"Pretty to Profitable" - Tips for Modern Dental Website Design

Your dental website shouldn’t just look good—it should fill your schedule. 💥

In this episode of The Dental Domination Podcast, DentalScapes co-founders Dan Brian and Brian Craig break down what separates “pretty” dental websites from profitable ones. Whether you’re a general dentist, pediatric dentist, or orthodontist, you’ll learn how to design a site that builds trust, ranks higher, and drives real new-patient growth.

✅ What you’ll learn:

• The must-have design elements that drive conversions
• How to use lifestyle photography and video to tell your story
• Why speed and Core Web Vitals matter more than fancy animations
• The role of reviews, testimonials, and before/after galleries in building trust
• How to make your site mobile-first and thumb-friendly
• Tools and metrics to measure real ROI—not vanity clicks

If your current website is over three years old, loads slowly, or isn’t converting visitors into appointments, this episode is a must-watch. And get even more tips and tricks in the show notes: https://www.dentalscapes.com/tips-for-modern-dental-website-design/

🎯 Subscribe to The Dental Domination Podcast for expert insights on dental marketing, patient experience, and practice growth.

📞 Schedule your free strategy call with DentalScapes to see how we can help you turn your website into a patient-generating machine: https://dentalscapes.com/start

#DentalMarketing #DentalWebsiteDesign #DentalDominationPodcast #DentalScapes #DentistSEO #DentalPracticeGrowth #PatientExperience #DentalBranding

