Web Design for Doctors

When we sit in the patient chair, we either lean back or sit up straight. The doctor makes eye contact as they check your hearing, sight, and throat. He or she asks us to breathe as they press a stethoscope to our chest, and then our stomach.

We recall researching our physician online, along with all the statistics. If we are healthy, he or she reassures us that our breathing sounds normal. If we are sick, then we trust  a physician to take care of us. That’s why we open our eyes wide, breathe against a stethoscope, and fast before doing blood work.

You are that physician. You want to prove that we can trust you, and that you are the best in your field. A website is one tool that can reassure us about both.

Why Do Doctors Need Good Web Design?

Websites exist to provide information about its owners, the services they provide, and contact numbers at the basic level. On another level, they are the storefront for your business and brand image. You could be competing against hundreds of other practices for people’s time and patronage. To get that attention, you need to get your website right the first time that they see it.

For physicians, your website is often the first interaction prospective patients have with your business. If your website looks at all outdated, difficult to navigate, amateur, or just overall unappealing, what kind of message does that send to your patients? Having a professional-looking, seamless web design not only makes it easier for potential patients to use your site, it also builds trust in your audience.

In fact, 94% of a web user’s first impression is design related. In a business as trust-reliant as healthcare, you want to show the patient how much you care about their patient journey, even outside of your practice. You are doing the world a good service, but you also need to market your practice and your services.

1. Draft A Plan

A good website has organization, and focus. You have a message to convey, and every aspect of your website must deliver it. This includes medical information, your office addresses, and means by which to schedule an appointment.

Having a plan gives you a direction for design and development. If you know you want to reach specific patients in your area, you can focus all content around that goal. This will also save you costs on development; you won’t have to ask web developers and graphic designers to redo your idea, because they will charge per revision for the time. You want as few revisions as possible

2. Inspire Patients to Make That Appointment

A call to action is when you inspire people visiting your website to make a decision suited to your goals. In the case for doctors, you want patients to schedule appointments to visit your office as soon as possible. That way you can provide them care and establish a working relationship.

To do so, make it extremely convenient to schedule an appointment at a reasonable time. Install an online form where patients can leave their contact information and where you or assistants can follow up efficiently, either by phone or by email. Online calendars are another potential good tool; patients can view calendars for availability in real-time and make choices on potential slots for attending.

Another potential call to action is if you want various patients to subscribe to your blog to learn more about your specialty and potential diseases. You can use analytics to measure the latter, and learn how to improve your strategy to acquire readers.

3. Make Your Homepage Professional

Both search algorithms and users will see your homepage first. Here you can put introductory information, testimonials from patients, and ample feedback. This is where you can establish that you have built trust with other patients, and that your medical services have value.

Your SEO will go higher if you have a presentable homepage. SEO, or search-engine optimization, can help determine your website’s rank in a search engine for a particular keyword.

4. Redirect Your Broken Links

404 error pages are the bane of every user’s existence. They are the equivalent of a pipe leak in an office. Patients hate it, especially when seeking information, because it communicates that the website is outdated or useless.

Use 301 redirects to manage broken or removed links, so that a patient that clicks will find themselves at an updated page or suitable alternative. Check your server’s memory as well, because a page that exceeds memory usage can also appear broken.

5. Account for the Mobile View

You want patients to view your information without any issue. That includes making sure your website appear user-friendly on a mobile or smartphone, with a smaller screen.
Most web searches in the 2010s are conducted on a mobile, meaning that if you do not account for this factor, then you are locking out potential patients. Make sure that patients can read your font and navigate using screens of various sizes, and keep your paragraphs small and manageable.

6. Take A Graphic Design Approach

Graphic design is all about creating a unified design, so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A website uses graphic design to appeal to as many users as possible. That means creating a webpage where you achieve that perfection, using a balance of text, images and white space.

White space is your friend because it allows for breathing room. Do not stack your pages with endless text and image, because it will overload the user with information and drive away patients. Instead, create a healthy balance so that you convey the right amount of information about your practice.

6. No Social Media Links in the Header

You should have a social media presence, but you don’t need to advertise it at the top of your page. Social media links can appear as a visual distraction to patients, who may click on it and go down the Internet rabbit hole instead of navigating your website’s pages.

If anything, one option is to have those links toward the bottom of the page, or have your social media feeds there so that a user has a chance to view the website navigation first. That way the user will not switch, and the patient will stay with you.