7 Strategies to Attract and Keep Urology Patients on Your Website

Aug. 27, 2018

Give patients a positive first impression with the right kind of website

By: Katie Stensberg, Digital Marketing Manager

As patients walk in your clinic door, they are the focus of your attention. The same should be true when they visit your website. Keeping patients in your waiting room is easy. Keeping patients on your website is harder. Below are seven strategies your urology practice can leverage today to offer a more patient-focused website. 

Design for the mobile patient. Make sure your design layout is mobile friendly. The percentage of Americans that own smartphones is now 77 percent. And the new generation of patients and healthcare decision makers? A whopping 94 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 29 rely on their smartphones. Visit the Pew Internet Mobile Fact Sheet for more demographic information.

Your. Words. The "average" American reads at a 7th or 8th grade level. It is recommended to match your website copy with this level of readability. Remember to put yourself in your patient’s shoes. Determine your website Flesch-Kincaid reading level using Microsoft Word with the following steps:

1. Copy and paste your website copy into a Word document
2. Click the Tools tab and select Spelling and Grammar from the drop down
3. Click Options
4. Beneath Grammar, make sure Show Readability Statistics is selected
5. Click ok and continue to check your spelling and grammar
6. After spelling and grammar is checked, a pop-up box will appear with your readability statistics

To understand what your reading ease means, use this chart.  

A couple additional thoughts with simplifying your copy:

• Avoid medical jargon and acronyms
• As a rule, don’t use more than three different typefaces throughout a single website

Make it fast and keep it fast. Website download speed is important. Not only does Google favor faster websites, your patients do too. Fun fact: 53 percent of users will abandon a website that take more than three seconds to load. To test your site speed, visit PageSpeed Insights or Test My Site. Both are powered by Google.

Present content as a patient would want or need. When deciding where copy, images, links, etc. should be placed on your website, it is most important to think from the patient’s perspective – what are their needs? Keep in mind the following tips when designing for a positive patient user-experience:

• Establish a clear hierarchy to your information
• Become familiar with visitor reading behaviors, such as what is known as the F-Shaped pattern
• Place important content above the fold
• Apply contrast and appropriate sizing
• Include a search function
• Each page should have a way for the visitor to contact your urology clinic

Be a resource. Offer downloadable content. Offering content that visitors can download allows them to further engage with your health organization. Examples of downloadable content include: dietary grocery shopping lists, educational materials, and new patient information. 

Design with quality visuals and video, along with appropriate colors. You may have heard that the average attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish. Taking that theory into account, as website developers, we need to capture a visitor’s attention immediately or they will leave. Consider using strong visuals and videos along with an appropriate color theme to increase your visitors’ length of stay. Here are a few tips and resources: 

• Several studies have shown how we are drawn to human faces. If you want to quickly grab attention to a certain part of your website, use large photos of people.
• Make sure your photos and images are properly sized and optimized. Not doing so can have a negative impact on the user’s website experience. Here is a good resource. 
• Include an infographic that combines text, data and images to snap people’s attention. Click here for tips on how to make a healthcare infographic. 
• By 2019, video will make up 80 percent of all internet traffic. Don’t be left in the dust ... include videos within your site. 
• Videos on your home page should not exceed 30 seconds. When a visitor is more deep in your website and more emotionally engaged, a longer video format can be used.
• What are the emotional implications of your website colors? Find out and learn a basic understanding of color usage on your website design.  

Be found with proper search engine optimization (SEO). The best way for your patients to find you online is to optimize your website. Below are a few tips to get you started. A few of these have already been mentioned, however, they are worth mentioning again.

• Optimize and compress images in exchange for a faster load time.
• Using a few tools, discover keywords people are using when searching for urology-type information. Then use those keywords within your copy headlines, meta descriptions and title tags.
• On the backend of your website, complete your meta descriptions and include a call to action.
• Keep your website fresh with new, high-quality and well-researched content.
• Make sure your website is mobile friendly.

Keep in mind that these seven strategies are the tip of the iceberg in developing and improving your urology website. Legato Healthcare Marketing is an expert in the urology field. We have the skills and strategies to help you succeed. Take a look at our recent urology website work and reach out to Mike Milligan today to get started. mikem@golegato.com