Kaitlyn Cole 0:00
Hello and welcome to the dental education podcast with class solutions. This podcast is a community of dental professionals who share their knowledge and experience in order to provide value to you and your dental practice. I'm your host Caitlin cool, also known as the K in class. Hello everyone. Today we have Brad Chrisman with us. He is the co owner of Hungerford media and has digital marketing experience for the last eight to nine years. We're super excited to have you Brad. Is there anything else you kind of like to add? Maybe a fun fact about yourself?
Unknown Speaker 0:32
Fun fact. I've completed two Ironman Triathlon. Oh, wow. Three Half Ironman Triathlon.
Kaitlyn Cole 0:40
There you go. That's exciting. Congrats.
Unknown Speaker 0:44
keeps me active.
Kaitlyn Cole 0:45
Awesome. Well, today, we're going to talk about some marketing things, some web design, all that fun stuff. So I'm going to start out with a question this morning. And that number one question is going to be what is responsive web design.
Unknown Speaker 0:57
Responsive Web Design is kind of defined more as when your website can be visibly appealing on across all devices, whether it's a cell phone, a tablet, desktop, computer, a laptop, you know, and industry. Now there's countless different types of mobile phones, and all of those phones are sized differently. They're programmed differently, but you can access the internet on all of them. So you want to make sure that your website is you know, can be read can be seen, can load and all that stuff on every device across all tablets, technology, anything.
Kaitlyn Cole 1:39
Yeah, there's no doubt that, like the digital, everything from tablets, internet, it's just growing day by day, I think there was an average of like six hours spent on mobile devices or internet per day, which is kind of crazy.
Unknown Speaker 1:52
Sure, yeah, they say between 50 and 60% of searches nowadays are done via your cell phone. And if you think about it, just kind of stuff that you look for on a normal basis. You know, if you see a billboard or a TV ad, or listen to a radio ad, the first thing you do is jump on his cell phone and try to look for it. Yeah, so if it's not a responsive website, you're gonna have trouble kind of reviewing the material or learning more about the company. And that's kind of where, you know, your initial customers can kind of be turned off to that. And, you know, if your website isn't responsive, but your customers are, they're gonna leave yours and find someone that is.
Kaitlyn Cole 2:31
So why is responsive important, and how does it benefit the business?
Unknown Speaker 2:37
Responsiveness is important, because, you know, people have their cell phone flipping 24/7. Most of the time, you know, if you have a laptop, or desktop, or even a tablet, at times, you know, it's going to be at your office or at your home, but, you know, your cell phones pretty locked your site at all times. So not having a responsive website. You know, when people do those searches on their phone, you know, they want to be able to look at the material, you know, read about your business, understand what your services are. And if they can't do that, then they're just gonna go on to the next person, the next company, you know, you want to plan for people looking on your cell phone, as opposed to your desktop, you know, just because, you know, something pops into their head, where they're saying, oh, I need a plumber to come fix my plumbing, you know, they may not have a computer in front of them at that time. So you want to plan for them, to be able to search across whatever device is most convenient for them. You know, if you think about searching for a particular type of services, you know, what it comes down to is people want convenience, they want you know, a reputable company that can come as quickly as possible and solve whatever problem they have. And, you know, they're going to use whatever device they have available to, to find that company. So you got to plan for that and prepare for that. So in terms of the benefit of the company, you know, if they find a company on their cell phone, and they pull up your, your website and your website is responsive, they can review all the material that makes the company look good. Then they have confidence, contacting you and potentially working with you.
Kaitlyn Cole 4:17
Yeah, I think the biggest takeaway from that is you want it easy for people to find you and you want to easy for them to give you your money, whether that's finding you on the phone or on the computer, make it easy for your clients to find you and to give you money. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. If you have another ad.
Unknown Speaker 4:32
No, I was just gonna say my time. You know, people understand that, you know, hey, they're gonna find us on a computer and they're okay with that. But, you know, potentially you just don't want to turn customers away. It may not necessarily generate more customers for you, but you don't want to give people a reason not to work with you. Yeah, Amen. Having a non responsive website that looks looks bad on a tablet or looks at on a cell phone could potentially push a customer away from you and that's not something that doesn't sell One
Kaitlyn Cole 5:01
side note real quick is this? I think this is like a stat that I read once. But isn't it like the first question of the website like within eight to 10 seconds? And then within that amount of timeframe, they'll leave and go somewhere else?
Unknown Speaker 5:14
Yeah, exactly. And that's for one, you hear a lot of people talk about Google search, ranking, SEO, within a website. So you know, you want to be on the first page of the search results, because that's where people are going to find you. But to kind of go along with what you just said, you know, if they click on the first result, and you're ranked high, but your website's not appealing, they're just going to click off and then go to the next one. Oftentimes, with, you know, for example, Home Services, or even lawyers, you want to trust the people that you're working with. And if your website's a poor reflection of your company, or people believe that it's a poor reflection of your company, then they're going to be more hesitant to not to work with you.
