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The 8 Must-Haves for Your Medical Practice Website

| PRACTICE SOLUTION

www.patientpop.com

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If your practice website only tells visitors about your practice, then it’s not doing

all it should.

Right now, 39% of people who need a healthcare professional extensively

research them online (that number grows to over 50% when it comes to

millennials). Of all the people in your area who need your service, how many of

them are scheduling appointments with you?

Websites that convert visitors to patients all use certain elements to ensure

their online success. Savvy practice owners optimize their pages for search

engines. They build trust with visitors through testimonials. And they stop the

visitor from researching other providers by providing easy, one-click online

appointment scheduling. With these features -- and a few others detailed in this

eBook -- you will have the competitive advantage on other local providers.

The 8 Must-Haves for Your Medical Practice Website

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A mix of SEO tips, good marketing strategy, and tested usability features, here’s

the eight must-haves for your medical practice website.

A Helpful Title

The title isn’t just the name of your web page, it describes what the page is all

about. Your title is displayed as the link in the search engine results page as

well as the title of the active tab in your browser.

The best titles for medical practice websites are those that anticipate the way

a potential patient would search for your service. Most people search for a

procedure or specialty + their geographic location.

Before we show you how to write the best title for your practice, let’s take a

minute to look at the anatomy of the search results page. The title is the large,

blue link that sends the visitor to your page. The green text is the address of

your site. Finally, the gray text is called the meta description, which we’ll discuss

later on in this article.

Orange Coast ENT provides a great example of a well-written title. They make

sure their specialty, ENT, comes first. Next, they prioritize searches looking for

an ENT in the Irvine or Huntington Beach, CA area. Finally, they have the added

benefit that their brand name includes the broad “Orange Coast” area as well.

When someone searches for any combination of ENT or head and neck surgery

+ any of those geographic locations, OC ENT’s site is displayed on the first

page of the search results. The SEO term for this is “ranking.”

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If you are using a content management system (CMS) like Wordpress, you can

set the title for each page in the administration panel.

If your site was hand-coded with CSS/HTML/JavaScript, then you’ll need to

define your title using the “title” tags within the header.

A Well-Written Meta Description

The meta description is an expansion on the title. It’s not visible on the site, but

it tells the search engine what keywords are most important. Remember, search

engines display your meta description beneath the link on the results page.

The meta description should repeat the key terms you are trying to rank for, but

must be written in full sentences. You want your meta description to be precise,

because potential visitors will read it after the title to see if your site is what

they are looking for.

There are some potential pitfalls when writing your meta description. Some

shady SEOs try to include many different locations or specialties in their meta

description with the hope of showing up in search results more frequently.

This is called keyword stuffing and is rarely effective. Search engines are more

advanced now, and if they believe a site is guilty of this, they will deliberately

ignore your site.

The best thing you can do is to accurately describe your specialties and service

area. The research shows that when people search for a local business, they

expect to find it within 5 miles from where they are searching.

Dr. Amersi has optimized her meta description very well. Let’s say “Susan” is

looking for an OB/GYN. What does she know without ever having to click on a

single search result? She knows that Dr. Amersi is trusted and that she serves

the Santa Monica area. And, if Susan is in a rush, she has everything she needs

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to make an appointment or find the office quickly, without having to enter Dr.

Amersi’s page.

A URL That Makes Sense

The URL -- or actual link -- is one more element that search engines review

when deciding if your page is the best answer to a user’s query. Make your URL

clear, so the user knows where they are on your site.

In the past, a CMS like Wordpress would’ve defaulted to something like this:

nycpainspecialists.com/?p=29503,

which doesn’t mean anything to anyone but the programmer who wrote it.

Compare this to the URL of Dr.Johar’s service page for back pain

nycpainspecialists.com/services/back-pain-management.

Much more user-friendly!

If you found his back pain page first, instead of coming in through the

homepage, you would know just by looking at the address that this is just

one specialty that Dr. Johar offers. Search engines look for the most relevant

answer to the user’s query, but also the most helpful, human-friendly site. When

a URL functions as a sitemap, it’s providing an optimal user experience -- which

Google likes.

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Full Descriptions for Each Specialty

Create a dedicated page with a full description for each of your specialties

or services. You never know which specialty or procedure your prospective

patients are searching for, so describe everything you offer.

There are three SEO-specific reasons each specialty must appear on its own

page:

1. If you discuss all of your specialties on a single page, search

engines will have a difficult time deciding what keywords match

for that page. Relevance is determined by how deeply a topic is

covered. If your specialty page covers everything shallowly, it’ll

be determined irrelevant.

2. Conversely, by giving rich, detailed information about each

service on its own page, you increase the chances that search

engines will find it useful for local searches. Plus, you can

spend that time discussing your unique qualifications (e.g.,

certification or training in that procedure).

