Have you got your presence sorted?

It’s a fresh new year and you want to find a gym in your area to help you get fit…you could look in the Yellow Pages, but seriously, who does that anymore?

Most people now reach for their mobile phone or tablet to search online. It is assumed these days that businesses have a website. This means that just as you look for information online, so do your potential new and existing patients. This is a huge advantage to your practice if you have a website compared to other local practices that might not have a presence yet.

The phrase ‘local dentist’ is searched for on Google around 2,400 times per month and arguably these are potential new patients looking to visit a dental practice. A website is a cost-effective way to draw in prospective new patients who are already interested in what you have to offer. So the question is…are you doing what you can to make sure you’re seen, as put simply, if you don’t have a website, then those people searching will find your competitors and not you.

Searching the internet is the first port of call for many people; it’s convenient and not time restrictive. We’re all busy and most of us don’t like to wait for information. So when we visit a website we expect to find one that anticipates our needs and meets them with on-point information.

A well put together website will allow potential patients to make an informed decision about you and your practice before they get in touch, and so getting it right is just as vital as having one in the first place! Your website is a visual representation of your practice and involves having a site that is fresh and up-to-date; a site that allows you to display clearly your opening times, who makes up your team, what your specialisms are and what kind of patients you treat is crucial.

As important, is a site that’s adaptable to your needs; one that enables you to add up-to-date practice news, promote treatment deals of the month or launch new treatments; one that accommodates the addition of new patient testimonials or smile before and after galleries. A great way to do this is through a content managed system (CMS); a system that puts you in control as opposed to being beholden to an agency.

There are many benefits of having a CMS website, some of which are detailed below:

  • freshness of content – adding content, images, audio and video onto a CMS is easy and helps ensure the content is always fresh
  • use of templates – this has lots of advantages over traditional websites, where changing the design meant a redesign of the entire website itself
  • easy to use and operate – no technical knowledge is required to operate a CMS and therefore anybody can do this, eliminating the need for web specialists
  • access your site from anywhere, at any time – any device connected to the internet would be good enough for the job. Simply log in as the Administrator and you’re ready to add or edit your website.

So, if you’re looking to attract new patients to your practice or to stay engaged with your existing patients, explore your options and the benefits a website could bring. A final point on this; it’s great having a visually stunning website, it’s even better to have a reception team that understands the importance of the website, how enquiries might come in and how to deal with them when they do and most importantly, a team that are up to speed with its content!

For information on how The Business of Dentistry can help your practice attract new patients, go to www.bodhub.co.uk or follow and like us at The Business of Dentistry or @BoDDentistry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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