Kaitlyn Cole 5:54
Yep, I totally agree on that. Alright, so the third question I have is, say you have a website already? How can how can one test to see if it's responsive or not responsive?
Unknown Speaker 6:06
Well, the easiest way, obviously, is to, you know, search for your website on different technology, you know, pull up your cell phone and load your website, pull up a tablet, load your website, look at it on a desktop, look at it on a laptop, just kind of see how it looks, go through all the pages, see if the photos look correct, if the information loads correctly. You know, that's obviously, the easiest way, other ways you can do it, you can just load it on a laptop, and then adjust the size of your screen. Meaning, you know, your internet browser, you know, you can minimize it, maximize it, take the little arrows on the side and make it a different size, just to see how your website adjusts to smaller screens. If you want to get really advanced, there's ways, you know, programs online that you can type in your website, and it'll show you how it looks on different devices. But that's if you want to get advanced most of the time, you can just kind of do it. You know, from your own song, you know, have if someone has a different cell phone than you have them loaded on their phone, see what it looks like, if you have a tablet available to the same thing. You know, it's a simple process. But you know, you're kind of putting yourself in the shoes of the beholder. And you can do it that way.
Kaitlyn Cole 7:28
Yep. And then I think you might have touched on this a little bit in your answer, but how can a dentists make sure that the response of website is done correctly?
Unknown Speaker 7:40
In terms of the dentists,
Kaitlyn Cole 7:41
or Yeah, so like, if they have the website, how can they make sure the responsive website is done, right?
Unknown Speaker 7:48
For the most part, you can see if, you know, if you load it on a desktop, and all the photos load correctly and loaded on a tablet, and photos will not load correctly, it's it's pretty easy to kind of tell, you know, it just kind of the appearance of it all. If it appears professional, if it looks good, if you can read all the material. You know, it sounds like a complex task to do but in reality, it's, it's fairly simple. You have to pretend that you're you know, one of your patients looking for your business and searching for your site. So, you know, go through every page on your website, read the material, read the stuff, if there's some functionality to it, maybe there's a video on the site, click on the site or the video to see if it loads correctly. With the video plays, you know, those types of things can go a long way. You know, you want those things to be functional, because you don't want to give people a reason to go to a different deck.
Kaitlyn Cole 8:44
Yeah, I think having photos on there that aren't pixelated, that aren't distorted at all that are, you know, clean and accurate. And then navigation, making sure every tab on your website is easy to navigate through. If you have like, you know, I've been in the dentistry industry for 20 years, make sure you're updating that number every year. So you know, if you're at 25 Make sure that number says 25 As you grow and, and learn so.
Unknown Speaker 9:09
And especially dentists, you know, they like to have a lot of material on their websites that talk about the different procedures, you know, they want people to feel as comfortable as possible and understand the procedures that are going to be done to them. So they put a lot of information on their website, they put a lot of videos, instructional videos talking about, you know, how to floss correctly or what type of toothpaste to use those kind of things. And if that information isn't updated or outdated, then you're essentially given your patients the wrong information.
Kaitlyn Cole 9:41
Yep, yeah. And we don't want to do that. Nope. So what is the difference between responsive web design and mobile apps?
Unknown Speaker 9:50
Well, mobile apps are intended to be downloaded. You know, oftentimes, it's, you know, iPhones the head the App Store. Droid, I believe it's Google ads. apps, you know, those are intended to go into the store download can either be free or purchase. But those are meant to be viewed phone or tablet, they're meant to be viewed that way, they're meant to have some kind of functionality to them. Whereas responsive emphasis, just kind of what we talked about, it's your website, which is a smaller, simplified version of it to fit different sized screens, different technology, those kinds of things. So mobile apps are kind of what you think of when you download a game. You know, maybe you have your banking app on your phone, those types of things.
Kaitlyn Cole 10:36
Awesome. Thank you so much, Brad, I really appreciate your time and giving us some valuable, valuable information to reflect on. Thank you so much, again, is there anything else that you'd like to add?
Unknown Speaker 10:48
You know, my final thought would be, you know, if you're, if you're looking for a new website, don't overcomplicate the process. You know, nowadays, there's so many options, so many platforms, so many ways of doing it, that you can really get caught up in. In overthinking a lot of things. You know, if you have a functional website that gets patients to your business, it's a you're proud of what you're putting out there and generates the business for you, then that's kind of all you know, that's the end game, that's the final result that you want. So the simpler you can make it the better, the better. It'll be in the long run.
Kaitlyn Cole 11:25
Simple and easy. I like it. So I'm gonna put your information, like your phone number and your email in the show notes for all the podcast listeners, if that's alright with you. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Okay, sweet. So everybody who's listening, make sure to hit those show notes and get Brad Christmas information. If you have any questions you'd like to ask him, feel free to call or email him at any time and he will reach back out to you.
Unknown Speaker 11:50
Great, thank you very much. I really appreciate you guys having me on.
Kaitlyn Cole 11:52
All right. Thanks, Brad. Have a great day. You too.