The six things a dental website has to answer

The six

If a stranger cannot answer all six within about twenty seconds, the site is costing you bookings.

• —Where exactly are you, and where do I park
• —When are you open, including evenings and Saturdays
• —Can I book without ringing during work hours
• —Do you take medical card patients, and what about PRSI
• —What happens if I am nervous
• —What do I do if something breaks at the weekend

Nervous patients are a larger group than practices assume

A significant proportion of adults avoid dentistry out of anxiety rather than cost, and they are looking for a signal that it will be handled gently.

A short, plain page about how the practice deals with anxious patients — what you do differently, that they can stop at any point, that they can come in just to talk first — converts unusually well, because almost nobody addresses it and the people who need it are searching for exactly that.

Photographs of the actual practice

Reception, the surgery, the team, the door from the street. People want to know what they are walking into, and stock imagery of a model in a dental chair tells them nothing.

The exterior shot is the most under-used image in the sector: it is how somebody knows they have found the right door.

Emergency policy, stated plainly

Whether you take emergencies, how quickly, and what to do outside hours. It is the highest-intent question anybody asks about a dental practice.

Practices that leave it vague get those calls only from existing patients. Practices that state it clearly get them from everyone.

It has to work on a phone, fast

Nearly all of this is read on a phone, frequently on poor signal and frequently in discomfort.

A heavy, slow site loses the person who most urgently wanted to find you.