Is Your Dental Website HIPAA Compliant?

We are sometimes asked if a website is HIPAA compliant. Please note that we are not attorneys and can not provide legal advice. You should seek the services of an attorney specializing in HIPAA law and applicable state laws for guidance regarding your specific practice.

HIPAA compliance in very similar to OSHA compliance for a Dental Practice. It is the responsibility of the practice to be familiar with the laws and ensure that they are in compliance with the most current version of the laws and that they communicate with their web company regarding the information that should be posted and/or updated on the site when practice policies change. States may also have specific laws that must be adhered to as well. Your web company will not be aware, for example, when you have a staff change that affects who is acting as the HIPAA Civil Rights Coordinator for the practice. It is the responsibility of the practice to communicate this information so that the web company can update your Dental website as appropriate when these changes take place.

When working with your web company on developing your dental website please be sure to include the following information:

• Policies

  A copy of your HIPAA Policy Statement in an electronic format that is computer-readable, not a scanned copy of the document.

• The following HIPAA Practice Contact Information

  HIPAA Entity
  HIPAA Civil Rights Coordinator
  HIPAA Civil Rights Coordinator Title
  HIPAA Address
  HIPAA Phone
  HIPAA TTY
  HIPAA Email
  HIPAA Fax

• State Policies (if required)

  A copy of any privacy statements specific to your state.

• Any additional information required by HIPAA or your state.

  If any other documentation is required it should be forwarded to your web developer.

Please keep in mind that these documents are required by law for your office independent of your website, so they are the responsibility of the practice. Once you provide the above items to your dental website developer they can add them to your website.

We always recommend that a practice uses HIPAA secure email with encryption. We can provide you with the names and contact information for some companies that offer encrypted email services. This is another area where it is important to have specific practice policies in place and to ensure that all employees are properly trained to follow the HIPAA laws as well as any specific states laws regarding health information. The ongoing daily activities of the staff and how they work within the policies of the practice will impact whether the practice is HIPAA compliant just as the proper following of the OSHA laws will dictate from moment to moment whether the office is OSHA compliant.

For further reference, the ADA and the government both provide additional information on HIPAA. You can read more on these topics using the following links.

https://www.ada.org/en/member-center/member-benefits/practice-resources/dental-informatics/electronic-health-records/health-system-reform-resources/hipaa-faq

https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/index.html

In summary, a website itself is not HIPAA compliant, the practice must be. It is up to the dental practice to comply with HIPAA and state laws and communicate the appropriate information to their web developers for inclusion on the practice website.

This article does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only. You should seek the services of an attorney specializing in HIPAA law and applicable state laws for guidance regarding your specific practice.

A clean design, an intuitive site map, and pictures of beautiful people with pearly white smiles — all are hallmarks of functional, aesthetically pleasing dental office websites.

And yet so many of these sites are fundamentally flawed.

A good dental website should be more than a digital brochure for your services and appointment scheduling. Does your dental website incorporate the latest online technologies? Is it hyper-relevant to people living in your service area? Does it make life easier for the folks who carry out your marketing strategy? Does it list your core services from a clinical perspective? Or does it also inform prospective patients “why they should visit you” for a specific service?

If you answered “no” to either of those questions, then you’re committing one of the three most avoidable dental website mistakes. Here, we’ll drill into these common missteps and explain why each is important.

Forget how pretty your site looks on a laptop. If it doesn’t look good on a smartphone, then it’s failing.

Period.

Most people nowadays interact with the Internet from their smartphones. According to a report by Hitwise, an estimated 58 percent of Google searches are made from mobile devices. That number is even higher for health-related searches, with 68 percent of health-related searches happening from smartphones and tablets. And don’t fool yourself into thinking that mobile search is a fad, or that you can get by with the 32 percent of web users who’ve clung to their desktops. A recent Pew Research Center study found that 92 percent of young adults own smartphones. Those are tomorrow’s coveted dental patients.

Make sure your site is technologically relevant by incorporating a responsive web design. Responsively designed websites automatically reconfigure themselves to display as intended in all kinds of browsers.

