Photography Guide for Your Dental Website
If you are getting a new website designed for your dental practice, you want to make sure that you’ve got great photos of your people and your office. This guide will provide you with the tips you need to make sure you enable you, your team and practice to look fantastic.
Having photos of you, your staff and facilities helps new patients get a feel for you and your practice. This can help to
- Lower the anxiety that can occur from visiting a new dentist.
- Feel comfortable by seeing the personality and culture of your office.
Actual photos of you, your staff and patients on your website makes your practice feel more authentic.
Who Should Take The Photos
Get a professional to take the photos for you. It takes time to take great photos. Don’t waste the time of you and your staff taking photos with an amateur or with a smartphone. You will likely find that the photos you get are OK – or worse. Photos from a professional photographer will allow you to present you and your practice in the best light possible. In our opinion, it’s worth the extra cost to have photos professionally done.
What to take photos of
You want to have photos that allow visitors to your website to feel comfortable with you and your practice. Here’s what you should be considering taking photos of:
Dentists
Staff
Dentists and patients interacting
Reception area
Office and equipment
Patients (to align with testimonials)
Do’s and Don’ts
Do's
Do - Actual Patients
Do take pictures with actual patients. Some ways in which you want to interact with your patients in the photos include: general discussion, reviewing a chart or xray on a computer screen, talking with reception, sitting in a dentist’s chair about to begin an exam.
DO - Interesting Backgrounds
Do take pictures with you in the foreground. and patients and staff in the background.
DO - Reception Area
Do take pictures of your reception area. Take pictures of the reception desk with staff at it, as well as some pictures with staff and a patient interacting with the staff.
DO - Make it Friendly
Do keep a friendly tone. Make sure that there’s a friendly tone to the pictures. This helps to make people who are nervous about going to the dentist more comfortable.
This image though, gives us lots of room to add a headline and more text for a web designer. So make sure you have a number of photos that have lots of room on the left, right, or both.
This image though, gives us lots of room to add a headline and more text for a web designer. So make sure you have a number of photos that have lots of room on the left, right, or both.
DO - Have Pictures with Space on the Side
Do take pictures with lots of space on the side. This allows your website to use the photo and put text to the right or left of the main object of the photo (which is likely a person).
This is one of the more important pieces of guidance that lots of photographers need. Web designers love wide photos. We love seeing empty space on the side that we can put a headline on.
Make sure your photographer understands that some of your photos will need.
DO - Have Pics Of Your Treatment Rooms
Do take a few pictures of your dental treatment rooms area without anyone in them. Just make sure that you take a lot more pictures with people in them. If you use too many photos without people, it will look unfriendly, clinical and lonely.
“Thanks Dr. Smith for giving me my smile back.”
“Thanks Dr. Smith for giving me my smile back.”
“Dr. Smith is an awesome dentist”
DO - Get Testimonials
Do get testimonials of patients and get their headshot with a great smile if you are able.
DO - Get Permission for Using Photos
Do get your staff and patients to sign a photo release consent form.
Do - Use Before and After Photos
Do include before and after photos in your website. But don’t use the clinical photos with the lips all stretched back. Use photos that show patients the smile that they want to have.
Don'ts
Don't Use Bare Walls
Don’t take shots against a bare wall. It looks way better if you have equipment/people in the background.
Don't Wear Your Mask
Absolutely don’t wear your mask in the pictures, unless its down around your chin. Having your mask on looks intimidating and is not inviting.
Maybe a Mask
If you have people in the background looking at a patient, it may be OK for them to wear a mask.. Otherwise you may be able to wear a mask if it’s not fully on – but down below your chin.
It's Better Without
If you are looking at the camera, you can see how much more approachable it is without a mask on. If you and your staff are looking at the camera, it’s friendly and inviting. A note of caution with this picture though; the woman has a tool that has a sharp hook on it (yes we know it’s a sickle probe) and you don’t want to have that in pictures – It’s scary for people who are afraid of dentists.
Don't Poke in the Mouth
Don’t poke people in the mouth with tools in the pictures. This gets people thinking about a dentist being uncomfortable. It can also invoke thoughts of pain and fear of pain in some people.
Really - Don't Do It
The photo to the left is better than the one above. The tools aren’t in the mouth. That’s good. However, having tools near your patient’s mouth in pictures can be risky, especially if it’s something people can think of as painful – like the sharp hook in this one.
Don't show your tools.
Just seeing these can invoke the thought of pain.
Don't take group shots.
This isn’t a hard and fast rule. Group shots can look great. There’s just some risk over time.
Even if you have a happy team, people will still leave your practice. When they leave, then you probably need to get the whole group shot done again. You can do group shots if you really want to, but remember that it may cost you more money in the long run as you need to get the group shot redone and have the new images put up on your website.
An alternative is to have a collage of individual shots.
We Are Here To Help
This information given to your professional photographer can give you the photos you need for a fantastic website.
If you are looking for a very attractively designed website that will be your company more business, contact Elevate99.com. We are focused on helping dentists to achieve their business goals.
