With constant emphasis on creating content and spreading the word through social media, site design is often neglected and unfortunately overlooked by many medical practices.

Consider how elements of design could potentially make or break your site, including the facts that:

• 38% of visitors will bounce from a site if they don’t find the design to be attractive
• 86% of users visit a site with the intention of checking out their services; likewise, nearly half of visitors look at the services page first
• Upon landing on a site, over 50% visitors want to see an “about us” section immediately

These statistics are particularly important for PT sites, considering that the majority of your traffic likely has the intention of becoming a patient or at least seeing what your practice has to offer. Likewise, data tells us that users desire a personal touch from your website in addition to an attractive design.

In other words, if your site lacks personality and isn’t straightforward when it comes to what your physiotherapy practice has to offer, chances are that visitors are needlessly bouncing. By fine-tuning the following five elements of your physical therapy site, you’ll be well on your way to more satisfied visitors and patients.

Prominent Visual Content

First and foremost, visual content is becoming increasingly vital to modern sites. Imagery is especially important for medical practices, who have plenty of visual content to showcase.

What sort of content are we talking about? Consider, for example:

• Before and after pictures from patients, showcasing the progress of their physical therapy thanks to your practice
• A video showing a “behind the scenes” look at your practice and team, displaying your practice’s personality and letting future patients know what to expect from their next visit
• Prominently displayed buttons with calls-to-action to help visitors more easily navigate you site and find exactly what they’re looking for

Color Scheme

The specifics of color schemes are often ignored despite having huge influence upon user behavior. There is no “right” color scheme for a physical therapy site; however, keep the following color psychology facts in mind:

• Blue builds trust, giving visitors a sense of calmness and serenity
• Yellow signals warning: tread lightly with excessively bright or neon colors
• Black signifies formality and luxury: consider giving your site a “bolder” look with black borders, for example

In short, don’t choose a color scheme blindly or based on personal preference; instead, ask yourself what will build trust a sense of security for your site’s audience.

Responsive Design

There are tons of options out there when it comes to site design; however, it’s perhaps most crucial that you pick a simple design that looks great on mobile devices. Due to the increase of mobile and tablet users, a “less is more” approach to design is rather common these days. Look into responsive designs on platforms such as WordPress that aren’t bogged down with widgets; such designs will adapt to mobile screens and appeal to patients on the go.

Make Your Headlines Count

Don’t needlessly miss out on business or confuse your visitors by hiding your headlines. Whether you’re trying to urge patients to check out your services page or contact you, the instructions to do so should be crystal clear. For example, your site’s headlines and calls-to-action should:

• Likely be in a different color versus the typical text of your site; think about how you can implement a color scheme that emphasizes your headlines
• Be extremely clear and concise rather than needlessly wordy; if your users can’t find what they’re looking for, they’re much more likely to bounce
• Be bolded and prominent in terms of font so that they’re impossible to miss

Provide a Prominent Place to Opt-in

Perhaps one of the most underutilized aspects of any given medical site is are contact and opt-in pages. By having users opt-in to your email list, for example, you have direct access to their inbox and an open invitation to reach out to them.

Therefore, make sure that you include a prominent place for users to provide their information and connect with you. Not only should you have a designated page for such actions, but also have your opt-in clearly displayed on your homepage, either on the sidebar or in the form of a widget.

Think of your website as effectively representing a billboard for your business. What first impression are you leaving on potential patients? Don’t lose potential patients by letting your site’s design fall to the wayside. If you’re looking to give your site a design makeover, consider letting PatientSites do the hard work for you. 

Get started with a Free Evergreen Marketing Blueprint to learn how you can create long-term assets that will attract new patients for years to come.