What is Ruining Your Organic Search Rankings?
In part two of this two-part series Kadesha and Brandies discuss what factors can ruin your organic search results.
3 Surprising Metrics That Scream It’s Time for a Website Redesign

Key Post Highlights
> Users are spending too much time on your homepage.
> Users lurk on your site and then leave.
> There is a major difference between your desktop and mobile analytics.
If your website is decades old, you’re completely changing your brand, or no one is making it to your site — these are all obvious signs that your website needs a redesign. While these are all important factors to pay attention to, there are less noticeable metrics that can signal it’s time for an overhaul.
Your website is how prospective patients, staff, and donors get to know your organization. It should reflect the professionalism, personality, and overall quality of what you have to offer. If your website isn’t doing that, it’s time for a new look and function.
In part one of this two-part series on website redesigns, CareContent’s, Kadesha Thomas Smith, CEO, and Brandies Meva’a, VP, Client Strategy, discuss 3 surprising metrics that scream it’s time to redo your healthcare organization’s website.
Kadesha Thomas Smith: Hello, Brandies. How are you doing?
Brandies Meva’a: I’m well, how are you doing?
Kadesha: I’m good. So we’re talking about surprising metrics that scream it’s time for a website redesign. So, obviously, our company does a lot of website redesigns, and by the time most of our clients come to us, it’s because they are at their wit’s end with their current website. But there are probably some metrics that they could be tracking beforehand that indicate, okay, we need to be planning for a redesign this year. What would you say is the first one?
Brandies: The first one is that you notice that people are spending a lot of time on your homepage.
The homepage’s whole job is to be a traffic director. It is to get people into the site. So it should be your number one Google organic traffic planning page. And then when people get there, it should take them to where they got to go immediately. If they’re hanging out on your homepage for a very long time, they are lost. Help them.
Kadesha: What is a very long time? Like, what would you see? What have you seen on our clients’ websites to say, okay, this means this is directing traffic well. Or what does it mean pre-redesign when you say, this means we really need to move forward with something.
Brandies: So good design will give them the top three things that most people do right up front at the top. So I would like to see well-optimized home pages get people off the page in 30 seconds or less.
But sometimes your website is more like the flagship company site, you might be headquarters and you have a lot of different things that people can do on your brand. Even that should not exceed 60 seconds. So they should be able to get to see the breadth of things that you have to offer and get where they have to go because it’s optimized for that kind of movement.
Kadesha: All right, what would you say is the second metric?
Brandies: The next thing is time spent going from one place to the next. So I call it the wander kind of problem. You have people just kind of lurking on a site for a really long time and then they leave. So you don’t necessarily know what they were doing.
Sometimes we think that if we build it and people can clearly see our services or they know how to take action, we have to tell them what to do. And so you can actually see how they’re moving. If your site is not designed, it says for every single service, there needs to be a call to action so that I can actually measure how people are moving through my site and if they’re doing what I want them to do, you’re going to lose users. And I think it’s really important to have that in mind when you’re designing your site.
Kadesha: And I love how when you’re doing a content strategy, you classify it as — is this a high lift call to action or is this a low lift call to action? Low lift meaning, download something, sign up for something. High lift meaning, make an appointment.
Brandies: Mmhmm.
Kadesha: Third thing.
Brandies: The third thing is taking a look at how people are interacting with the site around desktop versus mobile.
Desktop and mobile should yield hardly any difference in terms of time spent on page, how many pages they come on the site to visit, what calls to action they engage with. If you notice there’s a stark difference, meaning people on mobile are not spending as much time, they’re leaving right away, they don’t ever take advantage of calls to action, that tells you that you don’t have a site that’s optimized for mobile.
We know that mobile — everything is on our eyes. People have phones, tablets — people have these hybrid models. So we want to make sure that we don’t have a different user experience for our mobile users. Back in the day, you used to literally have a mobile site. Now your single site should be mobile-optimized.
Kadesha: I’m going to add one that’s not so much driven by analytics, but more by just process management. If it takes too much time to update words and pictures — you call this growth-driven design. Tell me why that’s a metric people should track.
