If you run a business in the healthcare sector, you’ll know that having an effective website is vital for many reasons. Patients use online elements to find out about practices and practitioners, compare options, reach out for initial appointments, book follow-ups, learn about conditions, make payments, and more.
It’s necessary, then, to ensure your online presence does everything it must and helps your organization rather than harms it. Examine the below key elements that excellent medical websites have, so you know what to focus on when designing or updating yours.
Design that Works
One of the most critical factors is having user-friendly navigation on your site. Medical website designs must be responsive and easy to get around so people can tell how to find what they want, even if they don’t have much experience online. Use a straightforward navigation menu that directs visitors to relevant pages and makes it simple for them to see where they currently are on your site and how to get to the homepage when needed.
Group functions together and create headings and categories that make sense to your demographic. For example, you might have sections for new patients, returning patients, and those who need more information about your practice.
If visitors can’t tell how to achieve their browsing goals, they will either click away and go to another provider’s site or get frustrated and ring your practice, taking up and wasting valuable time for both parties. The same goes for a slow-loading site. Each page should load in just a couple of seconds. Achieve this by not putting too many or huge photographs and videos on pages and using a suitable website hosting platform that handles the amount of traffic your site gets.
Make sure your website is mobile-friendly, too. In this day and age, when so many people use smartphones regularly, websites must work well on smaller screens. Use a site design that will automatically streamline functionality and content to suit mobile users.
Enough Space
While you want your site to have all the details your target user looks for, you don’t want each page to be too cluttered. There must be enough white space left throughout so that visually the pages aren’t overwhelming or distracting. This improves readability and content flow, too. Note, though, that these ‘blank’ areas on your site don’t have to be white in color; they can be some other plain, neutral background color or texture.
Also, break up big blocks of text into smaller chunks so visitors can scan over information. Leave gaps between columns and sentences. You want space between graphics, too, as well as headings, including those in drop-down menus.
Right Choice of Font and Colors
To ensure everyone, including those with limited vision or those whose first language isn’t English, can read your website content, choose a user-friendly font that’s clear and simple. Avoid anything that looks like cursive or that doesn’t suit your organization’s branding style and message. Plus, make sure the font is large enough that people don’t have to squint to read it.
Colors are important, too. The shades you use on your website should be consistent with your company logo and other marketing collateral and be easy on the eyes. You don’t want so much color on each page that it hurts people’s brains to look at!
Targeted Information
A website mistake many medical companies make is not providing the right information online. Include plenty of details to answer all the likely, common questions visitors might have. Think about your specific target market. Who is the person who uses your services, in the main? What is their age group, lifestyle, location, socioeconomic status, potential medical issues, reason for getting in touch, etc.? Make sure all the data on your website is targeted to these people.
Include details about your practice and the people who work there, as most new website visitors want to get a feel for the brand and its practitioners. The About Us page should explain what you do and who you help, perhaps with added mission and vision statements. Keep details updated and make the information compelling, personal, and engaging.
Also, add patient testimonials and other feedback where possible, plus success stories, if relevant. Make your contact details comprehensive and easy to find, too, and include a call-to-action, so people know what to do next if they want to approach your practice about becoming a patient or learning more about your services.
Your team might be the most experienced and successful in the country, but if you don’t have a quality website to help potential and current patients make use of that skillset and expertise, that’s a real shame. Consider all the facets listed above to ensure your medical website is top-notch.