Having a mobile-friendly website isn’t just creating a good user experience for patients. Without a mobile-friendly site, there’s a good chance people may not even find your site online. Google recently started indexing mobile websites with higher priority over desktop sites. Poorly optimized mobile sites are penalized in the rankings. That’s important, considering most Google users don’t click beyond the first page of search results.

In short, an aesthetically pleasing website that doesn’t display properly on smartphones isn’t worth its server space. Converting to a responsive mobile design is the best way to ensure your dental website stays current with ever-evolving technology. Learn more about our custom dental website design services.  

Smartphones didn’t just change how people view websites; they also changed how people search the Internet.

Back when desktop searches were more popular, people might search Google for dentists by typing the following phrases: “find a dentist,” “dentist reviews,” or “dentists in Seattle.” However, web searches from smartphones are fundamentally different.

For starters, a growing number of people search the web using voice commands and digital personal assistants, and spoken queries are more articulate than typed queries. In fact, Google has introduced AI (artificial intelligence) to help interpret spoken queries. This technology is currently processing approximately 13% of all voice searches and will change the manner in which the Google local search algorithm analyzes local SEO, which is defined as a 15-mile circumference around your practice location.

Second, people are more likely to search for goods and services in their immediate areas, sometimes down to the district, neighborhood, or street. Examples of typical smartphone searches might be “find a dentist near me,” “dentists on Broadway,” or “dentists near me that take Delta Dental.”

How can you adapt for this changing landscape? A good first step is evaluating your content and inserting specific references to your immediate location. Start a blog and post about your involvement in community events. Seek endorsements from local business organizations and think of ways to involve your clinic with localized news stories on dental health trends — local journalists love that stuff, and you can share those stories on your website, too.

Also, if you haven’t already, verify your dental office profile on Google My Business and the other high priority national directories that also have local intent (Yelp, Yellow Pages, etc).  Make sure your contact information exactly matches what’s on your website. You should also start a Yelp page and invite patients to leave reviews. For more dental website SEO tips, read our article: SEO for Dentists: How to Get Your Website Ranking in Google.

Blogs and videos play important roles in improving the overall quality of your website. On the surface, both types of content are significantly more engaging than standard descriptions of services. Videos of dentists and happy patients might persuade people who visit your website to schedule appointments. Blogs, on the other hand, can be shared on social media to bring more people to your site.

Worried about not having anything interesting to share on a blog? Don’t be. You can write about anything from parenting tips (tips for teaching young children to brush) to the merits of flossing. And, as we explained in the previous section, blogging about community involvement is a great way to bolster your local SEO strategy.

Investing in blogs and videos could also improve your website’s search rankings. Google prefers websites with unique, frequently updated content. A dental website with an updated blog and video content is more likely to be ranked higher than a static website that only describes office procedures and services.

A clean, intuitive website is important for any dental office. However, there’s more to a good dental website than what meets the eye. In this day and age, a website needs to be more than a shiny online advertisement. It must be a tool that enhances your marketing, attracts more visitors and stands out from competitors. You’ll get that kind of mileage from your website by sidestepping these common mistakes.

At Dentalfone, we specialize in marketing for dentists, including website design, SEO, social media, and dental videography services. To learn more about how we can help, call us at (855) 385-3663.

Good SEO does not come cheap, especially in the dental field. Google offers a limited amount of above-the-fold real estate on its first page of search results, and that space is dominated by locator maps, business listings and up to (4) paid ads. Organic search results — which, years ago, were positioned prominently near the top of the page — are barely visible without scrolling down. Compare the number of dentists in your area with the number of available positions on Google’s first page of results. That is why dental SEO is far from being free.

How much you will spend on SEO depends on a range of factors. How aggressively do your competitors market themselves? Do you have the in-house staff to focus on content development, blogging and social media? Answering these types of questions can help you make a better prediction of what you should budget for improving and maintaining your SEO. Here we’ll review the factors that most heavily impact costs.

The first step when predicting the cost of dental SEO is to consider the competition. Dental offices in small towns and rural areas tend to face fewer competitors than those in larger cities. Also, you need to consider the effectiveness of each competitor’s marketing strategy, as well as whether certain competitors have word-of-mouth advantages from years of keeping their doors open. Every competitor that actively works to improve its SEO is another reason to boost your marketing budget.

