10 Step SEO Checklist for Medical Practices

a person using a tablet for SEO

Understanding SEO (search engine optimization) is critical for growing a modern medical practice. With nearly 5% of daily Google searches being health-related, the internet significantly influences how patients find healthcare providers. This shift in human behavior underscores the importance of a strong online presence for medical practices. Most patients research and explore your practice’s digital presence to determine compatibility before they ever step foot in your office. In order to stand out and attract more patients, understanding and implementing SEO is absolutely crucial. Effective SEO extends beyond mere keyword repetition, requiring a comprehensive approach to ensure high visibility on search engine results pages. This visibility is key to connecting with potential patients in your area. Utilize the following checklist to assess the SEO health of your practice and identify areas of improvement.

1. Find Your Website’s Domain Authority Score

It’s important to start with a baseline understanding of your website’s Domain Authority. Think of it like taking the temperature of your site to understand its overall health. Domain Authority (DA) measures your website’s potential ranking on search engine result pages (SERPs), with scores ranging from 1 to 100. Higher scores indicate a greater likelihood of ranking well. DA is predicted through machine learning based on a domain’s presence in Google’s search results, where scores of 40-50 are average, 50-60 are good, and above 60 are excellent. Use the free Moz domain authority checker tool to find your site’s score.

2. Utilize Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free, user-friendly tool that provides insights into how visitors arrive at and interact with your website. It offers a dashboard for tracking trends, traffic, keyword usage, page popularity, visitor duration, and conversion actions like email sign-ups or appointments. Use it to understand how people are finding your site, and which elements are helping or hurting converting users into your patients. Utilizing this data is key to optimizing your site’s overall performance.

3. Set Up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster

Two other free tools are important for finding and resolving any technical issues with your site that may be impeding your performance. Google Search Console (GSC) offers insights on search traffic, including impressions, clicks, click through rates (CTR), and allows for the identification and resolution of technical issues to boost search performance. Bing Webmaster performs similar functions for Bing, aiding in site indexing, solving ranking issues, and analyzing backlinks. Both tools are essential for optimizing search engine visibility.

4. Submit a Site Map

This step can be easy to overlook but is a significant factor in your site’s overall performance. In simple terms, it tells search engines exactly how to find you, rather than relying on them to discover you. Think of it like a needle in a haystack emitting a signal—simple to do and worth it for quick results. A sitemap outlines your website’s structure, guiding search engines on which pages to crawl for ranking, which is essential for SEO. Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster both allow submission of sitemaps, which can significantly increase site visibility and traffic by ensuring main content pages are indexed.

5. Create Quality Backlinks

Backlinks are links from other sites to yours, serving as a key ranking factor for search engines. Basically, these links increase your credibility with search engines, indicating that your content is useful. Aim for over 60 quality backlinks for optimal performance, with 40-50 being adequate. Avoid paying for backlinks as they are often schemes; instead, seek natural inclusion on high-authority sites to boost your site’s visibility and credibility, such as setting up a professional profile on reputable platforms. Some examples might include setting up profiles on reputable healthcare directories and review sites, or engaging with local community events and getting mentioned on their websites.

6. Keep an Active Watch on Your Review

Online reviews can make or break a business. Over 90% of people read online reviews before choosing healthcare providers, with many influenced to choose or avoid doctors based on these reviews. It’s crucial for healthcare professionals to actively monitor and manage their online reputation across platforms like WebMD, Vitals, and Google My Business. And keep in mind that high-ranking reviews from authoritative sites like these also boost visibility. Responding to both positive and negative feedback can enhance your reputation, showing commitment to patient satisfaction. Reputation Management software from Officite makes this task much easier to manage.

7. Set Up Google My Business

Google My Business allows your practice to appear on Google Maps and enables customer interactions through reviews and questions. It’s a free platform to update practice information, such as hours and services, enhancing local search visibility. Utilizing this tool provides insights into how people discover your practice, offering opportunities to optimize your profile for better search performance. For example, you might add keywords related to new services offered at your practice to improve search results.

8. Claim Free Healthcare Directory Profiles

Provider profiles on healthcare directories like WebMD, Vitals, ZocDoc and Healthgrades not only help patients find you within the directory, but also help boost your website’s rankings on search engines like Google. A free healthcare directory profile sends signals to Google that your medical practice is in operation and therefore be indexed and featured in search results.

9. Claim Free Business Directory Profiles

Medical professionals can also utilize free business directory profiles like Yellow Pages, Yelp for Business, and Foursquare to boost their website’s ranking on search engines. Although patients may not be using these specific platforms to find a doctor, listing your profile builds your website’s overall domain authority and tells Google that other reputable websites are mentioning your medical practice.

10. Consider SEO Services from Officite

Officite has a team of experts with proven success in SEO strategy and practice, specific to the medical industry. This takes all of the guesswork out of setting up and maintaining an SEO strategy, and is an efficient way to get appointment-ready, local patients finding your practice quickly and easily.

Conclusion

Boosting your website’s search rankings is essential in today’s digital-first healthcare environment, where patients frequently research providers and health information online. A strategic approach to SEO is critical to ensure your practice appears prominently where potential patients are searching. Diversifying your online presence through various authoritative health platforms, optimizing your site for SEO, and managing online reviews are key steps to enhance visibility, attract patients, and build a strong online reputation for sustained success.

About Officite

Officite is a unique, all-in-one digital marketing service for medical practices. With both industry-specific knowledge and digital marketing expertise, we help practices grow their patient base with powerful websites, social media & reputation management, search engine solutions, telemedicine, and patient education. Officite automates your practice’s lengthy processes (i.e. appointment scheduling, patient forms, etc.), so you can save your team (and patients) more time.

If you found this checklist useful and are interested in scheduling a free website analysis with one of our SEO-experts, please visit the link below.

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Best Healthcare Web Design Tips to Attract and Engage Patients in 2023 and Beyond

How important is web design for medical websites? Initially, medical  practitioners who are only starting to establish their digital presence might be more concerned with simply getting the practice’s name established on their  websites, publishing a few pages containing important scheduling information, and being done with it. However, digital healthcare marketing is much more complex now and requires a more patient-centric approach based on the best practices of the time.

If you’re a medical practitioner and would like your website to attract and engage more patients this year, here  are several simple steps that you can take to improve your medical website’s design. Officite has closely worked with countless practices for years with their medical website design needs just like yours.

A well-designed medical website can help to attract new patients, improve patient engagement, and increase brand awareness.

More than 80% of patients use the internet to research their healthcare provider . This means you may be missing out on many potential patients if you don’t have a solid online presence; with the rise of online healthcare platforms like Healthgrades and Zocdoc, patients now have more options than ever when choosing a healthcare provider.

Effective medical web design can also help you to stand out and attract new patients.

Today, medical practitioners also need to be able to engage with potential/current patients regularly to meet growing demand. A practice’s website can provide a platform for this crucial engagement by giving patients access to information about their health, appointment scheduling, and other services.

A solid online presence helps increase your medical practice’s brand awareness. This can be beneficial for several reasons, like attracting new patients, improving patient retention, and increasing referrals. The overall impact of the different cogs in the system creates a unified set of benefits for any medical practice.

Medical web design is critical to providing an “easy to use” experience. When discussing best practices for designing a medical website, the term “design” refers to how the site’s organization and visual presentation work together to provide a satisfying user experience.

Like the chapters in a book, appropriately spaced parts allow the reader to take in the material one concept at a time. If you try to say too much, too soon, or in the incorrect order, you might as well say nothing at all.

When it comes to advice for designing a medical website, though, aesthetics is just as crucial. Choose an appealing color scheme, employ well-considered font systems that are easily interpreted by the visitor and follow the regulations of search engines, and design consistent graphic styles that elegantly convey concepts. These elements combined will help people view your medical brand as cohesive, trustworthy, and expert.

Unlock Your Medical Practice’s Digital Potential

Ready to revamp your site with patients in mind?

Officite offers the best personalized web design for your practice to not only attract new patients, but keep them coming back.

Are you seeking a comprehensive solution to enhance your medical website’s design and attract more patients? Join thousands of satisfied healthcare professionals who trust us to create beautiful, user-friendly websites that drive growth and success. Our specialists can help you create a stunning medical website that showcases your practice and medical services in the best possible light. With our cutting-edge design technology, you can ensure that your website is responsive, user-friendly, and optimized for search engines, helping you rank higher in search results and attract more patients to your practice. Don’t wait any longer to take your online presence to the next level.

Focus on Simplicity and Ease of Use

A fundamental aspect of creating a good web page is that it needs to be these three things: basic, succinct, and clear. Understand, that a successful medical web design needs to be patient-centered and in turn is responsive to the urgent needs of their clientele base. One of the most common errors a practice can make when designing a medical web page is by designing a page that is more user friendly for a doctor and staff rather than prioritizing the ease of use for a novice patient base.

Given those observations, it makes sense to have a strong focus on improving how a medical practice is represented to patients, making the medical practice the focal point of a medical website can mean neglecting the immediate needs of the patients. A poorly designed medical website can leave potential patients feeling confused or even anxious.

Reports, white papers, and presentations with the correct medical jargon can get anyone good grades in med school. However, putting up the same content online can produce the opposite effect on patients. Patients and their families probably already have a lot on their plate, and complicated content can make them lose interest in what you want to say.

Online visitors prefer bite-sized pieces of information presented in their local language. It’s also essential to present information geared explicitly at meeting the immediate needs of patients. It is essential to put thought into crafting and designing your medical website.

As a rule of thumb, it’s a good idea to plan a medical website for ease of use, considering the needs of potential patients.

Maintain Unified Visuals on Your Medical Website

Medical web design isn’t just about setting up a starter’s website with an introductory subscription to a CMS like WordPress.

Illustrations, infographics, icon styling, text styling, voice/writing style, reading level, typefaces, and logos all contribute to a unified brand image in the visitor’s mind. Visitors will perceive this immediately if a medical website appears to have been carefully built from start to finish. One of the most crucial guidelines for creating a successful medical website is to have a consistent identity throughout the pages.

Easy readability, quick navigation, and a clear order of importance all contribute to the consistent branding of your medical website.

You can increase appointments to your practice by ensuring the site’s design and tone are consistent with those of your practice and staff.

A Medical Website that Attracts and Engages

Do you struggle with an old and outdated medical website that doesn’t engage your patients or attract new ones? It’s time for a change. Officite can help you create a modern, user-friendly, responsive website that sets you apart. Officite can help you create a custom medical website that meets your unique needs and showcases your practice in the best possible light.

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Color Scheme

Have you ever entered a house or workplace and felt an immediate sense of atmosphere? Too frequently, medical websites (whether intentional or not) opt for either a stark or cool color scheme. However, the rise of e-commerce and social media platforms has increased consumers’ conscious awareness of the importance of deliberate color coordination.

