How to choose an orthodontic website company: ten questions to ask before you sign

Most orthodontists buy a website two or three times in a career, so nobody gets much practice at it. The vendors do this every week. These ten questions level the field. Ask every one, in writing, before you sign anything.

1. Who owns the website, the domain and the content?

The right answer is: you do, all of it, from day one, and it is written into the agreement. Some companies keep the site on their proprietary platform, register the domain in their own name, or licence the content back to you. The moment you try to leave, the site disappears or has to be rebuilt from scratch.

Ask for the clause. If the answer is vague, that is the answer.

2. What happens when we leave?

You want a handover promise: the website, domain, brand assets and data handed over in working order, with a reasonable notice period. Ask what format the handover takes and whether there is a fee for it.

A company confident in its work does not need to hold your website hostage to keep you.

3. How long is the contract, and why?

Twelve-month and multi-year lock-ins are common in dental and orthodontic websites. There is one honest reason for a minimum term: search results compound over months, not weeks, so a practice that judges the work at week six is judging noise. Six months is enough to see real movement. Anything longer protects the vendor, not you.

4. Is this a template, and how many other practices are on it?

Template sites are fast and cheap, and there is nothing wrong with that if you know what you are buying. What you are buying is a design shared with dozens or hundreds of other practices, page structures that cannot be reshaped to your area, and search performance that looks like everyone else's.

If the company shows you a portfolio and the sites all look like each other with different colours, you have your answer.

5. Will every treatment and every location get its own page?

Google ranks pages, not websites. A practice with one page that mentions braces, aligners, early treatment and adults cannot compete with a general dentist whose site has a dedicated aligner page. Ask to see the sitemap of a site they built: count the treatment pages and the location pages.

This is also why practices lose Invisalign searches to general dentists. It is rarely about reputation and almost always about structure.

6. Do you charge a percentage of our collections?

Some patient-engagement, financing and marketing platforms take a percentage of treatment fees collected, often described as performance pricing. It means a growing practice pays more every year for the same software, and the fee is invisible in day-to-day accounts. Insist on a flat fee, and read the schedule for any “transaction” or “processing” line that scales with revenue.

7. What exactly is included after launch?

Hosting, security updates, backups, uptime monitoring, content changes, fixes, and someone who actually looks at the site and the numbers with you. Ask how often a human reviews the site. “Support tickets” is not a review rhythm. A monthly site review with fixes made and changes added is.

8. How do you handle migration?

A rebuilt website without one-to-one redirects from every old URL loses the rankings the old site earned. Migration should include: redirects, moving the domain, connecting the existing Google Business Profile and reviews, and carrying analytics history forward. Ask whether it is included or billed as extra, and ask who talks to your old vendor.

9. Can we see it working in a real practice?

Mockups are easy. Ask for a live site you can click, a real number you can verify (Google Search Console clicks over time is the honest one), and if there is a portal or patient side, a way to walk through it yourself without a sales call.

10. What does the marketing land on?

If the website company also sells marketing, ask how it is wired into the site: do ads land on purpose-built pages, are review requests sent from the clinic's own name, do you see your own Google Analytics and Search Console numbers, or a monthly screenshot? Marketing bolted on beside a website is half a system.

The short version

• You own everything, in writing, with a handover promise.
• Minimum term around six months, then leave with notice.
• Custom structure with a page per treatment and per location.
• Flat fees, no percentage of collections, pass-through costs at cost.
• Migration with redirects included.
• A monthly human review, not a ticket queue.
• Proof from a live practice, and a tour you can take yourself.

Hey32 was designed to answer every one of these the way a practice owner would want, because it was built by one. You can check that against the pricing page and the services agreement, and walk the tour whenever suits.