When researching your competition, visit the Moz Open Site Explorer and enter the URLs of each of your competitors. Here you can view each competitor’s page authority, domain authority, and link network size. Then, plug in your own domain to see your information. The more competitors there are ahead of you, the more you’ll need to spend to catch up and get ahead.

Next, focus on your website and marketing efforts. Is your content sharp? Is your website responsive? Are you thinking beyond Google’s organic search results? We’ll review these and other important facets of good SEO that are likely to add to your overall costs.

Own a Quality Domain: Ideally, your domain should exactly match the name of your dental office. That’s the simplest way to earn a high ranking when people search for your business with either a written or spoken query. However, sometimes that is not possible. If your perfect domain is taken, you can try to find one that is unregistered or you can make an offer on the owned domain. Be prepared to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars if you choose to go that route.

Restructuring Your Website: Many dental offices offer multiple services to their clients. For optimal SEO, your website should be structured with dedicated landing pages for each service. That could mean unique designs, graphics, videos, text, and other content. It also means optimizing your meta and header tags to clarify the purpose of each section, and each webpage, to the fullest possible extent. This could require anything from a simple brush-up to a complete redo of your website.

Converting to Mobile Responsiveness: Desktop-friendly websites are out; mobile-responsive websites are in. Google recently started giving preference to websites that are fully functional in mobile browsers. Fortunately, most new best dental websites are made with mobile-responsive designs. However, if you operate a well-established dental office with an older website, then you will need to switch to something that works on smartphones and tablets according to established Google requirements.

Quality Content: “Content is king” is an old SEO adage. Years ago, the term “content” mainly applied to articles and images. Now, content has a lot more depth. Articles, blog posts, infographics, testimonials, videos, animations, surveys, and all kinds of other elements fill out the spectrum of content. Build out your website with engaging, quality content, and everything about SEO gets easier. Google’s search engine algorithm has been shaped with endless amounts of metadata to favor content that’s deemed to be relevant, unique, and useful. Starting a blog is an easy way to generate quality content that can bolster SEO in more ways than one.

Getting Citations: Google’s search algorithm gives preference to business websites that are deemed as legitimate and credible. Citations help establish that online reputation. Citations are mentions of your business name, address, and phone number on other websites. If your dental office has several branch locations, then each needs its own citations. Start by getting listed on Yelp, Bing, Apple Maps, Foursquare, YP.com, and dozens of other business directory websites. Search Google for competing dental offices and see which websites they are mentioned on. This competitor research can provide more ideas for where to get citations.

Search engine optimization is not free. It is not simple, either. Good SEO is not just about climbing the organic search rankings; it is about maximizing your above-the-fold page share. That means taking advantage of social media, Google My Business, and business directory listings. It means building your link network and finding citations. It means inspiring positive reviews and thoughtful blog posts that drive potential customers to seek you out. It also means keeping ahead of the competition.

When all is said and done, climbing the ladder of SEO could cost anywhere from a few hundred to several thousands of dollars. Like all things in business, though, you will get what you are willing to pay for, and SEO is an ongoing expense as technology changes over time.

At Dentalfone, we specialize in search engine optimization for dentists. If you need help, you can learn more about our dental SEO services, or call us at (855) 385-3663.

No matter the location of your dental practice, patients in your area likely have a lot of choices for their dental care. Standing out among other local practices is imperative to grow your business. You can't do this without a visually appealing and search engine-friendly website.

Your website is a crucial element to the success of the entire marketing strategy for your dental practice. The growth of your practice can hinge on the website designer you hire. Here are some practical tips on choosing the best agency to design your dental practice website.

Despite advances in digital marketing, word of mouth is arguably the most powerful form of advertising. A 2016 Nielsen Harris Poll survey of 2,000 people found more than 80 percent of Americans seek recommendations for all kinds of purchases. The survey also found strong correlations between people’s purchasing choices and how they discuss brands online. Also noteworthy is that young adult’s ages 18 to 34 — Yelp’s prime age demographic — are 10 percent more likely to seek recommendations than the rest of the population.  

