Historic district review limits the sign, so the website has to be the sign
In protected parts of the city the exterior you are permitted to change is limited, which quietly moves your signage budget onto the web.
Practices in the French Quarter, the Garden District and other protected blocks generally work under historic district review for anything visible from the street. Requirements vary and change, and are worth confirming with the city or the relevant commission before you plan anything.
Whatever the outcome, plan for the site carrying more of the identifying work than it would in a suburban plaza. A patient who cannot spot you from the street decides you are closed and drives on.
Show the facade in daylight, from the direction people approach. Show the door itself. Show what the sign actually looks like, at the size it actually is.
Repeat the same photographs in the Google Business Profile and in appointment confirmations. Recognition is what gets somebody out of the car.
Nobody can tell a converted Creole cottage is a dental office from the sidewalk
The gap between what your building looks like outside and what the operatories look like inside is the single most persuasive thing you can put on the site.
Older stock across Uptown, Bywater and Mid-City was built as housing. The outside says residence. Patients assume small, dated, or somebody's back room.
Photograph the inside properly. Real operatories, real equipment, the sterilization area, the room where consults happen. Not stock photography of a model in a white coat, which every practice in the parish is also using.
Include the parts nobody thinks to shoot: the waiting area at eye level, the hallway width, the restroom, the chair a nervous patient will sit in.
Put a person in the frame. A practice photograph with staff in it does more for a first time patient than any adjective on the page.
Say where the car goes, because a block of Uptown curb is not a parking lot
Parking and entry are booking facts in this city, and leaving them vague costs appointments before anyone has judged the dentistry.
Write it plainly. Where to park, whether the spaces are yours, what the street does at school pickup, how far the walk is from the nearest place a car reliably fits.
Handle the steps honestly. Raised construction on piers means a front entry with stairs at plenty of practices, and a patient using a walker or a wheelchair needs to know before they arrive, not after. If there is a step free entrance around the side, name it and photograph it. If there is not, say so.
Name the approach in local terms rather than by coordinates. A patient coming from Metairie into Orleans Parish wants the turn, not a map embed they have to pinch at.
Repeat the arrival details in the confirmation message. Reading them a week later, in the car, is when they matter.
Four fields, and one of them asks whether it hurts today
A dental inquiry form has one job, which is to tell the front desk how urgently to call back and what to have ready when they do.
Name, phone, whether they are in pain now, and roughly what they need. That is enough to triage and to call back with the right answer.
Pain today reorders the queue. A patient with an active problem is calling other practices while your form sits in an inbox, and a form that flags urgency is worth more than one that collects a mailing address.
Keep insurance to a single free text field for the plan name if you ask at all. Nobody remembers their group number in a parking lot, and a dropdown of every carrier is a wall.
Leave medical history to the intake process where it belongs, with the privacy handling that comes with it. A web form is the wrong container for it, and asking makes the site feel like paperwork.
Test the site on the sidewalk outside the office, not on the office wi-fi
Performance is judged where patients actually use the site, which is on a phone, outdoors, on whatever signal the block has.
Stand outside the practice with a phone on cellular, with the office network switched off, and load the homepage. Count. Then load it in a car in Gentilly and count again.
The usual culprits are predictable. Full size photographs from a professional shoot, a background video, and a stack of third party widgets for chat, reviews and booking that each add weight before anything appears.
Decide what has to appear first: the practice name, the neighborhood, the phone number, the way to book. Everything else can arrive a moment later.
Set a rule and hold vendors to it. Anything that slows the first screen has to earn its place by producing bookings, and most chat widgets cannot show that they do.
One line at the top saying whether you are open today
Outages and street flooding close dental offices here often enough that a status line at the top of the site earns its keep several times a year.
A practice without power is not open. When Entergy is out on the block or the street has taken water, the phone rings anyway and patients drive over anyway.
Build a single editable line at the top of the homepage that the office manager can turn on in under a minute, without calling the web developer. Same message to the Google Business Profile and to a text blast.
Say what to do next, not only that you are closed. Whether appointments are being moved, when you expect to call, and how to reach someone about an emergency.
Turn it off promptly. A stale closure notice in March costs you more than the outage did.
Questions we actually get
- Do we need a separate page for our Metairie location?
- Yes, a real one. A dropdown entry is not a location page. Each office needs its own address in text, its own hours, its own photographs, its own parking and entry description and its own providers listed. Patients in Jefferson Parish are choosing a place they can get to, and a shared page cannot answer that.
- Should the site have online booking?
- Only if it writes into the real schedule. A booking button that opens a contact form and promises a call back is worse than a phone number, because it sets an expectation you then break. If your practice software supports genuine self scheduling, use it and hold a few slots for it.
- How much should we say about pricing?
- Enough that a patient can decide whether to call. A plain list of the plans you accept, a stated fee for a new patient exam and any membership plan you offer will answer most of the questions the front desk fields all day. Keep claims about results off the site entirely and confirm advertising language against current state dental board guidance.
- Is a hero video worth it?
- Almost never on the homepage. It delays the first screen for the patient with a toothache standing outside a pharmacy, and it says nothing your photographs cannot. Use video deeper in the site, on a provider bio or a page about sedation, where somebody has already chosen to spend time with you.
- Our building has steps at the front. Should we say that?
- Say it, and say what the alternatives are. Raised construction is ordinary here and patients are not surprised by it, but they are surprised on arrival, which turns into a canceled appointment and a bad review. If there is a step free entrance, photograph it and name the door. If there is not, patients who need one can plan accordingly.
