Medical and healthcare websites benefit the most from search engine optimization since their success is largely dependent on how quickly people can find them online. Whether you are a hospital, a product-based healthcare business, or a private practice, SEO efforts have become the go-to solution for all your inbound healthcare marketing needs.
Luckily, because of the dramatic move toward local SEO for physicians, search engine optimization for healthcare practices is now more doable than ever before. To have a fighting chance of outranking your peers and their established medical practice in the past, you needed high website traffic, backlinks, and clout.
With the appropriate expertise, effort, and consistency, you can not only quickly appear in Google’s local search results for the targeted keywords, but you can also rank towards the top.
However, there are some statements related to your website and search engine optimization that you will hear often, and you need to be wary of them. What are these statements that you need to ignore or do the opposite of? Let’s find out.
1. There Is No Need for a Responsive Website
The Pew Research Center found that 81 percent of people in the U.S owned a smartphone as of February 2019. Furthermore, according to GSMA Intelligence, by 2025, 3.7 billion individuals — or 72 percent of all internet users — will exclusively utilize smartphones to access the internet.
Given these figures, it is apparent that patients are accessing your website via a range of devices. As a result, building a responsive medical website is essential, as it can adapt to the device’s screen size. This ensures that all patients get the best possible viewing experience.
2. Anyone Can Create a Website Optimized For SEO
Creating a high-ranking medical website necessitates extensive search engine optimization expertise. According to HubSpot, over two-thirds of businesses (61 percent) list acquiring traffic and leads as their main marketing problem.
You may have the most fantastic medical website in the world, but if people can’t locate it, it’s practically meaningless. As per Moz, three-quarters of consumers (75%) do not bother looking past the first page of the SERPs.
3. Anyone Can Create Content for Your Website
An otherwise fantastic can be ruined by poor content. According to Adobe, over half of the consumers (44%) will not purchase from a company if its content is too verbose or badly written.
The website design phase is when the content for your site should be written. If your site designer does not prioritize this or proposes having someone other than a professional writer handle the task, consider it a red flag.
4. You Can Build a Great Website Using Web Design Tools
Web design tools that are simple to use appear to make it easy for anybody to build a website. However, a site produced with one of these tools cannot be compared to one created by a skilled web designer.
Everyone would do it if creating a high-quality healthcare website was simple. The only way to achieve the finished article your company deserves is to work with an expert web designer.
5. Chrome Is the Only Browser You Need to Optimize Your Website For
Chrome is the most widely-used internet browser in the United States, according to Statcounter, with a 49.35 percent share of the market as of November 2019. You have a 50/50 probability that your visitors are using Chrome, but you want them to have a great experience even if they are not.
It is critical to ensure that your medical site is compatible with all browsers or risk losing out on potential business. If a potential patient visits your website via a browser that is not Chrome, they will most likely go to a competitor if your site does not work properly on that browser. So, make sure your site is optimized for all browsers and not just Chrome.
6. Experience in the Healthcare Industry Does Not Matter For Web Designers
Nobody can be an expert in all areas. Be wary of web designers that claim to be able to develop an excellent medical website while having few or no healthcare customers.
Sure, any skilled web designer could develop a visually appealing and functioning website. However, an expert with specific healthcare sector knowledge will be better able to understand your practice’s website requirements. Even though podiatrists and ophthalmologists are both physicians, you wouldn’t seek treatment for a foot fracture from the latter. This makes it important to hire web designers with healthcare experience.
7. Your Website Will Be Created In No Time
You would want a new website for your healthcare practice as quickly as practicable if your present one is significantly lacking — or missing altogether. Quality websites, however, do not happen overnight.
For instance, as per Orbit Media, it takes over three hours on average to write a single blog post. That is only one blog post, so be careful of a web designer that claims to get your site up and running in a couple of days.
They should give you a detailed implementation plan that outlines the work they will accomplish — as well as the timetable — from beginning to end. It puts you and your partner on the same page right away and enables you to see what they are up to, ensuring that you are involved in the web design process throughout.
Final Word
You ought to be proud of your medical website. Make sure the company you choose for website development matches the high standards for search engine optimization and web design your practice requires and deserves.
At Purple Tie Guys, we have the expertise and experience to help you create a healthcare website optimized for all browsers. You can get in touch with us today to find out more!