As a well respected dentist, you will undoubtedly know the ‘Top Ten’ mistakes that every dentist should avoid but are you as familiar with the web design mistakes to avoid when building or updating your dental practice website.

You might think that you do not need to know these as it is not you who is building or developing the website, however, not knowing them could mean that if your website developer does make one or more mistakes, you will be oblivious to them. Some mistakes might be easily remedied, but others are not, and if it means that the ranking of your website is negatively impacted, that is not going to be an overnight fix.

So, rather than having the hassle of trying to fix mistakes after they happen, by knowing what they are, you can ensure that whoever is designing your website, does not make them in the first place. So, with that in mind, here are ten of the worst dental website design mistakes to avoid.

Slow Load Speed: One of the biggest mistakes made is that the website takes too much time to load, meaning visitors click away immediately. A poor web design strategy that uses unnecessarily large file sizes is one of the major causes of this.

No Calls To Action: Ultimately you want your website visitors to take some kind of action such as book an appointment or follow your social media, for example. Make sure you have clear calls to action on every page.

Media Auto-Playing: One of the reasons that someone will choose to leave your dental practice website quickly is if it has audio or video that plays automatically. It might work on certain websites, but for the most part, almost all visitors hate it, so make sure any media only plays when visitors want it to.

Poor Content: Visitors come to a dental practice website for many reasons, and one of those will be to learn and be informed. As such the content on your website should be informative, clear, and presented in a way that everyone can understand.

Cluttered Layout: First impressions count, and if all website visitors see is a cluttered and confusing mess, they are not going to stick around. Website layouts should be clean and welcoming with ‘less being more’ a good mantra to follow.

Confusing Navigation: Nobody likes to be confused and if that is what the navigation on your website does, visitors are not going to like it. A menu that is clear and easy to follow is the way to resolve this, and it is essential that a ‘Home’ button can be seen on every page.

No Engagement: Websites that do nothing to engage with visitors invariably see those visitors clicking away and finding another website. Great content, easy navigation, and a clear call to action all ensure that engagement occurs.

No Contact Page: It beggars belief that some dental practice websites do not have the means for visitors to contact them. You should have a clearly labelled ‘Contact Us’ page which should include a telephone number.

No Staff Images: You want to build trust with potential patients and one of the best ways to achieve this is to have images of all the staff at your practice on the website, along with their roles.

No Patient Reviews: If you have happy patients, then tell the world by posting them in prominent places on your website, and especially the home page so that people visiting can see you have satisfied clients immediately.