Brandies: So growth-driven design is about the opportunity cost too. So if you build a site this year and then Google changes its algorithm, the way you optimize pictures, for example, or images, you need to go in there, overhaul that work, you want to be able to keep the same website. You want to keep the same shell. You shouldn’t have to throw the whole CMS away and all of your different page layouts. You should be able to literally change it. So you want to pick a good CMS that’s fluid enough to evolve at the times.
We know that the change makers and the benchmarkers come out with all the rules. They’re like, okay, you can’t do this, you need to do this. How many times have we come to a client and they’re like, oh, yeah, just need content. And we realize that their site is not actually designed for growth. It’s not prepared to handle the changes that it needs for the client to meet their business goals.
And so you want to make sure — vetting your CMS is everything. It’s not about what’s on trend, either. Just because everybody else in the healthcare space uses this CMS or this seems really, really secure, and we want to sound like the most secure hospital or health system or association possible, doesn’t mean that this website, your content-based website that engages with your audiences, has to tick all those boxes. What’s most important is that it’s able to communicate with your audiences and get them toward your business goals as quickly as possible.
Kadesha: We want to be able to help you with the strategic changes that really help you drive growth.
Brandies: Yeah, that’s the opportunity cost, right? Like even when you look at your staff, how long does it take you to do something that should take 10 minutes? How much more could they be doing for themselves, the business, and their own happiness, if they weren’t, you know, going through the heck and a hard fraught path through your hard CMS?
Kadesha: All right. Thank you so much.
How Healthcare Website Design Has Evolved, What’s Next, And When It’s Time For A Refresh
Just like fashion trends, healthcare website design trends change over time. Some elements go in and out of fashion, and even websites that are only 5 years old can start to look dated.
Staying on top of the trends that are here to stay can give your website longevity — while also creating a better experience for your users.
When it comes to healthcare websites, design trends change about every 3 to 5 years or so. If it’s been a couple of years since you last touched your website’s design, it might be time for a glow-up.
Realizing it may be time to give your healthcare website a new look might make you motivated to get started — or it might give you the cold sweats. Website overhauls are big projects, and it’s normal to be filled with excitement or dread.
Once you decide a website redesign is in your future, you don’t have to turn around tomorrow and break your CMS. Take some time to first think about what goals you want to meet with a new site or look at your site’s current metrics. Having some hard numbers and a plan to match can help you get buy-in from your team, higher-ups, or other stakeholders.
When you’re ready to start a website refresh, be sure you’re ready to do a website refresh. With clear goals, a strong team, and patient-first perspective, your new site can drive conversions — and connections.
Healthcare Websites Have Gotten …
… Simpler
Clean lines, pared-down navigation, and more modern design are driving the future of healthcare website design. While healthcare websites are often known for being robust (and even convoluted), minimalist trends have been rising in popularity over the last few years. From influencer homes to successful websites, many are opting for simpler websites. First impressions are everything, and a clean site can show competence, professionalism, and often faster loading speeds.
… Mobile-Friendly
From ordering a pizza to Googling how old Shemar Moore is to checking their kids’ grades, people use their smartphones all day long to communicate and accomplish tasks. The same is true when it comes to searching for a provider, looking up hospital reviews, or trying to make a doctor’s appointment. Many of your users will be visiting your site on their phones or tablets, so designing for mobile can’t be an afterthought.
… Consumer And Patient-Focused
In the same way that the care you provide in the office may have become more patient-centered in recent years, your website should strive to be more patient-centered too. Updating your site can give you an opportunity to add more interactive elements like quizzes, make your service pages easier to understand, or center more photos of patients — and doctors — who represent your patient population.
… More Accessible
Using your healthcare website shouldn’t be difficult for visitors. Finding the information they need, understanding the language you use, and navigating the site with a range of assistive devices (like screen readers) should be easy. Accessibility isn’t a trend, it’s a necessity, and your website needs to accommodate the different needs of current and prospective patients. Not having an accessible site isn’t just annoying for users — it can be illegal if you aren’t meeting ADA compliance guidelines. Website evaluations with a focus on accessibility can create a better experience for users and protect your healthcare organization from potential lawsuits.
