There are dentists out there who spent $10,000+ on a gorgeous website. Beautiful design, professional photos, the whole thing. And it’s barely booking anyone. Down the street, another dentist has a dental website design that honestly looks like it’s from 2015. Probably cost them less than a grand. Booked solid for the next 3 months.

So this raises the question: does spending more money on a dental website actually help you book more patients? If everything else is the same and the ONLY difference is the website… does the expensive one win? Or are patients looking for something completely different?

We decided to find out. We set up a user research study, recruiting people across North America, ages 25 to 65, and gave them a simple task: you have a toothache, you need a dentist, here are some dental websites, who do you pick?

The first thing we looked at was trustworthiness. When a patient lands on your website, one of the first things they’re doing, even if they don’t realize it, is asking themselves: do I trust this person to work on my teeth?

Now, dentists try to build that trust in different ways. Some load up their about page with credentials, diplomas, and certifications. Others add a Google review slider to their homepage. Some go with video testimonials. And some just have a handful of written reviews sitting on the page, no names, no photos, no real way to verify where they came from.

We wanted to test which of these actually moves the needle for real patients making a real decision. The important thing to note is that we didn’t tell participants to look for any of this. We just said: you have a toothache, here are two dental websites, pick one and tell us why.

Here’s what they had to say:

So as you can see, what patients really care about is social proof. Things like actual Google reviews, with real names and real ratings pulled straight from Google. And video testimonials of real patients talking about their experience in their own words.

What doesn’t work is manually adding reviews to your website. Patients assume you either made them up or just handpicked the positive ones. One person in our study actually said this out loud: “I don’t trust this because you’re only going to put positive reviews on there.”

And the same goes for generic messaging. The problem is that almost every dental website says the exact same things. “We treat patients like family.” “We offer exceptional care.” When you write that, you’re basically patting yourself on the back and doing the exact same thing every other dentist on the planet is doing. It means nothing to patients. They’ve seen it a thousand times. A bad dentist can write the exact same thing.

But if patients land on your website and see different people, different ages, all saying things like “this place changed how I feel about going to the dentist” or “I actually look forward to my appointments now” , that hits differently. You can say you’re great and treat everybody like family, or you can have your actual patients say it for you.

A wall of videos of real patients vouching for your practice is pretty hard to fake. And very few dentists actually do this, which means if you do, you’re already ahead of most of the competition. Pair that with real Google review scores and you’ve built more trust than 90% of dental websites out there.

When someone opens up your dental website for the first time, what do they initially feel about your practice? What actually works in creating the best first impression?

Forget scrolling. Forget clicking around. Just that initial gut reaction when the page loads. Does it feel warm and welcoming? Does it feel like a place patients actually want to go?

Specifically, we wanted to test the homepage. When it first loads up, what should patients see?

So here are the options we tested: first option, generic stock photos. You know the ones, happy families holding each other and smiling with with perfect teeth. Two old people smiling and riding bikes.

Second option: actual pictures of your team. Maybe a photo of you, the dentist, with your staff. The actual people patients will see when they walk through the door.

Third option: walkthrough videos. Showing what it actually looks like when you walk into the office. The front desk, the waiting area, your friendly staff greeting patients. What patients will actually experience when they arrive at your practice.

Now, most dentists assume this doesn’t matter. “People just want to know my hours and book an appointment. They don’t care about this stuff.”

Well, let’s see if this is actually true:

Patients want to see real people. They want to know who they’re actually dealing with before they even think about booking.

Most dental websites use stock photos for their homepage banner. Maybe the team doesn’t want to be photographed, or they don’t think it matters. But what ends up happening is your website looks like every other dental office out there. Patients have seen these images so many times that their brain has learned to ignore them completely. They scroll right past because they know it’s just decoration.

An actual photo of your team, or a short video tour of the practice, changes that. It gives your website a human, authentic feel that stock photos just can’t replicate. People want to do business with people, not some faceless brand. And a real photo or video answers the question that every nervous patient is quietly asking the second they land on your page: “Who are the people I’m about to trust with my health?”

But what about patients looking for bigger procedures? Dental implants, Invisalign, veneers. What does your dental website need to attract those patients? What kind of content or images convinces someone to call your office instead of the competitor down the street?

So we tested it. We told our participants: imagine you’re missing a tooth and you’re thinking about getting a dental implant. You’re searching online, looking at a few different dental websites. Which one would you pick and why?

Then we showed them two different versions of a dental implants page.

The first one was bare minimum. A couple of short paragraphs explaining what a dental implant is and how it works. Nothing fancy. The message was basically: “yeah, we do this, give us a call and we’ll talk.” Some dentists actually believe in this approach. Don’t overwhelm them with information. Give them the basics and let them call you.

The second one was the complete opposite. As much information as possible. FAQs, videos, patient testimonials, case studies, a step-by-step breakdown of the whole procedure. That website’s strategy was basically: here is everything you could ever want to know, and if after all of this you want to call us, go ahead.

Which approach actually works? Here’s what our participants had to say:

If you’re about to spend thousands of dollars on a procedure, you’re going to do your research before you call anyone. And that’s a completely different mindset from how people used to make decisions.

Think back to the 70s, 80s, even the 90s. You had a leak, you needed a plumber, you flipped through the Yellow Pages and picked whoever had a half decent ad. “Got a leak? Give us a call.” That was enough.

But today patients make buying decisions completely differently. They don’t want to talk to someone right away. They want to go at their own pace, do all their research on their own terms, without feeling like they’re being sold to or pressured. And once they’ve already made up their mind, that’s when they pick up the phone.

