At VIS Healthcare Marketing, we’ve designed our fair share of allied health website. As a healthcare marketing agency, we have developed content, practice growth strategy, and website design for a range of services, and our repertoire extends to digital marketing for allied health organizations. It goes without saying, then, that we know the formula for successful allied health marketing and web design like the back of our hand.
So, how do we do it? Keep reading for our comprehensive guide to designing an allied health website that will look great and perform well!
Tip #1: Less is more
Let’s kick off with an exercise. Open up your web browser and search for a boutique healthcare clinic. It doesn’t even need to be a clinic—you could search for any boutique organization. As you shift between tabs or web addresses, you may notice a theme emerging. How are all of these boutique websites so, well, beautiful? The answer lies in what they don’t add. And that brings us to the principle of less is more.
When you visit a website for a boutique service, an image or video footage will greet you. This visual display will occupy most of the screen, and you’ll need to scroll before receiving further information. Even when you scroll down, you’ll see spacious formatting, which leaves breathing space between the components of the text. Everything is presented in a way that is digestible, and the reader will not become overwhelmed by large chunks of information.
When designing your allied health website, remember that less is more. Much like a gourmet meal, the less that is on your plate, the more high-end it will be. (It will also be easier to digest!)
Crowd your website with information and, like a lower-class pub meal, the website can appear cheap and like a challenge to get through.
Tip #2: Add contact buttons
Whenever someone sees a button, their first instinct is to press it, right? So, what harm could come from sprinkling contact buttons throughout your homepage?
Use your intuition here, but we would recommend adding contact buttons after calls to action, or after describing a service that the reader could benefit from. It gives the reader an immediate reference point, hitting them when they feel most compelled to take action.
Tip #3: Call readers to action—and often!
In allied health marketing—or any kind of marketing, for that matter—you will find calls to action peppered throughout the text.
Why is this?
Because, regardless of the AHPRA advertising guidelines, marketing is still a persuasive tactic. If you want your readers to choose your clinic, you’ll need to motivate action. If they’re sounding repetitive, you can always reword them, but we would encourage you to make calls to action throughout your text—and to make them often.
Tip #4: Promote all offers well
If your organization has any current offers, you need to make them obvious. For example, if you have a discount for new patients, this should be the first thing people notice when visiting your homepage. You could create an advertising graphic or even use the old faithful button. Whatever you choose, it will be a win-win. The patients will receive discounts and, ideally, you will receive more patients!
Tip #5: State your accepted payment methods and insurance funds
For some, payment methods can guide or even determine purchasing decisions. Whilst some are happy to tap their debit card and be done with it, others live by the mantra ‘buy now, pay later with Afterpay’. Holders of private health insurance, on the other hand, are paying upwards of $100 per month. To get the best return on investment, they may shop around until they find a clinic that accepts their nominated healthcare fund.
You may have noticed that allied health (such as chiropractic) advertising makes supported insurance funds and payment methods clear. The task of any allied health marketing agency is to create content with this level of transparency. Therefore, when designing your allied healthcare website, ensure to list insurance funds and accepted payment methods.
Tip #6: Include personalized images and videos
Although we already touched on this in tip #1, it’s important to include images and videos for visual interest. To establish your brand, however, you should include photos or footage unique to your clinic. For example, it’s better to include portraits of staff members beside their bios than to have royalty-free images or no images at all. And while we aren’t saying stock photos don’t have their place, it is personalized content that sets you apart from the competition.
We, humans, are social creatures, and we’re more likely to trust an organization with a personal touch. Did you know that email subscribers are more likely to engage with eDMs when it appears that an individual staff member—as opposed to the organization itself—wrote the copy? Similarly, if prospective patients can put faces to the names, your website will give off an authentic feel that prospective patients will respond to.
If photography isn’t your strong suit, consider organizing a professional photo shoot. The better the quality of your original content, the more trust you will gain.
Tip #7: Use location-based search engine optimization (SEO)
You can have the most aesthetic web design and the highest-quality photos, but without search engine optimization, it can be a cry into the void. To attract patients, they must first know you exist. At a healthcare marketing agency like VIS, we use trending keywords to bring your website to the forefront of any search engine results page. We emphasize location because this plays a huge role when choosing a clinic.
What do you do when searching for a local dentist? You likely type ‘dentist in Melbourne’ (or a similar phrase containing an alternative city or suburb). With location-based search engine optimization, your clinic can fall among the top search results and enjoy higher levels of traffic. Without search engine optimization, you’re as good as second-page news—and we all know how often people visit the second page of any Google results (hint: it’s not often).
And that, in essence, is your comprehensive guide to designing an allied health website that will not only see results but will entice prospective patients to continue reading. Aesthetics, transparency, personalized touches, and search engine optimization are the ingredients to successful allied health marketing. If you think your strategy could use a little sharpening, get in touch today to see how we can help.
At VIS Healthcare Marketing, we will do all of the above—and more—to grow your allied healthcare clinic.