Transcript

0:01

Welcome back to the Dental Domination Podcast. My name is Dan Brian the co-founder over at DentalScapes. And today I am joined by another co-founder at DentalScapes, Brian Craig. Brian, welcome back to the show. Yeah, man. So today we are actually re-recording an episode that should have been out a day or so ago, but because I messed up the audio, we're back at it again. So it's like we got... an opportunity to rehearse, which is kind of unheard of in this business. So that's kind of nice. But anyway, today we are talking about something super important for dental practices out there everywhere. And that is your website and website design and branding and some of the considerations that go into that. uh And you know, last time we had this conversation, we really focused. uh pretty intently at the outset on the importance of brand. So what would you say about that, Brian, in terms of your experience working with clients in the demo industry as far as refining the brand and making sure that it's out there clearly? Yeah, the reality in today's world is that brand in a patient size and a potential new patient size is often the only thing that sets us apart because they're not dental experts. They're looking at all these different websites and it's all Greek to them. They know the basic services, so a strong brand can really help set you apart. And what are some of the elements you think that work best in terms of positioning a practices brand on the website itself? So I think a strong professionally designed logo can play pretty well. I also think that the naming of the practice, I know there's a lot of practices that are just the primary dentist name, DDS. I think if you do some sort of uh branding other than that, that can help you stand out. Yeah. even down the road, potentially uh exit from the practice if you're ready to do that one day. 100 % it was a lot easier to market yourself as your own name back in the day when word of mouth was really dragging everything. And, you know, we're just not in the same environment now. ah Obviously dependent on online search and AI and everything above, but yeah, I agree. And, you know, one thing that we've seen, uh you know, at our agency, be very effective with clients is, you this concept of lifestyle branding or imagery and, you know, emphasizing not just the services upfront that you offer, crowns, root canals, you know, implants, all of it, but emphasizing the impact that those services have on your patients. And so what is the transformative uh journey that a patient will undergo at your practice and how will your treatment specifically really change their life? And it sounds that sounds really pie in the sky, but it's really not when we talk about transforming someone's smile and the impact that can have on their life. And so, we have seen and we advocate for this shift towards branding that has all of the elements you just described, the logo, the name, but also is accompanied by professional videography, photography that really showcases the people that your practice helps. the kinds of lifestyles they're living and really, you know, the transformation. like, you know, it sounds, you know, maybe, maybe a little stock image-esque, uh but finding the right photos of families enjoying time at the park with their kids or smiling and, you know, greeting people at a holiday party, whatever it might be, you know, positioning your brand as one that truly transforms people's lives. People want to see. you folks that they can relate to and that they aspire to be. So I think that's super important. And we always, you know, we always advocate that practices invest when they, you know, redesign their website, that they invest in that professional photography and videography. And, know, you can spend anywhere from a thousand dollars to $5,000 or so on a professional shoot, but the content that you're going to get out of that for your website and in turn, For your other online channels, when you splice it up and adapt it is just invaluable. Yeah, yeah, and you know, there is uh a portion of it that's more modern, but at its core, this is kind of the old concept of, uh you know, you want to sell the benefits, not the features. You know, and the benefits are in this business, you really are changing people's lives because, know, you fix somebody's smile. and it helps them build confidence, which helps them do other big things in their lives, which can change their life, whether it's career or relationships or whatever it may be. uh So, it's not just some marketing concept, it's real change. Yeah, and that's also, you know, one of the reasons why we also emphasize in web design projects and just content marketing in general across social media or wherever it might be, really taking the time at your practice to capture those before and afters because they're just, they tell the story like nothing else can. And so, you know, creating ah those images, super important. Also testimonials from patients to that same point. What are your best practices that you're recommending practices take into account with web design projects specifically when it comes to showcasing reviews and testimonials and that sort of thing? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think, uh you know, at a minimum, you want to have some sort of uh reviews slider on multiple pages or, you know, like a testimonials and reviews page. You can take that even further. Like the gold standard here are going to be video type testimonials. And those are, you know, certainly a little harder to get from patients, but they're worth their weight in gold. You know, if somebody goes to your website and they see the photography and videography, Dan, that you were talking about earlier. And then they scroll down a little bit to find out a little more about the practice. And they see real life stories from people who you've helped. ah It just helps build so much trust as a potential new patient. Yeah, absolutely. And going back to the conversation about professional video shoot, when you do that, make sure you're not just capturing uh videography of the practice itself, the waiting area, the operatories, the exterior of the practice. the doc, helping the patients, interacting with the patients, all of that is very important. But if you're going to pay, like I said, $1,000, $3,000, $5,000, make sure you're also getting every bit of value out of that shoot that you can. so get patients consent and have two or three of them sit down for a quick chat about the impact that the practice and the treatment has had on their lives. I mean, it's so important. And like you said, know, a picture or a video is worth a thousand words. Absolutely. uh And also, you know, for folks listening, if you're not uh yet at a point where you've really uh prioritized reviews and review generation in your workflows at your practice, check out one of the last episodes on the podcast. Brian and I actually talked a lot about reviews and some of the things that you can do to actively. acquire more reviews and also, you know, get every bit of SEO and AI juice out of those things that you possibly can, because it's super important. But, you know, we've talked about branding, imagery, videography, we've talked about reviews and testimonials. Now you mentioned video testimonials, which is huge. ah What are some of the other elements that you're looking for when you approach, you know, a modern website design project for dental practices? What are some of the, you know, the greatest hits? of the big things is, you know, 10, 15 years ago in this industry, the big thing was mobile responsiveness, right? You want your website not to be just the shrunk down version of the desktop one. You want it to adapt to mobile devices to display the information where it's readable, all that good stuff. Well, in the past couple of years, probably 18 to 24 months, we've seen another big shift and that big shift is to mobile first, not to mobile responsive. So, you know, the big difference that we're seeing now is that we build these websites initially for mobile devices to display well and convert well. And the reason for that is, you know, in a lot of