9 Medical Website Design & Content Must Haves

To develop the best medical website design, you must begin with the patient in mind. Take a moment and imagine you’re someone who needs to find a healthcare practice. What are the questions that drive your search? What do you want to know right away? What would make you feel a connection? This patient-focused perspective should guide all your decisions. Not sure where to begin? In today’s blog, we’ll discuss nine must-haves for a successful healthcare practice website. These tips cover how your site should be designed, ways to improve search rankings, and types of content to include. Let’s dig in.

1. Implement a Modern Website Design

People make snap decisions about a company based on the look and feel of their website. In fact, it takes about 50 milliseconds (that’s 0.05 seconds!) for website visitors to decide whether they like your site and more importantly, whether they’ll stay or leave. A dated-looking website could imply your practice isn’t very innovative or professional. That’s definitely not the impression you want to give as a healthcare provider.So, what does a modern website for a healthcare practice look like? It should feature:

• A clean and spacious layout with small blocks of text for easy reading
• Intuitive navigation with only a handful of top-level options
• High-quality images that convey a positive atmosphere and staff
• Clear call-to-action buttons on each page

[caption id="attachment_7486" align="aligncenter" width="845"]

A modern-looking website is minimalist. Notice there’s less text and more white space. Look for soothing colors and clear navigation. Source.[/caption]

2. Ensure Your Website is Mobile Responsive

[bctt tweet="All the features on your website should work correctly and have a clean look, regardless of what device the patient is using. In a 2017 study, BrightEdge found that 57% of all U.S. online traffic now comes from smartphones and tablets." username="pacific54"]The most important element of modern website design is mobile responsiveness. All the features on your website should work correctly and have a clean look, regardless of what device the patient is using. In a 2017 study, BrightEdge found that 57% of all U.S. online traffic now comes from smartphones and tablets. Healthcare practices must keep up with this trend to attract patients.An added benefit of making your site mobile responsive is better search engine ranking. If your website doesn’t work well on a smartphone, it can negatively impact your search rankings. Google’s goal is to keep mobile-dominated consumers happy, so if your website isn’t optimized for mobile devices, it likely won’t be shown to users.[caption id="attachment_7487" align="aligncenter" width="845"]

Regardless of what device your patient uses, your website should adjust to any screen. It needs to look good and work correctly on every device. Source.[/caption]

3. Make Your Website Fast

Just like design and responsiveness, site speed is critical. A slow site will make patients hit the back button faster than you can imagine. Amazingly, 53% of mobile site visitors leave a page if it takes longer than three seconds to load. Users either give up or spend less time on your website - usually never to return.There are many factors that go into the speed of your website - it could be hosting quality, coding issues, or even the size of your images. It’s best to have a digital marketing partner, like Pacific54, for regular technical tune-ups. We can make sure your site is fully optimized for speed. You don’t want to build a beautiful site and have patients leave because it’s too slow.[caption id="attachment_7488" align="aligncenter" width="845"]

Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights will analyze the content of a web page, then generate suggestions to make that page faster. Source.[/caption]

4. Create an Engaging About Page

Let’s move to the content of your website. As you’d expect, potential patients want to know about you and your staff before their appointment. According to a recent study by Yext, 76.3% of individuals reported searching for an individual provider, not a facility. They’re seeking a relationship with their healthcare provider. To decide if you’re a good fit, patients need more information than simply where you graduated and how long you’ve been practicing.Invest in recent, quality photos of each staff member along with friendly bios that talk about why they chose their profession, what they like most about the practice, and what they do in their free time. Anything you can do to reduce uncertainty and build trust will increase the likelihood a patient will contact you.[caption id="attachment_7489" align="aligncenter" width="845"]

Make your About page more appealing with smiling, friendly faces and great descriptions of your providers. Patients will feel more at ease, encouraging them to make an appointment. Source.[/caption]

5. Develop Individual Pages for Each Service

Having detailed descriptions of your services has two major benefits. First, it’s a helpful guide to patients, so they can be sure you’re the right provider for their specific needs. Second, by having individual pages for each type of service, there are more opportunities for search engines to present your website to prospective patients. Just be sure to add clear, accurate page titles and descriptions. That way, when these pages show up on the search results page, users are more likely to click.You may want to add a Q&A section on each page. This takes advantage of voice searches, which Google reports are 20% of mobile searches. Your answer will be more likely to match with what actual patients are speaking into their devices. It’s also a user-friendly format that provides a lot of information in bite-sized pieces.[caption id="attachment_7490" align="aligncenter" width="845"]

