With thousands of private medical practitioners operating in Miami, the competition is fierce. These days, most established doctors have websites to attract new customers; however, many are not effective business tools.

Today, we’ll examine what it takes for a Miami doctor’s website  design to be an effective platform for lead generation.

Three Criteria for a successful Miami Doctor’s Website Design

 

1. Establish Expertise
It is paramount for a doctor to clearly display their education, experience and certifications. Sadly, there is a precedent for fraudulence in the medical professional, so questions regarding legitimacy must be immediately done away with.

Additionally, it’s important for a doctor to set their practice part from the competition. Why should a casual visitor pay attention, and not move on to one of the other five dozen listings they saw on Google 5 seconds earlier? It’s critical to clearly display a value proposition and bulleted list of differentiating factors in order to convince people to stick around.

2. Gain Trust
Patients need to feel safe in the hands of their doctor. Without firmly establishing trust, a doctor has no chance of converting a visitor into a lead. There are many ways to build trust, but let’s review the most impactful methods.

10 Essential Trust Builders for Doctor’s Websites

1. Office photos
Professional photos of an office interior will properly set expectations and give new patients an idea of what to expect when they visit.

2. Doctor/staff photos and bios
Giving a face to any business goes a long way with customers. Key staff members should have photos and short bios. This builds confidence by highlighting the individuals who customers will be interacting with.

3. Before/After photos
Results are the most important selling point for any doctor. Offices practicing dermatology or plastic surgery, for example, should showcase before and after photos of patients they have treated. There’s no better proof of a doctor’s expertise, and potential clients will undoubtedly feel more confident and comfortable when booking a consultation.

4. A Testimonials Page
It’s important to collect positive feedback from past clients, and get their permission to display it on a testimonials page. Video testimonials are more powerful than written ones, and can provide great content for a Media gallery or YouTube channel.

5. A Media/Press Page
A surefire way for a doctor to impress potential clients is to showcase media and press mentions they have received. Articles, interviews and videos from web, print and television are all great fodder for a Media or Press section on a website. Positive press shows potential clients that a doctor is highly regarded in the eyes of the community. This is a powerful trust-builder that should not be ignored.

6. A Blog
Doctors are highly trained and intelligent people with expertise in niche industries. Sharing this expertise in an onsite blog is a great method of becoming a thought leader and generating shareable content. By implementing social sharing tools on individual blog articles, readers can “like”, share and email articles to friends and family.

7. A Phone number and physical address
For obvious reasons, a phone number should be displayed in the header so that it’s visible on ever page of a website. It is also highly recommended that a physical address and small Google map be inserted into the footer. This helps Google index websites for inclusion in Google Places and Maps results.

8. Positive reviews on sites like Google and Yelp
Online reputation management can make or break a business, so doctors should pay close attention to what people are saying in Google and Yelp reviews.

– Monitoring Reviews
If a bad review pops up, sites like Yelp allow business owners to respond with a rebuttal. This is the perfect opportunity to discredit unfair reviews, or clear up misunderstandings. It’s vital that doctors address negative reviews right away, as this shows a pro-active concern for the well-being of clients and pride in ones business.

– Generating Reviews
Doctors should create an action plan for reaching out to past clients and requesting reviews. The most unobtrusive method is to implement an auto-email that is sent immediately after a patient’s visit. In the email, a doctor can thank the patient for visiting, and request that they provide an unbiased review on sites like Google or Yelp.

9. Social Media Presence
Social sites like Facebook provide opportunities to strike up conversations and keep people updated on news, specials, contests, etc. If a potential customer visits a doctor’s Facebook page and sees positive interaction between a doctor and his/her patients, it creates a feeling of community and trust.

10. Avoid Selling Products
Many dermatologists have developed product lines they promote to their patients. These doctors should avoid pushing products on the websites they use for their main practices. Potential clients may be turned off by being hit in the face with sales promotions, when their intent is to gather information regarding the doctor’s background, services, location, etc. A better solution is to create a stand-alone ecommerce website and promote it elsewhere.

3. Make it easy for customers to contact you

Too often, we see websites that neglect the importance of displaying a phone number and providing easy access to a “request a consultation” form. Below are some helpful tips regarding each.

1. Phone Number
As previously noted, a phone number should be visible on every page of a website (preferably in the header).  Also, it is recommended that doctors utilize “call tracking”, which displays a phone number on the website that is not present anywhere else. This helps to segment calls from the website and better determine how your online efforts are performing when compared to offline promotions and advertisements.

2. Request a Consultation
A prominent call-to-action for “Request a Consultation” should be displayed on the Homepage, as well as key inner pages where lead generation is the goal. The call-to-action can be in the form of a button, which leads visitors to a form page. Placing a form on a dedicated page allows for submissions and abandonment to be tracked with analytics tools.This is extremely useful when optimizing a site for higher conversion rates.

 In Conslusion

There you have it. A playbook for a Miami doctor’s website design to establish expertise, build trust and generate leads online. While implementing all of the above tactics can be a tremendous amount of work, we recommend assessing what you are well equipped to tackle in the short term, and making some changes right away.

To speak with an online business consultant about Website Design, please contact FUZE today.

 

by Fuze July 19, 2013