Your Website Might Need A Refresh If …
… Your site isn’t getting the kind of traffic you want.
There can be a lot of reasons a site isn’t performing well. From a complicated strategy to disagreement about priorities to a changing of the guard, it’s not uncommon for your site to simply not meet your standards — but it also might not be meeting your client’s needs. If you have bigger goals for your site and want to see more traffic, it’s probably time to revisit your content strategy and revamp your website.
… The visual design feels outdated.
Design trends tend to change around every 3 to 5 years. While you don’t have to follow these design trends, it’s good to know what they are. If your competition is adopting a more updated look, it may be time to consider a refresh on your end, too. Take some time to formally or informally audit your peers’ sites to see how yours stacks up. This can give you a better idea of what’s popular, what’s falling out of style, and if your visual design is trailing behind.
… Tech is outdated.
Technology is always changing — and it makes its mark in terms of what can become possible with your healthcare website. There are many tools that can make your site more efficient, but it can be hard to stay on top of every new plugin or trend. Giving your website a facelift can mean taking time to check out new tech that can make your site cleaner and more user-friendly. (Tip: Pay special attention to your Contact, Location, and Donation pages when it comes to new tools and technology.)
… Your team has a hard time updating the site.
If you’re constantly fielding emails about editing a page or can’t seem to get a page looking or working like you want it to, there’s some good news. It’s not you — it might actually be your site. Old, clunky content management systems (CMS) can leave you and your team scratching your heads (or wanting to put them through a wall). But it doesn’t have to be this way! A website refresh and possibly a change of CMS might be just what your healthcare organization needs to reduce everybody’s stress levels.
I Think We Need To Revamp Our Website — Now What?
Realizing it may be time to give your healthcare website a new look might make you motivated to get started — or it might give you the cold sweats. Website overhauls are big projects, and it’s normal to be filled with excitement or dread.
Once you decide a website redesign is in your future, you don’t have to turn around tomorrow and break your CMS. Take some time to first think about what goals you want to meet with a new site or look at your site’s current metrics. Having some hard numbers and a plan to match can help you get buy-in from your team, higher-ups, or other stakeholders.
When you’re ready to start a website refresh, be sure you’re ready to do a website refresh. With clear goals, a strong team, and patient-first perspective, your new site can drive conversions — and connections.
Choosing A CMS: Drupal, Sitecore, And WordPress Review
From online shopping to social media to news sites, we are constantly on the web for work, fun, and information. The list of websites we all engage with every day is long — but the number of websites in existence is even longer.
There are an estimated 1.88 billion sites that make up what we know as the world wide web. But how often do you think about the behind-the-scenes activity that allows these sites to exist in the first place?
Probably not that often unless you are a web designer or developer. But if you’ve been tasked with choosing a Content Management System (CMS) for your organization, you may be unsure of what makes one CMS better than another.
What To Consider When Choosing A CMS
- Ease Of Use — Don’t pick a tool you can’t use
- Cost — Don’t pick a CMS you can’t afford
- Learning Curve — If your team can’t master it, it’s not worth it
Transferability — Choose a CMS that can still be used if your team of developers changes
As with any choice you make for your healthcare organization — like branding colors, organizational values, or what to include in your newsletter — what’s “right” is entirely up to and dependent on your specific organization.
Here’s a review of three common content management systems to help you choose what will work best for you.
WordPress — The CMS For CareContent
WordPress runs nearly 40% of the internet.
That’s not a typo — 39.5% of websites are powered by WordPress. Among them are the popular TechCrunch, Variety, and Yelp. The CareContent site also uses WordPress and is in good company with some tech, news, and culture giants.
So, why is WordPress so popular? What about this tool makes it ubiquitous to the very nature of “websites” nowadays?
- It’s easy to get started. WordPress prides itself on being user-friendly and intuitive for content creators and designers. Even creators with limited website or CMS experience can get the hang of WordPress quickly and produce a simple site in just a few hours.
