In veterinary medicine, the use of modern business methods has become a norm as well as a necessity. So, if you are practising veterinary medicine, you need to have a website. And it has to be better than what other vet practitioners already have.
This is because you need to create trust and also use unique features to stand out from the crowd. With a high-quality website, your clients will enjoy great customer service. Which is very important to keep them engaged.
The good old drag-and-drop method is over and done with. People are no longer interested in basic formats. They want to see something better. So you should treat your web design in the same way that you treat other aspects of your business.
Why should you invest in web design in the veterinary profession?
Web design is not only important to digital marketers, but it is also equally important to your veterinary profession. Because it is one of the most effective public relations strategies of this modern age.
As you publicise your practice, people will want to get information from your website that is good enough to verify your authenticity and experience. They will check for the members of your team and go through their bio to see if they are qualified professionals.
Another thing visitors want to know when they visit your website is the kind of treatment you have available. So details about this should be clearly stated in the right words as well as the appropriate pictorial representation. The cost of each treatment should not be hidden. It should be attached to the specific treatment. That would allow prospective clients can make their decisions quicker and book an appointment.
So basically, the reason why people visit the website of a vet practice is that they need their services. So you have to design your website in a way that it will be easily accessible and easy to navigate so people find what they need. Whatever impression they get from your website will go a long way to determine how they will rate you as a professional.
The website has to be professional and must look like an online version of your vet practice. Because that is what it really is.
People can walk down to your clinic, book an appointment, have their pets examined, and receive other medical services for their animals. With a responsive, high-quality website, people can do most of these things on their phones from the comfort of their homes. Eventually, visit the clinic at already scheduled times. Which is better for you as well as the patient.
With social media and your professional website working hand in hand to boost your professional practice, you can see that digital marketing can make a difference in your veterinary professional life as well.
How web design will affect your credibility as a veterinary practitioner
As you invest in web design, have it in mind that your credibility is also on the line. You already know it is the online version of your place of work. So whatever impression people get when they visit your website will reflect offline and you will see the result in the growth of your business.
Here are some of the major ways in which your website will affect your credibility and what you should be doing about it:
Your veterinary website can make you more appealing to prospective clients
If your website is choked up with too many graphics, clashing colours, and other unnecessary details, it will look like a circus and people will not take you seriously. This will affect your credibility as visitors will wonder what sort of veterinary practitioner could be behind such a poorly designed website.
But if your website is as classy as it is simple, yet carries all the messages that a visitor should know about your veterinary practice, then you will appeal to the potential client and make yourself more credible as a professional. This is why you should only employ the services of a web designer who will make your business stand out.
Your veterinary website can make life easier for your prospective clients
No matter how good a website looks, people will not spend time on it if it is difficult to navigate. People who visit your website have a special reason for doing so. And if they are not getting what they came for in an easy manner, they will close the site. It will not leave a good name for your brand.
Your professional website should be organised. As this will allow people to find the category they are looking for with ease. One good way to ensure you never miss this is to put yourself in the shoes of a veterinary practise website visitor.
Imagine yourself as a person who has a dearly loved animal by their side and needs to know the best veterinary practitioner around. What will they look for? And how will they want to find those things they are looking for?
Nobody wants to keep clicking without a straight answer to their search. So make things easier for your website visitors and they will hold your business in high regard.
Another way to make things easy for your prospective clients is to avoid asking for unnecessary requirements before they can engage with your website. Having a website that does something like forcing visitors to register before asking questions or having a live chat can stress them out and reduce trust.
Your veterinary website should be user-friendly on any device
A larger percentage of internet users are using mobile phones. If your website is not mobile-friendly, you will be limiting your audience to those who use desktop computers to access the internet.
To grow your audience, you need to maximise the entire power of the internet, and the best way to do that is by making sure your website is mobile optimised. This way, you ensure that no matter the device, your website will display properly—which will broaden your audience to reach at least 90 percent of the global internet population.
