All of your healthcare practice’s marketing and communications efforts lead back to your website. It’s the key component that turns leads into patients. It drives patient engagement, delivers timely announcements and provides a central hub of resources for active patients. Website visitors have expectations of finding what they need quickly and easily. Although well-intended or trendy at the time, some website features or pages are just not cutting it anymore. To make your website as effective as possible, there are several quick fixes that can make a positive impact on your practice’s website traffic.
1. Long Online Forms
Website visitors want the information they are looking for instantly and they don’t really want to work for it, especially if they are only in the beginning research phases of the research and decision journey. In fact, there is an average 120% conversion increase when you reduce the number of form fields from 10+ to 4 or less. Even less engaging than long online forms, are any downloadable PDF forms that need to be printed and re-uploaded. This doesn’t just apply to inquiry forms; form length impacts conversion rates on everything from appointment forms to testimonial submissions.
Try This Instead:
Rather than a few longer online forms with 10 or more fields throughout your website, build a series of online forms that aligns with your practice’s departments or locations. These forms should be on dedicated landing pages with specific single call-to-actions that drive form submissions.
2. Lengthy Text Pages
The average adult internet user’s attention span is 8.25 seconds. That’s not a long time to wow patients visiting your website for the first – or even second – time. Search engine optimization (SEO) and storytelling are the most important components to your practice’s brand but long paragraphs are not the only way to show your expertise in your field. In fact, text content has become the least engaging form of digital content. The human brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than written text information. This aligns with our expectations of receiving information we’re looking for instantly, anywhere we are.
Try This Instead:
Be strategic about how your practice presents information online. Is a paragraph really the best way to present information? Could a short video or infographic make more sense? When paragraphs do make sense, it’s critical to write concisely. Remember that your content should be scannable — meaning sub-heads, bulleted lists and imagery should help break up your written content.
3. QR Codes
QR codes are making a comeback but does your practice really need them on your web pages? With over 60% of all global internet traffic coming from mobile devices and mobile devices being required for QR codes to work, QR codes can’t actually be accessed during the majority of website sessions from your audience’s favorite devices.
Try This Instead:
QR codes are still a useful tool to drive traffic to your website from print materials. They could even drive traffic to specific landing pages for easy tracking of the most effective print materials.
4. Stock Photos
Stock photos are noticeably fake. Patients will instantly pick them out, and could actually see them again on another practice’s website. They are harmful to your brand and storytelling. Without authentic imagery, patients will not make a real connection to the services and experience you offer patients.
Try This Instead:
A common misconception about photography is that you need all the fancy equipment for it to be worth it. When it comes to digital channels like websites and social media, smartphones can actually be enough to get it done right. Capturing authentic photographers of the real patient experience will greatly improve your brand online.
5. Photos of Text
All website content – including media files like images and attached files – are read and scanned by search engines as possible search results. Text within images cannot be scanned by Google or assistive devices like screen readers (only the image file details can be). These images serve no benefit to search engine optimization (SEO) or ADA compliance.
Try This Instead:
Try more news posts! Oftentimes, text as images are created to save time and space for quick and timely information. News posts can do the same thing! An even bigger benefit to using more news posts is that they can be shared on social media to drive even more traffic to your website.
6. Website Sliders
Website sliders were all the rage and dominated website design for over a decade. With recent Google algorithm updates, page speed matters more than ever as it impacts the overall user experience. The average load time for a web page is 3.21 seconds. For every 100 milliseconds longer it takes, there is a 1.2% decrease in page views and engagement. Website sliders are heavy with code and media, which ultimately slows down any web page that uses them. Additionally, just like the text as images, website sliders are not accessible for assistive devices such as screen readers.
Try This Instead:
Website sliders are most commonly used on homepages. While you want to make a good first impression, you don’t need to put all your messaging up front on the homepage. If your website structure is intuitive and engaging enough, your audience will naturally find what they are looking for. We challenge your practice to be more strategic about your brand messaging. Before crafting your homepage messaging, answer the following questions:
- What is our practice mission?
- What is our practice vision for patients?
- Who is our target audience?
- Which departments are our priority?
- What is our key call to action?
7. Native Video Files
Similarly to website sliders, videos that are hosted and stored within your website files significantly slow down page speed. There are much easier ways to host and embed videos – which can also help benefit your practice’s search engine optimizations (SEO)! YouTube or Vimeo might be a few extra steps, but can have a much larger impact on your website’s overall performance.
Try This Instead:
Embedding videos is always better for overall website performance. Creating and optimizing a YouTube channel to host all of your practice’s videos is another channel that can help boost your practice towards the top of search results.
8. Generic Call-to-actions
Generic content isn’t going to keep your target audience engaged and will greatly shorten their website session. It’s much harder to build trust and credibility when website sessions are short. Nurturing patient relationships requires concise content that directs them through their customer journey. Call-to-actions (CTAs) like “Click Here” or “Learn More” are not specific or exciting enough to keep them moving along.
Try This Instead:
Your CTAs should be engaging and distinctive. Think about the specific action needed at every step of the enrollment journey. Here are a few examples:
- Instead of “Call Now” try “Call Our Front Office”
- Instead of “Schedule Now” try “Schedule A Consultation”
These specify the action and set an expectation for who they will speak to next.
9. Email Links
Is your inbox filled with spam or sales emails? If your online staff directory lists contact email addresses publicly, that means anyone – including bots – can find it online. For website visitors who are actually looking to contact a staff member, email links can disrupt their website journey when they open mail applications and lead them away from the website.
Try This Instead:
Contact forms allow website visitors to stay on the web page and continue their journey once the form has been submitted. Contact forms can also have layers of added spam protection to limit inboxes being bombarded with unwanted emails.
At Katava Marketing, we strive to deliver fast, optimized and well-built websites within our website development packages to meet all the contemporary requirements for a modern day website. Contact us today if you have questions about your website!
