How much does a dental website cost?

Whenever we talk about developing a new website with any dental practice, one of the first questions we get asked is – “How much would it cost us?”

The question isn’t unreasonable, but the right question would be how much a dental website optimized for search engines and generating new patient appointments cost? Because that, ultimately, is the core purpose of having a website for dentists – to rank higher on search engines, attract traffic, and convert visitors into patients!

Most dentists view websites merely as a presence of their dental practice on the internet. But you would be amazed to know how many of your patients visited your website and judge your practice based on your website’s looks and performance before booking an appointment. 

Your dental website is your patient’s first point of introduction to your dentistry. Hence, your aim should be to create a dental web design that is not just visually pleasing but serves as a tool to generate tangible results.

A website for dentists optimized for both people and search engines can exponentially increase conversions and drive a massive surge in your new patient appointments. However, just like all things good, it comes at a price. And this article will attempt to answer all your questions about dental website costing, such as:

• How much should a dental website cost?
• Essentials of a great dental website
• Different types of web design pricing models
• The cost of website technology, etc.

 

Should you have a custom Website Design or a template website?

With so many readymade template websites floating around, it is natural for you to feel tempted to go with the easier option. But remember that you don’t want to create a website for its sake. Your website should be one of your most valuable digital assets and a point of differentiation from your competitors.

It should propel your dental practice towards success and complement other digital marketing tactics in the future. Take a look at the reasons below to understand why a customized website is the one you need to invest in. 

1. A customized website is unique and reflects the core values of your dental practice. 
2. Patient-centric content and design. 
3. Enhanced user experience.
4. Enables easy integration of additional functionality.
5. Made search engine friendly to promote discoverability on the web.

A website template has too many limitations and doesn’t help your practice in the long run. Integrations are beyond their scope, and you will have difficulty maintaining these websites. Hiring a dental website design company to create a fully customized website for your practice guarantees peak performance with continuous support and maintenance. 

 

Learn about what website pages you should have on your dental website

 

What should a good website design company focus on?

Before discussing a website’s cost, let us quickly understand the crucial elements that ensure a website’s optimum functionality.

• Easy Navigation

An easy-to-navigate site essentially means that website visitors roam through the website easily and without complication. They should be able to move from one page to another hassle-free. You don’t want to upset them with a cluttered website that seems more like a mystery puzzle, do you? 

• UI Design – Aesthetics

The visual aspect first catches visitors’ attention. Limit animation or other fancy elements, and let your website reflect the same professionalism you uphold while treating patients.

• Quality Content 

Having high-quality content on your website motivates prospective patients to stay on your website for longer and explore it more. Engaging and informative content presented lucidly ensures that your visitors return to your site.

• Search engine friendly

If your website doesn’t rank on the first page of search results, it is as good as not having a website. Get in touch with a dental website design agency specializing in optimizing a website for dental SEO and making it easier for search engines to crawl and index your site.

• User-friendliness

Just as you and your staff would greet patients once they arrive at your clinic, your website too must interact with a user-friendly interface. It could be anything from gently prodding visitors to subscribe to your newsletter or simply engaging with patients without overwhelming them.

• Intuitive design

An intuitive design enables natural and effortless browsing for patients. Google’s auto-suggestions, when a user begins to type in the search bar, is an example of intuitiveness. Your dental practice website should proactively sense patients’ requirements and suggest solutions intuitively to simplify and accelerate their journey on your site.

• Conversion 

What is the point of building a website that doesn’t generate patient appointments? Make information easily accessible on your website and enable a smooth online booking system for your patients. Display the call to action buttons like appointment booking buttons and patient forms prominently to escape prospects’ attention. 

 

Web Design Pricing models

Dental website designers and agencies adopt different pricing strategies to fix a dental website design’s final cost. Here is a brief explanation of two popular pricing models to help you with the estimates. Bear in mind that both models are for a custom-built website, so make sure you are not charged under these pricing models for a useless template website.

• Monthly pricing model

This pricing model is subscription-based, and dentists pay a monthly fee to dental website companies to lease the website. Depending on your budget and goals, the plans can go from basic to advance. A dental website company’s basic plan will cost less as it includes only limited services and customization. With an advanced plan, you are entitled to receive more dental web design services and features at a slightly higher cost.

Basic plans of agencies providing digital marketing services may start at around $450 per month. Each agency may have a different set of standard and advanced features, but all should include maintenance and support during the website leasing agreement. Be sure to check these carefully. If the basic plan doesn’t offer customized solutions, you better not waste money signing up for one.