Essentially, the more people use other websites with personable color palettes and warmer color schemes, the more they look for the same experience across websites from different markets or verticals. Visitors to medical websites have already developed a predisposition to respond positively to a warm and well-balanced color palette based on their experiences in previous contexts. The same is true for your website. Your color palette should serve both form and function.

Using well-defined and organized color schemes to encourage specific behaviors from site visitors is subtle, but important. With a well-thought-out color scheme, patients can easily find their way around your site and guide where you want them to go. Using color consistently to create a logical and pleasant visual experience can be the difference between a potential patient immediately leaving your site and staying for a while and responding to a call to action.

There is, however, something else about color schemes that is essential in modern medical website development. Let’s not forget about accessibility. If you operate in a highly regulated industry, like healthcare, and fail to adhere to the requirements set forth by the ADA, you may face numerous issues from potential and current patients unable to use your website up to legal consequences. The complete color spectrum has been defined, ranked, published, and can be digitally tested for compliance, making color depth, contrast, and colors the essential components of accessibility design and a necessary consideration for your practice website.

Maximize the Value of Visual Imagery

Images of everyday individuals who achieve success anywhere are also prevalent on medical websites. Though we may  argue that scrubs, surgical instruments, and other medical equipment are signs of expertise and dedication, they can also be too clinical, intimidating, and alienating to those worried about their health.

A better approach would be to focus on showing proof of your progress toward achieving different goals within your  medical practice. You can accomplish this by photographing models representing the ideal  patient profile for your practice.

Medical website images should also be adequately colored, lighted, and styled. Medical images should also be appropriately composed, framed, and cropped.

Finally, remember that various devices will be used to access your site. Therefore, all graphic assets must have sufficient resolution to maintain (or not pixelate) across various interface sizes, from highly high-resolution desktop and wall monitors to extremely low-resolution smartphones.

Publish Useful Content

Your medical website’s content should aim to answer known and anticipated needs, concerns, and questions, in keeping with the principle of ease of use and simplicity earlier.

For instance, a returning/previous patient visiting your website might be getting ready for an upcoming treatment and may be interested in reading more in-depth material to help them prepare for what to expect.

On the other hand, a potential patient may only want to look around and get a feel for the place.

For new patients, it’s essential to present the medical practice in a way that stresses that your practice has helpful staff and specialists who are both efficient and competent. Your medical website’s knowledge base should also be conducive to meeting everyday patient needs. Medical websites are also a great place to showcase past and current feedback and experiences from previous patients.

What about repeat visitors? Repeat visitors may be searching for more in-depth medical explanations of their symptoms.

Long-term patients will likely use your medical website for practical purposes, such as checking in, updating patient information, checking appointment schedules, settling bills, etc.

Remember that the importance of a piece of content depends on the visitor’s specific situation and where they are in their medical journey. All potential site visitors should be considered.

Make Your Website More User-Friendly

You can make a medical website more user-friendly in several ways, including using simple, streamlined, and intuitive forms, designing for mobile compatibility, using plain language, establishing a hierarchy, and using consistent fonts, button types, colors, sizes, etc.

In a nutshell, you should remove any barriers preventing site visitors from gaining anything from your pages and content. Remember: people visit medical websites to learn more about their symptoms, possible medical procedures, a medical practice’s appointment system, etc. They are there for a big reason each time. People don’t take medical websites lightly. Healing and care begin digitally when they imbibe the information precisely in their moments of need.

It’s also important to remember that many would-be patients would be judging your medical practice solely on the presentation of information on your medical website.

If your medical website is user-friendly and enjoyable to peruse, it already speaks volumes of what they can expect when setting an appointment with your practice.

Focus on Your Audience

It’s crucial to communicate in the same language as your target demographic. This concept is also valid for non-verbal forms of communication. It’s possible that someone who is already in pain wouldn’t respond well to bright colors and cheery patterns.

However, showing the visitor that someone they can relate to can help bring normalcy back to their life can help ease their mind and gain their trust in your practice. And reassuring the visitor how and why such relief is attainable can be done quickly through many methods, like posting an easy-to-read infographic.

Responding thoughtfully to site visitors’ concerns can ease their anxiety immediately. Furthermore, communicating genuine optimism through web design can effectively reach out to site visitors and establish rapport.

Get Next-Level Patient Engagement and Retention

Take your medical practice to the next level with a new, patient-focused medical website that meets patient needs. Officite can help you create a custom website that looks great and makes it easy for your patients to find the information they need and connect with your practice. Whether you’re looking for online appointment scheduling, patient portals, or other features, Officite can help you create a website that meets your unique needs and exceeds your patients’ expectations.

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Mobile-Friendliness Matters

Mobile devices include laptops, tablets, phablets, and smartphones. There are over ten different proportions and screen sizes to consider when focusing on making your website mobile-friendly.

This becomes exponentially more complicated when considering the requirement for both portrait (vertical) and landscape (horizontal) viewing orientations. The same information on a 55-inch screen must also be suitable for a smartphone. One of the most important things to remember when designing a medical website is to anticipate these authentic dynamics. The length, size, and content presentation on various devices are becoming increasingly important. The success of a healthcare website in converting casual browsers into paying customers depends on several factors, not the least of which is the variety of devices users may access the site.

Responsive Design

Responsive design focuses on creating websites that adapt to different screen sizes of desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

This means that a website with a responsive design will look and function well on any device without needing separate versions of the site or mobile apps. With responsive design, medical websites can ensure their content is easily readable and accessible on any device.

With responsive design, users can find the info they need quickly and easily without having to zoom in or scroll around to view it.

Medical websites must be accessible to many people, including those with disabilities. Responsive design can help ensure the site is optimized for accessibility features such as screen readers and other assistive technologies. A responsive website is more likely to rank higher in SERPs than a site not optimized for mobile devices. Google prefers mobile-friendly sites that provide a good user experience across all devices.

Medical websites need to maintain a consistent brand identity across all devices. With responsive design, the site’s layout, color scheme, and other design elements can be easily adapted to fit different screen sizes and devices while maintaining a consistent look and feel.

Key Takeaways

Medical web design plays a key role in attracting and retaining patients, improving patient satisfaction, and ultimately growing the practice.

A well-designed medical website can give patients easy access to the practice and its services, enable online appointment scheduling and patient portals, and showcase the practice in the best possible light.

Additionally, a website optimized for search engines and mobile devices can help the practice rank higher in search results and reach a wider audience. Overall, investing in medical web design is essential for medical practitioners who want to stay competitive in today’s digital age and provide the best possible experience for their patients.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does responsive design benefit medical websites?

A responsive website is more likely to rank higher in search engine results pages than a site not optimized for mobile devices. Remember that search engines prefer mobile-friendly sites that provide a good user experience across all devices. Medical websites need to maintain a consistent brand identity across all devices. With responsive design, the site’s layout, color scheme, and other design elements can be easily adapted to fit different screen sizes and devices while maintaining a consistent look and feel.

How can medical websites ensure that their content is optimized for accessibility features?

There are several methods of optimizing a medical website for accessibility features. Use clear and descriptive headings to organize content on the website. This helps users with screen readers and other technologies comprehend the structure of the content. Alt text describes an image that appears when the image cannot be displayed. Including alt text for images on medical websites can help users with visual impairments comprehend the image’s content.

Avoid generic link text. Instead, use descriptive link text that describes the linked page’s content. For multimedia content such as videos or podcasts, provide transcripts that users can read to understand the content. Use plain language to make content easy to understand for all users, including those with cognitive or reading disabilities. Ensure sufficient contrast between background color and text to make the content legible for users with visual impairments.

What is the best way to design patient portals for medical websites?

Designing patient portals for medical websites requires careful consideration of the needs and preferences of patients. Patient portals should be designed to be easy to use and navigate. Keep the design simple and intuitive, with clear labels and instructions. Patients should be able to quickly find the information they need, such as their medical records, test results, and appointment information. Make sure this information is prominently displayed and easy to access.

Use plain language to make it easy for patients to understand the information provided in the portal. Avoid using medical jargon or complex terminology. Patients may need help navigating the portal or understanding the information provided. Make sure there is a way for patients to provide feedback or get support if they need it. Patient portals contain sensitive information, so it is essential to ensure the portal is secure and protected from unauthorized access.

How can medical websites ensure that patient information is kept secure?

Medical websites must make sure that patient data is kept safe. All patient data should be sent and stored using encryption. This indicates that the data is encrypted such that anyone lacking the encryption key is unable to decode it. Access restrictions can restrict who gets access to patient data. Only authorized workers ought to have access to private patient data.

Medical websites should use secure hosting services that provide safeguards against hacking and other security breaches. All software used on the medical website should be regularly updated to address any vulnerabilities or security issues. Staff should receive regular training on security best practices and how to handle patient information. Medical websites should follow the guidelines set forth by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to ensure that patient information is kept secure and private. Regular security audits can help identify any vulnerabilities or weaknesses in the security system and allow for necessary changes to be made.

Winning Healthcare Digital Marketing Strategies During A Recession: Get More Value for Your Money

A recession refers to a significant downturn in economic activity and growth in a country. One of the leading causes of recession is reduced consumption and investments, as corporations and other entities slow down (usually because of debt obligations). As such, the current recession also affects medical practices at varying rates.

If you want to safeguard your medical practice this year (and beyond, because the impact of recessions do last), learning more effective medical marketing during a recession is essential.

Medical Marketing in a Recession isn’t Complicated with the Right Partner

Marketing during a recession can help your medical practice acquire more patients, and regardless of the size of your practice, recession marketing can help brighten things for everyone.

The right digital marketing platform can also help you accomplish other essential marketing activities like SEO, PPC, and reputation management. However, cutting your marketing budget during the recession may be counterproductive, according to the Harvard Business Review.

Medical practitioners are often at a crossroads when they decide to increase their marketing efforts during a recession. Mainly, medical practitioners want to maximize the value of their hard-earned cash by using the proper channels in digital marketing.

It’s Time to Attract Patients, Maximize Your Investment, and Thrive In A Recession

Interested in overcoming recession hurdles? Start by seeking guidance from our marketing specialists and amplify your practice’s growth today. Increase your engagement in your area of practice and maximize the value of your marketing budget to reach more patients this year.

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Three Common Mistakes When Marketing During a Recession

No one wants to make mistakes, especially now that medical practices need viable solutions to improve visibility and cash flow. Here are three things that medical practices should avoid when engaging in digital marketing during a recession:

1. Freezing Up and Not Doing Anything

The recession can be overwhelming, and it’s easy to freeze and forget that marketing is an active process/effort where you can measure results differently. If you feel that the recession is a sign that you should “save up” and do nothing, we’re here to tell you that taking advantage of opportunities during the recession is a much better solution.

It all begins with partnering with a reliable platform and intelligent marketers who specialize in working with medical practitioners. Then, instead of pulling down the marketing flag, raise it at full mast because medical practices can succeed during the recession.

