Dental website conversion made easy
Web conversion occurs when a potential patient initiates contact with your dental practice AND provides a method of returning their call, email, form submission, LiveChat, Enquiry bot chat or WhatsApp message.
Key Takeaways
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Define a “conversion” properly (so you measure what matters): A conversion is when a potential patient makes contact and leaves usable details for a reply (call, email, form, online booking, LiveChat/Enquiry bot/WhatsApp).
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Stop counting “busywork” metrics as success: The page argues against treating downloads (without an email), events, reviews, page views, scrolling, clicks and unlogged phone calls as true conversions.
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Fix the common tracking failures that distort results: Highlights missed contact details, typos, duplicates, human error, and incorrectly configured tracking (e.g., Tag Manager) as major causes of unreliable reporting.
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Track every enquiry channel (not just forms): Stresses capturing calls, emails, forms, chat tools, social messengers and booking systems—because it’s easy to miss one and undercount leads.
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Make conversion tracking automated and practical: Recommends automation where possible, accepting a small margin of error, and notes that the cost/time to set up accurate tracking is relatively low compared to the value of knowing what drives sales.
Challenges
Potential patients may contact the practice without leaving their contact details; they may provide their email but refuse to provide their telephone number.
Then there are typos: receptionists or practice managers may fail to log the correct data, miss duplicates, or the tracking events may have been set up incorrectly in your Google Tag Manager.
Why persevere?
- Peace of mind: know which treatment or offer web pages are generating your sales.
- Superior Planning and Strategy: allowing for a data-driven decision process instead of using guesswork or intuition.
- Make More Money: increase your sales and profits by providing more patients at a lower cost of acquisition.
Examples of a ‘conversion’
- The patient calls your phone number or sends an email
- Patient leave their email address
- Patient books an appointment online, leaving contact details
Conversions are loosely defined as enquiries from patients that can be replied to (their data has been captured). A phone call where the enquirer’s details are not taken is not really an enquiry!
Non-conversions
- What is not useful to count as a conversion?
- The patient downloads a coupon/PDF (unless an email address is supplied).
- The patient signs up for an event.
- A patient leaves a Google review.
- The patient views a particular page or pages.
- Scrolling behaviour, link clicks, video activity, and other notable details.
- A phone call where no one takes the caller’s details.
Adopt best practices
Although web conversion is controlled by computers and supplied by Google through its analytics platform, it is not foolproof.
Best practice for accurate website conversion recording
- Duplicates are the biggest problem for accurate conversion tracking. Systems need to be in place to identify and address these issues.
- Conversion tracking should be as automated as possible to minimise human error.
- No matter how well planned, there needs to be some margin for error.
- Only track conversions that result in a sale, not page scrolls, dwell times, etc.
- Ensure you track all phone calls, emails, forms, chatbots, social media messengers, online booking forms, and other relevant communication channels. It is surprisingly easy to miss one!
The cost of setting up accurate conversion tracking is low
It can range from a few hours working with Google’s Tag Manager to setting up new conversion elements on your website, such as new forms, WhatsApp buttons, and Enquirybot.
Below is a quick guide to the cost
Setting up Google Tag Manager to track emails, forms and telephone numbers.
£160 + vat
Adding Live Chat of Enquirybot to a website.
£50 + vat
Adding new forms to a website using a plugin like Web Forms or Gravity.
£35 per form
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