- It’s highly customizable. WordPress’s content editor is straightforward but allows you a large range of flexibility. From themes to widgets to plugins, WordPress offers editors a lot of choices.
- It’s mobile-friendly. Responsive, accessible design is important for allowing users across a range of devices to access your content. WordPress has many options for plugins that can ensure your design adapts to screens of all sizes.
Without wanting to wax poetic, WordPress isn’t the only CMS out there — and it’s not the only good one either. The platform you choose to host your website will depend on your business goals and needs.
“Once you get over the learning curve, WordPress is super user-friendly — this makes it easy to pass along knowledge for how to use it to clients and teammates. Collaboration is key, and WordPress makes that easy.”
Crystal Choi, Operations and Project Manager, CareContent
Sitecore — Powerful, But Burdensome
Sitecore is another incredibly powerful content management system that runs popular sites for businesses and organizations such as Xfinity and Mayo Clinic.
What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of this particular CMS?
- Make robust analytics reports. Sitecore’s native analytics allow you to look at the quantity of views, but also the quality of interaction with your site. Using a metric called “Engagement Value,” you can better see how your site is performing.
- Present content in multiple languages. If you’re looking to natively present content in more than one language — without using a tool like Google translate — Sitecore allows you to do so.
- It’s cost-prohibitive. Sitecore can do a lot, but it also comes with a sizable price tag. Compared to other similar CMS options on the market, the upfront cost is considerably more expensive.
The majority of concerns with Sitecore is its burdensome installation and implementation process. In other words, it simply takes too long to get going.
Sure, it comes equipped with all the bells and whistles you could ask for, but this leads to it having a pretty steep learning curve. Many users who choose this platform do so with the intention of using those said bells and whistles — but never do.
Drupal — Free and Community-Driven
Another CMS worth exploring is Drupal. Drupal is a free, open-source platform, and you probably interact with it without even knowing it. To see a site build in Drupal, you can check out sites for the University of Oxford, the World Wildlife Fund, and Drupal itself.
“A free CMS?” you might be asking. “What’s the catch?” All told — if it’s a good choice for your organization — there isn’t one.
Here’s some of what Drupal can do:
- It’s pretty powerful. Drupal is capable of managing just about any amount of content, and any scale of site. With a variety of content types, modules, and themes available, the only limit is your imagination (or your skillset).
- It’s highly secure. Drupal is a particularly secure CMS, making it the choice for many government agencies and security-oriented organizations. Drupal highly prioritizes privacy and security with regularly installed updates.
- A strong community. Because Drupal is an open-source platform, it does not come with the same level of customer service or IT support as other CMS options. But what it does have is a strong and supportive community that creates, uses, and improves the software.
While the common theme of Drupal reviews is that it can do just about anything you could possibly want it to do, it is worth mentioning that not just anybody will be able to do it.
Drupal necessitates a higher level of coding knowledge than a site built on WordPress, meaning you need to know how to code or you need a web developer on your team. This isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing, but it is important to keep in mind when reviewing the capacity of your current organization or your client.
“Content management systems have come a long way over the years, but at their core, all CMSs are created equal. It’s your goal that makes a difference. Whatever the goal of your website is, that will determine if and how a specific CMS benefits you.”
Cris Romero, UX Designer/Web Developer, CareContent
The Bottom Line
So, is one better than another?
At CareContent, WordPress is the best content management system for our needs. It lets us easily post new content, embed new media like quizzes, and communicate our services clearly with potential clients.
WordPress also, in turn, works for many of our clients’ own websites — but certainly not all.
If there were one right way to do things, it might be easier, but we’d all also probably be out of a job. While the choices might feel overwhelming at times, start by asking yourself what your organization needs, wants, and can manage. Then make the CMS choice that makes sense.
At CareContent, websites are our bread and butter. Learn how we help our clients leverage theirs for more reach, engagement, and return on investment.
Your 6-Step Plan To Website Redesign Success
In this post, we discuss . . .
