There can be no doubting the importance of the internet, and the significant role it now plays in all our lives. With more and more patients now using the internet to search for dental practices, rather than traditional methods such as phonebooks or local directories, it is essential that your practice has a web presence that fully reflects your vision and the services you are able to provide.
Chris Neve is Business Manager at Queens Park Dental Team, Bournemouth, and has been responsible for overseeing the development of the practice website for over a decade. While the practice was one of the ‘early adopters’ of dental online marketing in 2004, with the surge in internet use across the country, Queens Park Dental Team now attracts more new patients through its website than any other method.
To create the Queens Park Dental Team website, Chris worked closely with Krishan Joshi of Dental Focus ® ‘Websites for your profit’. With each new mock-up of the website, Chris and the team provided feedback on elements of the design so Krishan could build the final website to their exact tastes and specifications.
‘We were all really pleased with the website,’ says Chris. ‘It was exactly what we were after – a much fresher look, and with all the latest features as it was back in 2004. A few years later in 2008, we then decided to have a major revamp of the site – a complete redesign. Our new website was so good we even won an award for ‘Most Improved Private Website’. We were very happy! This was great publicity for our practice and we even appeared in the local press as a result.’
In terms of marketing, in the past, Chris used to use a number of different marketing strategies for Queens Park Dental Team, but given the success of his new website, he’s found that many of the ‘old’ methods of marketing are fast becoming obsolete.
‘Our new website is absolutely great,’ continues Chris. ‘In fact we attract most of our new patients through our website. We used to be in the Yellow Pages. In fact we were the first practice in Bournemouth to have colour in our advert when colour adverts came in. Obviously that was quite a big draw at the time, but we started to do research into where our new patients were coming from and it seemed that Yellow Pages was providing very few results for the money we were paying. We used to be on Yell.com as well, but that didn’t really bring anything either. So we dropped both the Yellow Pages and Yell.com and decided to focus our marketing efforts on our website and our search ranking on Google and Bing. Of course we do carry out other kinds of marketing as well. We do leaflet drops around our local area and other such things, but majority of new patients are by word-of-mouth or through the website. This is very cost effective in comparison to the “old” methods such as Yellow Pages.’
When it comes to dental online marketing, it really pays to trust the experts. With the internet now such an important part of any dental practice’s marketing mix, choosing a web design company that offers proven results time and time again will help ensure your practice makes the most of the fantastic opportunity that online marketing provides.
For more information call 020 7183 8388, or visit www.dentalfocus.com
