Websites are one of the very most valuable marking tools for businesses of all sizes and in all industries. There is added value to healthcare practitioners, considering 60+ % of American adults search online for health information. Ensuring that your medical, dental or surgical website is appealing to this massive online audience is imperative.
Having a GREAT website is valuable and proves that value year after year. Keep in mind that website design is more than just pretty colors, high resolution photos and creative layouts. The most valuable web sites incorporate elements of branding, usability, lead generation and accessibility.
Branding
Apple is a prime example of consistence throughout branding.
Usability
Usability is an assessment of how easily your website is navigated and utilized. Usability is hugely important and should be kept in mind during website design. If visitors can not figure out how to use the site, then the website decreases in value. Prioritize the tasks that you want the visitor to take, then follow best practice guidelines to make tasks as easy as possible.
Usability testing a design is a MUST before the site goes live. Have objective eyes navigate through your website and give you honest feedback. We have found that someone who has nothing to do with the design process is usually the most valuable critic. Its much better to find usability issues during testing than a year down the road after customers have complained (and potentially walked away).
A design that is usable with clear process funnels provides value to the company every time someone visits their site.
Lead Generation
Lead generation is a very important function of a website. It is commonly an after thought during the design process, and we have discovered this is a mistake! The ability to capture information from people who are interested in your product or service is highly beneficial. Designs that maximize lead generation use A/B testing to find optimal layouts and language. They are enticing in hopes of a user giving up their information. Even simple lead generation tactics will increase the number of interested customers who will come into your place of business. Just imagine if your website generation 50, 100 or even 500 leads per month… How would that impact your bottom-line?
Accessibility
Technology changes at a rapid pace and the biggest trend in the last few years is mobile browsing. Recently people have begun accessing the Internet from a wide variety of devices; Smart phones, Desktops, Tablets, etc. This has made accessibility VERY important. Your website MUST be accessible on all major devices without compromising user experience. Mobile responsive websites eliminate the need to develop separate websites for each device type, which is must more cost effective and easier to manage. Web design by Reactive Consulting accomplishes seamless user experience across all platforms without the need to create a mobile website.
A website also must be accessible to search engines. Google is the search engine leader by a huge margin, accounting for over 85% of the market share. This roughly equates to just over 2 billion searches on Google PER DAY. Search engines utilize robots called “Spiders” that crawl the internet finding websites, indexing the sites and then reporting their findings back to Google for listing. If your website isn’t accessible to the “Spiders” that the search engines send out, then you are missing out! SEO aims to not only make your website accessible to search engines, but also maximize the visibility of your site in the major search engines.
Solid web design is absolutely priceless.
All website design is NOT created equal. Paying more will not necessarily guarantee you get more. When you are searching for a website designer make sure that you look through their past work. Don’t just browse portfolios, but go to the actual sites. Verify these sites are functional. Are their broken links or missing images? Is the user experience complete? Is the site complicated and difficult to navigate? Is the brand well represented? Is the site seamlessly navigable on a mobile device? Read reviews and testimonials and focus on business that are well known in your community / city / state.
