You can have the most equipped practice packed with experienced and passionate healthcare professionals; however, if you fail to invest in a good website, you will deter a lot of potential patients from making their first and subsequent visits. We live in an age where patients turn to the internet before visiting healthcare establishments. A poorly designed website is, therefore, detrimental.
Your patients may visit your practice physically a few times a year; however, they have health concerns more often. Having a fully functional website allows them to get health-related information with ease. It also keeps them connected and loyal to your practice.
Here are some effective tips for improving the user experience on your practice’s website.
Have Legible Typography
Having a site packed with useful information is great for your practice. However, is the information easy to read? One of the most critical design aspects of any website is typography. Your content must be legible; otherwise, it won’t matter. According to CommunicateHealth Creative
Director, Molly McLeod, Sans Serif fonts are great for the web. She recommends a font size of 16 and above alongside a widget that is easy to use if you want to make text bigger. A line of text shouldn’t exceed 75 characters (approximately 15 words), and the line-height should be 140 percent+ to allow white space between every line. Paragraphs should be brief with spaces in between and headings and subheadings should be progressively smaller. Lastly, lists should be bulleted.
Include Call-To-Action
To boost user experience on your site, you need to make sure you maintain the attention of every patient that visits your site. To do this effectively, you must navigate them by using interesting and relevant Calls-To-Action. As the name suggests, a Call-To-Action prompts a website visitor to take specific action which can range from submitting their email address to signing up to receive newsletters or buying a product.
In addition to Call-To-Action buttons and links, you must organize your navigation tabs and make them engaging. Besides using interesting wording, the buttons and tabs should complement each other. The prompts should also be eye-catching. If a potential patient on your site doesn’t see or notice anything else while they are on your site, they should at least see or notice the Call-To-Action.
Ask for minimal information
Although having Call-To-Action buttons like sign-up buttons is important, you should ask for minimal information to avoid “turning off” your site visitors. 67% of people spend 1 to 3 minutes filling out an online form. Experts recommend form designs that take a minute or less to fill and ask for minimal information such as names and email addresses. Long forms with complex information requests confuse, frustrate and/or annoy your site visitors. For a practice site, you should be extremely sensitive about the information you ask for and leave additional information requests optional.
Website Must Be Mobile Friendly
The latest 2019 mobile internet user penetration statistics show that 63.4% of people who access the internet globally do so via mobile devices. This statistic alone highlights the importance of having a website that works perfectly when viewed via Smartphones and tablets, among other internet-enabled mobile devices. Your practice website must be designed to look and work perfectly when accessed from any computing device with more emphasis on mobile-friendliness. Besides boosting engagement, a mobile-friendly website is good for SEO. The #1 search engine globally, Google, considers mobile-friendliness when ranking sites. Responsive sites have great functionality and loading times – important search engine ranking factors.
Create Engaging Content
You should have a blog to give your patients ample and important information on health and medical topics that might capture their interest. Your patients have no reason to keep coming back to your site if all you have is old basic information. A blog allows you to share expert information on a wide range of topics. However, stay away from complicated medical terminologies and use simple language instead.
Offer Help
Lastly, your practice website should have a help/FAQs section that offers help on common issues. You can use the inquiries you get to create a helpful FAQs section. Having real-time communication, i.e. phone numbers and Live Chat will also go a long way in offering instant help to potential patients looking to visit your practice for the 1st time or existing patients looking for additional information.
Know why Your Plumbing Business Isn’t Getting Desired Number of Leads Despite Having a Great Website
Your plumbing website has been live for years now, but it doesn’t seem to generate the number of leads you desire. Your email and social media advertising campaigns are bringing in lots of traffic, but nobody is taking the next step of calling your business. So, what’s the issue?
As marketing strategists for trades and home service contractors, we have met many plumbing contractors struggling to grow their businesses. Some were larger plumbing companies with great websites, and some had simple websites. But no matter the size, they all had a similar problem. Their plumbing websites were driving prospects or clients away.
Plumbing websites are meant to generate leads, not just sit around and look pretty. Your site should be generating leads.
Do you feel your plumbing website isn’t generating as many leads or clients as it should?
