Creating an optimised, simple and effective website is no mean feat in 2021 – but a medical practice site takes this one step further. As a healthcare website, your medical practice fits into Google’s ‘Your Money or Your Life’ sites – meaning there are stricter quality checks as the site impacts a viewer’s health.
So, how can you make sure your medical website design meet the needs of the search engines and your users? Before we get started, we need to consider user experience. Consider the challenges of standard medical practice websites:
- Patient needs: is your site a ‘first point of sale’ or somewhere for existing patients to log in?
- Large number of services e.g., blood tests, repeat prescriptions, mental health
- The need for large amounts of patient information
This presents all sorts of navigational challenges, compounded with the new Google page experience update. Before you install the below features, make sure you condense your navigation bar to keep it simple.
Useful information
Naturally, all information on your medical practice website should be ‘useful’, but an organised library of resources will work wonders for your patients. Consider both your own resources (such as COVID-19 guidance) as well as links out to authoritative health websites, such as the NHS.
This needs to be well organised – for example, categorising by area of health (physical or mental) or body part. You should encourage your staff to direct patients to these resources, such as a link to a quitting smoking guide. Not only will this benefit your staff and patients; it will also increase interactivity with your site, saving time on phone calls.
Online booking
As above, managing phone lines can be one of the biggest challenges for medical practices. This is why it’s essential to offer an online booking system, helping to reduce human error and manage your staff’s time. It also makes patients accountable for their own bookings, and allows you to charge a deposit to cover for no-shows.
You can use these to manage appointments such as check-ups, consultations or GP visits – integrating with staff calendars for simpler scheduling.
Third-party software integration
Integrating with other software can help to make your patients’ lives even easier. Consider tools such as patient management apps, email marketing or CRM systems. These can all help to reduce administration time and streamline the experience for your patients.
You can then use these to communicate directly with patients, send updates, and better manage your practice teams’ time – all with automated, simple software.
Contact forms
Your medical practice site contact information should always be easy to find: name, address and telephone number. However, in many cases, patients will have less urgent enquiries. A contact form allows them to write out what they need, helping you to pass them on to the right staff member.
This trackable process also helps you to keep records of new patients and demand for particular products or services. To keep your form safe, add a captcha code and assure patients that you will never ask them for bank details or passwords.
Live chat
Bring your medical practice into the 21st Century with live chat. According to Kayako, four-fifths of businesses that used live chat saw an increase in customer loyalty, sales and revenue. Live chat helps to guide patients down that ‘funnel’ from the moment they land on the page – without the need for staff monitoring it.
Many patients will be looking for quick answers to simple questions, which an automated chat can guide them to. For example, you may want to direct them to the resources section of your site as mentioned above. You can even direct patients to a chat with a human, helping to serve their needs while still managing staff time.
Blogs/news
Far from the benefits of letting patients know what your surgery is up to, posting regular content is also great for search engine optimisation. You can use a blog or news section to:
- Update patients on opening hours, new staff or new services
- Share community-led stories
- Build up your digital PR
- Share useful ‘evergreen content’ on medical issues
- Climb Google rankings for key medical searches.
The more often you update your site, the more Google will crawl it – helping your services to show up in search results, where they should be.
Reviews
Reviews are a fantastic way of building up trust with your prospective customers. The good news is that there are so many ways to collect them. You can use a tool like Google My Business or Trustpilot to get coverage across as many sites as possible.
Better still, you can use these testimonials on your website, with widgets. Ask a good web designer to help you install these, or to get your star ratings to appear on Google. Reviews and SEO are also linked and collecting reviews can boost your SEO.
Remember, not all reviews will be good – but don’t see this as a bad thing. Rather, see it as an opportunity to respond to and engage with your customers. Responding in the right way can be just as powerful as a 5* review. Encourage your patients to leave reviews using those third-party tools such as email, or even SMS.
Video calling
The world is changing, and patient consultations are very much moving online! As above, another third-party tool you can integrate into your website is Zoom, or other video calling platforms like Microsoft teams.
Save time arranging appointments and keep the quick and easy consultations online. This offers a COVID-safe alternative and can help to convert more customers in the long term.
Why you need these features
The secret to converting customers, whether that’s a GP consultation or a cosmetic surgery appointment, is to provide a great user experience. Not only will these features get you recognised in the search engines; they’ll help to guide your customers when they reach the site.
One in 20 Google searches is health-related, so make sure you’re always on the top spot. Speak to a medical website design specialist today!
