lang="en-US"> Mistakes Medical Practice Websites Often Make
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Mistakes Medical Practice Websites Often Make

Net One Click
Website Mistakes Medical Practice Websites Often Make

If you aren’t utilizing your website as more than just a digital business brochure for your medical practice, you are missing out on a powerful marketing tool. A website holds an immense capacity to grow your practice and increase current patient engagement.

When done appropriately, your site does more than raise basic awareness about your medical services. Instead, it can establish your medical practice as an authority and thought leader in your market, funnel patients into the office, and minimize administrative costs by addressing questions that would have otherwise tied up your phone lines.

However, many medical practice sites neglect their website as a glorified business card, ultimately hindering the growth of their brand. Doing an in-depth evaluation of your business’s website to avoid the most common errors medical practices make with their website content and design can help you create a site that will serve as a powerful marketing tool.

Overlooking SEO (or Designing an Effective Website)

It is essential to start website development with a strategic foundation. At the core is search engine optimization (SEO). The architecture of your website design is the start of your SEO strategy. Too many businesses miss out on the crucial steps of designing an effective website and often look to SEO to fix the problems that are inherent in the design. Designing a website correctly includes the consideration of SEO as the architecture is being built and not after as if it is an add-on to the website.

SEO is a strategy that results in high-quality placements of your website content organically and not with paid ads, in Google. 9 out of 10 people in the United States use Google for search. If done correctly, your website strategy can place your content higher in search results when patients are searching for keywords relevant to your practice (find an obgyn in Glendale, AZ).

Keywords and Content

Mapping keywords relevant to your practice is necessary when designing your website. How often are patients searching for term “services?” It’s not likely that patients are searching for this keyword. Why then do most medical practices have a “services” page that includes a list of services offered but not a page for “annual wellness visit” or “gynecology?” At the same time, a practice will have a single page for every doctor or provider in the practice. The only way to get placement on Google for “pediatric doctor” is by having a page with content relevant to that keyword.

Examples;

Recommended action: Generate a list of keywords relevant to your practice. All services, all provider names and any additional relevant search terms that people use to find your practice. Do you have pages for all of those keywords?

On and Off-Page Components

There are many facets to SEO, but one important strategy is differentiating between on-page and off-page components.

On-site SEO refers to optimizing your website’s structure and content to improve its ranking on Google. This includes the architecture, keywords, meta descriptions, content quality, and internal links, among other factors. Ultimately on-site SEO focuses on designing your website correctly so it is attractive to Google and more likely to show up when people are searching for keywords relevant to your practice.

Off-site SEO refers to actions taken outside of your website to improve its SEO ranking. This includes link building, providing links in social media marketing and other techniques that increase your website’s visibility and reputation online. Off-site SEO focuses on building authority and credibility for your website across the internet.

Not Paying Attention to Website Performance

WordPress runs over 64% of all content management websites on the Internet. It’s important to make sure your website hosting is built correctly to run WordPress and that you use a company that optimizes specifically for WordPress. In addition to how many plugins you are running and which theme resource your designer uses, it is important to pay attention to your website performance on an ongoing basis.

Recommended activity: Go to Google’s PageSpeed Insights and enter in your homepage. It will give you two scores; one for mobile performance and one for desktop performance. With our clients, at least 60%-80% of all website traffic is on mobile, so you should be paying attention to this score.

Website Reads Like a Sales Brochure

Your site has the potential to be your best sales assistant. However, if it reads like promotional material, no one is going to any attention to it. In a sense, your website needs to reflect the culture of your practice.

For your website to act as an effective marketing tool for your medical practice, it should be built strategically, with specific goals in mind, like:

Your website visitors should be able to navigate your website easily with clear Call-to-Actions (CTAs) that lead them where they need to go. Simple things like buttons for “Book Appointment” or whatever relevant action is appropriate to your practice.

Emphasizing Style Over Content

Your website should be designed as a functional extension of your practice that serves a patient’s needs. It should not be a marketing brochure. It should be a marketing tool that supports your business objectives and takes some of the heavy lifting off of the practice. Consider simple content elements like forms your patients can fill out prior to visiting the office (patient forms download links), link to your patient portal, directions to your practice (google map integration), information about all of the main services patients are looking for, and provider information pages to support trust and reputation.

As I said above, the majority of website traffic for our clients is anywhere from 60%-80% on a mobile device. This means that beautiful website design on your desktop should be collapsing down into a simplified vertical scrolling user experience. Items like the giant picture on your homepage or the creative graphics on certain pages might be hidden to speed the page up to improve user experience. Desktop design is becoming irrelevant. But, a good website design is more crucial than ever.

Neglecting Your Blog Content

One of the most common mistakes made by medical practices is not having a content strategy and correctly leverage their blog to increase patient engagement. When it comes to the type of health information people are searching for, Trial Facts found that the most common searches are about a specific disease or medical problem. Consider the following:

Good blog content can position your medical practice as a leader in your local market by addressing frequently asked questions, illness your practice treats or services you offer.

Do you have a specific age group that you are targeting? Future parents? Women over 50?

The same TrialFacts research broke down internet users who search for health data online by age;

For an ObGyn, blog content might include articles for;

These can be educational pieces that go on your blog and can be sent via email to your patient list. Yes, other websites have these topics. But there is no reason why you cannot provide specific medical resources on your site for patients (and for Google) and tailor these pieces to fit your specific practice approach. You might have a contract for certain IUD’s or have a local network of counselors that can help with postpartum depression. These educational pieces should be on your website and serve a business need as well as give patients a valuable resource from a source they trust—their medical provider.

No Analytics

It’s surprising how many practice’s we encounter that have not added Google Analytics to their website. Google’s analytics product is free and necessary to review the business performance of the website. Is traffic increasing/decreasing? Which pages are most viewed? Where are patients coming from off-page? Answers lie in the analytics.

Neglect Trust-Building Components (SSL)

Short and sweet; make sure you have an SSL certificate. Starting in July 2018 (almost 5 years ago), Google started providing “Not Secure” warning notices to your website visitors. This is essential. If you do not have one, make sure you get one as soon as possible.

Wrapping Up

A good medical practice website design is an extension of your practice to patients. Your websites is the center of all of your marketing. The design and performance of your website should avoid the common mistakes above and reflect a patient-centric approach. Your website should be tended to and cultivated so it can contribute to the growth of your practice.

Need Help?

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, the first step is asking for help. Our medical website design service is $299 a month and we take care of everything­—hosting, performance, daily backups, security, content updates and even a redesign when necessary. Our website plan is a month-to-month service because we believe that we will continue to deliver excellent service and will prove it every month. Request a free consultation today.

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