The Dentistry\.co\.uk Website Awards is looking to honour your eye-catching winning ways on the web…Has your presence on the web got a high profile – and possess what it takes to win accolades as a style icon?
Your practice can have its online presence officially rewarded by entering the Dentistry.co.uk Website Awards – now in its second year and once again sponsored by Dental Focus Web Design.
Producing and developing a quality and stylish practice website has never been more important in the current economic climate and in today’s dental industry.
A website can go a long way towards marketing a surgery and, if used effectively, can prove to be a highly successful tool in boosting your practice profile and attracting new patients.
Krishan Joshi, Project Manager at Dental Focus Web Design, said, ‘It’s really exciting to be part of the Dentistry.co.uk Website Awards again.
‘This year’s awards is so important because the best websites need to be recognised by both the profession and public in order to help raise the standard for the next year.
‘The web is moving so fast and I’m sure all the entries will be of amazing quality this year. It’s fantastic to have the Website Awards as part of the main Dentistry Awards too as this finally acknowledges the fact that web marketing needs to be at the forefront of a dental practice’s marketing strategy!’
Patient expectations are higher than ever before. Content must be truly informative, in terms of both quality and quantity, while the design needs to be user-friendly and strike a chord with the appropriate target audience.
Patient cases can help build the credibility of the site, and they should be represented with high-quality before-and-after images, smile galleries and testimonials, while the surgery must be presented in a professional and approachable manner.
Profile-raising needs to be exploited fully through search engine optimisation (SEO) – a slick, professional site that can be found on the first page of Google is what you should be aiming for.
Essentially, patients need to be impressed enough by a practice website that they are spurred to make an appointment or recommend it to family, friends and colleagues.
And the marketing doesn’t stop there. The website can be highlighted on all practice stationery, signage and reminders, and used to show past cases or testimonials even before starting treatment.
The internet has also provided the public with a shrewd tool to compare the respective merits of dentists without having to physically visit the practice or pick up the phone to talk to staff.
Therefore, standing out from competitors online is important for any dentist, particularly in the private sector. In order to stand out, you need to stand for something, and what many dental websites are now doing is targeting a specific patient profile.
Every practice has unique patient demographics depending on location, modernity and selection of treatments, and tailoring the website to those requirements is crucial.
Dentistry.co.uk has seen how practices throughout the UK have made vast improvements in their online services/marketing, particularly over the last year.
With this in mind, we feel it’s time those efforts were rewarded. The Dentistry.co.uk Website Awards 2008, sponsored by Dental Focus Web Design, are a significant step forward in establishing the importance of an effective practice website and the time and expertise that goes into developing them.
Format
Practices can enter the awards by visiting www.dentistry.co.uk/webawards. The deadline for entries is 17 October and on 20 November all award-winners apart from the Best Practice award which will be announced at the Dentistry Awards ceremony on 12 December. There are three awards – Best Website, Most Improved Site and Best New Website – available in each of the four categories: NHS, Private, Mixed, and Specialist.
Criteria
When selecting the finalists and winners, the judging panel will be looking for qualities such as the following:
• Look and feel of the site
• Quality of informative content
• User-friendly features
• Whether it makes a good impression
• How it appeals to the right audience
• Real patient cases – relevant pictures and testimonials
• Surgery presentation
• Search engine optimisation
• Technical/video/animation expertise.
Your opportunity
Don’t miss your chance to win an award in this growing area of the dental profession. Online expertise is becoming an increasingly creative and effective force, and it’s high time that talent was acknowledged. The Dentistry.co.uk Website Awards 2008, sponsored by Dental Focus Web Design, give your practice its chance to shine. Visit www.dentistry.co.uk/webawards to enter.