You are expected to be doing a lot of work to make your website more visible to different internet users. Especially those that love animals and post about them a lot. With Google My Business for Vet practices, your website can be on top of the search results when people google veterinary-related words.
If after putting all that effort to make your website get more traffic, imagine how insignificant the results will be when people that use mobile devices cannot navigate your website with ease. Indeed, it will make you look unserious and automatically send people away from your website. No matter how good it is.
So try to make your website in such a way that any device that is used to access it will work perfectly well. And you will see amazing results for your brand and personal reputation.
Your veterinary website should have a page for frequently asked questions
Since most of the people you are targeting are animal lovers and pet owners, FAQs are a very good way to keep people engaged on your website. But apart from engagement, people are curious to know the answers to common questions about animals. So they will take whatever you say seriously since you are an authority in the field.
Your FAQ page should be easy to locate from the home page. It should not contain unusually big words that people have to look for in the dictionary. The aim is to communicate well. So compile questions that people have repeatedly asked you throughout your years of practice. And answer them in simple terms.
From your FAQ page, you can add links to the answers to certain questions. For example, if you are answering a question about dog food, you can add a link to your online store. There, people can order healthy dog food. The link could also take people to your blog post that is related to another question.
With these tips, you will definitely gain more traffic and this will increase conversion at an impressive rate.
People should find it easy to reach you via your veterinary website
Of what use would be all your resources if there was no clear way for visitors to reach out to you? Many people will get excited as they go through your website. And see the good things they can gain from having you as their Vet. But if they can’t reach you easily through a single click on the site, they will lose that excitement.
If an enthusiastic person wants to act on their passion, they do so with a lot of happiness. But the disappointment of not being able to easily contact your brand will also chase such a happy person out of your website. They will do it with the same passion they used to look for you.
So don’t start a movement without completing it. You should be able to communicate your practice in an easy way. Most likely, through the “contact us” page on your website. It should be in an obvious place so that your prospective clients will be encouraged to book an appointment with you.
Your veterinary website should have no professional errors
There are many people in the medical industry. So you are not the only Vet around that is trying to get more clients through the internet and content marketing. To continue presenting yourself as a credible health care provider, you should proofread and fact-check the content going to your website with great care and attention to details.
You are not expected to do all the writing and coding yourself. Of course, you will employ the services of a professional. But they may not be in the medical field. So go through what they have done to see if there is any wrong use of veterinary terms or inaccurate data.
If you refuse to do this and a mistake that could lead an animal to danger gets posted on your website, you will lose a lot of clients and your credibility will be harmed.
No matter how busy you are, create time to verify whatever is going to be uploaded on your website and if you won’t be able to do it. Outsource it to a colleague that understands the importance of what you do.
How to get a good web designer for your veterinary website
This is your professional website that we are talking about here. It will tell the whole world how credible you are as a veterinary practitioner. So you must not allow a mediocre web designer to do the job that is meant for an expert.
For your web design, you need the services of a tech and marketing expert. And while it is relatively easy to find a good web designer, you may not easily find a team that blends tech and marketing skills like those at the Four Drunk Parrots.
This team will design your website in the best way possible. And you will also benefit from our marketing skills as we help you with email marketing. As well as other forms of digital marketing that will boost your popularity and conversion rate.
Four Drunk Parrots is the brain behind the excellent web design of the following brands:
- Animal Emergency Australia
- Animal Emergency Service
- Perth Veterinary Emergency
- Pet ICU
- Blood banks
- AHVEC
- VetApedia
- Dr Alex Hynes
- Minivet guide
- Thriving Vet conference
- Veterinary Cardiologists Australia
- Canberra Veterinary Emergency Service
- Improve International Australia
- Vetty
…just to mention a few.
Conclusion
As you employ the right hands to build your veterinary practice website, don’t forget to use the platform to show people that you care.
Pet owners genuinely love their furry friends and can go the extra mile to secure their good health. So this has to be more than profit to you.
Show that you love what you do and that you care about the welfare of these animals and the feelings of their owners. And most of all, show that you are a professional.