Your clinic’s website is the first point of contact for many patients to your practice. Patients will leave your website if they can’t find what they’re looking for or don’t like what they see, and you’ll lose their business.
Unfortunately, many health care websites are difficult to navigate or contain outdated information. Your practice should have a website that catches people’s attention and encourages them to call for an appointment.
Here are some health care website mistakes you should avoid in making a new website or updating an existing one.
Not Enough or Too Much Information
Information is always welcome, but don’t overwhelm website visitors. Don’t try to squeeze every bit of information into your pages. Instead, keep content light and easy and focus more on the feeling your page conveys when they arrive at your clinic’s website.
Provide brief overviews of your services, and use appropriate images and easy-to-read fonts that guide readers through your site. You should also show the necessary information, like your clinic’s name, contact details, and practitioners.
While avoiding info dumps is necessary, you also shouldn’t retain information. Not enough information on your website may make visitors leave; 55% percent of people tend to stay on a website for less than 15 seconds if they can’t find the information they need before they click away.
You should also ensure your health care website complies with HIPAA regulations if it transmits Protected Health Information (PHI), which can include personally identifiable payment or medical information linked to health services.
Inconsistencies in Content
Your health care website’s home page and subpage designs should be consistent. Your website’s fonts, colors, and graphic elements must consistently convey a cohesive brand message to its visitors. Your clinic’s pages should be clear about their topics, and other visual elements like colors, tone, and iconography should all be consistent across your site.
Consistent content shows your clinic is professional and well-organized. It also improves user experience, a key factor that makes your visitor stay on your site.
Difficult To Read
Many clinical practices have websites that are difficult to read. Some have dark-colored text against a dark background, while some have fonts that are too small or difficult to read.
A wall of text is another common mistake in health care website design, where the page is a continuous stream of words or sentences. It can overwhelm visitors and make them look for another medical practice website that is easier to understand.
Complex language and excessive medical jargon make your web pages difficult to read. When making content, remember that your readers are lay people who don’t know much about medicine or health care.
No Social Media Integration
Social media is an excellent way to spread information about your practice. It can influence a person’s decision to choose a doctor, hospital, or health care facility.
Your website should display buttons linked to your clinic’s social media profiles.
You can also integrate social media into your website design. You can add a “click to share” function that automatically completes a post for visitors that links to your social media profile or allows them to share pages or links easily.
You and your staff should be involved in your clinic’s social media profile. Most social media users trust updates from doctors more than any other group. Posting news and updates will help build trust and credibility for your clinic.
Not Mobile-friendly
According to Pew Research Center, nearly three-quarters of all American adults own a smartphone, which has steadily increased in the past few years. You’re likely missing out on opportunities if your clinic doesn’t have a mobile-optimized website.
Many website designers and developers can help you create responsive websites that adapt to the screen size they’re being viewed on, improving patient experience.
Not Making or Updating Blogs
A blog section is an important feature your clinic’s website may not have. Or, you have one, but it isn’t regularly updated.
Don’t overlook this section; it’s the perfect place to show your expertise or share helpful tips and explanations. A survey conducted by Pricewaterhouse Cooper found that 60% of respondents trusted online medical resources posted by doctors, and 56% chose nurses.
Patients will trust your blog as a reliable learning resource about their health problems if you regularly update them with news and information. They may also share it with their family and friends, providing free publicity for your practice.
Regularly updating your blog will drive more visitors to your website, build credibility among your patients, and help your website rank higher on search engine results.
Cutting Back On Physician Profiles
Most patients use the internet to find health care providers, and a clinic’s website is where they often get their first impressions of their providers. This is your best chance to show your staff and practitioners in your clinic in the best light to make patients choose your practice.
Keep physician and staff profiles light and fun. Patients want friendly experts to care for them, so avoid using too many technical terms and not adding enough details to their profiles; otherwise, you’ll make them seem distant and cold.
No Calls to Action
The main reason you want people to visit your clinic’s website is to have them book an appointment or schedule a consultation once they’re there. You should use clear calls to action to tell your visitors what they need to do.
Guide your visitors into completing the desired action by using page elements, like a button to book an appointment or a form they can fill out to request a consultation. Make sure you display your contact information.
Not Optimizing Your Website
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about optimizing your clinic’s website and pages to rank higher on search engines like Google, which helps more people find your clinic’s website easier.
You can ensure your medical website is SEO-friendly by using elements like meta descriptions, keywords, and page titles. However, doing this yourself is time-consuming; it’s best to hire experts to do this for you.
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) is another option to market your website. Your ads will appear at the top or side of search engine results, and you pay whenever someone clicks on them. While this may be a good option, you should analyze your website’s metrics before you decide if it’s worth the cost.
Key Takeaway
Many mistakes can make or break your clinic’s online reach. Some of these include sharing too much or too little information, not making your website SEO-friendly, not making or updating your blogs, and not making it easy to read. Avoiding these mistakes is key to improving patient experience, increasing traffic to your website, and building credibility for your practice.
Avoid making these mistakes.
The biggest mistake most health care page owners make is not hiring professionals. Maintaining a website is a challenging and time-consuming task. It also takes a lot of time to master and implement.
Our experts at Advanced Digital Medical Services provide various online marketing services that improve your website’s traffic. Leave content creation, brand management, and web development to us and grow your clinic today.
