With over 5 years of experience as a web designer/developer, I’ve developed an intimate knowledge of web site “best practices”. Over the years, the most common mistake I see people make is thinking that simply having a web presence is enough. They take the “if you build it they will come” approach. Back in the 90′s that may have worked.
However, the game has changed dramatically since then – in terms of consumer demands, web technologies, and search engine algorithms. No longer can you launch a website and simply hope for the best. You need to constantly evolve your web offering with the changing consumer demands, web technologies and search algorithms to beat out your competition.
Certainly we can’t cover everything that you need to know about dominating your competition online, but I thought it would be a good idea to start with a post highlighting 5 quick, yet powerful tips for improving your existing website.
So, lets get to the tips, shall we?
1. Install Google Analytics
Do you have a counter at the bottom of your website pages? Get rid of it. Sure, it counts the number of visitors to your site. However, this is rarely a good thing. Not only are counters an eyesore, but often the numbers on the counter are embarrassingly low. How do you think that looks to your potential customers? Not good.
So, I recommend installing Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a very powerful and stealthy(unseen to visitors) web-based analytics package that tracks the number of unique visitors to your site, search terms visitors used to find your site, how long they were on your site, and much much more. Best of all, Google Analytics is FREE. If you’re only going to act on one of these tips today, make it this one.
2. Ditch The Flash Intros
If your website greets visitors with a Flash intro, get rid of it.
On its face, I can see why dentists like flash intros. After all, if done well, they can be stylish and captivating. Unfortunately, they’re also expensive, highly irritating, slow loading and scare visitors away. Just get rid of it.
3. Include a Contact Form on your “Contact” Page
Include a contact form on your contact page. The idea here is to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to contact you – accessibility is key. If you’re simply posting your e-mail address and forcing your visitors to e-mail you in order to make contact, you’re probably losing potential patients. Make it easy with a contact form.
There are many places on the web to find contact form scripts. I really like the contact forms available at Woofoo.com. They’re highly customizable, brandable, stylish, and easy to integrate into your site (simple cut n’ paste).
4. Feature Contact Information Prominently
Also important for accessibility is featuring your contact information prominently. I recommend posting your address and phone number(s) both at the top and bottom of each page. This ensures that no matter what part of a particular page your visitor is viewing, they’ll be able to see your contact information. Prominent contact information is also a good idea because it enhances your trust value in the eyes of your visitors.
5. Check for Broken Links
This may seem like a no-brainer, but many people neglect to check their site for broken links. Broken links are bad for a number of reasons – they leave your visitors frustrated and they’re frowned upon by search engines.
Thankfully, you don’t have to click through each link on your site to clean up your broken links. Instead, I use a free program called Xenu’s Link Sleuth. The program crawls your site looking for broken links. Once this process is complete, you will be given a report listing all of the broken links that the program encountered. You can then run down the list and fix or remove the broken links on your site.
Final Thoughts
These tips are by no means comprehensive. However, they’re quick, they’re actionable, and they’re powerful. Do you have disagree with any of my tips? Are you already doing these things on your site? Let us know in a comment below.
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Reader Comments
Tijuana Dentist October 17th
Nice Article
Thanks
Laura G Atkinson
Dental Website Design November 5th
What a great, concise and honest article! I couldn’t agree more with you, especially on the unnecessary use of flashy intros and outdated visit-counters. It saddens me to see that some dental practices have to install their own Google analytics and check for their own broken links. Isn’t that what web developers are paid to do?
Your point on broken links reminded me of the major drawback to CMS websites (content management system). CMS websites allow the user, in this case a dental practice, to insert his or her own content, pictures and pages into a framework; in short, the user creates his or her own website based off a basic structure that they purchase. CMS is very flexible as the user can control their entire site and make as many changes as necessary. However, the freedom is also the drawback; without professionally trained designers and developers, one may never know if his or her site is built properly. No one is there to check for broken links or for faulty coding or design. No one is there to do the job of a web designer and web developer.
Your great points on dental website necessities are only the tip of the iceberg. There are so many components, both front-end and back, that require tender loving care to create a dynamic and successful internet campaign. I look forward to reading more!
Cory Kemp November 5th
Thanks for the kind words, DWD. I agree that most dentists outsource their web development and marketing activities to third parties. This post was geared towards those dentists who do these things in-house.
Your point about this post just being the tip of the iceberg is spot on. As you and I know, proper design, usability, seo, etc. are very involved animals. My intent is to put the puzzle together for Dental Heroes readers a few pieces at a time.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, and thanks for stopping by!
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