Before we go any further, let’s talk about why you need a website for your practice.

1.        Fewer and fewer people each year turn to printed resources such as the Yellow Pages, newspapers and magazines in their quest to find products and services; rather, these potential customers use the Internet to find and evaluate this information. Thus, in order for any business or service provider to be found by this growing mass of Internet consumers, you must have an Internet presence. And because more and more of your colleagues are daily building content-rich websites for their offices, you are losing potential new patients each and every day you don’t have a website that can compete.

2.        Because so many people use the Internet as their primary source of information and use websites to make judgments about products and services, there is an expectation - valid or not - that every product and service provider on the planet has an associated website. Thus, people perceive that “there’s something wrong” with any dentist that doesn’t have a website. We all know that there are great products that don’t have an associated website, and there are terrible products that have great websites. But as far as the general population is concerned, you must have a website to be legitimate. How many times did you see or hear about a great product, and then do a Google search to learn more, only to find that the company didn’t have a website or had a very poorly designed or out of date website? How did seeing this website change your mind about the product? Did you doubt the ability of the product to perform as expected because you couldn’t find a companion website or because the website was unattractive and uninformative?

3.        Reviews. Like it or not, online reviews are a large part of the dental marketing mix. Having a website allows you to have a centralized place for people to go once they’ve read one of your reviews; it’s very frustrating for users to see a review they like, and then find out that you don’t have a website for them to visit.

4.        A website gives people a safe and anxiety-free way to meet you and learn about your company from the comfort of their own home. Nobody goes to their attorney to “take a tour of the office” prior to their first consultation. But by having a website, you allow potential clients to become familiar with you and your business before they ever set foot in the door. Any opportunity you have to introduce yourself to people in their own comfortable environment - before they speak with you or consider purchasing your service - is a valuable one, indeed. To prove the point that a website can make patients, for example, more comfortable, take a minute and try the following experiment. Head to the website of any major medical insurance provider that lists their participating ENTs and the ENT’s contact information (many of these sites will show the doctor’s website if there’s one available). Now pretend that you are a patient looking for an ENT in your area and do a search on this website. Of the ENTs listed, how many of them have websites? Are you more comfortable calling the doctors who have websites that you’ve seen, who you feel like you’ve “met” already and learned a little bit about, or are you more comfortable calling some random person off a list whose name has a nice ring to it?

5.        Having a website gives you unprecedented control of your company's image and gives you flexibility in the content you have and the message that you send. In the past, a pediatric dentist could have differentiated herself from her competitors by having creative baby teeth or a smiley printed across her business card, but past that – how many advertisements in the Yellow Pages or in a local magazine accurately reflect the nature of your practice? Having a website lets you show new and existing patients as much or as little as you want. Only you know your practice – and a website lets you control and shape your image in a way you like – in small incremental steps, or in a few giant leaps. And if you decide at some point to make changes to your practice, you can easily update your website to reflect these changes.

6.        Great websites are not expensive. Everyone wants to know about cost, so I’ll talk numbers up front. Building a great, customized website for your SMB should run you anywhere from $7000-$9,000 depending upon the number of pages and the features you want present. Looking back at the five points above, $7000-$9,000 is a small amount to pay for the potential value a website will bring your practice. Now take a look in the closet in your office and see how many of the “latest and greatest” tools or products you have sitting on your shelf gathering dust. How much did those items cost you and how much money did you generate from each one? Is it worth getting all of the benefits mentioned above for the same fee you spent on the items on your shelf? The answer is a resounding yes!