By the time someone calls your practice, they’ve already gone through your dental website, read through your service pages, looked at your reviews, maybe watched a video or two. They’re not calling to get information. They’ve already got it. What they’re really doing is checking if the impression they got from your dental website matches the experience they get when they actually talk to your staff.

If they think you’re a high-end, trustworthy practice and then they call and your team is warm, professional, and knowledgeable, it checks the final box. “Great, this feels right.”

But if your staff is rude, dismissive, or can’t answer basic questions about the procedure? It’s over. All that trust you built up through your website design is gone. The whole picture falls apart and they move on to the next practice down the street.

A couple of years ago, we made a video where we told dentists these photos were hurting their websites. We tested it, measured the results, and saw that fewer patients were actually converting. So we said don’t do it.

But since then, we’ve seen cases where dentists make before and after photos work really well. So there’s clearly a right way to do this and a wrong way.

For this next test, we showed people three different websites. The first one had no before and after photos at all. Just information about how they do implants, but no visual proof of what the dentist could actually deliver.

The second website had before and after photos, but very clinical ones. Zoomed in, up close on the gums and teeth. The kind of technical shots a lot of dentists naturally think to take because it really shows the craftsmanship of the work.

And the third? Full face photos. Professional camera, a nice little studio setup in the practice, beautiful shots of the whole patient. Not just their teeth. The whole person.

We genuinely weren’t sure which one would win. Which one would actually convince patients to book. Here’s what we found out:

So as you just saw, before and after photos can absolutely work. They can make a great impression on patients. But the type of photos most dentists naturally think to take, the clinical close-ups, those are not helping you.

As a dentist, you can look at those shots and appreciate the quality of work. Maybe other dentists appreciate it too. But to most patients? It almost looks like crime scene photos. Like something out of a morgue. It genuinely makes people uneasy. To a lot of patients, it just looks gross.

So if you’re going to do before and after photos, you have to do them right. Full-face shots. Proper lighting. A real setup.

Because when a patient sees a full-face before and after, they’re not staring at a close-up of someone’s teeth. They’re looking at a real person. Someone who walked into a dental office with a smile they were embarrassed about, and walked out with a smile that changed their entire face. That’s what moves people.

But if you’re not willing to invest in the right equipment, set up proper lighting in your practice, and put a little time into learning basic photography, our honest advice is don’t bother. Because those clinical close-up shots most dentists are taking aren’t impressing anyone. They’re actually pushing patients away.

By now you probably have a pretty good sense of what kind of website patients respond to. So let’s talk about how you actually get them to book an appointment.

There are a few different ways to approach this. A lot of dental websites go with a very basic form: name, email, phone number. The thinking is keep it simple, make it easy to fill out, and you’ll get more submissions. A lot of marketing companies preach this too.

We’ve always thought about it differently. If someone is serious about booking an appointment, they’re going to get in their car, drive 10 or 15 minutes to your office, take time off work, put in all that effort. In what world would they not be willing to answer a few more questions on a form?

They’re going to fill out their patient history anyway when they show up. So why not ask some of that upfront? What kind of pain are they in? What’s going on? Are they nervous? Do they have any concerns?

We’d hear pushback from dentists all the time. “There’s too many questions, they won’t fill it out, you’re making it too hard.” But think about it this way. If someone won’t give you more than their name and phone number, how serious are they really? If one extra question about their insurance turns them off and they don’t book, were they ever going to show up?

The way we see it, you’re just filtering out the people who weren’t going to come in anyway. And then there are practices that skip the form entirely. No form at all. If you want to book, you call us.

So what actually works? What does the data say? We put this question to our audience, and here’s what they told us.

As you can see, people who are serious about booking are generally happy to fill out that information. And you need it anyway. They’re going to come in and fill it all out on day one regardless.

If a marketing company has told you to keep it simple, or if you’re someone who’s always believed “don’t ask too many questions or you’ll lose them,” we really want to challenge that.

Think about everything you have to fill out just to book a flight. Nobody complains about that. So why do people in dentistry assume that asking a few extra questions is going to drive patients away?

Our take is simple. If a couple of extra questions turns someone off, they probably weren’t a serious patient to begin with. And that’s not a bad thing. You’re just cutting out the people who were going to waste your time anyway.

First thing: price doesn’t matter. If you’re spending thousands on a fully custom website with beautiful graphics and fancy design, patients don’t care. Nobody is picking their dentist based on how pretty the website looks.

You need to look professional, absolutely. But most of the money we see dentists pour into their websites goes toward making things look nice rather than building something that actually books patients.

So what actually matters? Social proof: Reviews & video testimonials. You need real people vouching for you. That’s what builds trust with patients.

The human element. You don’t want to look like a faceless corporate brand. You want to look like a warm, friendly team that patients are going to feel comfortable with. And you’re not going to get that across by writing “we treat patients like family” on your homepage because every single dental practice says that. You get it across through professional photos and videos of your actual team, your actual office, that show people who you are, not just what your waiting room looks like.

Before and after photos are powerful, but only if they’re done right. Full-face shots, proper lighting, real people. Not clinical close-ups that look like medical documentation and gross people out.

Give people information. The idea that you just want to get them to call is outdated. A lot of marketing companies still push this because they’re working from a playbook that’s 30 years old. People don’t make decisions that way anymore.

And the last one goes against what a lot of consultants preach. Don’t make it too easy to book. Make people jump through a couple of hoops. The serious patients won’t mind. They’re already willing to drive to your office, take time off work, and go through the whole process. They’re not going to bail because you asked a few extra questions. It makes them feel like your practice actually cares about getting to know them rather than just filling a slot in the schedule.