Website design for dental practices

How patients choose a practice

There are three quite separate journeys, and a practice website usually only serves the first.

Registering. Someone has moved, or their practice has stopped taking NHS patients. They search dentist [town] or NHS dentist taking new patients near me. Demand here vastly outstrips supply, and the only question they want answered is whether you have space. Most practice websites make that remarkably hard to find out.

A problem. Toothache, a broken crown, something that happened on a Saturday. They want to know if you take emergencies, whether they have to be registered, what it costs and how soon.

A treatment. Implants, aligners, veneers, bonding, whitening. This is where the practice economics actually sit, and it behaves like any considered purchase: weeks of reading, three or four practices compared, finance checked, and a decision made largely on whether they trust the clinician. They are not booking a treatment. They are booking a consultation, and the site’s job is to make that step feel small.

What we build for practices

• Are you taking patients, answered immediately. NHS and private, stated separately and kept current, near the top. If you have a waiting list, say so and capture the name — that list is an asset. Nothing frustrates a prospective patient more than three clicks to find out you are full.
• A page per treatment. Implants, clear aligners, composite bonding, veneers, crowns, whitening, hygiene, root canal, extractions, dentures, children’s dentistry, emergencies. One page each, because dental implants [town] is the search and your treatments list will never rank for it.
• Prices, in the detail the rules expect. NHS band charges are fixed and publishing them is straightforward. Private treatment should carry a from-price with what is and is not included — consultation, scans, the number of appointments, follow-ups — because incomplete pricing in dental advertising attracts complaints as well as losing patients.
• Finance, treated as part of the decision. For anything over about £1,000, the monthly figure is what makes it possible. If you offer a finance facility, put a representative monthly example on the treatment page and state the APR properly rather than leaving it to the enquiry call.
• Consultation booking, not treatment booking. A short form or an online diary for the consultation only, with a clear statement of what that appointment involves, how long it takes and what it costs. Lowering the perceived commitment of that one step is the highest-value thing on the site.
• The team, properly. Real photographs, GDC registration numbers, qualifications written accurately, and what each clinician actually does. Patients choose a person. A stock photo of a model in a dental chair undoes this entirely.
• A route for nervous patients. A large share of your potential patients have been avoiding dentists for years and search for exactly that. A page that acknowledges it without being patronising — what you do differently, whether you offer sedation, what the first visit involves and that no treatment happens on it — converts unusually well.
• Correct Dentist schema with your services, opening hours and location, so the practice shows up properly in local results.

Advertising inside the rules

Dentistry is one of the few trades where the marketing itself is regulated, and a lot of practice websites are quietly non-compliant. The General Dental Council’s guidance on ethical advertising, the Advertising Standards Authority and the Committee of Advertising Practice all apply, and so does CQC registration in England.

What that means in practice, and how we build:

• “Specialist” is a protected term. It can only be used by someone on the GDC’s specialist list in that field. “Special interest in” is the correct phrasing otherwise, and we write it that way.
• Claims have to be substantiated. No “best in [town]”, no “painless”, no implied guarantees of outcome.
• Before-and-after photographs need consent and context. Your own patients, with documented consent, and not presented as a typical result when it isn’t.
• Prescription-only treatments cannot be advertised to the public. This catches practices out with facial aesthetics — the product name cannot be promoted, though the consultation can.
• Your practice details must be displayed — the full name, the GDC numbers of clinicians, your complaints procedure and, in England, your CQC registration.

We are not your compliance adviser and we will not pretend to be: the responsibility stays with the registered clinicians. But we will not write copy that puts you in front of the GDC, and we will flag anything on an existing site that looks like a problem when we migrate it.

Reviews and the local map

For a practice, the three local results above the normal listings are worth more than any other position, and they are won by unglamorous work: the right primary category on your Google Business Profile, accurate hours including bank holidays, real photographs of the practice and the team, and a steady flow of reviews rather than a burst.

Asking for reviews in healthcare needs more care than in other trades — it has to be genuinely voluntary, it cannot be incentivised, and patients should not be led. A one-tap link given at reception after a completed course of treatment is both effective and clean. We set that up and leave the asking to your team.

Content that brings in patients

Prospective patients research dentistry heavily and most of what they find is either a sales page or a forum. Plain, accurate answers rank well and build the trust the consultation depends on.

• How much do dental implants cost in the UK, and what does the price include?
• Clear aligners or fixed braces — which suits which case?
• What actually happens at an implant consultation?
• Is composite bonding worth it, and how long does it last?
• What can I do about dental anxiety?
• What is covered by each NHS band?

Written for you, inside the advertising rules, from the Business plan upwards.