2. Relying on “Feel Good” Marketing

Some older strategies from traditional marketing are now outliers in the era of social media and mobile websites. One such strategy is “feel-good marketing,” which no longer suffices in the age of personalized patient experiences. The success or contribution of activities like sponsoring sports events and giving away promotional materials (like mugs) is hard to measure. The medical practice loses even more precious resources if they don’t work.

3. Throwing Things at the Wall (And Hoping Something Sticks)

Not having a clear plan and just “throwing things until something sticks” can be just as ineffective as feel-good marketing or not having a marketing plan.

When your marketing budget is tight, it’s essential to get to the heart of the matter: 

  • Establishing trust with potential patients
  • Providing patient education
  • Make it possible for patients to connect with you through the proper channels

Having a reliable digital marketing partner saves you from the guesswork and helps maximize your marketing budget at any stage of the effort.

Lets Ride Out This Wave Together

It’s Time to Attract Patients, Maximize Your Investment, and Thrive In A Recession

Effective Healthcare Digital Marketing Channels this Year

Online patient trends in the past decades have significantly impacted the marketing strategies employed by medical practices. Patients nowadays want cutting-edge digital healthcare services, just as they look for customized patient experiences and exceptional digital experiences in other markets. In addition, patients now want the same ease and convenience when looking for a healthcare provider.

Medical practitioners and healthcare systems are constantly adapting and evolving with the times. They do so to keep up with the times and to prevent them from falling behind.

Potential patients now have more options for finding an ideal healthcare provider or medical practice, and the right digital marketing strategies can ensure that they will be taken seriously.

Patients are looking online for health-related information now more than ever, but they have done so for years. Patients use the information they see online to decide how to get help for their health conditions.

Even if your current medical practice is doing well with its existing number of patients, the current recession necessitates reviewing digital marketing strategies that can help you improve your practice’s reach and financial outlook. Digital marketing platforms like Officite can help get your medical practice on the right track in recession marketing.

It’s natural for healthcare providers to want to focus on patient care, and that might leave even less time for marketing planning. That’s why working with a healthcare digital marketing platform that offers a great track record and expertise working specifically with doctors makes sense.

While this may require you to draft a marketing budget to tap different digital marketing channels, you can expect great ROI from all your efforts.

Digital marketing in the healthcare industry might be challenging for a beginner because of the complex regulatory framework that must be followed to avoid legal ramifications. Therefore, it is crucial that you only go about through a healthcare digital marketing platform that knows how HIPAA compliance works.

SEO for Healthcare Digital Marketing

Medical practices can use search engine optimization to make their websites a comprehensive and trustable resource for patients seeking information about the specific medical care they offer.

Medical practices can also foster long-term engagement with patients by providing informative and engaging patient education materials. SEO helps a healthcare provider’s website through better visibility and provides a better user experience by following industry best practices in publishing content and web design. Among the top priorities of SEO for medical practitioners are the following:

  • Improving the ranking of pages and content for essential keywords related to your top services
  • Omnichannel distribution of branding and marketing assets
  • Improving the website’s clickthrough rate (CTR)

Social Media Marketing for Doctors

Medical practices can use social media marketing to improve focus and reach more ideal patients. Some of the social media marketing activities that will significantly benefit a medical practitioner are:

  • Routinely publishing information about accomplishments in your practice
  • Informing patients of medical services and their benefits
  • Making sure that your Facebook Messenger chatbot can interact well with potential patients
  • Providing the appropriate links to patients so they know where to go to learn more about your medical practice
  • Publishing more patient education materials
  • Creating and posting interesting and engaging visuals to boost your medical practice’s branding efforts online

Healthcare PPC Marketing

PPC ads can rapidly open new doors and bring in more qualified visitors, increasing the number of potential patients for your medical practice or healthcare business. In addition, you may obtain a clear picture of what works and what doesn’t by monitoring the daily performance of your ads across all the selected internet platforms.

Platforms like Officite can help you maximize your marketing budget by using 360-degree marketing, reducing ad budget waste, and adhering to established ad guidelines.

Reputation Management for Doctors

The proper healthcare digital marketing partner can offer invaluable assistance in managing a company’s online reputation. Establishing, cultivating, and upholding your medical practice’s online reputation as a trustworthy healthcare provider in the United States goes a long way.

Reputation management is essential to any healthcare digital marketing effort during the recession. If you love patient reviews, you’ll love the concept’s expansion. Online reputation management practices ensure your clinic is well-represented on Google Reviews and other review sites that matter to patients.

Medical professionals must be well-represented in their area of practice and recession marketing guarantees that you can improve your ROI and help your practice flourish through economic fluctuations. So, while we can’t do anything about the fluctuating nature of the economy, we can do something about the success of your medical practice.

Email Marketing for Physicians

Email marketing for healthcare providers always begins with segmentation or by sorting your email list into subgroups based on demographics or patient behavior. However, crafting effective emails is also essential: for example, the subject line carries so much weight in the context of people opening your emails (or not).

Healthcare providers should aim for well-planned, automated email marketing to remind patients regularly of their existence and products. In addition to attracting new patients, email marketing can help you keep the ones you already have happy with your healthcare business.

Key Takeaways:

Medical marketing during a recession is best accomplished by combining digital marketing channels to increase patient reach and engagement.

Doctors are often at a crossroads regarding how to use their healthcare marketing budgets. Healthcare providers can solve this problem by partnering with a reliable marketing partner like Officite.

Relying on “feel-good marketing” and other conventional strategies can lead to resource wastage, which is the last thing medical practices need during the recession.

Search engine optimization increases website traffic and patient engagement, and creates more opportunities to address patient pain points even before patients walk into your office.

Social media marketing offers countless opportunities for low-cost patient education and engagement moments that will continually put your medical practice in patients’ memories repeatedly through regular communication via different platforms.

Starting a PPC campaign is one of the most efficient ways to dive into the competitive market and put your brand in front of patients. Efficient ad budgets use and improve the moving parts that make online ads work.

Platforms like Officite can help you maximize your marketing budget by using 360-degree marketing, reducing ad budget waste, and adhering to established ad guidelines.

Unlock Your Practice’s Full Potential With Digital Marketing

Any form of marketing that employs electronic media and devices can be considered digital marketing. In the broader digital marketing industry, experts craft specialized messages and measure their impact over time by leveraging different channels that target specific points of a user’s journey online.

Healthcare digital marketing is no different from other types of digital marketing campaigns that focus on people who use their phones, tablet, or PC.

When you sign up for Officite to manage your digital marketing campaigns, you gain the advantage of strategy and technology. In addition, you’ll also gain access to exclusive marketing tools and experts who can help you establish a game plan to exceed your practice goals.

Digital marketing uses a variety of channels and materials, including social media posts, Facebook ads, SEO, display ads, and video marketing.

Digital marketing is frequently contrasted with “traditional marketing” techniques such as magazine advertisements, billboards, and even direct mail. Yet, oddly, television is typically grouped with conventional marketing.

Did you know that daily Internet usage among Americans exceeds 75%?

In addition, 43% of Americans go online multiple times per day, and 26% are online “almost constantly.”

These numbers are even more significant for mobile internet users. For example, 89% of Americans go online at least once per day, and 31% are online nearly continuously.

Doctors must use digital marketing for healthcare professionals by building a trusted brand online and striving to create an excellent patient experience for users. Excellent patient experience on your website and social media channels will attract even more patients, and will allow you to test different channels to see which ones work best for your patients, their families, and all those associated with their care.

A healthcare digital marketing strategy enables you to utilize various digital channels like email marketing, search engine optimization, PPC, and Facebook ads. In addition, a powerful strategy allows you to connect with existing patients and attract new ones through optimized content delivery, advertising, social media engagement, and reputation management.

These digital marketing channels help your medical practice create a warm and welcoming brand online with exceptional patient education and convenient services like online patient booking and scheduling.

Leverage the Internet to Build Your Medical Practice’s Reputation and Attract More Patients

Avoid costly errors in establishing your medical practice’s healthcare marketing strategy. Instead, begin your healthcare marketing strategy with best-in-class tools and the guidance of growth consultants who work with healthcare providers in different fields and know your needs at every campaign phase.

The State of Healthcare Marketing in 2023

In a healthcare marketing report by the Harvard Business Review, HBR reiterated that healthcare systems, in general, need to start looking at and understanding patients as consumers to communicate effectively with them, online.

The most significant factor is that patients now have more options in seeking care today than twenty years ago. Therefore, medical practices need to form a strategy centered on the following significant points:

1. How do patients make decisions related to selecting their healthcare providers?

2. What motivates patients to contact medical practices to ask for more information or schedule appointments?

3. Why, how, and where do patients communicate with medical practitioners?

Today, 44% of Americans have an active subscription to Amazon Prime, ironically putting Amazon Prime at the top when utilizing user behavior on the Internet.

A medical practice will benefit significantly from understanding, designing for, and meeting patient preferences online. The process begins by establishing the right metrics and leveraging the correct data.

Officite offers doctors the opportunity to begin collecting actual patient/user behavior on their website through our suite of healthcare digital marketing solutions. Healthcare digital marketing goes beyond patient satisfaction metrics.

Patient satisfaction metrics alone do not suffice. Instead, healthcare practitioners must look at what consumers are doing online and align their digital healthcare marketing strategy to meet patients where they are on the Internet and provide the information they need.

Transform Your Medical Practice on the Internet Starting Today

Effective digital healthcare marketing involves many moving parts and it is easy to get lost in the process without an experienced partner. Officite offers a suite of healthcare marketing solutions that are HIPAA-compliant and are geared toward transforming medical practices on the internet.

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Digital Healthcare Marketing Blueprint

Like any other system, digital healthcare marketing has many smaller systems that you can use to achieve your marketing goals. Let’s take a look at the blueprint of a contemporary digital marketing strategy for healthcare providers and medical practices in various disciplines, and see how these techniques and channels may help you reach your goals while maximizing your healthcare marketing budget.

Build and Optimize Your Website with Medical Web Design

Medical web design is the process of improving a website’s structure and organization to better fit the preferences and demands of patients. Consider medical web design as a user-centered approach for redesigning and upgrading your present website.

Ultimately, no two medical offices are the same. A pediatrician’s office, for example, may contain postnatal care posters, but a sports medicine clinic may display images of well-known sports heroes, motivational materials, and maybe physical models relating to sports-related ailments.

A successful medical office should  always be designed with their patient population in mind.

In the same way that your medical office serves as the heart of your practice, your website is the central hub for your digital presence. And similarly, it is important to  consider your pages  layout so it becomes an essential  resource for your patients.

With a solid medical design, your website can serve as a platform for establishing your medical practice’s identity and empowering patients with the ability to access vital information and get things done.

Optimized medical web design enables new patients to learn all about your medical services and initiate the steps to obtain care. Consider incorporating a medical website that can also have payment gateway features that allow old and new patients to update their accounts.

