A Checklist For Successful Podiatry Clinic Websites

Your professional reputation extends outside the walls of your clinic. Lots of potential patients first see and learn about you and your services online. This article aims to help you learn 8 core concepts of a successful clinic website. With this knowledge, you’ll be able to evaluate what your clinic’s online presence is doing right, and where there’s room for improvement.
 
As the Internet changes and evolves, so do clinic websites. Building a successful clinic website is an active, not a passive process. If your website has been statically sitting around for 5 or more years, don’t be discouraged. Small changes could make a major impact on your clinic’s bottom line.
 
The goal of learning these core concepts and implementing the checklist items is to drive real business results for your practice. Your clinic website is no longer just a static brochure of information about your practice. It’s a place where people might pay bills, schedule appointments, or even purchase products.
 
If you’re already putting these strategies into action, great! Reading this article will confirm that you’re on the right path. If not, reviewing your efforts will provide a clearer idea of how you can create a better digital experience for current and prospective patients while growing your practice online. 

1. Create a Great First Impression

What is the first thing that your website visitors see when they leap from Google or another website over to your clinic’s home on the Internet? It’s important that your clinic website makes a strong first impression with your ideal patients and shows them that you are the local foot and ankle expert.
 
Your website:
            ❏  speaks to your right-fit patient
                        What solution are they seeking and what are their frustrations?                        
                        Why should they choose you?                        
                        Is it clear at a glance what solution you offer?                        
                        Is your website for somebody or for everybody?
            ❏  Logo/branding/design stands out and isn’t easily confused with another local podiatry clinic
            ❏  If your right-fit patient or service offering was a crime, would there be enough evidence on your website to convict you? (h/t Tyson Franklin)  

2. Be Authentic and Different

A picture is worth a thousand words. And, while it’s important that your qualifications and credentials are visible on your clinic website, they shouldn’t dominate your homepage. In my experience, it is better to lead with visuals, not text. And these images should show you and your staff treating your ideal patients. Stock or generic images don’t create a personal connection like authentic photos. You want show patients that you’re different from other local podiatrists and are focused on solving their foot and ankle issues.
 
I’d recommend examining your website to see if contains:
 
            ❏  photos of you and your staff on the homepage and throughout the site;
            ❏  limited use of stock images;
            ❏  images of you treating your right-fit patients and performing preferred procedures or treatments; and  
            ❏  photos that reinforce the idea that you are the foot and ankle expert. For instance, if you want to perform more surgery, does your website show images of you in scrubs or in the operating room? 

3. Display Social Proof

It’s easy talk about ourselves and the excellent care we provide. But what others share and say about you and their experience in your clinic has a much bigger impact. There is no shortage of ways to repurpose this positive “digital word of mouth” and display it on your clinic website. Also, I have found that membership or affiliation with a local or national organization is comforting to patients and builds trust. The fact that you’re board certified or engaged with a professional organization can be a strong signal to prospective patients that you are the local foot and ankle expert.
 
Does your website show any of the following?
           
            ❏  Online patient reviews, star rating, or review count;
            ❏  Patient testimonials with references to specific care or treatments they received;
            ❏  Before and after photos (if allowed in your area);
            ❏  Trust/authority symbols (logos of professional associations, certifications, additional
                 training, etc.). 

4. Be Locally Relevant

Unless you’re looking to build a national or international reputation in a specific niche, a podiatry practice is a local business. Prospective patients in your local area are asking their primary care physician, family members, and Google for referrals. Does your name or clinic come up in these conversations or search results? Ranking high in Google results doesn’t happen by accident. This occurs by implementing a focused, consistent, local-first website strategy.
 
Does your website have any of these features that may help accomplish this goal?
 
            ❏  Separate webpages for each clinic location;
            ❏  Title Tag - Location and most important keyword;
            ❏  H1 Tag - Location and most important keyword on homepage, only 1 per page;
            ❏  Single phone number in the upper right-hand corner
            ❏  “Areas/Neighborhoods We Serve” pages;
            ❏  Name of location in the header of all services pages. 

