Web design for dentists: written for the patient who has been putting it off.

A meaningful share of people arriving on a dental website are avoiding the dentist and have been for years. They are not comparing features. They are working out whether this will be bearable.

That single fact should drive the whole site, and almost never does. Practice websites tend to lead with equipment and qualifications, which answer a question the reader was not asking.

What they are asking is whether it will hurt, whether they will be judged for how long it has been, what it will cost, and whether they can get in soon. Four questions, and most practice sites answer none of them directly.

The tone does as much as the content. A page that says we understand many people put this off, and here is exactly what happens at a first visit, does more than any photograph of a surgery ever will.

Dental advertising in Australia sits under the national law and the Dental Board's guidelines. Testimonials about clinical care are prohibited in advertising, before and after images are restricted, and nothing may create an unreasonable expectation of outcome.

This matters because most website advice assumes testimonials are the strongest element available. For a dental practice they are not available at all, and a site built on them is a compliance problem rather than a marketing asset.

The restrictions are specific rather than vague, which is helpful. They can be designed around. What they cannot be is ignored because a web designer was not aware of them.

What has to be checked before it goes live

• Anything that reads as a patient testimonial.

  Prohibited for clinical care, including on the practice's own site, however it is framed.

• Before and after imagery.

  Restricted, with conditions. Not a blanket ban, but not something to publish without checking.

• Any claim about outcome or comfort.

  Nothing that creates an unreasonable expectation, which rules out most superlatives.

One real page per treatment the practice wants more of, plus a first visit page and an emergency page. Those are what get searched for, and a single services page listing everything competes for none of them.

The treatment pages are where the value is, because a patient searching for implants or orthodontics has already decided to do something. A page that explains the procedure, the recovery and the honest range of cost is what they are looking for.

The first visit page is the one nobody builds and the one anxious patients read most closely. What happens, how long, what it costs, and what will not happen at that appointment.

What each treatment page has to do

• Explain the procedure plainly.

  In the words a patient would use, not the words a dentist would use with a colleague.

• Be honest about cost.

  A range, or what determines it. Silence here loses more patients than any number would.

• Say what recovery actually looks like.

  The thing they are most worried about and the thing least often written down.

A team page with real photographs, correct hours including any late nights, online booking if the practice has it, and a way to ring in one tap. Beyond that a dental site does not need much.

Online booking is worth more than most practice owners expect, and specifically for the anxious patient. A person who has avoided the dentist for six years will book at eleven at night and would never make the phone call.

The team page does similar work. Seeing the face of the person who will be doing it removes a surprisingly large amount of the fear, and it costs a morning of photography.

What to leave out

• Stock images of models with perfect teeth.

  They raise the exact expectation the guidelines prohibit and they signal nothing on the page is real.

• Equipment specifications.

  No patient has ever chosen a dentist on the brand of the scanner.

• Anything that reads as a testimonial.

  Prohibited, and the most common compliance failure on dental websites.