Additionally, a feature-rich medical website can help old and new patients to receive event or news updates and answers to common questions.

However, designing your medical website can be daunting. It takes countless hours to hard-code HTML and CSS. Even with the help of a website builder, you may need to commit dozens of hours monthly to optimize your website.

It’s unlikely for medical practitioners to take on the role as a part-time webmaster unless they have some experience in coding and web design. Therefore, it’s vital to first sign up for a platform that offers optimized web design options for your medical practice, so you won’t have to learn everything from scratch.

Get Search Engine Optimization for Doctors

Finding a doctor can be done in several ways, but patients now use the Internet more than ever to locate suitable and independent medical providers.

Within seconds of entering a keyword or phrase into a search engine, patients can now see dozens (if not hundreds) of potential choices for doctors. SEO is the most effective way to ensure that your website appears at the top of relevant search results and organically attract more visitors.

By organically, we mean that your website will appear at the forefront of initial search results without display ads. There’s no contradiction between running ads and using SEO: you generate traffic from both channels, and your medical practice will thrive from both efforts.

Search engines are continually crawling the web for fresh and updated content.

For example, when someone searches for a particular subject, such as “doctors,” the system compiles the results and assigns each page a ranking. So it’s possible to get millions of results with a broad search, but you might only get a few thousand from a narrow one.

The content and tags on your website provide hints as to the nature of the information and its applicability to the search. For example, a value called “domain authority” is assigned to every website, and the higher the value, the higher the website will appear in search engine results. Of course, external factors, such as links from other websites, also play a role.

If your website only appears on the second or third page of search results, that’s not good enough. You must appear on the first page of search results, ideally in the top three spots. The top results receive more clicks and gain from the advantages of good medical website SEO.

Enhance Patient Experience with Medical Marketing Technologies

The medical industry thrives on patient communication and care. Therefore, your website must provide the opportunity to showcase your medical practice and actively engage previous and new patients in meaningful ways.

You can accomplish this while focusing on your healthcare marketing goals with medical marketing technologies.

Medical marketing technologies grew plenty from two decades ago, and we can confidently say that these technologies increase not just patient satisfaction but they also bridge the gap between patients and doctors quite easily. By enriching the online experience and by providing endless conveniences to patients looking to connect with a doctor to ask questions and schedule an appointment.

The sheer number of patient communication touchpoints is staggering and may result in  many missed opportunities to address feedback, or foster patient satisfaction. Loyalty and patient satisfaction are frequently contingent upon a healthcare provider’s communication skills. Healthcare marketing technologies help your medical practice communicate better on the Internet, where everyone is looking for a healthcare provider.

A telehealth platform provides increased patient security while providing seamless video conferencing capabilities, administrative and billing tools, and website integration. The pandemic showed the medical industry how vital the Internet is for the availability and continuity of care. As the demand for telehealth services continues, it’s best to refine your website’s telehealth offerings this year.

A doctor portal simplifies different processes and centralizes communication between doctors and patients. A dedicated doctor portal allows you to manage appointments, monitor website performance, and perform other tasks efficiently within a single hub.

Automate Patient Scheduling

Online booking for doctors offers a simple interface for patients to schedule an appointment with their doctors. In addition, an online booking solution is easy to customize and allows doctors to book more appointments with patients online. Whether the traffic is coming from display ads, social media, or SEO efforts, the impact would be positive: patients can schedule appointments with a press of a button, and your staff will have an easier time monitoring and tracking these appointments from your medical office.

As healthcare consumers demand greater access and convenience, brand loyalty is declining. Patients who were once loyal to a particular organization or independent medical practice will transition to doctors to receive the desired experience. Many patients have already made a change.

More than 1/3 of patients have switched healthcare providers in the past two years, citing a lack of accessibility as the primary reason for the change.

How can independent medical practices prevent more attrition in the coming years?

One straightforward solution is improving access and convenience in the digital realm. For example, adding online booking for doctors typically results in greater patient satisfaction, putting your independent medical practice in the same sandbox as older competitors.

Online scheduling easily accomplishes both objectives.

If your independent medical practice does not offer online patient booking, it is time to add an online doctor booking to your website and social media profiles.

This fundamental healthcare marketing feature offers immediate patient satisfaction. Nearly 75% of patients would choose a doctor offering this feature online.

The transition to online scheduling provides your practice with a competitive advantage and relieves your front office personnel of administrative duties. As a result, your team can concentrate on patient visits and requests with fewer schedule-related duties.

Online booking for doctors stands as a critical differentiator. Online scheduling can help increase long-term practice growth and new patient acquisition.

Patient convenience is a huge priority for today’s busy patients. In addition to insurance coverage, patients rank convenience as the most influential factor when selecting a healthcare provider.

Since setting an appointment with a doctor is frequently a patient’s first interaction with a medical office, it is essential to provide a streamlined, reasonable process that leaves a positive impression.

When patients have the option to schedule appointments online, they can do so at their convenience without having to contact your scheduler or front desk during business hours. Online scheduling can also assist you in converting new visitors to patients when your phone line is busy, or your medical office is closed.

Digital Reputation Management for Doctors

When consumers are seeking a specialist or a certain physician, they often look them up online first. At present, well over 69% of patients conduct local business searches monthly or even more often. This is all while 94% of patients rely on online patient reviews before calling to schedule an appointment.

Doctors who ignore their internet reputations or don’t know how to manage them risk losing valued patients. And in today’s digital marketing environment, patient acquisition is everything. As a result, digital reputation management serves as a considerable part of the patient acquisition process.

The data is clear: independent medical practitioners cannot afford not to have medical online reviews management.

Monitoring, maintaining, and enhancing a doctor’s or medical practice’s internet reputation are the pillars of digital reputation management for doctors.

Your internet profiles must be managed, and any unfavorable information posted about your medical practice must be monitored, reviewed, and, if possible, removed.

As we’ve already established, patients conduct their homework on doctors online before scheduling an appointment. As a result, a doctor’s ability to gain new patients is strongly influenced by their internet reputation.

Poor online reputation can result in a loss of patients. Therefore, doctors must keep up with their internet reputations on Yelp, Google, and Healthgrades. Patients should be encouraged to post reviews, and any complaints should be addressed immediately. Without consistent digital reputation management, complaints may be left unsolved for weeks or months, and who knows what impact those reviews would have already had on your medical practice.

Implementing a crisis management strategy during unfavorable events is also integral to medical reputation management.

When a doctor takes the time to manage their online reputation, they can be assured that their patients will find only positive, up-to-date information from the doctor.

The doctor’s ability to gain new patients and keep the ones they already have can be negatively affected. Patients are doing more research online before choosing a physician. To choose a physician, they research their options online.

A doctor’s positive online reputation influences patient decision-making. So you can expect more calls and more appointments once you set the gears of digital reputation management into motion.

Independent medical practitioners must build credibility and trust with the public via ratings and reviews.

Bad digital feedback about doctors can still be addressed. Instead of looking away from these negative reviews (or lack of feedback online), you can start taking steps to start building a better-looking online reputation.

The process initially may involve handling unfavorable feedback or responding to incorrect information posted online.

The spread of false or damaging information might harm a doctor’s reputation and ability to gain new patients.

Reputation management helps medical professionals mitigate the effects of negative publicity.

When you watch your internet reputation, you can be assured that everything is as it should be. It’s pretty annoying when a practice’s website has out-of-date material that could waste a patient’s time.

Overall, a good internet reputation is crucial to the success of any organization, and the medical profession is no exception. A solid reputation may bring in new clients, keep the ones they already have happy, and help your medical practice expand amidst the recession.

Running PPC Ads and Facebook Ads

Medical clinics have successfully used Facebook ads to attract new patients and book more appointments. Advertising on their extensive network, which includes Instagram, enables you to reach potential new patients based on their location, platform activities, and demographic.

Instagram and Facebook ads typically appear in the user’s newsfeed while perusing other content. However, these ads can also be displayed in other locations. These ads can be videos, GIFs, or images matched with compelling copy.

Facebook has many advantages for medical offices looking to attract new patients and book appointments. Facebook advertising is highly visual and engaging and remains an excellent method to capture the attention of potential patients by offering and telling captivating stories through ads.

Using this “push” promotion technique, you can introduce yourself to a broader audience of potential patients.

Using Google ads allows independent medical practitioners to target audiences interested in medical services. Google Ads also allow advertisers to track whether or not people click on the ad or not.

Google Ads is as simple and effective as it gets.

Google’s PPC (or Pay-Per-Click) ads appear above organic results, so if you’re starting with SEO, you don’t have to worry about boosting your patient acquisition efforts in the first few weeks or months.

PPC ad spend is under your control and can be adjusted as you see fit. PPC advertising can be budgeted for, and the total cost is under your control. In addition, pay-per-click advertising gives you control over where your messages appear. This means that PPC can be used to create highly focused marketing programs.

PPC shows your adverts to the right people at the appropriate time. PPC can generate traffic, sales, and patients rapidly. You can quickly increase patient acquisition rates by using pay-per-click advertising.

PPC helps you get more visitors online for less money and in less time.

Return on investment is the holy grail of any marketing effort. However, regarding increasing your return on investment, PPC is one of the most effective marketing strategies.

PPC and SEO go hand in hand and can rapidly generate conversions from targeted visitors to your website or landing page with its help.

Some patients favor organic search, while others like ads. Combining SEO with PPC ensures you cover all bases. Therefore, displaying paid and organic search results indicates that your content is more relevant than your competitors.

Key Takeaways

In today’s digital age, digital marketing has become a vital tool for growing medical practices and enhancing their reputation. Just like other industries, healthcare professionals can leverage various digital channels to connect with patients and provide exceptional experiences and care. Here are 10 key takeaways from this article:

1. Understanding Digital Marketing: Digital marketing encompasses various electronic media and devices, allowing healthcare professionals to reach patients through multiple online channels. Digital marketing surpasses traditional methods like magazine ads and billboards, allowing you to reach a broader and more engaged audience. With over 75% of Americans using the internet daily, leveraging digital marketing becomes crucial to meet patient preferences and expectations.

2. Officite Advantage: Officite offers a blend of strategy, technology, and expert assistance to help you excel in digital marketing, giving you access to marketing tools and professionals to surpass your practice goals.

3. Diverse Strategy & Channels: Implement a healthcare digital marketing strategy, incorporating email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and Facebook ads to connect with patients and boost your online reputation. Utilize a mix of digital marketing tools, including social media, Facebook ads, SEO, display ads, and video marketing, to engage with patients across different platforms.

4. Website Optimization: Medical web design plays a pivotal role in creating an informative, patient-centered website that offers essential information and enables easy interactions.

5. SEO for Visibility: Employ search engine optimization (SEO) to improve your website’s visibility in search results, attracting organic traffic and potential patients.

6. Enhancing Patient Experience: Utilize medical marketing technologies to engage patients, provide seamless telehealth services, and centralize communication between doctors and patients.

