Building a website for your dental practice is important, complex, and confusing at times, but a website provider can get you resources and experts to either do all the work for you or help you make your own choices. When considering how to develop a website that will best suit your practice, the big choice to make is whether to use a stock template, or create a custom site from scratch.
Interested in learning more about what you need to have an amazing website? Get a FREE copy of the 10 Best Practices to Designing Great Dental Wesbites here
Template Dental Websites
Template layouts are web pages that are readily available and designed to launch a website within a short timeframe. They’ll have a design already built, and depending on the flexibility of your website provider’s content management system (CMS), you may be able to add or edit text, videos, and photos on your own, and arrange your navigation. It’s like going to buy a suit or dress in a department store. There are only so many styles and colors there, and the sizes are precut at the factory. Will it fit like a glove? No, but it’ll get pretty close, It’s extremely convenient to pick one up and it’s ready to wear. Plus, it’s cheaper since these things are made for the mass market.
Custom Dental Websites
Custom layouts are created with your personal concept and optimized for the nature of the purpose of the website. There’s no restrictive blocks to put your content in; every little piece can be changed to your liking. You can weigh in on this yourself, or ask your website provider for their opinions. It’s like going directly to a tailor to have a suit or dress made specifically for your body. Every contour is exactly right, and the folds fall perfectly. However, the tailor is an expert, and these things take a long time. Their time is valuable, and you will pay a bit more for it. The finished product was literally made for you and you alone; no one else will have your look, and there won’t be an oversized shoulder or too-tight pant leg. It’s guaranteed to fit.
Templates and Custom Dental Website Design Head-to-Head
Now that you have an understanding of your options, how can you determine which sort of website you should have built for your practice? Consider the key distinctions:
– Templates are less costly upfront simply because they are meant to be bought and used by many customers. Custom websites are tailored to your practice and needs, so they will cost more in terms of hours of labor for designer decision-making, coding and testing it to make sure it works.
– Templates are great for having short turnaround times when your website launch date is approaching. There is nothing wrong with using a template in the interim while you have a custom web page built for your business, and you still get something aesthetically-pleasing and functional.
– You can get inspiration for what can be done with a template by comparing it to what others have done with it, like on the ProSites gallery. Custom layouts will require more effort because they can be anything under the sun, although your website provider can help by presenting a narrower set of choices using their vast design experience.
– Template pages can be copied an unlimited amount of times and that can be an issue when competing with other businesses. Custom web pages are much more difficult to replicate and less likely to be seen anywhere else. More effort gets you more payout.
– Templates aren’t always able to check off every point on your list of desired features. Because it was designed to suit the needs of as many people as possible, your specific needs may not be met.
Get the Help You Need
There is no wrong path or decision to make because there are upsides to each option. Above all else, make sure your site is functional, of consistent quality, and contains the information necessary for potential patients to feel confident calling for an appointment. ProSites helps dental practices get beautiful, effective websites up and running, and can help yours too.
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