However, online reviews may have already closed the gap with referrals. A 2017 study by the marketing firm BrightLocal found that 85 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. 93 percent of consumers said online reviews helped to establish the quality of local businesses. Of note is the statistic that 73% of consumers think that reviews older than 3 months aren’t relevant.

This is where Yelp gains an edge. Nielsen rates it as the Web’s most-visited review site and the 20th most-visited Web property overall. As a result, businesses listed on Yelp can easily accumulate reviews. Also, Yelp stands out from other review sites with a variety of content guidelines. Reviews cannot be written by competitors, former employees, business promoters or people receiving incentives for good reviews. Yelp’s guidelines also ban threats, lewd language, back-and-forth arguments and more. Questionable reviews can be reported, audited, and removed. For these reasons and others, Yelp has a reputation as a credible source of reviews.

Yelp isn’t just a place for finding reviews of businesses. People can use Yelp to schedule services, check-in at appointments, request quotes, get directions, and more. With the click of a virtual button, users can call businesses or visit their websites. Yelp is literally built from the ground-up to engage customers and drive leads and sales. Also, the Yelp app and website are mobile-friendly. Yelp reports 74 million visitors per month on its mobile site and 28 million visitors per month from its mobile app. That is 102 million monthly visitors from smartphones and tablets compared with 83 million total monthly desktop users. Being ahead of the curve on mobile is highly important considering the rising rates of smartphone ownership, especially among young adults who make up the next generation of new dental patients.

Dental clinics need quality, functional websites to compete for patients online. However, dental practitioners can start building their Yelp presences with no prior experience in Web design or content generation. It is easy, accessible and proven to be effective.

Consumers trust high-quality online reviews, and they trust Yelp to provide such reviews. It stands to reason then that building a strong Yelp presence can make your dental practice immediately credible to potential clients.

There are many ways to encourage clients to leave positive reviews without violating Yelp’s terms of service. Perhaps the easiest way to solicit reviews is including Yelp buttons on follow-up emails and appointment reminders. You can put Yelp buttons on your dental office’s website and social media pages. You can even feature review snippets from Yelp on your website. Inviting potential patients to visit your Yelp page is a great way to leverage the popular website’s credibility.

You can further optimize your Yelp experience by upgrading to an enhanced profile. Unlike regular Yelp pages, enhanced profiles can include customizable slideshows, a call-to-action button, and an optional video. The call-to-action button can instruct people to contact your dental clinic or schedule an appointment online. Another big benefit is that Yelp will not show ads from competing practices on enhanced profile pages. You will pay extra for this feature, but you’ll also have more control of your branding and marketing funnel.

You can also jumpstart your Yelp presence by investing in pay-per-click search ads. Yelp’s pay-per-click platform uses geographical and category targeting to ensure ads are seen by relevant audiences. Ads are served with an auction system, which means the higher you bid, the more views you will get. Ads can be complemented with review snippets and customized text.

Paying for ad space does not replace the need to cultivate a strong, organic Yelp presence. Businesses still need positive customer reviews to attract the right kind of attention. However, Yelp’s advertising platform offers enhanced visibility for Web and app users. It is a great investment if there is room in your budget.

Yelp is the most prolific and credible review site on the Web, and building a strong Yelp presence is vital for dental offices. Yelp is popular among all age groups and especially reputable among tomorrow’s new customers. It is great for scheduling appointments, generating leads and even providing directions to your clinic. Yelp pages can also rank highly in Google’s organic search results, meaning a strong Yelp presence is literally good for dental SEO. All businesses eventually get some negative reviews, but the benefits of cultivating a presence on Yelp far outweigh the drawbacks.

Having a website that is accessible has become a hot topic in the dental community and in other industries. An important recommendation is that you not allow yourself to be an easy target by having an outdated website. Having a current website that uses modern technology is important not only for accessibility to patients and potential patients with specials needs but also for people who are now accessing sites more frequently with mobile devices compared to traditional desktop and laptop computers.

