Your brochure: dead or alive!
Like it or not we are now all web-enabled in some form or other with E (electronic) communication being the name of the game. A well thought out website and web-enabled business can reduce the glossy brochure to an early grave.
In the olden days (just three or four years ago!) someone starting up their business would have demanded a “Corporate Brochure”, taking weeks to design, costing the earth and probably being out of date the day it was printed. Today your website can be many things but first of all consider it as your “living brochure”: flexible, updateable, easily extended and available 24/7 around the world.
It’s a researched fact that today anyone who has an internet connection and can access the internet will use it to research an illness and the available treatment options. This is even more prevalent when the illness is especially serious such as cancer. The patients are in such shock after their first consultation and diagnosis that little is taken in. Later, on returning home, everyone (patients, relatives and friends) spend hours on Google etc finding out more about the illness, the treatment routes and yes, the people managing (or potentially managing) their treatment journey.
Building your website
It all really depends on what you want your website to achieve. Ask yourself why do you need it? Who are you targeting: fellow Doctors, referrers, patients? Is it going to be an information library on your speciality or are you going to link your visitors somewhere else? Be realistic and honest about your website expectations.
You should also realize that your first attempt will probably be one of many versions, with numerous tweaks and eventual rebuilds before you get it right. Plus you have to accept that as technology evolves so will your website.
DIY vs. Web Design Agency
This is your business so let’s get professional. DIY websites are just that and usually look well… DIY! Design, copy, finding it on the web, maintaining it and maximising its potential are all critical issues. Do you really have the skills, time and objective insight to do all of this in house?
How much does it cost?
Flippantly, one could reply with as much as you want! They can start at £500 but this will be incredibly basic with zero functionality and a bit of copy (self supplied), little or no creativity or design, usability (ease of navigation) and your search engine optimisation (how people find you on the web) based on a hope and prayer.
Realistically if you are starting from scratch and wanting your website to become your prime marketing driver: establishing your identity (logos etc), tone of voice (the actual text or copy), coded properly (for search engine optimisation) and a basic content management system (allowing you to update your own website) you probably won’t see much change out of £6000.
If you want to securely “web-enable” your business (to be more interactive) for example, to make appointments, send out reminders and information then the costs get incrementally higher.
At the end of the day medical treatments are about people and patients and no amount of web based gimmicks can transcend the person to person contact. However a clear, concise and confident website that grasps the patients’ medical concerns and fears will get that journey off to a great start.
Some basic do’s and don’ts:
DO
Design your website in conjunction with the rest of your creative look. It must reflect the corporate identity and tone of voice that you already use.
Create colours and identity to match and enhance your medical status and target market. You need to impress that you are professional, trustworthy and confident.
Get straight to the point: visitors to your site need to know at first glance what your site is all about. Most people will leave your site in five seconds if it is unclear.
Write for your target audience. Employ a professional copywriter to ensure you are getting your message across in layman’s terms. It’s an additional expense but well worth it.
Make clear headings with simple navigation. If visitors can’t find it they’ll move on at the click of a mouse.
Keep your site up to date. If you’re too occupied to do this then should we really do business with you?
Before going “live” with your site get your friends (and foes) to critique it and not just your staff.
Don’t
Get gimmicky and fill (but especially open) the site with fancy add on’s, flash animations, sounds or pop up ads. Good for ringtone sites but questionable for a medical practice!
Put a load of slow loading graphics onto your pages. Keep all your images at 72 dpi.
Use hyphens and dashes etc into your web address. Keep it simple, memorable and easy to spell!
Try and put everything into your website at once. Build it up and monitor the activity: hits, their sources, which pages are being read and which ones are not – ask yourself why and act on it.
Be initially concerned at the number of hits (visitors) coming to the site. Be more concerned by the quality of hits. Are you getting to the people you want to?
Forget to add keywords to your website to ensure that they are picked up. For example, a website for a back clinic should spell out in the first sentence “back” and “injury”. This is known as metadata.
Posted on Thursday, 02 October 2008