16 Aug 2015
Marcelo Alves
Job Title
Image: ©Matthew Bowden/iStock.
Oh no. We overhauled our practice website a couple of years ago and it needs doing all over again.
I’m almost certain that’s the thought going through the minds of many readers at the moment, but this is inevitable. Technology is always evolving and it is almost impossible to be on top of every detail of your website all the time. But it pays to try.
There has been a fundamental change in the digital landscape in the past couple of years – smartphones. Almost everyone and their dog (sometimes literally) has a smartphone with internet access. The major issue for practices is the majority of the websites were designed thinking only about desktop computers –completely ignoring the mobile web. So, if you have to scroll left and right and/or zoom in to be able to read the content from your website, it is not mobile friendly and, more importantly, it means you need a new website.
According to the Office of National Statistics, 58% of adults used a mobile or smartphone to access the internet in 2014. This is a major shift from what used to be the norm until a few years ago.
However, having a mobile friendly website is not just important because of mobile users. Google has a tendency to show websites that are mobile friendly before non-mobile friendly websites. This could mean your competitor’s website is suddenly the first search result on Google when someone searches for vets in your location.
Mobile internet also changed the way people interact with information. People will have the tendency to search for your website to look for simple things, like your telephone number or your address. This information has to be highly visible and preferably “clickable”.
For example, if a user clicks on or touches your telephone number using a mobile device, the device should prompt the user to place a call to the practice. No more copy/pasting or writing on a piece of paper to place a telephone call.
The same is true regarding the practice location. You would be amazed, but there are a lot of veterinary practices’ websites that truly pose a challenge when figuring out where the practice is located. In an ideal world, this location information should be linked to a maps service (Google, Bing or Here) to provide easy to follow directions to your practice.
Most practices today also have a Facebook page, so it is important to remember to add a link on your website pointing your clients toward your Facebook page. Better than just adding a link or a “Like” button is placing a Facebook feed on the home page of the website. This way your clients are able to sneak a peek of your Facebook page even when they visit your website.
Another useful feature on a website is having custom forms that go well beyond the traditional contact form. You can get a bit creative here, but the most common options are the traditional contact form, pet registration form, repeat prescription form, caring plan registration form and newsletter registration form. It’s always possible to combine two or three forms together with different options and to use dynamic forms (the form fields change according to previous selections) to reduce the number of forms on the website.
Let’s also not forget to add an “About us” section on the website with some background information and to list at least the main services offered.
Content is king, but the trickiest bit is how to get the right balance between time to develop content and the real life impact this content will have on the performance of your website or on the information available for your clients.
Let’s be honest, if you have a website with 400 pages (and yes, I’ve seen veterinary websites with 400 pages), lots of pages might not get any web traffic at all. But it is important to have some content available for your clients and to improve your ranking with the search engines (Google and friends…).
The most important thing about your website is the content should be unique. It should be written exclusively for your website and not just adapted. This is important because Google and other search engines are able to compare content between many different pages and attribute much more value to new content.
Don’t be afraid to add content to your website, but remember to make sure there is a recent backup available (either done by you or by your server provider).
I
t should be easy to edit your website. Most veterinary practices’ websites are based on a content management system (CMS). These systems make it easier to add content by non-techie users – allowing more frequent content editing of a website. They are great for keeping a website fresh and relevant.
Many different systems are on the market with different features, advantages and disadvantages. Without getting too technical, one important thing you might want to ask your provider is if your new website is going to use a proprietary or open-source system. Many advantages in using open-source systems exist, but the main advantage, in my opinion, is not getting stuck with a provider (you can always copy the data from your current server to another and change providers).
If you choose to use an open-source system, you might want to have a look at Joomla or WordPress. These are the most popular and readily available systems. Just make sure to ask your provider to help you with the first steps and feel free to explore.
Okay, we now have a bright new website with all the bells and whistles available (only true geeks can really appreciate how cool this is). How am
I going to know who is visiting my website, what pages they are reading and where they are coming from? The answers to all those important questions can be given by a very powerful tool called Google Analytics.
Google Analytics is a free tool (it also has a premium version, but the free version is more than enough for most users) that allows website owners to monitor the performance of their websites. It can give you very useful information regarding number of visitors, their geographic location, pages visited and where your visitors are coming from (for example, Google, Facebook, online ads and email newsletters). It is very simple to set up by any web developer and it is a must have in any website.
One last thing I would like to focus on is that having an updated website is not the end of the road. A shiny new website by itself won’t guarantee it will have visitors and there is also no guarantee those visitors are going to spend money at your practice. A website is only one piece of a digital marketing puzzle where all the pieces are needed to ensure the best possible results. There is no point in making a big overhaul to have the best possible website, if no one bothers to update the Facebook page and the email database is outdated and full of non-existent emails. Sometimes it might be a smarter move to just tweak your website and have a simplified, but functional, mobile version and spend your money elsewhere.
It’s important to balance all marketing efforts to make sure your message is reaching the right eyes. Only then can you confirm your money is being well spent and you are getting results. Because, at the end of the day, what matters is that you have pleased the clients coming to spend money at your practice.