Are you frustrated that you have to spend countless hours every week waiting for your phone to ring?
You may think that your plumbing website doesn’t obtain sufficient traffic to bring in the leads your company requires, but there is a high likelihood that you can skyrocket the number of leads your site generates, from the same traffic, by fixing these 10 problems.
When it comes to plumbing websites, it’s easy to say “good enough” about functionality and design. After all, “if it’s broken, why fix it?”. But becoming complacent with your plumbing company website is a risky mindset. If you are not continuously enhancing your webpages and appropriately updating trends change, you could be driving potential clients away in droves. Here are the ten blunders that make the prospects on your plumbing website cringe.
1. Outdated Plumbing Website Design
First impressions are important. If the initial impression your website offers is that it has not been updated for some months or years now, you are in for a rude shock. An outdated plumber website will cause new prospects your company is closing soon. Always work with a professional plumbing website designer to assist you in building your site with digital marketing best practices in mind.
2. Complicated or Confusing Navigation
Don’t provide your site visitors with too many options in the main navigation menu. Figure out what needs to be promoted and what can be done on the inside page. Lots of options appear not only sloppy but also confuses new site visitors. If your potential clients cannot easily find what they require, they are going to click off to other plumbing websites.
One of the numerous reasons your plumbing website or landing page requires a simple design is because a confusing or complicated layout can distract your prospects’ eyes from crucial information. Recent eye-tracking studies have shown a tendency to scan a site instead of going through each letter.
3. No Compelling Call to Actions (CTAs)
In sales and marketing, we always use the term “ABC” before closing. The equivalent to that in plumbing websites is to always include a call-to-action. Generally, your plumbing website offers a lot of information on the company’s service or product and later says, “for more details, contact us.”
That’s great, but your site visitors require direction. Your plumbing website needs to be more specific in telling them how to reach you, which needs to be easy.
A call-to-action in your plumbing website needs to be into two major forms. The initial is your call to action within the text of your website, and it should state for instance “To learn more about our custom plumbing repair offering, fill out our contact form or call us at 619-555-1312 for immediate assistance today”.
If you fail to give website visitors a clear direction on what you want them to do after landing on your site-in simple terms –a compelling call to action-they won’t stay on your website for long but will click off to another plumber’s website.
Be clear about what you want prospects or clients to do when they come to your plumbing website. Tell them “request a quote now” or “subscribe now if you want to gain more email newsletter subscribers.
4. Misaligned, Poor Quality, or Insufficient Content
Consumers go online to assist respond to their questions and make a decision to book a job with a local plumber. If your plumbing website doesn’t have a blog, client testimonials or service demos, etc., you can kick those client’s goodbye. Being helpful and transparent are important to establish trust with your leads and eventually their business. If your plumbing website only promotes your business and doesn’t contain content to educate your buyers, then they will go to another website that is committed to solving their problems or concerns.
You only have a few seconds to convert a potential lead into a client and even less time to create a great first impression. If the content doesn’t resonate with the visitor, either in content or tone, they won’t feel it was focused on them.
The impression created by vague content or poor grammar and spelling is even worse. Don’t allow poorly written content to drive away your high-value leads. When describing your plumbing service or product, show it as a solution to the challenges potential clients are facing.
Proofread and edit your content before publishing or hire a plumbing SEO content agency to do it for you. When your content resonates with prospects or clients, they will feel more engaged with your business and as a consequence, are likely to want to read more.
5. Your Plumbing Website is Not Responsive/Mobile-Friendly
Nowadays, people are spending more hours on their mobile devices than ever before to search for local service businesses like yours. If your plumbing website is not responsive on devices other than a desktop computer, then you are driving potential clients away.
Some prospective leads want to book jobs with your company, but they cannot since they are attempting to access a desktop site from a mobile device like a Smartphone. More and more clients and plumbers are utilizing their mobile devices to read the news, shop, and contact other service providers, and that implies your lead generation efforts should follow suit.
Instead of waiting for prospects to go away and access your plumbing website from their desktop computer, a mobile-friendly strategy will assist you to reach them and convert them, wherever they might be.
6. Your Plumbing Website Doesn’t Provide Anything to Potential Clients
How can you obtain leads if you don’t have anything valuable to provide your prospects?
