorly designed website not only will not generate results, but can in fact hurt you by slowly eroding and ruining your reputation. If your website is unprofessional and looks amateur, that will reflect on your professional reputation. You’re better off having no website at all than one that makes you look bad!

The more search engines I get into, the better

It seems logical that the more search engines you are listed in, the better off you are because you’ll get no exposure. Unfortunately, this isn’t true. Of all the search engine traffic on the net, about 96% of it is generated from the top 12 search engines (such as Google, Webcrawler, Yahoo and Excite). There are thousands of other sites that claim to be ‘search engines’ but all they really are is sites set up to collect email addresses to sell to others that will send you unsolicited junk email.

Don’t be fooled – sticking to the top 12 search engines is the most intelligent, effective approach. And, you should never have to pay for a listing on an Internet site unless it is highly targeted – never pay to be listed in a search engine!

Search engines are becoming increasingly more sophisticated,, so it’s not as simple as just listing your site with them once and getting results. Each engine has different parameters and considerations, so understanding how to customize your submission to each engine is important.

Once you have your website online, the work is done

Why do people visit a website? Because there’s something interesting for them to see or read, or they are able to get valuable information. So what happens when you never change or update your website? People come once, and never come back.
Keeping your content fresh and updated is another one of the critical elements of a successful website. Just like people do not read the same newspaper over and over, they will not continue to visit a website more than once unless there’s a reason to do so, such as regular articles that are of interest to them, news and current events, etc.

The challenge as a dental practice is that it’s challenging to find the time to keep the information on your website updated and current – but unfortunately, if you don’t do it, your website will never generate the results that you are looking for.

This goes hand in hand with the marketing – if you don’t continue to update your content, and continue to market your site, you might as well not have a website to begin with because the chances of it generating positive results for you are unlikely.

So, as you can see, building a website and getting online can be a tricky task that may require some professional help. If you are interested in finding out more about websites and Internet marketing, please contact gregs@dentalsuccess.net and type “DSI websites” in the “Subject” box or call Greg Sneyd at 800-460-3838 x106.

If you would like to check out some of the DentalSuccess Interactive websites that have been designed for dentists, simply link to the following sites:

Franklyn Alexander, DDS www.fyidentist.com  
Hammond Aesthetic&General Dentistry www.hhsmile.com
Gray&Williams Dental Care www.smilesandiego.com
Dr.Eric R. Koch DDS - Family&Implant Dentistry www.jasperimplant.com
Hermann J. Schulze D.D.S. www.marcoislanddental.com
Norman D. Peets III, D.D.S., F.A.G.D. www.smilescience.net
 
I also recommend that you check out the DentalSuccess Interactive design samples at http://www.dentalsuccessinteractive.com/samples.html.