7. Streamline Appointments: Implement online patient scheduling for convenience and patient satisfaction, catering to patients’ needs and preferences.

8. Reputation Management: Manage your online reputation by encouraging patient reviews, addressing negative feedback, and leveraging reputation management tools to build credibility. Focus on creating a trusted online brand and exceptional patient experience through your website and social media presence to attract and retain patients.

9. PPC and Facebook Ads: Leverage Facebook and Google ads to target and engage potential patients, offering a visual and engaging way to showcase your services.

10. Continuous Improvement: Keep optimizing your digital marketing strategies, analyze performance metrics, and refine your approaches for better results.

In today’s healthcare landscape, mastering digital marketing is essential to thrive and expand your medical practice. Embrace these strategies to enhance your reputation, attract new patients, and build a strong online presence that resonates with modern healthcare consumers.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes a medical website different from a regular website?

A digital healthcare marketing website is specifically designed to promote healthcare products, services, and information. It may have a dedicated section or page for healthcare-related content, such as articles, blogs, and medical research, which a regular website may not have.

Digital healthcare marketing websites must comply with healthcare regulations such as HIPAA, FDA, and other industry-specific regulations. This means that the website must be designed to protect patient privacy, ensure security, and provide accurate and truthful information.

Digital healthcare marketing websites must provide a positive user experience, especially for patients who are seeking health-related information or services.

The website should be easy to navigate, have a clear and concise message, and provide useful information to the user. A digital healthcare marketing website should have a clear call-to-action (CTA) that encourages the user to act, such as making an appointment, requesting more information, or subscribing to a newsletter. The CTA should be prominently displayed and designed to drive conversions.

More and more people are accessing websites on their mobile devices, which means that a digital healthcare marketing website must be optimized for mobile devices. This includes having a responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes, fast loading times, and mobile-friendly content.

What’s an example of a healthcare regulation that a digital healthcare marketing website must comply with?

One example of a healthcare regulation that digital healthcare marketing websites must comply with is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the United States. HIPAA is a federal law that sets national standards for protecting individuals’ medical records and other personal health information (PHI).

Under HIPAA, digital healthcare marketing websites must ensure that any PHI they collect and store is kept confidential and secure. They must implement appropriate technical, physical, and administrative safeguards to protect PHI from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure.

For example, if a digital healthcare marketing website collects personal health information from patients, such as their name, address, medical history, or insurance information, it must have measures in place to ensure that this information is protected. This may include using secure servers, encryption, firewalls, and other security technologies.

In addition, if the website is used to facilitate healthcare transactions, such as scheduling appointments or processing insurance claims, it must comply with HIPAA regulations related to electronic transactions and code sets.

Failure to comply with HIPAA regulations can result in significant penalties and fines, as well as damage to the organization’s reputation. Therefore, it is essential for digital healthcare marketing websites to have a robust HIPAA compliance program in place to protect patients’ privacy and ensure regulatory compliance.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and how can it grow my practice?

The focus of medical website SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is to improve the visibility and ranking of a medical website in SERPs. Medical SEO involves optimizing the website’s content, structure, and other factors to make it more attractive to search engines, such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

The goal of medical website SEO is to increase the website’s visibility, traffic, and conversions by ranking higher in relevant search engine results. This is important for medical websites because it can help attract more patients, increase brand awareness, and establish the website as a trusted source of medical information.

How can email marketing help retain and attract patients to my practice?

Email marketing is a powerful tool for medical websites to engage with their audience, build relationships, and promote their products and services. The first step is to build an email list of subscribers who have opted-in to receive emails from the medical website. This can be done through website sign-ups, newsletter subscriptions, or other lead generation tactics.

Once the email list is established, it is important to define the target audience and segment the list based on demographics, interests, or behavior. This allows for more targeted and personalized email campaigns. The content of the emails should be engaging, informative, and relevant to the target audience.

This can include healthcare tips, news, promotions, or educational content. The emails should be visually appealing, with a clear and concise message, and a call-to-action that encourages the recipient to act.

The emails should be scheduled and sent at appropriate intervals, such as weekly or monthly, to avoid overwhelming the recipients. The email campaigns should be analyzed and optimized based on open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. This allows for continuous improvement and better engagement with the target audience.

How does Officite stand out from similar services? 

With so many options, picking a website provider can feel overwhelming. So, why not go with the one trusted by leading healthcare associations? Officite’s services have helped thousands increase their reach with a profitable website. We’re proud to have helped these practices expand & retain their patient base, while lightening their staff’s workload.

What should I, or my staff, do to get started leveraging digital marketing tools?

Your time is valuable, so leave the heavy lifting to the experts at Officite. All we need from you is information about your practice and its goals, and we’ll provide you with everything necessary to establish an online presence that seamlessly grows your practice and patient base.

How much do your services cost? Are any contracts required?

Our plans are designed to exceed your practice’s goals while staying within your budget. Starting at just $69/month, rest assured you never have to worry about long-term contracts or hidden fees.

I already have a new website. Why do I need a new one?

75% of visitors determine a practice’s credibility through their website design. Answering “yes” or “maybe” to the following means it’s time for a new site:

  • Do you want to attract more profitable patients?
  • Does your practice need more 5-star reviews?
  • Do your patients need easier access to online booking, secure forms, and educational resources?

6 Medical Website Features Every Doctor Should Know About

To run a successful private medical practice, you need to go about the business of medicine smartly. You shouldn’t stick to the old style of ticking dates on calendars, piling up medical records, or waiting and waiting for a patient to fill out paper forms. These processes just slow you down in a high-tech world.

Thanks to the internet, you can now reach more patients and run your medical practice more effectively by using a medical website. With a medical website features, you can place your practice before patients across the globe and offer them important information about your services. 

One key objective in private practice is to turn inquiries into appointments. Websites for doctors can help keep their visitors informed and show them why they need medical services. It can also help to save front office time when patients can book appointments online and fill required forms from their homes. 

You’ll need medical website design features for patient education, appointment booking, and case updates. However, designing a professional medical website requires immense expertise. An effective website needs to offer an experience that has visitors enthusiastic about engaging with your private practice. Experienced web developers like Officite have the expertise to make sure vital features are designed specifically for your website. 

How do you know if your medical website has all the features it needs? Here are six medical website features that doctors like you need to know about.

1. Patient Education

Patient education is a great way for health practitioners to provide information to patients and caregivers. It encourages proper health behaviors and sheds more light on healthy living and wellness. By featuring educational content on your website, patients can access information and learn more about your private practice. 

You’ll become a resource for patients seeking answers. When they often find solutions on your website, they will come to trust you. Because of the informative articles, infographics, and videos you share, they will be more likely to refer friends and family to you. Eventually, your search engine rankings will improve, and your website will become a go-to platform for potential and current patients. 

You need medical website features like patient education — which could serve as a patient’s first call when they need information on a medical condition, disease, or impairment. And since they’ll get the details before visiting a doctor, it will minimize the time spent with the doctor. 

The physician website should also be designed in a way that allows you to easily update it with the latest medical information.  

2. Blogging

Blogging is a good way to answer questions that patients often ask. You can use search engine optimization (SEO) tools to find out which questions people often ask about your area of medical expertise. SEO can show you which content is relevant at different periods (i.e., COVID-19). By addressing topics that pertain to your practice and sharing relevant information with prospective patients, you’ll demonstrate that you have the expertise they need.   

A blogging feature makes your medical website a trusted healthcare resource that readers are excited to visit. By visiting your website regularly, readers will want to visit your private practice when the need arises. You can also link your blog posts on social media, a powerful platform for spreading information and advertising your services. 

Health professionals can also keep patients engaged with discussions, opinion polls, and various original content. Boosting traffic to your website with varied, engaging content means more visitors that become patients.

3. Online Booking

To better utilize your time and resources, you need to know how to organize appointments. A physician website design featuring online booking will help you utilize time, energy, and other resources. It will also help prevent burnout for physicians and office staff.

You and other staff members will know what, or who, is scheduled next, and who needs to cover it. 

The online booking feature reduces a patient’s waiting time and improves their satisfaction as the pre-appointment work is completed from their home at their convenience. They can access a simple interface that allows them to book appointments on your calendar.  

With online booking, routine checkups — such as dental appointments, cancer screening, counseling sessions, and family planning services — become easier. Your office calendar will be synchronized and your staff will get automated notifications, so you’re up to date on cases and don’t miss appointments.

4. E-Commerce

Apart from educating patients on why and how to acquire medical care, you need to make sure they easily have access to medical products.  Professional medical websites with an e-commerce feature can sell recommended products to patients online. Without walking into your office, patients can pick up medications and other products that can help them improve their health. Also, your website becomes an online store that works with popular marketplaces like eBay and Amazon. 

The e-commerce medical website design feature allows you to market your products without limits. You can also grant discounts to patients who already get their treatments from you. Your patients will obtain medical help quickly, and your practice will make more profits without any extra work. 

5. Secure Email and Forms

With the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) created the Privacy Rule ( HIPAA). The latter informs patients about their privacy rights and how much control they have over their health information. Patients often want assurance that any information supplied through your medical website is secure and confidential, as well as beneficial to their treatment.

A medical website design that enables patients to fill forms online will reduce staff workload and help minimize the time that patients spend in your waiting room. You’ll be able to integrate forms into your website and communicate better so that patients can receive timely medical care. Beyond saving your time and theirs, you need to ensure that the information filled on such forms is protected by encryption technology. 

By keeping medical and contact information safe, you’re offering patients peace of mind, and they’ll be more open to engaging your services. 

6. Doctor Portal

Medical website design features help patients learn more about improving their health. Patients have the opportunity to complete certain processes before going to your office. 

Doctors also benefit from the website by using the doctor portal feature. Doctors can interact with their patients before they even arrive at the office. The doctor portal allows doctors to access their emails, manage web content (with the help of other staff members), review web statistics, track their appointments, send periodic newsletters to patients, and even send e-cards to current or prospective patients.

This feature allows patients to contact their doctors without eating into medical professionals’ off-shift time. 

Get Started on These Features Right Away

Your medical website should fit your practice like a glove. You need features like blogging, secure email and forms, online booking, SEO for doctors, Facebook ads, and more to easily reach new and current patients from anywhere. 

A physician website design should have features like the doctor portal and reputation tracker as part of a user-friendly website design to help improve how you present your services to patients.

Professional medical websites need the above features, and even more — like intelligent reviews, call scheduling, and customer support — to meet the unique needs of medical practitioners and the expectations of their prospective and current patients.

For a successful practice, you need a feature-packed medical website, and expert designers like Officite can help you figure out how to use website features to improve the engagement and satisfaction of patients who come into your practice.

Schedule a consultation with Officite to discuss your unique needs today.

Check Out These Outstanding Medical Practice Website Designs

Medical practice websites can fulfill a lot of different functions. They can provide a way for patients to schedule their own appointments. They can provide  information resources for patients and a marketplace for selling and purchasing medical equipment and supplies. They can provide a forum for doctors to present their views and share their expertise.

