If you’re in the medical profession, then you know that your organization’s website can really make or break how many new and returning patients that you attract. In the old days, most medical clinics and practices relied on word of mouth advertising to bring in new patients. Today, however, the average patient finds new sources of health services exclusively through the internet and medical professionals are dependent on specialized medical website design agencies such as Solution21 to develop and promote their websites.

This is why it’s essential that you don’t just have a website, but that you have one that is up to date and optimized for today’s market. While early medical websites usually contained nothing more than an address, a phone number and some brief information about the company, today’s medical websites need to contain enough content to provide quite the interactive user experience.

To ensure that your practice doesn’t fall behind, here are the most popular current trends in medical websites, in addition to how your practice can incorporate them to best attract new clientele.

Websites That Are Information Sources

Today it seems like just about everyone and their mother is a blogger of some sort. Whether it’s regularly updating a social media page or writing actual full-length blog posts, more and more people are using the internet to spread their knowledge and inform others.

Medical professionals are definitely considered knowledgeable people. When people visit the websites of medical practices, they like to see not only information about the actual practice, but general medical information as well. This means that most medical professionals should incorporate a blog onto their website.

Those in the medical profession don’t often have a lot of time to spare in their busy professional lives. Luckily, no one is expecting you to become a full-time journalist. While your blog should be updated regularly, this doesn’t mean that it has to become a daily task. Publishing a new blog post weekly or biweekly is fine. Even if you can only spare enough time to post once a month, it’s better than no blog at all and will boost the credibility of your website and your practice.

Links To Customer Testimonial Websites

Customer testimonial websites, such as Yelp or Angie’s List, are becoming more and more popular. While people used to rely on phone books to locate new health service providers, today most people use these testimonial and review sites. Not only do they show a directory of businesses in their area that will suit their needs, but they have the added benefit of showing reviews of the business in question from real people just like them.

In the past, many businesses have shied away from actively directing customers to these websites. However, as these customer testimonial sites have grown in popularity, it’s now commonplace for business owners to actively encourage people to look up the reviews for their business on these sites. After all, many people won’t even consider doing business with an organization until they’ve done their research on one or more of these customer testimonial sites.

It’s a good idea to include direct links to these sites on your practice’s website. If your reviews on these sites aren’t exactly stellar, then you might want to refrain. However, if you do have largely negative reviews, raising your overall score on these websites should be a top priority for your practice. After all, these websites can have a huge impact on the success of any business. One or two negative reviews aren’t the end of the world, but a whole host of them can be a real death sentence.

Be Active On Social Media

Social media is no longer optional if a business wants to have a strong presence online. It’s crucial that your business has active accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. These are places where your patients can directly communicate with you and stay up to date with news concerning your practice. These days, if any business doesn’t have a social media presence, it can come off as borderline suspicious to potential customers.

Your website should contain links that direct people to all of your various social media sites. Keeping your assorted social media pages updated can take some time, but it’s the perfect task for an intern or new secretary. The time that you spend on your social media will certainly pay off for your business in the long run.

While your medical practice’s top priority is certainly providing excellent care to your clientele, maintaining a strong presence online is still essential to your practice’s long term success. If you want to attract new patients and hold on to the ones that you already have, then it’s crucial that you follow the above tips and stay on top of your website and social media pages.