Please note that ADA is an acronym used for both American Dental Association and Americans with Disabilities Act but for the purposes of this article, we will use ADA to refer to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

A website developer alone cannot make your practice compliant. You can think of ADA compliance in a similar manner to how you manage OSHA or HIPAA compliance. You are only compliant as long as you are managing the day-to-day policies that keep your practice compliant. There are responsibilities for the practice that extend beyond the physical website. You and your office staff should seek guidance on how to interact with special needs patients in a variety of areas, such as handling questions over the phone or in person for patients who may have difficulty understanding or interpreting information that is presented online. Guidelines for working with patients with service animals, and a number of other areas, should all be factored into the office policies and training for accommodating patients with special needs.

It is important to also consider that there may be elements such as links or embedded information from outside sites, such as review or social media sites, or additional online services, such as online forms or rewards systems, that may be used by a practice and included in a website that falls outside the purview of the web development company. You should speak to each company to determine whether their design is a fit for your office.

Before selecting a new web developer, take a test drive. There is more at stake in terms of your marketing dollars than simply being compliant or having a site that is accessible at a certain level of standards. You want an informed design that takes into account the user experience for all types of users, especially with the growth in mobile web browsing. If you are reviewing photographers for an upcoming wedding, you are likely to view a number of photographers’ portfolios prior to making a decision on which one to select for your special event. When selecting a new web company, we recommend that you review some of the web designs on a mobile device and a laptop/desktop computer to see how they work on each device.

Further, for a more in-depth understanding, try turning on some of the accessibility features on your mobile device for assessing the usability of the site for different visitors. For iOS version 10 devices, go to SETTINGS -> GENERAL -> ACCESSIBILITY, then scroll to the bottom and set the ACCESSIBILITY SHORTCUT option to VoiceOver. Once this option is turned on you, can triple click the home button on your iOS device to turn the VoiceOver feature on and off. If you use a different type of mobile device, a web search should allow you to find instructions for enabling these features. Instructions for enabling accessibility options can vary depending on the device as well as on the operating software version installed on the device. This article will not attempt to cover all possible scenarios.

Now try navigating the sample sites using the audio features only. You can try it blindfolded or by closing your eyes. While this can be challenging, you will quickly find that some sites are much easier to navigate than others when using the accessibility features, even though these sites may all be considered as designed to be accessible. It is a worthwhile exercise that will help you make a more informed decision when selecting a web company to build your new site.

The WCAG 2.0 Level AA Guidelines are the closest thing to an accepted standard for determining website accessibility. We recommend that you seek guidance from your local attorney or one specializing in accessibility to get specific guidance for your particular practice as there can be disagreement between jurisdictions as to whether websites fall under the purview of the AWDA. These guidelines are just that, guidelines, but are not necessarily a formal legal standard. The WCAG 2.0 Level AA guidelines focus on the four following key areas.

The first principle is PERCEIVABLE. Is the information for visually-impaired users accessible to receive via sound or touch? For hearing impaired users, is information available via sight? Low vision users may need information presented with alternative formatting or zoomed to a larger text. Color deficient users may need information presented without the use of color. These areas can particularly come into play when using video and photography on a site. There are methods such as closed captioning and title tags for photography that can be incorporated into the site design to assist with information being perceivable to people with differing needs.

The second principle is OPERABLE. Functions that are triggered by a mouse or trackpad should also be accessible via the keyboard. The user should be given sufficient time to read and use the content. The content should not induce seizures. Users should be provided with mechanisms to skip repetitive content, and landmarks should be provided that help provide meaningful headings and link text. Multiple paths should be provided to navigate the site structure.

Third is UNDERSTANDABLE. The site should be free of unannounced pop-up windows. Separate submit buttons should be provided to initiate form submissions. Navigation and labels should be consistent throughout the site. Forms should clearly indicate for the visually–impaired user what information belongs in each section. Instructions for how to deal with errors when entering information should be clear and easy to understand.

The fourth principle is ROBUST. This simply means that the site should be created with the use of assistive technologies in mind.

This is just a brief summary of the key points covered by the WCAG Level 2 Guidelines. The full set of guidelines is technical and best handled by a web development team with a focus on accessibility as part of their design process.

Technology is evolving at a rapid pace. By selecting a web provider that uses modern development platforms as opposed to systems that may be based on older and more antiquated technology, you are more likely to have a long–term solution that can be adapted and upgraded over time without having to start over with another company. Look for a company that does more than simply target a set of standards, but that instead provides a unique and value driven design that will have the maximum impact for your practice for all users, with a focus on mobile platforms as mobile is quickly overtaking the desktop as the primary method for online search.

