What a dental practice website actually needs
Half your visitors are anxious and the other half are comparing prices. A site that handles both books more new patients than one that handles neither.
Two very different people arrive on a dental website. One is nervous and looking for reasons to trust you. The other is comparing three practices on price and availability.
Most practice websites are built for a third person who does not exist — one who wants to read about your commitment to excellence. Build for the two real ones instead.
For the anxious patient
Dental anxiety is common enough that it is worth designing for openly.
Say it out loud. A short section that acknowledges nervous patients and says plainly what you do about it — extra time, explaining before doing, stopping when asked — is more reassuring than any amount of soothing imagery.
Show the people, not the equipment. Photographs of your actual team, faces visible, are the single most calming thing on a dental website. A photograph of a chair is the opposite.
Show the practice. Reception, waiting area, a treatment room. Knowing what the place looks like removes a surprisingly large amount of dread.
Name your registrations and qualifications, and say what they mean in one line.
For the comparison shopper
They want three things you can put on one page.
Prices. New patient examination, hygienist, routine treatments, and whatever cosmetic work you offer. Ranges are fine. Practices that publish prices get called by people who have already accepted them.
Whether you are taking new patients. State it clearly and keep it true. This is the single most searched question about any practice, and getting it wrong wastes everybody's time.
How payment works. Plans, instalments, insurance, whatever applies. Money worry is a real reason people delay treatment.
The pages
Home. Where you are, whether you are taking new patients, your number, and the team.
Treatments. Grouped into routine, cosmetic and emergency. Plain language — people search tooth cap, not the clinical term. Use both.
Prices. Its own page. It will be one of your most visited.
The team. Photo, name, qualifications, one human sentence each.
New patients. What happens at a first appointment, what to bring, how long it takes, what it costs. This page does an enormous amount of quiet work.
Contact. Address, map, parking, hours, emergency arrangements out of hours.
A note on claims
Dental and health advertising is regulated in most countries, and the rules about before-and-after imagery, superlatives and treatment claims are stricter than for most businesses.
We are not the people to advise you on that — check your regulator's guidance, or ask your indemnity provider. It is worth doing before the site goes live rather than after a complaint.
What to leave out
- Stock photos of models with unnaturally white teeth.
- Clinical language with no plain-English translation.
- A blog nobody updates.
- Any claim you cannot evidence.
The one thing that converts
"Accepting new patients" and your phone number, together, above the fold. It is the question every visitor arrived with. Answering it immediately is worth more than every other improvement combined.
What it costs
A practice site of this shape does not need to be a large project. Ours is $499 to build, then $49 a month, and the monthly part is what lets you change "accepting new patients" or a fee the same week you decide to, rather than the next time someone gets round to it.
Online booking that connects to your practice management software is a separate project and we quote it separately; it is not part of the fixed price.