Your website design can say a lot about your dental practice, and your first impression (which is SO important) depends on many different factors. First, here are a few visual design elements that you need to consider when building your website:
- Colors — The colors you choose should reflect your business’s personality and brand.
- Fonts — Your font selection can help to create a visual hierarchy and lead your viewer through your website.
- Layout — Information should not be hard to find on your website, so the layout is key to encouraging your visitors to continue browsing on your site and can help them easily find what they are looking for.
- Navigation — Create an easy-to-use and seamless navigation so your visitor spends more time on your site and your bounce rate decreases.
- Content — Offer original content that is easily digestible, engaging, and captivating to your readers.
You only have a small window to catch your site’s visitors’ attention with your design, 2.6 seconds to be exact. So by understanding the fundamentals of your dental website design and using exciting visuals to create an appealing website, you’ll be able to ace that first impression.
To help you assess your current website, we’ve put together a checklist of the essentials.
Usability and User Experience
When developing or revamping your new dental website, usability is one of the most important factors to take into consideration. If your website is overly complex or doesn’t work well with other devices such as mobile phones or tablets, you may be losing out on finding new patients.
- Ease of navigation: By offering a clear and concise site structure, users will be motivated to spend more time on your site, decreasing your bounce rate and helping patients get to key information faster.
- Above-the-fold content: Exciting, attention-grabbing content and imagery! When we talk about the “fold” here, we’re referring to the content that fills the screen when you first land on the page. This is where you want your most important, relevant, and interesting information.
- Mobile optimization: Mobile searches account for about 60% of total search volume. Providing your users with an optimized experience and responsive content for their mobile devices will result in better search rankings and increased conversions.
Although mobile searches are statistically more common, you shouldn’t neglect your desktop experience. In fact, more time on average is spent on sites when using a desktop. In 2020, the average number of seconds spent on a site using a mobile device was 624, where desktop use was up to 1006 seconds. So instead, create a seamless content flow between desktop and mobile platforms.
Dental Website Design Aesthetic
Usability and user-friendly design are the first steps to creating a successful dental website, but it doesn’t end there. Almost just as important as ease of use is the visual aesthetic itself.
- Attractive visual elements: With the use of typography, colors, and intentional spacing, you can achieve a style that reflects the energy of your practice. Your use of these elements will help give your audience the desired experience, whether that’s clean sophistication or a calm and welcoming aesthetic.
- Unique branding: New viewers that have landed on your page will spend the most amount of time assessing your logo before moving on to look at other elements. This is where you want to let your dental practice’s personality shine bright. Getting creative with your brand’s visual aesthetic and identity can help you stand out against your competition.
- Original photography: Including original photos from your office is crucial to showing new patients your authenticity. Stock images may be an easier choice, but they can too often look faked and make for lackluster content.
- Interactive video content: Video is highly interactive by nature, so use it to your advantage by highlighting your cutting-edge technology, high-quality services, and lively staff. It may even be beneficial to include virtual tours with video footage of your actual office to get patients excited about visiting for the first time.
When your patients set foot in your dental office, you want them to have a good first impression so they keep coming back. However, that first impression more often begins online — by interacting with your website. The usability and design can make or break your dental practice’s credibility, and — if done improperly — may even be sending patients to your competitors. UpSwell offers exceptional dental website design and brand development to help you send a clear message to your target audience and stand out against your competition.