• Flat rate or project-based pricing

Here, the dental marketing company quotes a flat rate for building a website. This is a full and final rate that cannot be altered later. A project-based pricing model is useful if you want clarity on how much money will be spent on the website beforehand. You can decide when the marketing company will deliver within the stipulated time at the predetermined rate.

Based on this pricing model, your dental website design can cost between $5000 and $10,000.

 

Website Maintenance charges

Dental websites require regular maintenance to keep them updated and secured against security breaches and consistently perform well without any technical slags. If you skip maintenance, your website will be prone to hacker attacks, offer a poor user experience, and face browser compatibility issues and poor visibility.

You can’t compromise on the maintenance as it is critical to increasing new visitors, boosting traffic and patient appointments, and directly correlating with your dental practice growth.

Website maintenance packages include

1. Domain name
2. SSL certificate
3. Website Hosting
4. Technical support and updates
5. Website analytics and reports

The maintenance cost depends on your website’s size and complexity and your dental web design company’s monthly or yearly plan model. You will incur the following costs if you choose to go down the DIY route.

• Domain Name cost is between $10 to $20 per year.
• SSL certificate adds an extra layer of security to your website. Patients’ sensitive data needs to be protected, which will cost between $50 to $1500 per year.
• Website hosting, as the name suggests, hosts your website on a server. Web hosting charges for a dental website may fall between $15 to $100 per month, depending on your website’s size. 
• Update the content on your web pages, check for broken links, and update patient forms and images that come under website maintenance. These general updates can cost you between $35 to $105 per hour. 
• CMS updates- Timely maintenance of CMS) is crucial to keep your website up and running all the time. Monitoring and optimizing site speed, software updates, replacing plugins, adding security patches, checking server health, and updating content are necessary for your website’s uncompromised performance. Depending on the website’s complexity, this can cost you between $75 to $135 per hour.
• Technology- Any errors or technical issues need to be attended to immediately through constant technical support and maintenance. Technical support is an integral part of website maintenance, and it helps to:

• • Avoid security breaches arising from non-functional plugins
  • Debugging the website
  • Tackle coding issues 
  • Have a website backup.

If you ignore the technical aspects, it will have a terrible impact on the search engine rankings, damage your reputation and cost you patients. Above all, your marketing budget will be wasted, and you can expect to spend up to $175 per hour to fix any unexpected emergencies. 

 

What is the cost of website technology?

The core purpose of creating a dental website is to answer patients’ queries, engage with them, and ease booking online appointments. It is not a mere showpiece but a powerful platform to escalate conversions. This is where online booking integration and chatbots come into the picture. A chatbot readily answers any queries of patients. An online booking system makes it easier for patients to schedule appointments anytime. 

 

Online appointment scheduling

Integrating an online appointment booking system into your website is the perfect solution for converting patients who are too busy to make phone calls and wait on hold. The online booking system facilitates booking outside of business hours, so you won’t miss out on patients who are more comfortable scheduling appointments at their own time and pace. 

Usually, this service costs a one-time setup fee and a monthly payment of $50 – $300. At this cost, you get access to an automated booking process that schedules and confirms appointments without requiring manual intervention. 

 

Dental chatbots

Dental chatbots are virtual assistants that reduce the staff’s workload and offer instant patient support. Chatbots handle multiple functions, and the price varies depending on the type of chatbot you want for your dental practice. Some chatbots can only handle simple queries, while others schedule appointments on behalf of in-house staff.

You should hire a dental digital marketing agency to design and launch a chatbot. Partnering with an agency offers the following advantages:

• 100% HIPAA compliant chatbots
• Quick response to queries
• Improved patient experience
• Reduced workload on staff
• Saves time and eliminates human errors.

You will be required to invest  $50-$500 per month for chatbot services from an agency. The stages of implementing a chatbot can be divided into three parts: chatbot software platform, chatbot setup, and ongoing maintenance. 

 

Email integration 

Sync contact information provided by prospective patients via contact or signup forms and streamline your communication. Build a website that can accommodate email integration to grow your email list, send personalized messages, and have an effective marketing campaign. 

There are three forms of email integration.

• Standard Email inbox with hosting plan

With a standard email inbox, the email hosting services are in your web hosting subscription fee for free. However, it doesn’t offer a customized domain name, and you only have access to limited features that your web host offers. A paid hosting plan can help you target segments of your mailing list.  