3. Google recently revealed the top three elements it uses when

deciding how to rank a website. Content was in the top two (it

did not specify order). As you write about your specialities, all

related keywords (gynecology, obstetrics, birth control, etc.)

will give search engines confidence that your site is an authority

in this area, causing it to rank more highly.

Finally, when writing for keywords, be sure to use the ‘question and answer’

format. Voice searching on mobile devices is increasing every year since Apple

introduced Siri. People ask questions when they use voice search instead of

listing a set of important keywords (i.e., “Pain Management Doctor, Midtown

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New York”). You do the same thing. Have you ever started a search with “what

is the best…?”

Whether your patients are using Siri, Google Now, or Windows Cortana, search

engines increasingly value sites that answer common questions.

A Website That Looks Great

on Mobile Devices

In April of 2015, Google decided that because over 50%

of all searches were taking place on smartphones, a site

had to be “mobile-friendly” if they were going to rank it for

those searches. You know how annoying it is to pull up a

site on your phone and have to scroll three different ways

and pinch to zoom in order to accurately tap the correct link.

Google wanted you to have a better experience, so they

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now encourage you to visit sites that will provide you with the best experience

by ranking them more highly.

If your site isn’t mobile optimized, you are going to miss out on patients, either

because Google has penalized your site, or because patients are annoyed with

your unresponsive site, and click away.

A Picture to Introduce Yourself

Your patients may feel uncomfortable or timid in new situations. If you needed

to see a dermatologist, you would want to know that it was a clean, white

environment. What better way to help your prospective patients know that your

facility is modern, clean, and professional than with a few pictures? They’ll feel

safer with your practice, when they see where they’ll be cared for.

If you are re-branding yourself or changing your market, photos on your site

can be the first step towards setting those new expectations and attracting

your new clientele.

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And the most important picture you can post is yours. Preferably a professional

portrait, but even a few well-taken personal photos, when relevant, will go a

long way to make the prospective patient feel like they already know you.

“Businesses do not have emotion. People do,” says Bryan Kramer, author of

There is No B2B or B2C: It’s Human to Human. Your prospective patients will

be trusting you with their most valuable asset, themselves. They don’t form a

relationship with your brand or your building, but with you.

One example is how Dr. Amersi incorporates family photos into her website.

The end result is a page that introduces you to her as a human, as a mom, and

most importantly, as a doctor. Your doctor.

Reviews for Credibility

Amazon.com learned a long time ago that unfiltered reviews from normal

people will go a long way in building the trust necessary to buy, or in this case,

make an appointment.

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It’s one thing to read what the doctor thinks of himself, it’s another thing to

read what his patients think of him. According to one study, 88% of people trust

online reviews as much as a personal recommendation.

Instead of having to go the slow route of one patient telling her friend, who tells

his boss, who tells her husband, etc., now a handful of reviews can carry the

same social weight for every patient that visits your website.

Reviews need to be prominent. They need to be true. And they need to be

great. With every review, you are removing objections for why the visitor

shouldn’t call you.

You should vary the type of patient-reviewers as much as possible. Patients

are looking for a reviewer they identify with. Let’s say there is a mom with two

children looking for a dentist. If she sees another mom leave a review about

how great the hygienist was with her kids, it’s going to mean much more than

the review by the 60 year-old man who loves his new dentures.

These Additional Key Features to

Turn Browsers into Patients

Patients should be able to book appointments on your website, allowing you

to “convert” them immediately. A Google/Nielsen study shows that over half

of customers want to complete the transaction within an hour of starting their

research; don’t make your patients wait until the next day to call you. You might

lose them within that time.

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Booking appointments online means your patients will always have a pleasant,

brief, and successful experience. This cuts down on time they spend on hold,

trying to find the opportunity to call during business hours, and any other

variable you can’t control.

Plus, if they are able to complete the transaction with you, then they’ll have little

motivation to continue researching your competitors.

Your contact information needs to be readily available. The top performing

sites will also use call-now buttons for mobile users. This prevents patients

from having to write down your number. They can take action as soon as you’ve

convinced them that you are the one who will help.

Create a separate Contact page listing all of the ways they can reach you,

along with a map so they can get a feel for where your office is. Include your

address and phone number are in the footer or bottom of your site, where it’s

“sticky,” or visible no matter which page they’re on.

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Finally, list what insurance you take. It’s convenient for the patient, removing

any last-minute doubts, and streamlines your front staff operations as it cuts out

unnecessary calls.

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We’ve seen these eight must-haves turn practice marketing around.

Anyone with a bit of technical skill could implement some of these crucial

elements, while others will require the help of an SEO expert and web designer.