Laster Orthodontics
Challenge
aster Orthodontics creates perfect smiles for children and adults at three locations in the Triangle area of North Carolina. They are a well-known and respected orthodontics office, and the practice is established and growing. The orthodontics practice had an existing WordPress website that served the practice well in its inception, but it had been awhile since a website redesign had occurred. The extended time between updates was a dragging force on the practice's digital presence. One of the biggest complaints Laster Orthodontics had was that t he existing WordPress website was slow. Updates to the website that should only take a few minutes would take hours or couldn't be completed at all because the website would time out before the changes could be applied. Mobile usage was also a concern as the website was built at a time when mobile traffic was a small piece of the internet pie. With mobile being the primary source of website traffic for healthcare organizations, it was a pretty big deal that the website was not mobile-friendly. The website also wasn't performing as well in the search engines as the practice would have liked. SEO has evolved significantly over the last five years and it was clear some updates were going to be needed. During our discovery phase, a marketing and technical audit of the orthodontist's existing website was performed. From the audit, we were able to confirm many of the issues the orthodontist was experiencing and identify many of the root causes. Here are some of the items we discovered: A 2013 Unsupported WordPress Theme - An outdated and unsupported WordPress theme is a common discovery in our audits, especially with websites over three years old. This was part of the reason why minor tweaks and updates to the website were near impossible to complete. The theme was essentially broken. No SSL Certificate - SSL was not on the radar when the website was originally built. Google now penalizes websites that are not secure, so this is a requirement for every website these days. 9.6 Second Load Time (ouch) - Best in-class websites load in under 3 seconds. Any slower than 3 seconds, and the average website visitor will lose interest in waiting. Websites that load slower also have reduced conversions and sales opportunities. Not Mobile-Friendly - Over half of all searches are happening on mobile devices. If you want to keep up with your consumers, mobile-responsiveness is a necessity, not an option. It's also a fact that websites built for mobile are ranked higher than other websites. Missing Personas - Your website isn't built for you, it's built for your customers. In our buyer persona workshop it became clear that teenagers were a primary persona that was missing from the existing marketing strategy and website.
Solution
Phase 1: Migrate the Website to HubSpot from WordPress Sometimes the best and most effective ideas are surprisingly simple. But it's this simplicity that can be deceiving for clients. Is it too good to be true? Can we really solve our page speed and technical issues by changing our website hosting and content management to HubSpot CMS? The answer is yes. When our HubSpot development team moved the website to the HubSpot CMS we instantly shaved 60% off the page load time. The speed boost allowed the website to load in just 4.1 seconds (down from 9.6 seconds). Remember this is the exact same website design. Nothing has changed except for moving it to the HubSpot CMS. It was an incredible boost in performance for the site. The website migration to HubSpot CMS not only improved website speed but fixed a number of other issues: Secured by an SSL certificate the website was no longer exposed to security vulnerabilities The website was now mobile-friendly It came packed with other HubSpot features like SEO, blogging, and pillar content planning The results of the migration alone were impressive and delivered some much needed quick wins for the orthodontist. We were all celebrating our successes and excited for Phase 2 of the project. Phase 2: A Marvelous Custom Website Design Laster Orthodontics already had strong brand visibility in the community, and loved their current logo. They were looking for a website that fully represented their pre-existing mission and values. Dr, Laster has a love for all things Marvel, and we wanted to bring that out in their new site. Orthodontics is a highly technical field, but it's also about creating beautifully perfect smiles that patients have been dreaming about. So the website had to reflect the beauty of art, but be able to convey a technical message to its audience. That audience needed to include the teenage persona that had been neglected in the past. Here's what we were working with: A strict budget and timeline - ideate, design, develop, and launch within 90 days Limited visual resources - especially a lack of before and after photos Highly technical information Multiple layers to their business - including Invisalign, traditional braces, and their own Laster branded clear aligner system Heavy competition for attention - Smile Direct and Invisalign are constantly advertising and promoting It was also extremely important to bring out the expertise that Dr. Laster offers his patients. He's truly one of a kind and his patients love him. We wanted to make sure Dr. Laster's helpful voice would resonate in the content and that the website would become a resource for patients to share with family and friends. Finally, it was very important to build a website that brought out the culture of the team and the office. Website Design We'd gone through the processes of persona development, brand audit, data-gathering, research, brainstorming, sketching, creating wireframes, and content writing. This is the part we've all been waiting for - the website design! It's where a custom website really comes to life, and the client gets their first peek at what the heck our agency has been up to. We made sure that each web page had search engine optimized copy, headings, and meta descriptions to keep Laster's SEO on the rise. We also upped the orthodontists user experience by adding in important new web pages that would help new and returning web visitors find the information they were seeking about Laster Orthodontics. Website Development and Launch The client immediately fell in love with our "Marvelous" campaign design and we quickly moved into website development and launch. We were excited to move the orthodontist away from WordPress and into a state of the art content management and website hosting platform. The HubSpot CMS offers flexible staging, a seamless integration with HubSpot's marketing, sales and service software, an intuitive user interface, and a secure hosting environment. We strongly advocated for building the website on the HubSpot CMS because it's the best long-term solution for the practice, and delivers the best user experience for the orthodontist's personas. Here's a look at a before and after of the home page. View the entire website here.
Results
The Results Increased Traffic We launched the new website in January, 2019. We were all excited about the possibilities for growth but even we weren't prepared for what happened next. Traffic to the new website took off like crazy! The old website averaged 750 visitors per month. The first month of the new website we hit 1,118 visitors. + 49% in 30 days! The second month of the new website we hit 1,457 visitors. + 94% in 60 days!! The third month of the new website we hit 1,736 visitors! + 131% in 90 days!!! Increased Leads The increase in website traffic, naturally led to more patient leads falling into the pipeline. Leads from organic traffic were up +36% in 90 days! Increased Revenue When traffic and leads are up that only mean good things for revenue. While not revealing specific numbers, the practice reports that this was their best Q1 ever.
The Diamond Group
The Diamond Group is a Gold HubSpot Agency Partner and we take great pride in our long-term relationship with HubSpot. Our comprehensive training on the HubSpot platform allows us to bring value and insight to our clients and to maximize their HubSpot experience. Clients think of us as an extension...
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