Introduction
Running a dental practice is enough of a challenge without worrying about your online booking conversion. If you want more patients to book with you online, you must take the steps necessary to make it happen. And with so many options out there for scheduling dental appointments, it can be challenging to know where—and how—to begin. But before we get into some of the steps that will help increase your booking conversion, let’s first understand why this matters in the first place:
Display an appointment booking form on your homepage
The first step in increasing your online booking conversion is to display an appointment booking form on your homepage. This includes the date, time, and location of your next appointment. This can be done by putting simple HTML lines into your website’s header.
The second step is to make it easy for people to book an appointment. Please include a link at the bottom of each page that leads directly to your online booking form (which we will cover later).
The third step is adding links throughout the site so visitors can quickly tell what pages have the information they need, like their contact page or office hours/location.
Give your patients a reason to book online.
- Online booking is more convenient for patients.
Patients can book appointments from any place, at any time, and do not have to go through all the hassle of filling in paper forms whenever they want an appointment. This also saves a lot of time for you and your patients, which means they will be able to see you faster.
- It is more secure than paper forms.
With online booking, you can ensure that patient information is stored securely to prevent unauthorized access or tampering with it by hackers or other malicious third parties (such as employees). Also, since this method allows patients to book their appointments electronically, it makes it easier for dentists like yourself who wish to keep track of their upcoming appointments so that they know when each patient needs attention next time! All these things add together as benefits compared to traditional methods like phone calls or faxes.
Offer self-service booking
One of the most important steps to increase online booking conversion is to offer self-service booking options. Providing patients with a way to book appointments through your website or medical listings will make scheduling more convenient, increasing the number of patients who book appointments with you.
There are many different ways that you can offer self-service booking options for your dental practice’s clients:
- Make it easy for patients to book online. If some people prefer calling in and others prefer using an app on their phone (or both), then make sure that each option is available when looking at your website or searching for dental care in their area. You may even want to consider offering additional ways for people who don’t have access to any technology at all—for example, if someone doesn’t drive and lives alone without any family members nearby, what other options does he have aside from traveling back home again so that he can call someone else up? Sometimes there are no options besides driving back home again so he can call someone else up! It’s good practice because it enables greater flexibility and ensures nobody has been left behind due precisely because they’ve had difficulty finding ways around this problem before now.
Include online booking on all of your medical listings
The next step is to make sure that online booking is listed on all of your medical listings, including:
- Yelp
- Facebook and other sites
- Your website
Quickly access mobile and desktop sites.
When a user is trying to book an appointment, you want them to have as much information at their fingertips as possible. That means having a site that works on all devices, including mobile and desktop, and making sure it’s easy for users to use on those devices.
If you still need to optimize your dental website for mobile users, now is the time!
Your conversion rates will improve if the user experience is up to par with mobile and desktop usage.
Make it easy to schedule multiple people at once
One of the best ways to increase your online booking conversion is by making it easy for patients to schedule multiple people at once. There are a couple of different ways you can do this: you can use a calendar or scheduling tool or a booking form that allows patients to select multiple dates and times. You’ll also want to ensure that there’s an option for patients who don’t need an appointment immediately but still want information about your services. For example, if someone calls ahead with questions about braces for their child, they might be interested in setting up an appointment for when it comes time for their child’s orthodontic consultation. If this is the case, consider adding an “other” field so that this person can add another party on his own—or vice versa!
To help ensure that all parties involved have been scheduled successfully (and avoid last-minute cancellations), allow patients who book appointments for other people through a scheduling tool. You might be wondering how to do this, but a digital marketing agency like Growth99 can help you to set this up.
Conclusion
If you’ve already implemented some of these strategies, you’re on your way to growth. If you haven’t, there’s no need to wait. Every single one of these steps is easy and cost-effective. What’s more, your practice’s online re-design doesn’t have to be a comprehensive undertaking—implement just one or two changes each month, and watch your profits grow over time!
