Medical Website Design Company Offers Tips and Guide For Doctors

Wondering Whether Your Medical Website Design Needs a Refresh? 8 Signs It’s Time To Upgrade!

Your healthcare website will make or break the success of your medical practice. Much like the appliances in your house, eventually, you are going to need to upgrade your medical practice’s website.

The longer you wait to update your website, the more potential patients you will miss converting into long term patients. They will instead choose one of your competitors because their websites are better looking and more geared to converting website visitors into patients. Below are eight telltale signs that it is time to upgrade your healthcare website.

Website Not User Friendly on Mobile

Your website may look great on a desktop computer. How does it look on a mobile device or a tablet? Can patients accomplish the same tasks on a smartphone and tablet with the same ease they can on a desktop computer? If not, then you have a problem. Today, the majority of current and potential patients are going to view your website at some point on a smartphone or tablet. Your website MUST be optimized for mobile devices. Do not convince yourself that patients, “Will simply come back to my website when they get home.” Sure, they might. Or they might go to the next choice in search results and choose your competitor who’s website is prepared for mobile visits. Websites on mobile devices must load quickly, provide the same functionality as the desktop version, and be user friendly.

References To Events and Updates From Years Ago

When was the last time you read through your website? Every now and again, read through your site. Check to see if there are references to past events that are still relevant to your medical practice. If you won an award in 2010 or participated in a community event in 2012 and never did either of those things again, consider if this information is still vital for patients to know. If you won the award multiple times over the years, it would be fine to list out each year you won, or if you sponsored an event every year in the past, that is much more relevant and helpful for patients to know. In addition to specific dates being mentioned, check the language and tone as well. If you “recently moved to our new facility” 3 years ago, it would be best to change the language to “We’ve operated out of our current location since 2017.”

Finally, check any pages that mention staff and doctors. This would first include your doctor or staff bio page if you have one. When you have new doctors join your practice, you will want to add them to that page. When a staff member or doctor leaves, you should remove them. With that in mind, check other service pages and picture galleries to see if there are any references to any old employees that should be updated.

Talks About Services No Longer Offered

The services you offer at your clinic should be reasonably steady, but if you add one or two new services throughout the years, make sure they are added to your website with solid, enga. This will help your overall SEO for people looking for services in your area and will only boost your rankings. If any service has seen an update with new tests, equipment used, or symptoms, patients should be looking for; those pages should be updated as well. Finally, if any services are no longer available or now have limited availability, those changes should be reflected on your website. An updated website will help keep your patients better informed and help boost your overall rankings online.

Pictures Are Out Of Date

Check to see if the pictures on your website are still up to date. If you use actual images of staff and your building, ensure they are relatively current. If a tree in a picture in front of your clinic is just a sapling but is today towering over your building, it may be time to update that snapshot. Look at any pictures of the interior of your facility and make sure the paint and furniture are the same. If either has been updated or changed, it is time to update and improve those pictures. 

Do you have to update the pictures if you use stock images? Generally, it is a good idea to review those pictures as well. While stock photos may have a slightly longer useful shelf life than actual images of your facility, even over time, they can look somewhat dated. If you look at stock photos from the 1980s, 1990s, and also the 2000s, it would be difficult to use those photos today and say they are “current.”

No Medical Engagement Chatbot

Medical Engagement Chatbots are becoming more and more popular on the medical websites. You do not want to be among the last to embrace this new technology in your area. A chatbot is a program that engages with a website visitor and mimics a real-life conversation with someone. Chatbots are used to answer the most frequent questions or requests a patient would call into the clinic to get answers. Ideally, this should free up the time for your staff to help those with more complicated problems and quickly get information to the website visitor who requested it. For any question or task beyond the programing of a chatbot, it can then capture contact information for staff to follow up on when they can. 

No Simple Way To Leave Reviews

Reviews of your medical practice are as critical as your website. You can facilitate the collection of reviews by installing a review app on your website. This app will ask a patient for feedback on their visit to your clinic. For those who give positive feedback, they can then be redirected to leave a review on Google. For those with neutral or negative feedback, they can be sent to an internal feedback form where they can then let you know why their experience was not positive. This gives you a chance to correct an issue and hopefully help that patient change their opinion into a positive one before they leave a 1-star review.

No Specials and Deals Posted

Patients, much like all other consumers, are always hungry for deals and specials. These deals and specials must be managed with care so they can be honored without exception. If someone believes they have a bargain, but then find out it can not be used, it often causes a very negative experience for that patient. Installing a Specials and Deals app on your website allows you to manage, track, and collect contact information from those looking to save some money. You can use this contact information to follow up with them later and market other products, services, or specials.

Online Appointment App

Providing a way for a patient to make their appointment will only increase the likelihood of website conversion of any visitors. An online appointment app that is connected with your patient database allows you to fill time during your hours of operation even when you are closed. If someone can make an appointment at 3 am to be seen the following day, they will! An appointment app never takes a day off or goes home at the end of the day. It allows your website to work for you when your entire staff is asleep. If you do not have an appointment app taking appointments after hours, and your competitor does, there is a good chance you will lose a potential patient to that competitor.

Examine these eight areas of your website, and if you feel anyone applies to your current medical practice’s site, it is time for an upgrade! The experts at PatientGain.com are ready to help you achieve your goals and update your website!