Top 5 Things That Should Be on Every Orthodontist’s Website

It’s no surprise that people search for medical providers, including orthodontists, online first. While they might glance at the reviews for your practice, they’ll need to be able to find your website, and once they’ve entered your site, be able to locate what they’re looking for quickly and intuitively. If your website is well-designed with your patients in mind, it will include these five things.

1. Easy Navigation

Your patients trust you are using the latest technology in your orthodontic practice. But if your website is hard to understand and looks like it’s from 20 years ago, this is going to be a potential patient’s first impression of your practice. Today, your website is your business card, and you don’t have very long to get someone’s attention. Make sure your website has a practical design that is conducive to all users.

If people can’t find a phone number or contact form to set an appointment or get more information, they will likely move on to the next website in their search results. Research conducted by Chartbeat, a company that provides data and analytics for digital publishers, shows the average person is active on a webpage for less than 15 seconds.

2. Visually Appealing

Your website is not only your business card, it’s also your storefront. A potential patient is going to visit your website before they ever drive across town, walk into your business and take a tour of your office. How do you want to present your practice? Your website should be beautiful and practical. Think about how you can add a dash of your personality and your values to the website for your orthodontic practice.

3. About Us Page

Imagine a potential patient walking in the door to your practice. How are you going to introduce yourself? The “About Us” page on your website is where you can (figuratively) shake the hands of the parents who are looking for a kind and honest orthodontist for their child. It’s where you can showcase the human side of your business. Make sure you include your credentials and any awards your practice has received to build trust with your patients. It’s important to show potential patients you’ve experienced success over the years and that your practice has a history.

4. Professional and Customer Reviews

Potential patients will be able to locate reviews of your business online, perhaps on Google Maps, Yelp or Facebook. But you can also include reviews on your website, especially if you’ve ever had a professional organization review or certify your business. You can ask patients directly for testimonials. (Offering a gift card in exchange for their time or entering them in a giveaway is a good practice for incentivizing them to spend the time to write a positive review).

You can also search Yelp, Facebook, and Google for reviews and include excerpts of existing reviews on your website. A glowing recommendation from a credible figure in your community is like a word-of-mouth recommendation that travels at the speed of the internet!

5. An FAQ Section

Potential (and existing patients) are going to have questions. A comprehensive FAQ page can include questions you frequently end up fielding over the phone, in person, or via the contact form on your website. You can also detail the most frequently asked questions about all of the services you provide on this page as a reference. Even after going over all of their options in person during a consultation, patients might want to review a summary of that information a second time in the future. An FAQ page on your website is a great place to direct patients.

With a great website, you have a better chance of attracting new patients and getting leads. It should reflect the kind of service you aim to provide your patients in person.