Occlusal. Periodontal. Endodontic. To your patients, these terms may sound technical and intimidating, though you know the lingo well. It’s the same scenario between you and your website support company. Navigation. URL. Flash. What on earth does it all mean? Unfortunately, there aren’t lay terms for much of the jargon that has to do with your website, so here’s a handy vocabulary list of the most common terms you may encounter.
Flash – Flash describes motion on a website, such as photos that fade into one another or pictures/words that move on the screen.
Interactive Forms – Patient forms that can be completed online and emailed.
Keywords – The terms in your site’s copy that were strategically chosen to be picked up by search engine spiders so that potential patients can find you on search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.).
Navigation – The main buttons or tabs that link to pages on a website (home, about us, services, contact us, etc.); subnavigation are buttons or links that represent deeper levels of pages on a website.
PDFs – Documents, such as forms, postop instructions, or articles, that can be downloaded to a local computer from a website. PDF stands for “portable document format” and is read by Adobe software that you can download to your computer from the Internet.
SEO – Stands for “search engine optimization”; SEO refers to the strategy built into a website that makes it show up in search engine searches. For instance, if you type keywords (terms you’re interested in) into Google, you’ll find the companies you’re looking for. It is through SEO that websites show up on results pages.
Splash Page – This is the page, usually of one photo or moving pictures, that appears before a person enters your website. Splash pages are not read by search engine spiders, so they are not good if you want a strong SEO strategy.
URL – This acronym stands for “uniform resource locator” and refers to the address where a website is located; the name of a website, such as www.dentalblogs.com.
A good website support company will not only do what you ask, but also educate you on how your site works – at least on the surface – much like you educate your patients during case presentations. Knowledge is power in any business endeavor.
Looking for a new website, hosting and support, or a revision to your existing website? Check out TNTDental’s portfolio here.