Staying on Top of the Trends – Is your website optimized for mobile browsing?

Smartphone use is growing faster -much faster- than PC growth. Only three years after the iPhone launched, the smartphone market was already bigger than the PC. Huge numbers (many hundreds of millions) of users access the Internet through a mobile device and the numbers will be increasing. What does that mean for dentistry?

At the most basic level, it means sending e-communications that a patient can access from a smartphone. This includes text message reminders and e-mail. Be sure you are asking for and recording patient’s cell numbers and e-mail addresses in their electronic patient record.

For more advanced dental practices it means optimizing your website for viewing on a smart mobile device like an Android or iPhone. Standard websites are usually slow to download and difficult to read and navigate on a smartphone.

Your practice website should be “responsive”. That means it detects what type of device it is being viewed on and displays itself accordingly. Mobile optimized sites need to have big thumb-friendly buttons that provide contact information as well as maps and directions.

by Dr. Larry Emmott