- Challenges faced during a website redesign
- What it takes to prepare your content for a redesign
- How to plan a website redesign
Challenges We Face Before, During, And After Website Redesign
The saying, “ignorance is bliss” is so true. My first website redesign was a wonderful experience because I didn’t know everything that could go wrong. I knew it would be challenging in general, but the constant worry wasn’t dancing in my head, giving me the freedom to successfully migrate 8,000 pages to a new content management system. The outcome? We launched on time and received praise for all of the amazing content we created. (The praise was from IT, too, which was a huge win).
Twelve years later, and a few dozen website redesigns under my belt, I’m grateful to have the wherewithal to anticipate the common and new challenges. More importantly, having the knowledge to solve the challenges before they ruin the project is key.
In my experience with website redesign projects, I have found that clients lack 5 common things:
- Internal governance and alignment
- Resources to assess and clean up content that exists
- An understanding of how much time and effort it takes to revise current content and/or develop new content.
- An understanding of what should happen after launch
- Success metrics
What It Takes To Prepare For A Website Redesign
I’ll run through the 6 steps below, but first, let’s talk about the behavior needs to achieve success:
- True Grit: A website redesign is not an easy task. You will face setbacks and roadblocks, but you must persevere and have the passion to find solutions.
- Optimism: You must believe that your leadership and your team will work together to drive success.
- Constant Communication: When people know what’s happening, and why, it’s easier to get the job done.
- Constant Improvement: While you have a plan, there is always potential for improving your plan as you go. Always think about how you can do something better.
- Supportive Leadership: When you know someone has your back, you’re more willing to take risks and do the work to make it happen.
- Sense of Humor: At the end of the day, we need a sense of humor. It will make the project less stressful, increase creativity, and improve productivity. In the immortal words of Elle Woods in Legally Blonde:
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The Step-By-Step Plan To Start Your Website Redesign
The following steps are tried and true. The more effort you put into planning, the better your outcomes will be.
STEP 1: IDENTIFY KEY STAFF
A governance plan helps you align all players and standards.
Governance is the people, processes, and systems that help create and manage content through all stages of the content lifecycle. The two key components of a governance plan is to identify roles, responsibilities and required skills and define policies and procedures.
What are the roles, responsibilities, and required skills?
In hockey, every new season starts with determining which roles need to be filled with players who have the skills to help the team win. It’s the same when putting together a website redesign team. This is your chance to identify who on your team can help you win, and who you need to hire.
- Roles: What’s the reason they are on the team?
- Responsibilities: What tasks and decisions should they take ownership of?
- Required Skills: What do they need to master to fulfill their responsibilities?
What are the policies and procedures?
My personal favorite task as a content strategist is to outline policies and procedures. This is what will make your team a well-oiled machine. It helps everyone, from IT to content producers to stakeholders know how to get things done. From both a content and technology perspective, policies and procedures provide standards and guidelines for keeping the site up-to-date, such as:
- Adding new pages
- Adding new content owners and permissions
- Auditing content
- Updating IT systems
STEP 2: DEFINE GOALS & REQUIREMENTS
Setting goals and requirements will help you define success.
If you’ve ever signed up for a marathon or a 5k race, the first thing you probably did (after shaking your head wondering what you had just done) was set a goal and define what it takes to achieve the goal. This is the same idea. Setting website goals and requirements will help you across the finish line with the intent of winning. When working on a website redesign, I like to set goals and requirements for:
- Strategic priorities and revenue
- Messaging
- Voice and tone
- Online-to-offline experience
- Functionality
- Visual design
- Key performance indicators
STEP 3: INVENTORY & ASSESS
Conducting a content inventory will make your life easier.
While listing every piece of content may sound tedious and time-consuming (oh, it is), it’s the step that will help you determine what content you have that will work in the new redesign and what content you’re missing, aka content gaps. This inventory will be used to help you audit your content based on your new goals and it will help with listing URL redirects. When you see the list of the pages you have on your website, trust me, you will be amazed.
A qualitative assessment will help you keep your brand and message inline.
Sure, you have content on your current site. But does it fit your brand? Is the right information available? Is there too much or too little information? You need to assess the quality of the content so you know how much will need to be revised to fit your brand message.