Disclaimer: This article is presented for informational purposes only and should not be considered as legal advice. Always seek the counsel of an attorney.

Scott Hawley is the CEO of Dentalfone. Dentalfone specializes in dental and orthodontic website design, SEO, and marketing services for dentists and dental specialists. Visit dentalfone.com for more information.

• Engaging Website Design

  First and foremost, the best dental websites feature an engaging website design that looks great and is intuitive to use. A new patient is not going to waste a lot of time trying to find out more about your dental staff members or how to book an appointment. Your dental website should make it easy to find this information and look aesthetically pleasing.

• Compelling Copy

  Many dentists offer similar services. This is why it’s important to use the written copy on your practice’s website to engage new patients and to show off what’s different about your practice. Any written copy should be customized to reflect your practice, its staff, and your level of professionalism. If your practice is warm and welcoming, the copy should reflect that.

• Mobile Friendly

  People search for your practice’s website from their mobile devices, whether they’re trying to find your phone number to reschedule an appointment during a few minutes of down time or looking for a new dentist. You want your website to be accessible across all of these devices. People are beginning to expect responsive designs that work on various platforms.

• Optimized for Search

  More and more patients are using search engines, like Google, to find a dentist. It’s critical that your website shows up in local search results. Make sure that your website follows these SEO best practices:

  • Incorporate relevant keywords into your title tags
  • Create separate pages for each of your services/procedures
  • Add your business Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) to the footer of every page

  In addition, be sure to create a verified Google My Business profile that links to your website, and optimize your Google profile with relevant categories. Finally, encourage your customers to get reviews. Ideally your website makes it easy for you to request reviews. With a Dentalfone website, this review-request functionality is built into your dental website. And our dentist SEO services ensure that all of these SEO best practices are taken care of for you.

• Modern Logo

  Your logo says a lot about your dental practice. An outdated logo tells new patients that your practice likely isn’t cutting edge or using the most innovative tools and technologies. A modern dental logo looks great and can help further your brand’s message. The best dental websites currently feature flat designs that convey a modern, professional image.

• Professional Photos

  In addition, it’s important to feature professional quality photos of team members, practice locations, and interiors pictures of dental offices. Pictures can go a long way toward establishing credibility and making new patients feel comfortable scheduling an appointment at your practice.

• People love watching videos

  They’re engaging and have the ability to reveal a lot of information quickly. We recommend utilizing videos on your website to introduce your practice, your staff, and your office. This helps new patients connect with your practice long before their first appointment.

These are just some of the things that best dental websites have in common. At Dentalfone, we create beautiful custom dental websites complete with all of these traits.

If you’re looking to upgrade your website, we invite  you to learn more about our dental website design services here or call us today at (855) 385-3663.

Is your dental practice showing up on the first page of the search results? If not, then prospective patients won’t even know that your practice exists. They’ll make an appointment with a competitor instead.

How can you get your practice showing up on the first page of Google’s search results?

In the article, we’ll walk you through the 7 keys of Local SEO. These are the same steps we use to get our dental SEO clients ranking on the first page of Google.

The next step is to promote your dental website, so you continue to generate new citations and links to your websites.

One promotion method in particular that we recommend for dentists is online press releases. By publishing press releases, you can build even more citations for your practice. Done correctly, a single press release can generate up to 200 citations for your practice!  

We recommend getting into a regular schedule with press releases so that you are consistently announcing and promoting news about your practice. For example, you can promote new services, seasonal specials, new hires, new office locations, rebranding, and new websites, as well as other announcements.

At Dentalfone, we specialize in search engine optimization for dentists. If you need help, you can learn more about our dental SEO services, or call us at (855) 385-3663.

We are sometimes asked why we develop cloud based applications for the dental industry, versus building apps for native phone operating systems. Here are some of the reasons why we feel cloud based apps are the best solution for our clients.

• Application Store Limitations

  Some companies do not allow “web based” applications in their application store. Doing so would crowd the store with custom applications that don’t generally apply to the public at large. It’s not necessary to have them in the application store as they can be easily loaded through the use of the URL or QR Code.

