Dental office websites are a strange breed: the auto playing music, the awkward pictures of the dentists, the religious use of Adobe Flash – it’s as if they’re stuck in a time warp. When Dr. Saari from Cherryhill Dentistry contacted us regarding a makeover for his website, we thought we knew what to expect. Fortunately though, having seen our previous work, he trusted our artistic instincts and told us to go with whatever we thought best. His only two requirements were that the site incorporate his logo and that it be simple enough for his elderly patients to navigate. No problem there, Dr. Saari.
Tackling the design of this project was designer Johnny Del Guercio. Keeping with our previous theory of dental websites being bright and uncluttered, he drew up a design that perfectly fit the mold while managing to avoid looking common. The top navigation menu was limited to only four options. This kept the site simple to navigate and also allowed space for sub descriptions below each navigation item. A Q&A section was added to increase site content for search engine optimization and to help answer some of his patients’ questions before they called his office. Dr. Saari also teaches at the University of Western Ontario, so including a page referencing his work only helps to differentiate him from other dentists in the area.
For the backend we chose WordPress. It seemed like a natural fit given that Dr. Saari has a strong technical background and had expressed the desire to update the news or Q&A sections on his own. Also, with WordPress’ enormous library of plugins, installation of new modules (such as a newsletter subscription) will be a breeze.
The site was very positively received and barring a few copy changes and typos (we blame the caffeine jitters), there were no requested changes. Two weeks after launch, the site has seen a steady climb up the Google rankings in important keywords for dentists, and his patients are now contacting him directly through the website.