One survey showed that 42 of people would love to book a dentist’s appointment online and would rather do it that way than through the phone. But only 17 of clinics offer online scheduling.
Let’s throw in one more fact. According to Google, 97 of people use the web to search for local businesses. Whether you own a dental clinic a car wash or a candy store, people will Google it. Are you getting the picture?
If the vast majority of potential clients are using the web to find a local business they are in need of — let’s say a dental clinic — and nearly half of them would love to be able to book an appointment online it’s pretty safe to say that in order to gain more patients a strong online presence is crucial.
Here we are going to talk about what you can do to improve your online presence and start getting those appointments!
A Good Website Makes Life Easier
Every business should have a website. The more good looking it is the better the chances of people staying on it. It doesn’t have to be anything bombastic, but it should have all the necessary things a dentist clinic would like to offer to their patients. We mentioned at the beginning that 42{3186df88cc623d16bf1a81c25177849eb09b1b85a97396fe7c76b08eccad1807} of patients would love to schedule an appointment online, so follow in Dental Suit’s model and have a clear button that says something like book Loughborough dentist.
This way your potential clients will have the chance to immediately book an appointment. Also, a good dental clinic should clearly represent what it is they are offering. Meaning you should clearly and transparently present to your potential patients what kind of procedures you offer, what are the most common problems people face with, how are those problems solved etc.
This will put them at ease because they know what they can expect. Of course, you don’t have to hire someone to write overlong blogs about every detail, but a concise representation should be more than enough.
So to sum up you’ll need:
- A clean website design.
- Booking button.
- To represent your services.
- Your achievements.
- Contact & working hours
Search Engine Optimization
Once you have a good website it’s very important that your site is actually SEO optimized if you want to be found by search engines. SEO optimization of your website is vital because the better you rank on search engines, the better the chances of people visiting your site and booking an appointment.
If you are not very familiar with SEO or are hearing this for the first time, no worries, we are going to give you a brief explanation:
- SEO is the process of quantity and quality of website traffic meaning that search engine optimization can bring you more people and the right people.
- The higher your website appears on the results page the more likely are people going to click on it.
- SEO improves your overall website performance.
- SEO is an ongoing process that should be monitored and corrected.
If this is still confusing to you, you can search sites like Moz or Neil Patel where they offer the basic overview of how you can optimize your website better.
Google My Business
Google My Business is a free tool that is very easy to use. This tool can be very beneficial for your dental clinic because with it you can easily manage your online presence across Google, search and maps included. You’ll have to verify and edit your business information so your potential patients can find you easily and without effort.
Google will ask you different questions when creating a Google My Business profile. When you are done your listing will have some of the most valuable data that will make it easier for your potential patients to have and find more information about your dental clinic.
When people search for your services they’ll have the most important information about your clinic like work hours, location, busy hours, contact, directions and it will be connected to your website, so people can easily access it. There is only one thing that you should look out for. Every user is free to edit your information, so it’s very important to monitor your data regularly.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this article has shown you why a strong online presence is so important for your clinic. Also, we hope that we have given you some solid information regarding the basics of SEO, Google My Business and of course an idea of how to optimize your website.
If this seems all to new for you and you aren’t quite sure where you should start from, relax, because you’re not alone. Luckily there are plenty of online articles that can help you understand better some of the basic terminologies.