A medical website for doctors should meet – like any website – essential quality criteria for it to be well placed in search engines and for patients to be able to find and consult it. Because in the end, what is the point of investing time and money in a professional website if the target audience cannot find it or does not consult it?
In this article, I tell you what are – in my opinion – the five most important characteristics a medical website for doctors must have.
Table of contents
- Medical website information and up-to-date content
- A site adapted to mobile viewing
- Social media integration
- A site with an SSL security certificate (HTTPS and not HTTP)
- Compliance with ethical rules for medical websites for doctors
Medical website information and up-to-date content
It is now an essential rule for your medical website for doctors to be well placed on search engines: its content must be of high quality, consistent (sufficiently fleshed out), and up to date. Nothing is more annoying for a patient or a future patient than to read the information that will prove to be obsolete during the consultation with the doctor or when he reads a more up-to-date document on another medical website design devoted to the same topic.
Creating content for your medical website for doctors may seem pointless when it is only a “showcase” site without any other pretension. Indeed, if the only objective is to provide your patients with the schedules of your practice or the access plan and some information on your background or qualifications, additional content is not essential.
EXCEPT that your site will only be visible if Internet users (i.e., patients or future patients) know the URL (web address) of your site (which is very rare!) or if they do a very specific search (your name, any specialty and city of practice) on a search engine.
On the other hand, if your objective is to use your medical website for doctors not only as a professional presentation brochure but also as a means of informing and attracting new patients, then the quality and richness of your site’s content become essential. Indeed, these elements are necessary for your site to appear at the top of the results when searching on Google, for example.
A site suitable for mobile viewing
Today we are talking about a “responsive” site, i.e., which is displayed automatically and correctly on both PC, tablets, and smartphones. Indeed, there have been more Internet visits from mobile devices (tablets and smartphones) than from desktop computers. For example, internet traffic from smartphones accounted for around 50% of connections. Indeed, there were 37 million connections daily from smartphones, 21.4 million from computers, and 11.5 million from tablets (source: Journal du Net).
Moreover, this trend seems set to continue to increase. Therefore, it is even accepted today that the design of a website must first start with the mobile version.
“Responsive” site or “optimized for mobile” site?
There is a nuance. So having a display suitable for viewing on mobile is one thing. However, it is not – in my opinion – sufficient. Indeed, it is necessary to integrate the notion of a site “optimized for mobiles.” Because consulting a site from a mobile meets somewhat specific needs. The mobile version of your medical website for doctors should meet these main criteria:
- The home page must be able to flow with enough information that can be accessed quickly;
- Paragraphs should be short enough to be easy and enjoyable to read;
- The text should be airy with titles and subtitles;
- The telephone number(s) must be “clickable,” i.e., can be called directly from the smartphone (nothing more annoying than having to copy/paste a phone number to call it);
- A clear and concise hamburger menu.
Social media integration
Today, it seems essential that any website, including a medical website for doctors, have links or buttons allowing visitors to the site to follow the doctor’s activity online and to share any pages and articles on the main social networks.
Indeed, it isn’t easy nowadays for a doctor wishing to be present on the Internet to ignore social networks, at the forefront of which are Facebook and Twitter.
But if the doctor’s activity on social networks has become an asset in terms of doctor communication, it must not be done without respecting certain rules. We discuss this subject in the article on the ethical practices of the doctor on the Internet and an upcoming article more specifically devoted to social networks. To be informed when we publish new essays.
A site with an SSL security certificate (HTTPS and not HTTP)
This little padlock is a security feature indicating that an SSL Certificate (Secure Socket Layer) is present for your site on the server hosting. This means that information passing through your site is encrypted. For a long time, this characteristic was reserved for e-commerce sites or sensitive sites (banks, certain administrations, etc.).
However, an SSL certificate is now expected for all sites. Indeed, in 2018, Google implemented a penalty for sites without an SSL certificate, displaying them in search results as “not secure.” Such a mention has the consequence of scaring away potential visitors, which is surely not what you want for your medical website for doctors.
It is still not uncommon to see sites lacking this important feature, and if this is the case for your site, it is high time to take action to correct it.
For more information visit https://www.healthcaremarketingagency.net/
Compliance with ethical rules for medical websites for doctors
The communication of doctors is regulated in France. All doctors must comply with practice regulations on the Internet or other media.
Therefore, the doctor and the possible service provider who will develop his medical website for doctors must be fully aware of what is authorized and what is not. In terms of communication by doctors on the Internet, the College of Physicians has published many useful documents. We have summarized this information in the article “The doctor on the internet: what rules to observe?”. ”
Conclusion
The five criteria necessary for a medical website for doctors combine non-specific elements and elements specific to a medical website for doctors. In particular, the editorial content of a medical website for doctors must respect a certain number of ethical rules.
If your medical website for doctors meets these five criteria, there is a good chance that it will be well placed in search engines and, therefore, that patients will find it easy and visit it.
