5 Common Web Design Mistakes Most Medical Practices Make

A bad website will hurt your business. There is no getting around that. Your website is the most valuable marketing asset for your medical practice. Potential patients can use your website to make assumptions about the credibility of your brand and the quality of service you offer.

Physicians are hard-pressed to pursue a proactive approach to building and maintaining their websites. This is because, according to various studies, most patients have an instantaneous reaction to a medical website. If the website has outdated information or a poor layout, the patient’s response will be mostly negative. This can spell trouble for your practice’s credibility.

Is your website attractive enough for new patients to open it?

A professional website is crucial to gaining a positive impression in a short time span. Your website should reflect your quality of service and patient-centric approach. Patients expect doctors to have a robust online presence. Your website must be professionally designed, fast-loading and mobile-friendly if you want use it to attract and convert more leads.

According to research, the average attention span of an adult is around eight seconds. In addition, approximately 50 words per page are being read. This means, on average, you only have four to eight seconds to attract a potential lead and have your message delivered in less than 50 words. That is hard work!

Here are five medical website design mistakes that can hurt your business:

1. Poor Loading Speed

Most visitors expect a web page to load within five seconds or less. More than 79 percent of visitors may not return to your website after a poor experience. These statistics indicate that poor loading speed can impact your lead generation and conversion rates. All of the hard work that you have put into developing and designing your website will mean nothing if your web pages take forever to load. The longer a visitor waits for a web page to load, the sooner she begins to look for other medical practitioners in your area.

Web hosting can play an important role in your website’s loading speed. Other factors that can reduce your website’s loading speed are the size of your graphics, video quality, and plugins and scripts that you use.

Pro Tip: You must treat website performance as part of web design. Your website design is not limited to a visually appealing layout; it must also enhance the user experience. A number of online tools can make your website lightning-fast and easily accessible by search engines.

2. Bad Navigation

Even if your website is visually appealing with a professional design, visitors can still leave over poor navigation. Poor website navigation will make conversions almost impossible. The navigation within your website must be seamless so that visitors are able to find their way around. Product categories should be neatly organized, and labels should be easy to understand. According to one study, if visitors cannot see what they are searching for in three clicks, they will leave your website.

Pro Tip: You can make navigation more accessible by using textual description for links and alt text for graphics. Keep your website clean and simple. An attractive design with an elegant interface is a recipe for success.

3. Unclear Calls to Action (CTAs)

Your CTA prompts visitors to take the next desired step on your website. Make sure your CTA is prominent and tells visitors exactly what to do. You may lose potential leads or if you ask them to click on too many links on your website. On many websites, low conversion rates are a result of a CTA getting lost in the cluttered design. It is essential to make sure that your CTA button stands out on the web page and makes it easy for visitors to take the desired action.

Pro Tip: Whatever your desired CTA is, make sure it is clear, concise and easy to find. Do not make your website visitors guess. Tell them exactly what you want them to do.

4. Bad-Quality Images

An image is worth a thousand words. Relevant and high-quality visual content will drive more customer engagement. Every image and graphic that you use on your website must have a purpose and an underlying goal. Using irrelevant or low-quality stock images can undermine your credibility and confuse your visitors. Bad-quality images that are not relevant to your specialty will turn off visitors.

Pro Tip: Use original images that look professional. It is critical to invest time and money in getting attractive images of your products, behind-the-scenes office pictures and your team members.

5. Not Optimized for Mobile

With the massive increase in the use of tablet devices and smartphones, you would be doing your practice much damage if your website if not designed to adjust to mobile screens and other devices. A responsive website is no longer a trend but a necessity. According to a study, two out of three minutes online is spent on smartphones. Mobile friendliness is one of the most significant Google ranking factors. Without a responsive website design, you will not only be alienating a large number of potential visitors but also risk being fined by Google.

Pro Tip: You can choose from a wide range of mobile-friendly web themes and install plugins for optimizing your website for mobile devices.

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