• Cross Platform

  The application would have to be developed specifically for each platform. Therefore the cost would be very high as much of the work would have to be done separately for each platform, iOS®, Android®, Windows®, Blackberry®, etc. Having a web based app allows us to run across a variety of phones, tablets, and computers, allowing you to reach a much broader audience.

• Updates

  As updates are made to the operating system of the phone it can and often does “break” apps, causing a need for significant development time to accommodate the changes. This could be extremely costly to keep up-to-date, especially when dealing with multiple OS platforms.

• Approval Process

  There is no guarantee that an app would be accepted into the app store by Apple® or other phone OS companies. They can block an app at any time for any reason. Rules for an application store can be updated and changed at any time by the companies that control them.

• Storage Space

  Traditional apps take up space on the device. A lot of users select devices with the lowest amount of memory space. It is less likely they would keep a dental app on their system if it is using precious storage space. A web based app only puts an icon on the home screen, it is not taking up additional space on the users device and more likely to be kept on their device if trying to save storage space.

• Ease of Use

  End users often forget the passwords to their application stores making it hard to assist them with loading the app when they are in your office. Being web based allows easier adding of the app without having to go into the app store.

• Updates

  A web based application is much easier to update with changes than one that must go through an app store. Also, see item 4, a revision could be blocked for an arbitrary reason, even if it is had been allowed before. Many users do not keep their apps up-to-date, being web based means users are always accessing the most current information.

These are some of the reasons Dentalfone® decided to use a cloud based app as opposed to an app designed for and limited to a particular device. To learn more about our services please contact us for more information. Our excellent sales team can share more great reasons why Dentalfone is the solution you’ve been looking for.

We are sometimes asked by our clients about putting music on their websites. This was a trend a number of years back. It was fairly common practice for developers to add music to pediatric, orthodontic, or other types of dental websites.

In those days, having other multimedia elements was not as common as it is today. Now it’s more common for a practice to have videos with audio for their patients to view. Having background music can conflict with the videos on the site.

Although controls can be added to mute the music, because there are no standards for placing the controls, locating the method to do so, even if it’s logically placed on the website, can be frustrating for your dental website users.

It’s a good idea to think about the following scenario. Suppose a patient has a dental emergency and needs to look up your website from work. When they pull up the site music suddenly begins playing on their computer which could be viewed as unprofessional at their place of employment. Their most likely action in this case it to immediately close your website. It’s unlikely they will open it later.

Another good reason to avoid background audio on dental websites is the increase in the use of mobile devices. Mobile devices by design do not allow automated streaming of music and video in order to preserve bandwidth. Even laptop users may be accessing your site through a wireless service provider, so streaming audio can use up their valuable bandwidth.

Many people now listen to music through their computers or mobile devices while browsing the web, so having two music sources playing at once can become a huge distraction.

Copyright concerns are also a factor. You can’t legally put the latest top 40 hit on your website unless it’s specifically licensed for that purpose, a proposition that is usually impossible or too costly to consider. This greatly limits the available music choices.

In summary, background audio on dental websites is a trend that has passed. Unless you’re starting a rock band, it’s better to avoid it. We don’t add background audio to dental websites for the reasons above. It’s more likely someone will leave your website because of the music than stay to hear it.

We help you engage with your patients by focusing on the design of your dental website and optimizing it for use on a variety of devices.

No matter the location of your dental practice, patients in your area likely have a lot of choices for their dental care. Standing out among other local practices is imperative to grow your business. You can't do this without a visually appealing and search engine-friendly website.

Your website is a crucial element to the success of the entire marketing strategy for your dental practice. The growth of your practice can hinge on the website designer you hire. Here are some practical tips on choosing the best agency to design your dental practice website.

• The new billboard of today’s world is the 3 X 5 inch screen on your patient’s mobile phone.
• Smartphones vs. Desktops: 57% of all internet search is now done from mobile phones.
• Facebook stock recently soared 9% due to a surge in ad revenue (82% was from mobile).
• Google changed their “7-Pack” local search results to “3-Pack” to fit mobile screen sizes.