STEP 4: DEFINE & DESIGN THE EXPERIENCE
Defining a content strategy is the foundation of the user experience.
I may be biased, but your content strategy is the heart of your website redesign. It is a comprehensive plan for developing the right information, sharing it at the right time and presenting it for the right audience. Your content strategy is a documented approach that outlines what and how to make your digital experience a success. A typical content strategy outlines (there’s more than three, but this post is long enough):
- Content Vision & Goals: A definition of the goals your content needs to achieve for your business and customer success. This is the crux for planning and developing the right content throughout your content ecosystem.
- Content Structure (Information Architecture & Site Navigation): This determines how your content is going to be organized in the CMS and the public-facing site.
- Brand Message, Voice & Tone: Stating your brand message, voice, and tone makes sure your message is consistent throughout the website. This is especially helpful when multiple authors throughout your organization are writing and sharing information.
Content guidelines ensure all content is standardized.
Your most important document is your content guidelines, used to explain standards for copy and visual design throughout the site. It is used to ensure the brand integrity is not lost when several people are developing content on the site. Everyone needs to see this document. Everyone.
Designing the user experience will make your site a delight.
The user experience (UX) shows how content is placed within specific templates to ensure a positive user interaction. Because of your due diligence of focusing on your goals, content needs and expectations, you made the UX process go so much smoother and more likely to get it right the first time (reiterations are time and budget killers).
Your visual design will make your brand come alive.
The visual design makes your brand come to life. Again, because you have a content strategy and guidelines, your visual designer has the knowledge he/she needs to create an amazing design.
STEP 5: AUDIT CONTENT & MAP
A content audit will weed out the content you don’t need.
Soapbox moment. It drives me nuts when people say, “we need to do a content audit” at the beginning of the project. An audit means to determine what you have based on your needs, goals. So, until you’ve inventoried the site, defined your goals and outlined your content structure, you can’t do your audit. Ok, I’ll get off my soapbox.
The audit is the step you take to determine what you want to keep, delete, revise.
Mapping content to the new information architecture will make the migration process easier.
Once you’ve finished your audit, you take all the pages you’re keeping and organize it to fit the new IA. Boom, you have your site content. Now, this is an extremely valuable document. It’s what you use to project manage content revisions, development, reviews and migration. You’ll love it.
STEP 6: DEVELOP THE IMPLEMENTATION PLAN
Define a content development and migration plan so you stay on track with your timeline.
Because there are several players involved with migration– IT, content developers, stakeholders, etc. you need a documented plan to share with everyone on the team about how this is going to go down. Your IT team will love you for this.
Define the technical build plan to stay on budget.
This is simple. Now that you know how much content you have, how you want it to function and any specific needs, you can let the content management system builders know what’s involved and they can give you an accurate estimate for the build cost and timing.
There you go. Your step-by-step plan to creating a successful website redesign. It may feel overwhelming, but it’s actually a seamless plan that will prevent you from having a constant headache throughout the redesign process.
If you’d like to speak with us about this process, contact us. We’d love to help you through the process.
4 Websites That Say “Nope”: Lessons In Good Web Design
In my industry, we call it your “bounce rate”: the percentage of visitors who land on your homepage, then hop on down the bunny trail to some other website.
That means they never click on any of your links. Never look around. Never get to know who you are. And never become your client.
What causes it? Many things, even just typing in the wrong web address. But visitors also tend to switch channels when they see outdated content, eccentric design, links drowning in a sea of copy … visual blunders.
This is why smart web design is so important.
Good Web Design Gets You Good Metrics … Relatively Speaking
Now, it’s true that about 55% of people spend 15 seconds or fewer on most webpages. So don’t feel bad if your bounce rate is high. We all seem to have a shorter attention span than a goldfish these days.
On the other hand, some websites do hold visitors longer. What’s a “good” span of time? Viewers who spend 3 minutes on your website are twice as likely to return as viewers who spent just 1 minute there, researchers have found.
Three minutes. Not really a long time. So, here’s the question: How do you grab them?
