Dental Website Design Process at FAMGO

At FAMGO, every one of our dental website designs follows the same design process, regardless of their size or specific requirements. This process is our bread-and-butter, a tried-and-true method for solving problems and approaching any project. It's inspired by the principles of IDEO's human-centered design and Design Thinking, and user experience design. Our FAMGO design process allows both our clients and ourselves to thoroughly understand the root of the issues, making sure we’re solving the right problems and targeting the right audience. This is our key to creating SEO-optimized and conversion-focused designs. Not only is this process critical to web design, but it also plays a significant role in shaping effective physical and digital marketing strategies once the website is live.

Phase 1: Discovery & Research

In our first phase, our goal was to dive deep with the project specifications, as well as on the dental practice itself and its target patient demographics. We don't just want to know the dental website design project; we also wanted to know how the dental practice was performing, its goals for the next 1-2 years, and itslong-term vision for the next 5 to even 10 years. This ensures we deliver a holistic digital solution that lasts for a decade, rather than a band-aid fix that only works for 1-2 years.

With Texas Dental, the practice had been established for over 10 years. They provided great family dental services, but their patient base had outgrown the size of their clinic. They wanted to construct their own dental building from the ground up to accommodate their growing patient base, and fulfill the founders' dream—a Tuscan-styled building. Initially, they planned to build a website to just complement the new building. But we saw a greater opportunity.

Phase 2: Digital Strategy

Local SEO: The greater opportunity we identified was the potential to dominate the local SEO for family dentistry. Their practice name, "[City Name] Dental," was already a high-value keyword with significant search volume. If we can further optimize the keywords for their core services, they could rank extremely high on search engines like Google and Bing without spending money on paid ads. Local SEO would allow their practice to grow sustainably and organically.

Tuscan-styled Web Design: Almost every patient to Texas City Dental praised their unique Tuscan-styled building. The next step was to translate the same design language onto the website without compromising the user experience and website flexibility.

Brand Identity: Their building design had become so iconic unique that it was now part of their brand. Now they just needed a cohesive brand identity to grow that brand awareness, and apply to all their marketing materials.

This strategy was our guiding principle—the North Star—before we began the design phase.

Phase 3A: Brand Design

Our Brand Design or Web Design phase is what most people think of as the "design" process: the actual pencil-on-paper and the creation of visuals and graphics on computer. It's the "meat" of the design process, where we visualize our research and strategy from phase 1 and phase 2.

With brand identity and logo design, we always start with pencil sketches, allowing our team to quickly explore multiple concepts. The aim is to focus on breadth rather than depth. Once we have a few solid solutions, we present them to our client.

For Texas City Dental or at the time, which was still called League City Family Dentistry at the time, the core concept was the use of the campanile (tower). It's iconic, so we believed it would significantly increase brand awareness and recognition.

Phase 3B: Web Design

Once Texas City's new brand identity was established, we moved on to its website design. The step of refreshing or reassessing the brand identity was crucial because it affects every piece of content, promotional material, and communication channel of the clinic. Without a clear branding, the website design would lack direction and fail to establish a cohesive branding.

We almost always begin with low-fidelity wireframes on either paper or computer, depending on when and where the inspiration strikes. The low-fidelity wireframes allow our team and the stakeholders to quickly test out concepts. It's like an outline for an article or presentation, creating a structure without diving into details. It’s the scaffold before thinking about the interior design or selecting furniture.

In each iteration, we add more details to the wireframe until it becomes a high-fidelity prototype. Our FAMGO website design prototype looks and functions like a real website except that it isn't online. It’s realistic and clickable, allowing us to validate the design with current or prospective users (patients) to ensure that we’ve created the right user experience. Can users complete the primary tasks the clinic wants them to complete. Can they understand the language, navigation, and key conversion points. Addressing any issues at this stage is critical, as fixing problems early is far more efficient than during website development.

Phase 4: Website Development

Using the analogy of architecture design and building construction, the previous phase—web user experience design—is like the architectural planning, while the current phase, web development, is the actual construction—except in the digital space. Just as with constructing a building, making major changes during development is much more challenging than in the design phase. However, with FAMGO's user experience design process, all major decisions and changes have already been addressed during the design phase. Of course, some adjustments may still arise in the development phase, but they will be minor.

At FAMGO, our website development process is very straightforward because all we're doing is following the design specifications—like a blueprint—established in the design phase. We can certainly work with various CMS platforms, but we highly recommend Webflow, the industry-leading platform for designing, building, and managing websites. It's an all-in-one-solution, perfect for any dental clinic or business.

Phase 4: Website Maintenance

As we approach the launch of a new dental website, we rigorously test its performance in our pre-launch QA process, fine-tuning every aspect for optimal functionality and addressing any remaining issues in the staging/beta environment. After launch, our clients could choose to manage the website independently or hire FAMGO to do so. For the first 90 days following the launch, we provide complimentary end-to-end aftercare for the dental website. This includes ongoing website maintenance, small revisions, and monitoring and regular audits to ensure the new website remains healthy and begins to meet the goals we established together at the beginning of the project.

After the initial 90 days, we offer comprehensive SEO and conversion optimization plans. Our team has extensive experience working with dental practices since 2014. Our clients continue to hire us because our services provide them a peace of mind, allowing them to focus solely on managing their dental practice without worrying about their website or digital marketing. Our services include publishing weekly educational content, monitoring website performance, and maintaining security and content updates.

Although every marketing efforts lead back to your website, it isn't a silver bullet forever. The website serves as the foundation, but like a physical store, it requires ongoing maintenance and updates. Our 2 core services will help you continue to attract new visitors and convert them into patients.