By building separate pages with helpful information about each of your specialties, you’ll add keywords naturally throughout your website, improving your search ranking.[/caption]

6. Produce Helpful, Fresh Content Regularly

In addition to the content on your About and Services pages, you’ll want to maintain a blog to provide ongoing helpful content to your patients. Similar to the Services page, this will have the dual benefit of educating your patients while also improving your search engine optimization (SEO). The more pages you have with useful information, the more opportunities for patients to find you online. Not convinced it’s worth the time? According to Demand Metric, content marketing creates three times as many leads as traditional marketing strategies. Blogging is an important element of your website for lead generation, which should be part of your healthcare marketing strategy.[caption id="attachment_7491" align="aligncenter" width="845"]

Blogging regularly has the dual benefit of educating your patients while also improving your search engine ranking. Source.[/caption]

7. Integrate Online Scheduling and Bill Payment Features

According to Health Leaders Media, about 85% of consumers still schedule doctor’s appointments by phone. However, when given a choice between physicians with similar experience, proximity, availability, and patient satisfaction ratings, the vast majority of consumers (about 75%) choose the physician with online scheduling. That’s a huge differentiator for your practice.Patients also want the convenience of paying their bills online. They’re accustomed to these self-service options in all other areas of their life, so it’s become an expectation. The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) found the average practice sends more than three paper bills before receiving payment. This has more to do with changing financial habits than it does willingness to pay. Adding this feature to your website will be appealing to new patients and help your bottom line.Even though online scheduling and bill payment require third-party software integrations with your website, it’s a valuable investment. Combined with other appointment management tools like email and text reminders, you’ll provide a great patient experience and avoid no-shows. Pacific54 can help with creating a seamless integration between your website and any external applications.[caption id="attachment_7492" align="aligncenter" width="845"]

Consumers are used to conveniences like online scheduling and payment in all other parts of their lives. Healthcare has been slow to implement these, so incorporating into your website makes you stand out. Source.[/caption]Consumers are used to conveniences like online scheduling and payment in all other parts of their lives. Healthcare has been slow to implement these, so incorporating into your website makes you stand out.

8. Add Patient Reviews to Your Website

To establish credibility, it’s critical to have patient reviews and testimonials on your website. Did you know that 82% of Americans use online reviews to evaluate physicians? Many patients prefer to read them on third-party sites like HealthGrades, Facebook, Google, and Yelp. You’ll want to claim your listing on these sites to monitor activity and respond to comments. Adding links to review sites on your website gives patients the sense that you have nothing to hide and welcome feedback. You should also encourage happy patients to add their feedback, either directly to the website or on a third-party site.[bctt tweet="To establish credibility, it’s critical to have patient reviews and testimonials on your website. Did you know that 82% of Americans use online reviews to evaluate physicians?" username="pacific54"][caption id="attachment_7493" align="aligncenter" width="845"]

82% of patients turn to online reviews before making an appointment. Sites like Yelp are important to monitor. Make sure you know what’s being said about your practice and link these back to your website. Source.[/caption]

9. Make it Easy to Contact You

Last but not least - let’s talk about contact information. Here’s the best way to create a one-click experience and make it easy to find.

• Include all contact information in your footer, in addition to having a contact page
• Add a Google map for easy access to driving directions
• Make sure mobile users can click on the phone number and immediately dial
• Have a contact form, not just an email address
• Include your hours of operation
• Provide links to all social media accounts (make sure someone monitors messages there)

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By providing all contact information in your footer (with easy to click options for those on their phone), you’ve made it easier for patients to contact you with one click.[/caption]--Medical website design should revolve around your patient. If your website is hard to read on a cell phone or slow to load, you’ve lost them right away. Make sure they stick around to get helpful information, build trust with your providers, and schedule an appointment with a few clicks. If you have these elements in place, you’ll be way ahead of many healthcare practices. Want to implement these tips for your website? Pacific54 is an experienced digital marketing agency, we would love to put our insights to work for you. Contact us for a consultation.