 

• Business Email services with a monthly cost

G suite or Google business email services is one of the most popular email solutions. With G Suite, you can create an account with the domain name extension of your dental practice. G suite email hosting is a cloud-based service that starts at $6 per user per month, while the premium plan goes to $18 per user per month. All essential details are safely stored with the Google Vault feature of premium hosting plans that also deliver audit reports.

 

• Email marketing integration with free and paid plans

Several email marketing tools let you use its free version with limited features while also permitting users to upgrade to a premium plan for more access to the platform. With some email marketing tools, you can easily send unlimited emails, while some email service companies charge based on the number of emails that can be sent.

However, as an email marketing company, we recommend using paid email services for reporting, scalability, and analytic benefits over the free versions. Paid plans start at $8 per month and enable customization to suit your specific needs. 

 

Call tracking

Optimizing your website for call tracking gives you rich insights into crucial data like phone numbers and patients’ locations. Integrating call tracking software tracks calls from individual marketing channels like PPC landing pages, SEO, etc., which helps you identify where your leads are coming from, enabling you to adopt better lead generation strategies.

In-depth call tracking analytics measure ROI and offer a critical view of the performance of your campaigns. A unique number is assigned to each marketing campaign, and the keywords or other factors that triggered the calls are recorded to understand patient behavior.

Call tracking services may cost you between $50 and $500 per month, depending on the number of features you wish to utilize for your dental practice.

 

Should you hire a freelancer or a dental website design company?

What is the difference between choosing a freelance or a dental website design agency for your website design project? Take a look at this differentiating table, and you’ll be able to make an informed decision. 

Freelance web designer	Dental website company,
A freelance web designer is an individual who manages everything about website creation single-handedly. You don’t get the benefit of specialization.	A dental website company is a team of web designers, developers, and seasoned marketing experts collectively involved in creating an optimized website. All these professionals specialized in their niche.
May or may not have experience catering to dentists.	Caters exclusively to dentists and aptly understands the design and privacy requirements of websites for dentists.
Lack of experience crafting content that appeals to the target audience (prospective patients).	Have professional content creators create plagiarism-free content that stands out and engages prospective patients effortlessly.
Implementing similar strategies for all clients with no exception for dentists	Strategies backed by thorough research of current trends and developments in the dental industry.
Trouble assessing the credibility of freelancers since there are not many reviews or feedback posted online	Check hundreds of reviews online, conduct a quick background check, and verify the online reputation easily.
Cannot support and maintain different aspects of a dental website.	A team of developers and security experts is constantly present to support and maintain optimum dental website functionality.

 

Few things to clarify before finalizing the deal.

Before proceeding with the deal, you need absolute clarity about payment policies, website features, maintenance support, etc. So, take some time to find answers to the below questions before hiring any dental website companies.

1. Ask whether you will completely own the website after its launch (especially for the flat-rate pricing model).
2. What is the turnaround time?
3. The number of pages included in the price package you have opted for.
4. Are hosting charges included in the maintenance package?
5. What are the payment terms? What pricing models does the company provide?
6. Does the agency have a unique approach to creating content that sets you apart from hundreds of other dental websites?
7. What are the monthly maintenance fees?
8. Does the agency charge extra fees to make changes and revisions?
9. Will the agency manage SEO for dental websites before launching them? 
10. Does the website support any third-party software integrations?

 

Conclusion,

The importance of digital marketing for dentists is paramount. And a well-structured website is the key to the success of dental digital marketing that aims to generate a streamlining of patient appointments for a dental business. Some dental practices may try to cut corners by buying readily available design templates. But all that would do is fail to represent their dental practice and even tarnish their reputation.

Suppose you are hesitant to invest in dental websites and doubt their lead generation capabilities. In that case, that is because you haven’t yet spent your money on the right kind of website that perfectly matches your dental practice’s personality.

Data from Advanced Web Ranking suggests that the first Google desktop search result gets an average organic click-through rate (CTR) of 32%. The #1 organic result is 10x more likely to receive a click than a page ranked #10. This highlights the importance of having a search engine optimized website that features on the first page of SERP. 

Ultimately, the revenue generated from new patients in a year will outweigh the amount invested in your custom-built, optimized dental website. 

There are flexible pricing models for dentists who wish to start with a basic plan and gradually expand their budget. This article has penned down the several factors affecting the website’s cost and how crucial it is to integrate the latest technology like online appointments and dental chatbots to fortify your position as a reputed doctor in the dental industry.