The way you build your website should be based on your goals and needs. Here we will present examples of professional website style options built for various purposes and serving different needs. 

We will delve into custom medical website design with examples of best-in-class healthcare websites. We’ll show you which features work best to highlight your services. And we’ll explore what goes into websites that outperform the competition. 

Hospital/ Medical Center Websites

Hospital/medical center websites focus on a single hospital, medical center or healthcare system, providing detailed information about services, healthcare providers, hours of operation and locations.

30 Best Medical Website Templates 2021 - Colorlib

Visitors to these sites get an overview of the practice and may search for providers specializing in their healthcare needs. Viewers may also get an opportunity to submit questions and read reviews written by patients.

Medical Marketplace

Medical Marketplace

In addition to information about the practice’s services and medical providers, these sites may include reviews of medical providers, testimonials from patients, and online appointment booking.

Medical Practitioner Websites

Individual medical practitioners can create websites that market their services by displaying their knowledge and expertise through blogs, testimonials, and text, accompanied by photos and graphics, offering details about treatment options.

Telemedicine Platforms

Build an Online Medical Consulting Website - Yondo Free Trial

These days, office visits and consultations often can be accomplished online via telemedicine platforms. This increasingly popular way of providing medical services without requiring  in-person meetings  offers convenience for patients, medical providers and office staff.

Which website design works best?

To find the right type of website for your practice, consider your goals.

Do you want to provide medical information and resources for patients with particular medical needs? Do you want to sell medical supplies through an e-store online? Do you want to give patients the option of booking their appointments online, without having to call your office?

With your priorities in mind, consider your technical options. For example, if you want to include an e-store to sell supplies, your design might be an e-commerce platform that also includes medical information. E-commerce sites perform better with multiple photos and videos. And easy navigation to the marketplace on your website is also essential to its success.

If online booking is a priority, choose a website that emphasizes your doctors’ credentials and experience.

Include The Essentials To Build a Solid Foundation

Build a strong foundation for your website and add to it, based on how and why you want to connect to your web visitors.

Medical Catalogs and Portal 

Basic and clean, these websites don’t require a complex design. There should be multiple search bars with at least one on each page so visitors can easily navigate to the information they seek.

Hospital/ Medical Center Websites

These websites can provide a welcoming introduction to new patients through a simple yet effective approach.

For example, the site’s homepage could feature a looping video that provides a basic overview of the facility and its services.

Another way to introduce new patients to your practice would be to include photos of doctors and other medical providers against a backdrop of the interior of your offices.

A navigation bar should be placed on each page so searches are easy for patients to conduct. And patients should be able to use the header at any time to access information including phone number and  address, social media accounts and insurance information.

The site should also strive to establish credibility and confidence in your practice through highlighting accomplishments and through patient reviews and testimonials.

Medical Marketplace

These websites are intended to connect patients with specific medical providers. This could mean narrowing down patient options regarding specific locations, credentials, insurance accepted and other variables.

Including an advanced search engine can make this process easier for the web visitor.

To help visitors consider options, the site should include ratings and reviews, and profiles of service providers that include extensive information about education, experience, and certifications. 

Every page on the site should include a Call To Action button or link where visitors can make an appointment, reach out via email or phone or get additional information.

Medical Practitioner Websites

These websites focus on the practitioners’ professional goals and on details about the practice. They serve as the professional equivalent of a personal website. The objective of these sites is to gain patients’ trust and establish credibility.

To do that, the site should include photos of the doctor or doctors. Another way to build a strong reputation is to post blogs about medical topics of interest to your patients and potential patients.

These sites can also include the option of signing up for a newsletter subscription, links to relevant articles and news, and Call To Action (CTA) buttons.

Online Doctor Consultation Platforms

If you want to make online consultations part of your website experience, straightforward, easy-to-navigate pages are a key feature that should be included.

You can start with a brief video on the home page or a search engine that directs patients based on their symptoms, medical issue, insurance carrier or type of specialist sought.

Because patients seeking consultations may be any age or in any physical condition, it is important to make the site as easy to use and travel through as possible. Readily available navigation tools and CTA buttons should be on every page.

10 Best Medical Clinic Website Designs

Topnotch medical practice websites often include: mobile-friendly features so the site can be viewed and function well on any device, fast load times, internal search options, patient portals, messaging capabilities, online appointment booking and prescription renewals, photos, and informational videos.

In this section, we will discuss examples of the 10 best medical website designs for healthcare providers, pointing out their strengths and areas for potential improvement.

Rest Assured- Best Website Accessibility

The Rest Assured medical website design is available to all users and was designed and developed to meet the WCAG 2.0 AA level of accessibility compliance, a wise option for companies in any industry. 

This website was created with accessible design features in mind, such as big, high-contrast fonts and simple keyboard navigation. In addition, mobile readers and other text-to-speech tools use alt text on all pictures on the Rest Assured site to correctly read and understand material for visually impaired individuals.

IU Health- Best Website Search

Indiana University Health does an excellent job of offering a powerful keyword search option to its patients. Medical services, news and events, providers, and locations may all be blocked from on-site searches. In the site’s left margin, visitors may see a list of recent searches, which helps them keep track of their search history. In addition, distinct search capabilities for Providers, Medical Services, and Locations are in the header menu.

Mercy Health- Best Website Imagery

Mercy Health’s website design uses dynamic graphics and color. The consistent use of rich, vivid imagery across the site, from the carousel beneath the banner to various photos throughout the site, generates a sense of enthusiasm and optimism. Although the use of a rich, vibrant green hue for the search box was an excellent option for promoting a sense of health and well-being, the typography within the box needs more contrast to improve readability.  

Centura Health- Best Clean Design

The Centura Health healthcare website design has a clear, basic information architecture. There are just five major links and two subsidiary icons in the navigation menu. In the top navigation bar of some healthcare sites, more than 20 things are fighting for attention. It is better to keep it simple and uncluttered, as Centura Health has done.

The usability of Centura Health’s medical web design is considerably enhanced by its use of basic, straightforward navigation and prominent display of a search box in the middle of the main page. The site also adheres to accessible design best practices by employing big, high-contrast fonts that are easier to read for internet patients with vision impairments.

Regional One Health- Best Engaging Video Web Design

Visitors to this website encounter an engaging video that tells a story, features providers in action and shows scenes from inside and outside the facility. The dramatic footage captivates the viewer and supports the belief that Regional One Health has the healthcare solutions they seek.

Arkansas Surgical Hospital- Best Patient Reviews and Testimonials Web Design

Potential patients rely on previous patients’ evaluations when making their decisions about where to seek healthcare. The Arkansas Surgical Hospital uses a carousel to show patient testimonials to great effect, giving viewers confidence in the medical providers at this facility.

Rush Medical- Best Engaging Content

Rush University Medical Center’s website uses well-written articles to engage visitors. The easy-to-navigate website includes news about the medical center, health issues, available seminars and a selection of highlights from social media posts.

Mayo Clinic- Best Medical Info Delivery

This website, promoting what has long been regarded as one of the best medical facilities in the country, features  information  arranged and delivered in effective and efficient ways. There is a comprehensive overview of diseases and conditions. The site also features a  search engine that allows patients to look up conditions alphabetically or through a symptom checker.

Cleveland Clinic- Best Mobile-Friendly Design

Cleveland Clinic Express Care® Online - Apps on Google Play

The Cleveland Clinic’s website features a mobile-friendly design that also works well on a desktop computer. Content is categorized and arranged for both doctors and patients, making it easier for site users to zero in on the information they want. The site also features a health library complete with videos, articles and health resources.

Infinite Medical Express- Best Minimalist Design

Infinite Medical Express is a simple website with a lot of useful information, including healthy tips available via a link on the home page.. Visitors to the site may easily access the patient portal to schedule appointments and make online payments.

Wrapping Up

At Officite, we have the experience and the expertise to let your website reach its full potential. We’ve designed and developed high-performing websites for hospitals and medical health organizations for years. Visit us at www.officite.com to learn more.

Upgrade Your Website To Stay Relevant, Useful And In Demand

The billions of people who routinely look for healthcare information online grew wildly with the emergence of the pandemic.

To respond to this increased need for accurate, timely information and remain competitive, healthcare providers need to stay abreast of the latest web innovations.   

It’s time to update and enhance your healthcare websites. 

Think of your custom medical website as the anchor of your online presence. The quality, functionality and even the look of your site can affect your practice’s bottom line – positively or negatively.

Modern healthcare websites need the capacity to handle more web traffic and larger patient loads. Technology can address those needs with solutions such as internal web portals and content management systems.

This article will help you better understand the fundamentals of cutting-edge medical website development. 

Several basic, essential technological elements of medical website development should be considered before proceeding to website design details.

HIPAA and HITECH Compliance 

HIPAA Compliant Website: How to Make a HIPAA-Compliant Website

As a medical healthcare provider, you are entrusted with sensitive information that must remain confidential as required by HIPAA regulations. This information, known as protected health information or PHI, includes data about patients’ health concerns, symptoms, insurance, financial qualifications and personal information often included on patient forms, such as addresses and birthdates.

Medical care providers are required to use HIPAA- compliant medical web designs, conforming to procedures for managing, storing, and transmitting protected health information as specified by HIPAA.

HIPAA-compliant medical web designs must address rules that deal with privacy, security and breach notification.

To be HIPAA-compliant, healthcare organizations must fulfill all of the stated data handling standards. These include: appointing a HIPAA compliance officer, creating and publishing a policy, and ensuring data encryption.

HIPAA is supplemented with the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), which gives patient information an  additional layer of security.

Patients must have online access to their Protected Health Information and be alerted to any data breaches. If a data breach affects the personal information of 500 or more patients, the medical provider must notify the authorities.

Policy on Data Protection

A rigorous privacy policy is required for a custom medical website design because it protects and processes sensitive data for a large number of patients.

The policy should be made public. Users should be informed about what categories of data will be gathered and what technologies will be used to protect, process, encrypt, and store data.

SSL Certificate Use

To ensure the security of data flowing from healthcare practice websites to servers, HTTPS and SSL certificates should be used. This protocol guarantees secure server connections to its users through the use of encryption. SSL certificates with varying degrees of security are available. Prices range from $8 to $4,000 per year, depending on the level of security and the number of domains required.

Web Responsiveness

Web responsiveness refers to how well a website functions on a variety of electronic devices. Websites should look and work well on computers, tablets and mobile phones.

A responsive website is key to patient retention. Studies have shown that 57% of patients would not recommend a practice to their peers that has a poorly designed website.

Quick Load Times

Patients place a premium on quick load times. So does Google! Websites that load quickly are more likely to rank higher in Google search results.

Patients expect websites to load, on average, in less than two seconds. Longer load times may discourage visitors and, ultimately, potential new patients could look elsewhere. 

