Why It's Important to Have a Responsive Website

As a company whose primary focus is building user-friendly websites, we have seen several changes in website functionalities over the years. As a result, we’ve consistently made changes to our platform to accommodate these functionalities.

One of the bigger changes we’ve seen is the rise of mobile usage and the importance of having a “responsive” website.

Recently, Great Dental Websites conducted a case study that looked into influences on conversions (people who contact you via website) on our sites. The results demonstrated how important it is to have a “responsive” website.

What Is a Responsive Website?

When we refer to a “responsive” website, we mean that your website adapts to any screen it’s being displayed on. For example:

Desktop Site

Mobile Site

For the case study, our team compared the number of conversions our clients had and, more specifically, how online users were contacting the office (are they reaching out via contact form or clicking to call?) in January 2016 and January 2017. Not only did we see a 137% increase in overall conversions between the two time periods, but we also saw a 326% increase in click to calls.

What Is Affecting These Changes?

The high increase of click to calls was surprising, and we began to look into reasons for why click to calls had risen so much. One of the bigger platform updates that changed between January 2016 and January 2017 affected the contact forms on the site. We went from having open contact forms to having closed contact forms on our sites (see examples below).

The red box indicates the open contact form.

For the closed contact form, the online user must click on the "Contact Us Today" to open up the contact form.

We believe this switch had an influence on the rise of click-to-call conversions since the closed form made calling appear to be the primary contact method on our sites (both on mobile and desktop).

Another reason why click to calls increased might have had nothing to do with changes we made to our platform. From our research, we believe that the change may have to do with personal references relating to the immediacy of calls, mobile usage increase, and privacy issues.

Some people may prefer the immediacy of calling an office versus filling out a contact form and having to wait for the practice to respond to their question. This might come down to a personal preference or a need for fast information. For instance, the online user may have an emergency question, and a response from a contact form may be too late.  A phone call brings immediate satisfaction for the online user versus the stress of not knowing when they’ll receive a response from a form that has been filled out and sent online.

Increase in mobile usage can also impact the increase of click to calls. Research has shown that mobile usage increases each year. One study, conducted by Statista, specifically showed that from 2016 to 2017, there was a 7.5% increase in mobile usage, which would result in 28 more click to calls. Also, coming from a user-friendly perspective, calls have an advantage over lead forms when you consider the frustration of having to fill out the tiny fields on a mobile screen.

The rise of concern for privacy may also influence the click-to-call behavior. Providing personal –and specifically – medical, information on the internet is something users are more wary of, and many try to avoid. This then results in preferring to call into an office versus filling out a form on the internet.

What Does This Mean for You?

A rise in click to calls means that your practice will want to focus on ways in which those answering the phones can bring on new patients through these calls. With this being said, you will want to ensure that your front office staff are properly trained. Great Dental Websites can provide front desk training resources. If interested, please contact our office!

Our results from this case study clearly highlight the importance of having a “responsive” website as well as the importance of having the click-to-call option available for patients. Moving forward, we as a company would like to begin to look at how we can incorporate more call to actions on our mobile sites for click to calls. We are always looking to improve our platform, so if you have any feedback on our mobile sites please let us know!