Typos on your practice website

Let’s play a game of search, kind of a “Where’s Waldo” for proofreaders. Ready? How many grammar and spelling mistakes can you find in this dental practice website?

(click on the image below to see it live)

The offender that originally caught my eye is “Sugary.” Really? Oral Sugary? Sweet. At first that was the only one I saw. And then the others appeared as I looked closer and started trying to read through the front page.

Also, what’s with the music selection for that video you can’t turn off? It’s something between the Brady Bunch theme and middle school marching band, and the best you can do is mute your computer so that it doesn’t keep starting over with each page change.

English appears to be a second language not only for the website developers but for most of the patients, too. Otherwise, don’t you think someone would have told them about this by now? It won’t be me. Not just yet, because I’m getting to a point first.

I counted eight errors. But what makes this number so awful is that there are not that many words on this page!

Maybe the Vietnamese community in Houston is more forgiving about dental websites. They might not even be able to read the words at all, and maybe the flashy stuff looks clean and assuring. Especially the little kiss blown at the end of the video. I actually found the clinician’s manner to be quite touching and sincere.

No one needs to be told anymore that you have to have a decent website to make a good impression these days. I mean, if yours looks like 1995 HTML markup you’re probably better off not having one. And even if you have a super-cool template and someone in-house that can webmaster a bit, you have to watch that you don’t put off patients with weird stuff, or too much information, or not enough information. On the other hand, if you’re not careful enough about the website designer you hire, your prospective patients might get a case of STOCK IMAGE GLAZEOVER and quickly leave your page for the next dentist in the Google search that has real people on their front page, not this same girl you see everywhere:

See what I mean?

Now go look at your own website. It needs to be better, no matter how good it is now. And if you think it’s just fine the way it is, then you need to talk to someone you trust who can either give you ideas on how to improve your online presence or just give up trying. Because there is no “Done” when it comes to web design. There’s just better for now.

Kind of like getting your teeth cleaned.