Generally, your website has to:
- Interest your target audience
- Answer questions with up-to-date content
- Inspire trust
- Be easy to use
- Be visually attractive, with things like bullet points (see what I did there?)
You can find dozens of tips to make a website user-friendly on the web. But it starts by asking a basic question: At first glance, what does our website say about us, as an organization?
That said, here are 4 statements to avoid at all costs.
1. “We forgot to take our Adderall.”
This is the Yale University School of Art, so we’ll give them a pass for the, er, outre design. However, a business needs to be more “Bill Gates” and less “Andy Warhol,” obviously. Being taken seriously is kind of a prerequisite to inspiring trust.
Here’s a far more powerful design from Cardinal Health’s website:
A splash of color, some beautiful imagery, and a message that goes to the heart. Nothing wrong with this artistic approach.
The takeaway: It’s best if “artful” is also tasteful.
2. “We’ll give you 3 guesses to figure out what we do here. Ha! Strike one.”
This is AintWet.com, and it takes several clicks to understand what they’re actually selling. (It’s hats and T-shirts, by the way. I think.)
This website is an extreme example of a communication breakdown. Forget brand identity: Your website can’t make any statement at all if the nature of your business isn’t clear.
That seems obvious, but it’s a basic step that gets overlooked. Compare Aintwet to UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital:
They could have picked a generic hospital building. Instead, they picked a kid. This really says “we’re all about children,” and it hits a home run. (Bonus points for matching the kid’s shirt with the U.S. News and World Report badge.)
The takeaway: Your website should communicate who you are, instantly.
3. “Working with us is as exciting as watching paint dry.”
I don’t know Suzanne Collins, and I’m sure she’s a nice woman. But glancing at her website, you’d never know she authored the best-selling novel The Hunger Games.
You’ve got a great company with great people, products, and services. Don’t turn visitors off with a boring “opening act.” Put on your top hat and coattails, and have some stage presence.
When you get a second, pay a visit to Clarity.io:
Air quality data could be boring. So could the technology that measures it. But Clarity launched a website with sparkling filaments, spinning globes, orbiting electrons, and other eye-catching animation. The Clarity website even won an award this year.
The takeaway: Even a “dry” product or service doesn’t have to mean a dull website. The sky’s the limit on design.
4. “Walk into our lobby and you might see Granny Clampett in a rocking chair.”
This is Mortimer Lumber, a company in Michigan. If their website works for them, more power to them. But I wouldn’t recommend rolling out the “ye olde jalopy” look for your own website.
There are fine antiques, and then there’s old junk. Here are a few signs your website is evoking the Internet’s “Wild West” days from the early ’90s:
- Busy, jumbled pages
- Flash animation
- Tiny fonts
- Wild colors
- Slow loading
- The word “welcome” on your homepage
- No call to action
- A lack of responsive design for tablets and smartphones (Google actually penalizes you for this)
If you’re going for a “classic” look, try something like this, from Kraud.de:
Basic, but sleek and beautiful. Just enough color to make you click. This website got it right.
Granted, Kraud is a home decor firm, so they’re starting with a visual advantage. But your website can soar creatively, too. Ask a web designer about the possibilities.
The takeaway: Simple, elegant web design is always welcome to the eye.
In the end, it’s your website. You can do whatever you want with it. But when you have only a few seconds to capture a visitor’s interest, it’s important to make an instant impression.
Your website says everything about you. Let it make a statement that says, “We’re smart, we’re savvy, we’re on top of the world. And we’re the company you want.”
Need to talk about a website revamp for your healthcare organization? We’re here for you. Get in touch with us and set up a consultation.
End the meeting if your healthcare website vendor says this…
As hospitals and physician groups catch up to current expectations for their websites, many are being duped by web design firms. Let’s pull back the curtain on how some website vendors get one over on healthcare clients.
Redesigning A Healthcare Website? Start With A Strategy
When healthcare organizations want to redesign or launch a site, they often call a web design firm first. That’s kind of like buying a gift, starting with the gift box. Here are 5 reasons why a content strategy should be step one.