practices we're seeing, as crazy as it sounds, we're seeing 80 plus percent of traffic coming from phones, you know, searching for a dentist. So mobile first is a big change in this industry. Yeah, and coming right along with that, um it also means that speed is super important. uh And it's funny, I got a kick out of you saying, you know, 15 years ago or whatever. I remember so many times having to pinch and zoom on the desktop version of the website on your phone and how much fun that was. uh But. Load time, super important. Now, what would you say about that? when, know, uh we don't need to get too far in the weeds, but as far as, you know, expectation of load time, what are you, what are you advising folks on now? Yeah, so there are a lot of technical aspects that go into that, certainly. I would say that Google has tools available, Coro Vitals, Lighthouse, that can measure your load speeds and tell you if you're within best practices or not. Generally, we like to see sites load in a second or two at most on mobile. Yeah. And you also have to remember that not everybody is running on ultra-wide 5G on their phones. You've got a bunch of folks out there, uh whether because of equipment reasons or whether because of signal reasons that are loading your site on a much slower connection. So it loads fast on my phone isn't the gold standard of figuring out if it's ideal from a speed standpoint. Yeah, and I think that that raises an interesting point too, because one of the things I know you and I both talk with clients about is there's sometimes an inclination, understandably so. People love beautiful design. They love slick animations and that sort of thing. um You know, and there's obviously been a big move towards video on homepages now, but you have to balance that with performance because at the end of the day, like you said, if it's not loading in a second or two, folks are out of there. And oh you know, there is a lot of associated, a lot of data associated that needs to be loaded with some of these uh effects and that, that, you know, you see on some of these uh prize worthy websites, I guess you could say, but at the same time, you got to be careful, right? Like at what point does form uh really outweigh function? uh And when you're striving for a fast website, it's not always smartest. to go with what may look the best, ironically enough. Sure, yeah. And we see examples fairly often of uh websites that we may look at and go, that's not the best design I've ever seen. But they convert a lot better than some of the newer, flashier designs. ah So there are ways, uh especially on lower bandwidth devices like mobile or whatnot, uh to address slow loading speed, like if you're lazy loading certain things. There are different ways to address it. ah But yeah, you you want it to be easy to navigate fast to load. Like you want persistent call to action buttons, whether that's call or text or chat or whatever it is. You want to make it easy for folks to get in touch with you because let's be real, some of them are probably driving and looking it up at the same time. ah you know, big, easy to navigate buttons. Yeah, and I'm glad you brought up conversion rate because at the end of the day, that's all that matters. mean, uh you know, pretty doesn't cut it. I always say when it comes to website design, what really matters is new patients, of course, phone calls, form fills, chats, texts. And to that end, you know, it raises an interesting um conversation. think one of the things we've seen um recently kind of come to the forefront in dental website design is live chat, website chat. Also, you know, the ability to text from the website, contact the front desk that way. What's sort of your best practice there when it comes to integrating chat on dental websites? so we live on our cell phones now, right? uh So the data that we have seen, uh well, and that the industry has seen as a whole, is that people are much more likely to reach out and respond via text than they are via a channel like email that we just aren't in front of as much. So if you do have... a texting capability on your website. And that can be something um that's really effective, like a chat bot like we have with our Dental program. uh It can be, if you have a phone system that supports texting, it can be something as simple uh as a button ah on the website that brings up your texting or the visitor's texting app. That'll work as well, but Providing that channel to folks is going to help you convert a lot better. Yeah, and one of the things you you mentioned Dentale, which is the platform that we've developed for practices that does include uh website chat. One of the things I love about it uh and I would, you know, regardless of whether you're not you, go with Dentale and Dentalscapes or you find another communications platform. One thing that works really, really nicely with that system is that it's, it's actually sort of feeding the initial chat that's initiated on the website into a text thread. with that new patient and so the patient is able to, know, maybe they don't even pick up on that conversation for another half hour. Maybe they place that text like to your point, maybe they're driving and they make that text. No jet. Well, yeah, judgment here, but whatever. uh So they place that text. It may be that they don't get back to it for another 20 or 30 minutes, but you know, you can be pretty damn sure that they're not going back to the website to reinitiate that chat or jump back in. They're doing it right from their phone in that text thread and that's just so convenient. It's really about meeting the patient where they are. So, you know, I love that you, you brought that up. Um, so important. What are, um, you know, some kind of, uh, I guess key takeaways that you would give folks listening to the show today that may be considering, uh, a new website design, you know, maybe it's been three, four, five years. Uh, we've certainly seen practices go for even longer than that. ah But what would you kind of advise, like what's a good starting point? What are the things that they should be looking out for? Yeah, so I think mainly some of the things that we've talked about here as far as mobile first, as far as load speed, as far as focusing on conversion rate. Don't hesitate to interrogate your design partner about how they approach and address these types of things. uh You definitely want to do your due diligence uh before having a new site built. Because Dan, as you said, when somebody gets a new site built, they're often going to be with it for three, four, five, ten, hopefully not, years. So you want to make sure to get the bones of it right starting out. Yeah, hopefully not 10. Hopefully not 20. I don't know. I haven't been on Craigslist in a while. Seems like they haven't updated in quite some time, but I do remember. I remember, you know the. Absolutely the visitor counter or whatever. Yeah, kind of crazy, but anyway, yeah, all great tips. I think it's worth important. It's worth keeping in mind all of the things that we've discussed. You know today if you are interested if you're listening today and you're interested in getting your website. ah Revisited at this point then all scapes our agency We actually include a new website design as part of our remarketing program and so that can be a cool option for some folks But uh I hope you'll check check out the show notes. We'll be posting those as well with some tips and tricks Accompanying this conversation and yeah, if you've checked out the podcast and like what you've heard We can't thank you enough for just going to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, leaving a five star review or hitting that subscribe button. It really does make a difference and is the best way that we can reach other dentists to help. thank you all for listening and thank you, Brian, for being here. um We uh will pick it up, I think, in two weeks. Most of these come out every other week and we will be back at it. But again, Check out the episode we just did on reviews also if you haven't checked that one out as well. It's super timely and super important. Well, thanks, Brian, and we'll talk soon. All righty.