5 Tips to Improve Your Dermatology Website Design
In an industry as competitive and visually-focused as dermatology, it can be easy to place more value on the way a website looks instead of how it performs. But in today’s digital marketing world, functionality is just as important as looks. Having a beautiful design as a facade for the ugly inner workings of a broken website is no longer enough: your website needs both. However, armed with enough basic knowledge, you can ensure your website is both beautiful and functional, which means it will keep showing up in searches, giving users what they’re looking for, and ultimately bringing new clients to your business.
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How to Improve Your Dermatology Website Design
Looking to improve your dermatology website? Here are 5 places to start.
1 |
Design.
Good web design is the combination of multiple components. It’s choosing the right combination of colors, fonts, and visual elements to convey your brand, but it goes beyond that too.
Your website needs to display correctly on every device and browser it may be accessed on - whether that’s an iPhone 6 using Safari or a desktop computer running Firefox. This is known as responsive design. If your website isn’t designed responsively, you’re potentially creating an unusable, frustrating experience for your users, which means you’re losing out on business.
2 |
Accessibility.
Websites are expected to meet standards for accessibility for users with disabilities – and failing to meet these standards can have serious consequences. Not only are you making your website unusable to nearly 1.4 billion people with disabilities worldwide and facing penalties from search engines, but you’re also opening your business up to potential lawsuits by failing to meet these accessibility standards.
3 |
Security.
The security of your website is incredibly important, particularly if you’re collecting or storing any sort of protected health information (PHI) that must be kept safe under HIPAA standards.
This impacts your website in a number of ways. You must use SSL encryption (that means your URL starts with https instead of http) and keep your certificate updated. Failure to do this will mean penalties from search engines as well as error messages from users and a resulting steep drop in traffic. Additionally, your web forms need to be fully encrypted, and any systems that store or transmit PHI need special systems for handling this data. Special training for your employees is likely also required, both in how to handle sensitive data and how to avoid security breaches.
4 |
Hosting.
Choosing a hosting provider is an important decision for any business, but often it’s one place businesses try to save money. Unfortunately, cheap website hosting is frequently that way because it lacks infrastructure - which means your website goes down frequently, loads slowly, and is vulnerable to cyberattacks. It also often means you’re left dealing with a frustrating lack of customer service support, making it hard to make necessary changes and upgrades. For dermatologists, choosing a hosting provider has another important consideration: HIPAA compliance. Since your web host is your first line of defense against compromised information, make sure they’re fully HIPAA compliant before choosing them.
5 |
Conversion elements.
Anything that helps convert a website visitor into a client is considered a conversion element.
This could be a chat widget, phone number, form, button – anything that puts them in contact with you. These elements need to be tested regularly to make sure they’re working and displaying correctly across all of the browsers and devices that are used to access your website. Upgrading these elements can mean adding them to more spots in your website, or adding new types such as a new chat widget or form.
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