Avenues To Achieve A Medical Website Overhaul
Even in their most rudimentary form, most medical businesses have a website that lists doctors, services, contact details and how to make an appointment.
Some businesses regularly update these areas to match their online presence, while other practices may limit the information on their website to minimise this need.
Either way, beyond the accuracy of this information, the format, function and feel of the website are bound to date over time.
Before this time arrives, it’s wise to know how to quickly review and refresh your website, along with your options for an eventual overhaul.
Planning A Review
A practice setup will generally encompass a website built in line with the marketing plan, even if that is a landing page with the same information as your business cards and brochures.
Further down the track, a practice will add more information or function to the website and, at the same time, review other items for correction.
When a website is small, these changes appear straightforward, yet it’s good to remember that once the website grows, so may the time taken to perform the same work.
Any well-thought-through changes at this stage can set the stage for future adjustments, so honesty is crucial when analysing navigation, layout and content that need adjustment.
We can use the analogy of a house to describe these components of a website and the impact of the overhaul we choose.
After all, every website has a domain name address, contents we can move around and a structure we can alter or rebuild.
Refresh Without Cost
As with a good sweep and sorting of items around our home, initial works can begin with a quick and cheap update of every page.
This website tidy can either remove items that are no longer relevant, reduce the clutter of too many elements or repurpose them elsewhere.
We may remove a contact form and other functions that break or overused features, such as popup notices.
In other cases, extraneous text can distract from the message, so we can reduce the content or highlight the key areas through bold or italic text.
Even a shuffle of page content can repurpose items for a more appealing and logical layout so visitors can find essentials like your phone number or address.
At the very least, scheduling a regular check of vital content such as opening hours, practice fees, and appointment links can avoid complaints.
Capturing and correcting essential information that is outdated or dysfunctional may also avoid the potential loss of new or existing clients.
Removing, reducing and repurposing content is also helpful in refining website content for when a practice renovates or rebuilds a website.
Renovate or Rebuild?
Moving content around a website will only take us so far when structural elements start to impact the feel or function of a website.
Perhaps items that once worked break down, changes are too complex to manage, the overall design looks tired, or the site takes forever to load.
To avoid a website rebuild, we may seek a web builder with the requisite skills to change the current structure.
Their coding knowledge may allow quicker site-wide adjustments, like social media links in the website footer, adjusting the colour palette on page backgrounds or matching elements across the site for visual consistency.
If all goes well, we may consider further renovations, but at some point, we may experience limitations within the website platform.
There comes a point with any renovation where we are knocking more down than we plan to build, and a rebuild may better suit our requirements and budget.
The consideration of a complete rebuild has the advantage of recycling the current content and adding updated features that benefit web managers and site visitors.
The options for building websites vary from self-build websites using drag-and-drop designs to incorporating branding, SEO, design and user experience into a custom website.
A new build should encompass a mobile-responsive layout, be quick to load, secure to access, utilise robust functions and be easy to migrate should you wish to change the hosting provider.
Ongoing Web Management
Regardless of a refresh, renovation, or rebuild, all websites require management in one form or another.
If allocating this duty to a staff member, we can choose a website platform that allows for front-end editing of page information with minimal training.
The web platform provider should offer quality online support as part of their package and ideally cover back-end functions not managed by your staff member as part of the subscription.
If wishing to outsource these duties, ensure it is possible to have the option to hand over management to another provider.
Remember that customised builds will increase the complexity of management if needing another web developer.
Finding a website that suits your business needs is a balance between ownership of website elements, ease of editing and the cost to maintain or migrate.
Where To From Here?
Budget, technical skills and time are resources that help determine the most practical path for managing your website needs.
Nicky Jardine has worked with rural and urban practices across Australia to review and revamp their websites, ensuring a balance between function, cost and compliance.
Whether setting up a practice or reviewing an existing one, Nicky’s remote practice management services can help you meet your financial goals.
To learn more about how Nicky’s health business solutions can take your medical practice to the next level, please email nicky@nickyjardine.com or call 1300 798 831.