The 5 best WordPress plug-ins for dentists

WordPress is a great content management system for dental practice websites. Not only can you find themes designed specifically for dentists, but you can also improve and customize your site with over 60,000 free and premium WordPress plug-ins.

“Enhancing your website’s functionality with WordPress plug-ins is easy,” says Kristen Baker, a senior content marketing manager at Catalant Technologies. “You can install, activate, and begin using WordPress plug-ins in a matter of minutes.”

In the WordPress plug-in directory, you’ll see descriptions, reviews, features, and other information for all of the plug-ins listed, both free and premium, writes Jason Cosper, WordPress product advocate for DreamHost. This is helpful because “sometimes you’ll want more options or features than a free plug-in can provide. In that case, you can look for premium plug-ins, which will cost you a (varying) fee but are often more comprehensive.”

With so many plug-ins to choose from, finding the right ones for your dental practice website can be difficult. That’s why we’ve shortlisted the best WordPress plug-ins for dentists below.

1. Jotform Online Forms

Jotform’s versatile Jotform Online Forms plug-in is one of the most useful WordPress plug-ins for dentists. It allows you to embed any form you create with Jotform directly into your WordPress website through the WordPress editor, without requiring you to use code.

Better yet, Jotform’s drag-and-drop form builder and extensive range of templates mean you can easily add additional features to your website, including a range of dental forms for needs like

• Patient referrals
• Consent forms
• Treatment plans
• Patient surveys
• Appointment booking

Online forms are a great way to assist you with your dental marketing efforts. And because Jotform offers features that help with HIPAA compliance, you can be sure sensitive patient information is secure.

The Jotform Online Forms plug-in is free to use, although you may need a paid account to access some features.

2. Simply Schedule Appointments

Every dental website needs to accept bookings, but many WordPress themes don’t include this functionality out of the box. If that’s the case with your website, Simply Schedule Appointments can help.

The plug-in is easy to install and lets you set when you’re available to see patients and when you aren’t. You can also integrate the plug-in with dozens of other tools, like Google Calendar, and customize the look of the plug-in to match your branding. Patients will never know you’re using a separate plug-in.

The Simply Schedule Appointments plug-in is available through three different plans, starting at $99 a year.

3. Appointment Hour Booking

Appointment Hour Booking is an alternative WordPress booking plug-in designed to help small business owners build and manage a booking system on their website.

As well as delivering the standard functionality you’d expect from a booking plug-in, Appointment Hour Booking also helps you avoid double-booking by automatically calculating available start times according to the appointment durations you set. That means patients who are scheduling an annual check-up can have a different view of available appointments from those who need to schedule more intensive treatments.

The plug-in also allows you to display prices for different types of appointments at booking. You can even take payments through the plug-in.

You can use Appointment Hour Booking for free, but you’ll need to have at least a Professional plan (for €5.99 a month) to accept payments with the plug-in.

4. Yoast Local SEO plug-in

Your dental practice needs to rank highly in Google’s local search results (both in web searches and on Google Maps) if you’re looking to grow your business. But optimizing your website can be hard if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Luckily, the Yoast Local SEO plug-in is specifically designed for local search engine optimization, and it makes website optimization easy for anyone. The plug-in walks you through all the information you need to add to your website, and it offers free local SEO training and support.

The Yoast Local SEO plug-in costs $79 a year.

5. MailPoet

A newsletter is an effective way to keep clients engaged and to update them on the latest in dental health —and the MailPoet plug-in lets you easily create and send one.

The plug-in lets you create beautiful emails in your WordPress dashboard with its range of templates. You can send an automated series of emails to new subscribers and even connect it to your blog to automatically send out updates with your latest articles.

MailPoet is free for up to 1,000 subscribers, and you can send as many as 5,000 emails monthly. Business plans start at $10 per month.