5. Create Clear Calls to Action

Every website has links, a navigation menu, images, and buttons that send website visitors down a specific path. When someone lands on your clinic’s homepage, which path do you hope they will take? The road to orthotics, surgery ... or will they get distracted and take an exit ramp to Facebook, get lost, and never return?
 
When looking at your clinic webpages, ask yourself, "What action am I hoping that a website visitor will take on this page?” What outcome will be valuable to both that visitor and your clinic? If you look at your homepage, how many “calls-to-action” like "Schedule Appointment,” "Call the Clinic,” "Follow us on Facebook,” or “Leave a Review” do you see?
 
Does your website:
 
            ❏  limit each webpage to 1 or 2 main “calls-to-action”;
            ❏  feature buttons that “stand out” compared to the background and other elements;
            ❏  create a custom-branded color for social media buttons, so they aren’t overly colorful exit signs that lead people away from your website; and
            ❏  place social media buttons lower on the webpage away from the phone number and
                 important buttons? 

6. Simple and Working As Expected

Along with creating a great first impression visually, you want to make sure that each element of your website functions perfectly as well. A flawless online experience reflects well on your clinic’s professionalism and builds trust with prospective patients. Broken links or a bad online experience sets low expectations and can result in website visitors becoming frustrated and deciding to schedule elsewhere.
 
Which of the following are true about your website?
 
            ❏  All of the text and buttons on the website link to the correct target page.
            ❏  Clicking the phone number on mobile phone results in a phone call.
            ❏  The phone number and "Make an Appointment” button do not require scrolling to locate         .
            ❏  The “Contact Us” or online appointment scheduling feature works with no issues. 

7. Patients Want Speed

Does anyone remember 14.4k modems and how they sounded when connecting by dial-up to the Internet? Those days of waiting minutes for a single image to load or a couple of hours to get songs off Napster are long gone. In 2022, we demand fast connections and websites that load in an instant. To do this, websites must be built for speed to meet web visitor expectations, but also to rank well on Google. If the website CMS (content management system) or theme causes pages to load slowly, prospective patients may seek care elsewhere.

Luckily there are a number of free tools to help you evaluate and help you to improve the speed of your clinic website.
 
A couple of helpful resources to check your website speed:
            ❏ GTMetrix Target score = A
            ❏ Google PageSpeed Insights Target score = 70% on desktop and mobile   

8. Optimize for Search

Google is the primary Internet search. At ~92% of all searches taking place on a Google website and trillions of searches each year, it’s easy to see why it’s important for your clinic to be visible in Google results.
 
The first step to be visible in Google is to determine the type of care you want to provide as the go-to expert. This will help you target specific search keywords and phrases. For example, if you’re located in St. Louis and would like to perform more surgery, being visible for terms like “St. Louis foot surgeon,” or “St. Louis ankle surgery,” is valuable. So, you must have web pages that focus on those topics and include those keywords.
 
Are the following statements true about your website?
 
            ❏ Each page targets a specific keyword or phrase that is valuable to your practice.
            ❏ Each page contains the most authoritative content on that subject in your local area.
            ❏ The content includes 800 to 1000 words and answers the most common questions that patients ask.  

Concluding Thoughts

By working through these 8 core concepts and putting them into practice, I feel you’ll be well on your way to building a successful clinic website. Your clinic website is not something to develop and put aside. Rather, it is the online extension of your practice that should improve and adapt as your practice, patient needs, and the market changes. By completing and periodically revisiting this checklist, you’ll continue to build a powerful online asset that promotes your clinic 24/7. By working through this checklist and core concepts, you will be well on your way to building a clinic website that benefits your patients and practice.

Dr. McDannald is the Founder and Director of Podiatry Growth, providing online strategy and services for podiatry clinics.