For medical web design and development, quick load speeds on any device should be high on the priority list. These medical websites are more likely to rank higher in Google search results and appear at the top, with a stronger online presence.

Straightforward Website Navigation 

Your website should make it as easy as possible for patients to find the information they seek. Too many navigation buttons can be confusing. Visitors should be able to find basic information about your practice and your services in less than two clicks. Arrange menu items and information logically and simply to achieve a professional look and a user-friendly website.

Informative Content

According to Business2Community, 70% of small company healthcare websites lack a clear Call to Action (CTA) on their pages. This is a major missed opportunity.

When designing your medical website, give patients opportunities to take action in response to your marketing efforts.

Load your site with valuable content using a content management system. And make it interactive when possible. Include pricing information, patient testimonials, contact and location information, and an FAQ section.

Essentials of Medical Website Design

Healthcare websites must be developed with strong medical web development strategies.

We’ll discuss medical website design and examine how to develop a successful brand’s visual representation in the sections below.

What are the elements of a successful website design?

There are  things you should consider using to improve your website and make your marketing efforts more effective.

Iconic website designs

Flat Design of Olathe Health

Medical website design isn’t about creating playful or flashy web pages. Medical websites  should convey integrity and dependability in a straightforward and user-friendly manner.

The home page is the first thing patients see. Here they should find information about the nearest location, medical providers, bill pay options, patient education resources and insurance information.

Design with the user in mind

Medical Web Development: How to Become #1 on the Market?

The messages on a healthcare website should be written with the patient in mind. Write about how your practice will address patient concerns, rather than concentrating on services and medical procedures available.

The appropriate color scheme

Medical Website Colors - Design that Works in 2020

Neutral hues are commonly used in medical website design because these colors make a positive impression. The most popular color palettes are shades of blue, white and red. 

Real-life images and high-resolution graphics

Medical Website Design - View Examples of Healthcare Practice Websites

Using distinctive, real-life photos, rather than stock photos, can make your website stand out. Include photos of doctors, the interior of your offices, and smiling patients so visitors can get a glimpse of what your practice looks and feels like. Graphics showing how procedures are done or will affect patients’ lives also add an interesting visual element.

Components of Web Design 

Creating a custom medical website design from the ground up involves front-end and back-end software components and Application Programming Interfaces. A closer look at these components will yield a better understanding of the process.

Web Front-end

All of the visual components that users interact with are included in the web front-end. It’s the technical execution of the user experience/user interface  — or UX/UI   — design produced during the early phases of website development.

Internal portals, for example, may require the use of a  Content Management System (CMS), which enables the effective archiving of many types of material, such as surgical videos, photos, and papers.

Web Backend

Web back-end refers to the information-processing server-side of custom medical websites. All of the behind-the-scenes activities and website functionalities take place in back-ends.

Typically, the Software Architect and Business Analyst evaluate project requirements during the discovery stage and decide on the optimal stack of technologies to support your medical website design.

Medical Website Design Development Key Components

The creation of medical websites is focused on giving users a wide range of features while keeping the experience simple.

Intuitive search 

Patients go to a medical website for a variety of reasons.

A good website makes it easy and simple for patients to find the information they seek.

Lifecare Search for a Clinic

Medical website developers know that a good website search engine is something web visitors value. For example, patients may want to search for a clinic based on a number of criteria, such as location, services available and specific providers. A good search engine on the site will have advanced features allowing users to define their specific search using multiple filters.

Telemedicine

These days, telemedicine services are commonplace and becoming increasingly popular. Doctors can conduct virtual visits with patients, saving time and expense for both provider and patient, by using online video-conferencing platforms.  Telemedicine technology allows patients to consult with doctors and ask questions from wherever they are located. Photos and test results can be shared.

User-friendly navigation for all devices

Medical Web Development: On-Site Search

Be sure to make your web design accessible and mobile-friendly. Patients should be able to view and use your website on any device they choose, from a computer to a tablet to a mobile phone. Ways to accomplish this include using easy-to-read fonts, an easy-to-complete contact form and information that is logically arranged.

Appointment scheduling

Is it possible for patients to make an appointment when they find your healthcare practice and services online?

Your website is a valuable resource for ushering in new patients and for giving your existing patients a convenient way to book appointments. Online appointment booking can simplify scheduling for patients, doctors and office staff. Research shows that about 50% of patients today schedule their appointments over the phone. Be sure to have a responsive website and a responsive office team ready to assist patients, however they reach out to make appointments.

Online payment options

Patients appreciate the ease and convenience of being able to pay their medical bills online. Consider incorporating several payment method alternatives in your web design, such as credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay or Google Pay. 

Detailed team directory

Patients often peruse provider information  in efforts to learn more about the medical teams in place at practices. Consider including photos, biographies, credentials and statements from providers so patients will feel confident about where they seek medical care.

Adding a medical staff directory to custom websites makes it easier for patients to find an appropriate care provider. Directories can  provide information on doctors, such as their qualifications, medical practices, services, and work experience.

Inclusion of social media

Globally, there are 3.48 billion social media users, so it stands to reason that many of your patients and potential patients are among them. Be sure to include social media in your marketing plan.

It is possible to improve patient involvement by integrating social media with a medical web design. Users may share your blog articles, e-books, and other content on social media, potentially bringing in new consumers. If you want to leverage this user experience for medical web development, you’ll need to employ social media APIs and SDKs, such as Facebook SDK and Instagram API, to your websites.

3D tour to your medical office

Another way to market your practice is to give web visitors a bird’s-eye view of your premises. Virtual tours give visitors a sense of being inside your practice, observing and noting the practice’s strong points and allaying fears about any upcoming medical procedures or treatments.

Wrapping up

Medical practices are actively improving their websites every day. Don’t let this opportunity to improve your reputation, increase engagement with your patients and bring new patients to your practice go untapped.  Use the tools we’ve discussed to leverage digital marketing and improve your bottom line.

Medical websites serve as the public face of any healthcare organization. In some cases,  these websites are patients’ primary source of information about medical conditions.

Here at Officite, we offer expert web development executed by a supportive team of professionals who know how to get your website noticed. We can use our marketing know-how to give your website that extra push so it can reach its full potential.

Contact us today!

Design Tips For Creating A Professional Medical Website

The interior designs of physician offices aren’t identical. A pediatrician’s  office may feature brightly colored walls and a built-in play area for children, for example.  And a sports medicine specialist’s office may be decorated with framed images of renowned athletes.  Offices are designed to appeal to each specific patient population. Web design should do that, too.

Your practice’s website reflects your practice’s public persona.  A stunning medical website design can be a powerful way to attract patients and boost your practice’s reputation. To maximize your website’s potential, you should aim for a  well-organized and informative web presence.

Some “best practices” apply to all websites, in general. But there are some ways of approaching website design that are specifically well-suited to healthcare websites.

Give That Website a Personal Touch

Your practice has its own distinct “personality.” Your website should likewise include unique features and information that will appeal to your target patient population.

The following tips are easy to build into your website when you have a good content management system (CMS). 

Ensure Your Website is User-Friendly

These days, many web visitors arrive at their web destinations via a mobile phone. A recent study shows 80 percent of online visitors use mobile devices to search the internet. 

Mobile web visitors who have a negative experience at one website will visit a competitor’s website in search of mobile-friendliness.

That’s why your website should be set up so that visitors can easily navigate through it on any device, including mobile phones.

A mobile-responsive healthcare website design will adjust the display to accommodate the device being used, be it a computer, tablet, or smartphone. 

This makes it easy for users to engage with the material on their favorite devices without squeezing or scrolling.  This is an especially important feature for patients, who may feel unwell, to be able to easily contact your office without undue effort.

Here are a few suggestions for making your website mobile friendly:

What Is the Best Website Building Program | 2021

Make your homepage  visually and emotionally  appealing

Here is your chance to make a great first impression. A clean, uncluttered look with pertinent information, such as your practice specialty, office hours, address and phone number, goes a long way toward sparking interest.

Include a “hamburger menu” for navigation

You’ve seen the “hamburger menu” on many websites. It looks like three horizontal lines, or something similar, and it opens a dropdown menu when a visitor clicks on it. The hamburger menu should be used in addition to your more conspicuous navigation buttons. It gives visitors more than one way to find their way through your website.

Make calling for an appointment a click away

Strategically position buttons on your website that allow visitors to call your practice right from their device. Recent studies show about 48% of business calls stem from mobile phone searches. Take advantage of this convenience to attract more patients.

Include interactive features to raise interest

For a more sophisticated, up-to-date and patient-friendly website that keeps your practice a step ahead of the competition and increases your practice’s credibility, consider incorporating these features in your web design: 

Use HIPAA-compliant fillable forms

Securely capture medical history information, health complaints and insurance data through this time-saving feature, which should be crafted with an eye toward being mobile-responsive.  In addition, this can save your front office valuable time and resources by eliminating manual data entry.

Call Your Patients to Immediate Action Via Buttons

Include interactive buttons that allow patients to instantly book appointments, get referrals and request prescription refills. Patients appreciate the convenience and the consistency of a reliable, interactive website.

Connect to Your Patient Management System or Portal to Give Patients Access to Their Charts and Personal Data

Let your patients modify personal information such as their insurance information and social media accounts through your site. Allow patients access to their medical charts and medical service records so they can monitor their health and healthcare regimens. Providing updated information gives patients incentives to visit and revisit your site. This feature also brings in new patients who appreciate the ability to review their healthcare picture in one convenient space.

Content Images | Free Vectors, Stock Photos & PSD

Offer Valuable Patient Education and Content

Share your medical expertise with your patients on your website. This approach educates your patients, helps them become their own medical care advocates and saves you and your office staff time by providing a reference for patients. 

There are several ways you can do this: 

Regular blog posts- You can post information about symptoms, diagnoses and potential treatments or write about new medical advances. Or you can inform patients about new office hours or locations. Write your blogs in your own style and use images to draw the eye and create aesthetically pleasing pages.

Q&A page- Here you can post answers to common health concerns and questions. This is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise.

Patient testimonials – Ask your existing patients to share their opinions about their visits to your practice and their experiences with your website. Testimonials are a valuable resource that may help you improve your practice and healthcare website design while piquing the curiosity of future patients.

Patient education – Add libraries of content tailored to your speciality from national healthcare associations.  Officite offer this for pediatrics (WebMD), dermatology (AAD), gastroenterology (ASGE), foot and ankle (ACFAS), and several other specialities.  

What Is The Difference Between Web Development And Web Design - Freepik Blog

Use Photos And Graphics to Create Strong Online Imagery

People like to look at images. Studies show a website with strong visuals will outperform websites that lack a good image-to-text ratio.

For medical websites, high-quality photos are a great way to show your patients the quality of your products and services. Patients also like to see photos of medical care providers. Include photos of your doctors and medical team members along with short bios.