Your plumber website should contain helpful (not salesy) resources, content, and provides that prospects are itching to put their hands on. Think of white papers, e-books, slide decks, consultations, guides, and more.
You want to have a variety of content that will appeal to prospects depending on where they are in their buying journey. For instance, a “getting started” guide works for a prospect who is still exploring all of their options, while a free consultation or demo is ideal for someone who is ready to book a job with your company.
7. Slow Loading Speeds
Modern browsers are becoming accustomed to fast-loading plumbing websites. This implies that you are testing your prospect’s patience when your website loads in more than three seconds. In most instances, they will click off to another plumber’s website instead of waiting for your website to load.
A recent study found that slow-loading websites can frustrate your prospects or clients. Having such a website can lower your search engine rankings, as Google considers page loading speed in their search engine algorithm.
Simply put, your plumbing website must load faster and cater to their great swift internet connections.
8. Unprofessional or Poor Photography
Your plumbing website, in many cases, is the initial impression a client obtains of your company. Yet many plumbers skimp on photography. Stock photos don’t work nowadays. If you are utilizing stock photos, you will be able to tell and make your site feel cheesy,
Using quality images (probably of your team performing some work) is an effective way to build a more emotional experience for your visitor, but ensure they are unique and of high quality and showcase your real business or plumbing services.
When it comes to designing your plumbing website, little is always preferred than more.
Although it can be tempting to hit your prospects or clients with everything at once and add interactive widgets, this can cause them to be overwhelmed by too much information. Consider your prospect or client each step of the way and build your website with an intention of offering the best user experience for them.
By taking the time to correct the flaws above, your website will begin to achieve higher levels of traffic and higher engagement levels across the board.
10. Crazy Scrolling and Pop-up Ads
If your plumbing website has tons of unnecessary pop-ups, scrolling that your prospects can’t scan or read your content, that is a great turn-off for modern browsers. Call to action is awesome, but spammy and annoying links will drive traffic to your rivals.
Improve Your Plumbing Website Design to Generate Leads Consistently Every Month on Autopilot
Getting new clients for your plumbing business requires many strategies, and almost all of them hinge on online interactions.
The most crucial digital marketing asset you have is your plumbing website. Your plumber website design should incorporate several best practices, such as the ones we have highlighted below. When you implement them, you can generate more conversions/leads.
Your Plumbing website should be responsive/mobile-friendly
Many people looking for plumbing services do so on their smartphones. In most instances, they require urgent help, so they utilize the most convenient tool. If clients find your plumbing business online and land on your website on their smartphone, they anticipate your site to load within three seconds and adapt to their device. Thus, it is important that your plumbing company site appear and display perfectly on mobile.
Your plumbing website should include social media links
New clients want evidence that your business is trustworthy and reputable. The effective way to showcase this is through social proof. That could include testimonials, customer service awards, reviews, and ratings. Ensure these things are prominently visible on your plumbing website so that potential clients can conduct due diligence and ensure that your plumbing company is legit.
Your Website should describe what you do and the clients you serve
While plumber services, in general, are the same, you want to be candid and clear about what you provide and who your ideal clients are. If you offer any specialized plumbing services, ensure that such pages are separate on your website, and this can improve your organic search greatly. Beyond services, you should not indicate if you work in the commercial or residential market or both.
Your Plumbing Website Should be easy to navigate
Don’t make it difficult for prospects to find what they require. Make sure your menu is easier to find and resonates with the hierarchy. If prospects land on your plumbing website and find it easy, they may connect with you faster.
Your Plumbing Website Should Have a Professional Design
Your website typically represents your company, so don’t go it alone. Work with a Professional plumbing website design agency that has experience in your industry. By so doing, you will get a website that works and looks well.
Invest in Your Plumbing Website, and It Will Give Back in form of Qualified Leads
Making these upgrades to your site user experience and navigation will require an investment of time, but every hour spent improving your website will save many hours wasted manually chasing leads.
There you have it, ten factors that could be driving prospects away from your plumbing website. If you don’t have the time to implement these changes to create a consistent sales funnel that will generate high-value leads every month, our web designers can help with that.