Here are ways to make your visuals stand out:

Include unique photos and videos. Use photos to showcase your practice, your medical providers, your office, and your equipment rather than using stock photography. Brief videos are easy to produce and pay huge dividends in terms of visitor views. And they help create a connection between your team and website visitors.

Place visual components strategically.  Don’t go overboard with photos and videos. Too many will distract visitors from the written content and could slow down your page downloads. 

Improve the quality of your instructional materials. Images may make your material more interesting and instructive if you’ve selected a blog as part of your medical web design. Visual learners account for 65 percent of the population. If feasible, use unique visuals. But, here’s a caution: Get permission to use diagrams and drawings from other medical professionals.

Build Your Brand Messaging

In a highly competitive marketplace, building a clearly recognizable brand that communicates to patients what you offer is imperative. Your brand should also trumpet what sets your practice apart from others.

Make your website messaging clear and unmistakable. Busy web visitors may only glance at a few pages or headlines before moving on;  make the most pertinent information obvious and easy to find.

Your website is an opportunity to share your values, tell your story and let your patients know that you deliver reliable service rendered with a caring attitude.

Best Website Builders for Medical Website

There are a number of do-it-yourself website services out there. Many are fairly simple and easy to use.

But if you want to create a website that offers you and your patients more functionality and a more professional look and feel, consider Officite.

A leading healthcare website design firm

Officite can start creating your robust web presence with a great, mobile-friendly website and build from there. Officite offers customized web design and search engine optimization tools that will make your practice rank higher in online searches and online reputation management. We also offer telemedicine options, e-store capabilities and online booking for some specialties.

More than 8,000 health practices rely on us for their digital communications needs.  We are valued partners with several national healthcare organizations, including WebMD, AAP, ASGE, and several state medical associations.

Features offered by Officite

Officite starts with modern web designs and hosts and maintains them. We feature customizable designs for a variety of medical specializations. Officite also provides patient education materials, informative articles, and blogs with relevant information regarding topics such as treatments and procedures.

Our clients can control all parts of their website with the integrated Doctor’s Portal, which is a simple-to-use interface. The portal enables doctors to make minor site edits, evaluate site performance, and track and organize  appointments.

Officite also provides a full range of integrated upgrades and a website advisor to assist healthcare professionals in getting the most out of their website.

Wrapping Up

Officite is your one-stop solution for digital communications. We can help you incorporate all of these winning tips and more into your web branding strategy.  Contact Officite today to learn more about how we can create a professional online presence for your medical practice.

Best Practices For Designing a Website For Doctors

Setting up a medical website for your practice is one of the best and most practical ways to spread the word about your services. With the world shifting more and more towards digital every day, having an online presence helps keep you from getting left behind. While the Boomers may still be asking their friends for doctor referrals, Millennials and Gen Z-ers lean a lot more heavily on search engines or social media when searching for a doctor. Your practice, as a business, needs to show up in their searches to stay relevant and keep growing.

Whether you’ve already set up your practice’s website or are still in the process of putting it up, observe these best practices to make sure that you get the most out of your online presence.

Why Set Up A Website For Your Practice?

First off, you might be wondering why you should even invest in a website when you can just put up a page on social media. A website adds formality to your business profile and also gives you more control over the information you present online and how it’s presented. 

Consider it your digital calling card; a well-designed medical website is your brand ambassador, and it can provide a preview of the experience that patients can expect at your clinic.

But there are ways to set up your website that will help you get the most out of it. Observe the following best practices to make sure that your website is doing all it can.

Best Practices For Medical Website Design

Simple and Clean Design

A clean and straightforward website design has a universal appeal to all site visitors. More than just “looking good,” potential patients should be able to know, at first glance, what your practice is all about. 

These should be some of your considerations:

  • Color scheme—Avoid loud, bright colors. Consider, instead, cool, muted shades.
  • Theme—Come up with a theme for some of the other design elements and keep them consistent throughout the site. Research current trends and update your theme as needed to keep the site looking fresh, but not so much as to confuse your practice’s brand.
  • Header Images and Text—Think of the images and information you want to display on your homepage and make sure that they are accurate and on point.
  • Icons and Font—Part of what makes a design cohesive includes the small elements that may often be overlooked. You should use icons from the same set design and font from the same set type.

User-Friendly

Make sure that your website is intuitive and well-organized. Avoid having blocks of texts that the reader needs to scour through, making it difficult for them to find the information they need.

An excellent medical website has information arranged logically, with easy navigation between pages that are related to one another. It also considers common behaviors of potential patients when navigating a medical website.

Below are the practices you can apply for a user-friendly site:

  • A centralized menu with the major categories a patient would ask about. Common headers include:
    • About The Doctor / Clinic
    • Information about the Doctor’s Specialization
    • Services
    • FAQs
    • Contact Information or Appointment System
  • Add subsections to these categories to further break down the information and make it more digestible to the readers.
  • A call to action at the end of every page quickly directs patients to other pages that might be of interest.

Mobile Responsive

Many web searchers now spend a large chunk of their online time on their mobile devices, so it is essential to make sure that your website is optimized for mobile web browsing. Your website may function well on a desktop, but the design and format can be skewed on mobile devices making it difficult to navigate. It’s an issue that can annoy users and possibly cause you to lose potential patients.

Talk to your web designer to make sure that your site is coded to function great on every device.

Complete and Accurate Information

People go to your website to get information about you, your practice, and the services you offer. As a medical practitioner, there are critical pieces of information you need to have on your website. Those include:

  • Your schedule and contact details—Site visitors should be able to easily find the schedules and contact information for all offices.
  • Information about your specialization and services offered—Have the complete details of your services up on the site so potential patients know you provide the services they are looking for. You’ll avoid wasting time for both patients and staff.
  • FAQs—Many patients rely on the internet before they go on a doctor consultation and may go through a medical site’s FAQs to find out more about their condition. Be as transparent as possible in your FAQs.

Minimize the Medical Jargon

Medical terms can be daunting to patients. Imagine how stressful it can be to worry about a possible medical condition while trying to comprehend unfamiliar medical and scientific terms without the assistance of a professional. Use everyday language whenever possible to make your site friendly and understandable to all visitors.

Need To Consult For Your Medical Website Design?

Woman Having An Online Consultation with a Doctor

The digital-savvy doctor may want to try his or her hand at designing a medical website. But to get the best results, for both your practice and your patients, you should consult with professional web developers. They have the experience and the know-how to help you grow your business’ online presence.

What is Digital Medical Marketing and How Can it Benefit You?

Competition for patients didn’t use to be as difficult as it is today. Gone are the days where it’s just you and maybe two other competitors vying for the attention of new patients. With the medical industry fueled by consistent technological advancement, competition is fiercer than ever, and medical practitioners have to employ the best medical marketing strategies to keep their practices growing.

Healthcare Marketing

Healthcare marketing

The Center For Disease and Control Prevention defines healthcare marketing as the following:

“Health Marketing is a multidisciplinary area of public health practice. This innovative approach draws from traditional marketing theories and principles and adds science-based strategies to prevention, health promotion, and health protection. Drawing from fields such as marketing, communication, and public health promotion, health marketing provides a framework of theories, strategies, and techniques that can be used to guide work in public health research, interventions, and communication campaigns.”

But it’s not just the doctors who need them. The whole industry, including healthcare providers, medical equipment manufacturers, pharmacies, and other healthcare services, employ health marketing strategies to ensure the longevity of their respective businesses.

Medical Marketing Service

Medical marketing services to help you and your practice

Marketing, as mentioned above, draws knowledge from beyond the medical field, particularly in communications. As such, doctors may not have the full skill set required to market their medical services. For this reason, consulting with a medical marketing service provides a whole host of benefits. 

A medical marketing service can be an agency or an individual professional who specializes in medical marketing. Many of these services will give you 360° services to cover all your marketing needs. Some samples of the services they offer include:

  • Digital Marketing (Includes online advertising)
  • Content Marketing
  • Reputation Management
  • Medical website design
  • Social Media Campaigns (including setting up your Facebook profile)
  • SEO Optimization

The range of services may be overwhelming at first, so it’s best to consult with a marketing expert to determine the strategies that will work best for your practice.

Marketing Strategies For Your Medical Profession

Marketing strategies for the healthcare industry

As with many things, coming up with a marketing plan for your practice or institution needs time and patience, as there is a process to determine the most efficient strategies to be implemented.

Online medical marketing

In your first meeting with a marketing professional, they will assess your current business status and marketing practices. Be prepared to answer questions about the following:

  • Ongoing marketing efforts such as your website, running online ads, and other online content
  • Your business goals
  • The main message you want your audience to take away
  • The budget you are willing to spend
  • Business details such as location, services, price range, the profile of current clientele
  • Target audience details such as socio-economic segment, age group, specific medical conditions you treat, among others

There is no need to worry if you do not have all this information immediately during the first meeting. The marketing expert will help you identify the missing factors before developing the plan.

Next comes the identification of business goals. Are you looking to get more clients? Rebrand? Are you seeking help to address a crisis or a persisting issue? The plans need to be clear, as the strategies will be tailor-made to accomplish the objectives.

To help you think about the services you think you might need, let’s define the different strategies a medical marketing service can offer, as mentioned above.

Digital Marketing is an umbrella term that includes a mix of relevant online tools and platforms for the most effective marketing campaign. As shared in CoFounder Magazine.

No matter the industry, no matter the business model, every business can benefit from investing in digital marketing. There are many correct ways to invest in your business. Still, digital marketing is one of those overarching solutions that will help your entire organization grow and succeed.

Some tools include:

  • Content Marketing—Content marketing can help you gain and grow a loyal audience with educational content that provides value to your potential patients and adds to the overall brand experience. More than just giving product information, you equip patients with valuable insights that only you can provide, engaging readers and keeping them coming back for more details.
  • Reputation Management—You found out that your practice is often compared to your competitor and that your target audience sees no clear distinction between you. Through rep management, you can shape the public’s perceptions about your brand.
  • Medical website design—If you still don’t have a website or if your website isn’t bringing customer leads as you anticipated, marketing experts can help you fix your sitefrom tweaking the design to adding and optimizing contentto help you get the most out of your online investment.
  • Social Media Campaigns—Having a presence on social media, especially on Facebook, is a necessary piece of any digital marketing strategy. It helps you quickly reach a broad audience and can be one of the quickest ways to generate new leads. Depending on your goal, you can have engagement campaigns and growth campaigns to increase your page followers and engage with your audience.
  • SEO Optimization—As defined by Google, SEO optimization is the process of making your site better for search engines so that you show up in local search results. After you’ve improved your design and user experience, you can now work on optimizing your content to help you improve your search rankings.

Know the Most Effective Marketing Strategy For Your Practice

Promote your practice now

When coupled with all the responsibilities of being a doctor, developing a marketing campaign from scratch can be a daunting task. To ensure that your marketing plan is right for your business, we recommend that you consult with a medical marketing professional to help you promote and grow your medical practice.