6 Web Design Tricks to Help Your Practice Win More Clients

So, you’ve decided to build a brand new website for your professional or medical business, great! What comes next? What are the Web Design Tricks? It is not enough to open the door and turn on the lights when it comes to web design and marketing. Your site needs to communicate exactly what it is that you are providing – and convince your audience or target client base to take action.

The design phase of any online asset is usually concerned with good looks, logos and information. Such sites often read like a billboard, but not much more.

In the online marketplace, building it is no guarantee that they will come.

Where conversion-focused design is an after-thought, those looking to get an edge in the highly competitive field of medical and allied services will soon become disappointed with the lack of results. Where little thought is given on usability, calls-to-action, copy and how each of these elements tie-in to the overall user experience, you should not be surprised that the user experience is unconvincing.

But, why should you care?

You want to win more clients. Whether you are designing a dental website, Chiropractic service or other allied medical support website, you want more people to call your business or download your whitepaper or signup to your newsletter and you would love to accomplish all this without spending a lot of money on marketing.

Interestingly, your website can generate more leads, there is a caveat of course – the site must be optimized to convert visitors.

So how do you boost your website’s conversion rate?

Keep Things Stupidly Simple

Make it incredibly easy for visitors to your medical site to access information as quickly and with fewer clicks as possible once they land on your homepage. This is one of the top Web Design Tricks.

Minimal design strategy can make the difference between an overwhelmed site visitor and one that knows intuitively the next step to take on your site.

While it can be tempting to pull out the stops when designing your website, having too many elements on a page distract from the main action you want a prospective patient or client to take. It waters down the impact of your message and drives down conversion.

Avoid having too many things on the page, all competing for your clients attention.

Visitors to the site will have to spend some time trying to decide which of the navigation bars will take them to the information they are after. Unfortunately, most internet users have a short attention span, hence they are likely going to hit the back button immediately.

Now, let’s take a look at another design. Below is McKinsey’s homepage. What do you notice?

The webpage is refreshingly simple, uncluttered and with a clear, single call to action.

Use White Space

What you will notice as you look at the McKinsey’s homepage is that there’s a lot of empty spaces. These “empty spaces” are known as white spaces.

White space also known as negative space is a design strategy that helps you draw attention to a specific element on the webpage. It is particularly common on medical and allied health professional sites as it gives an air of “lab-coast” authority.

And, since there are no elements in these negative spaces, users are encouraged to focus their attention on the area of the page with design elements.

Another good example of white space use is Google’s homepage. On the page, you will see only a couple of areas where there is text. Their logo and the search feature box then lots of space. Once a user lands on the page, they intuitively know what to do next.

One Call-to-action per Page

A call-to-action, CTA, allows you to tell a prospective patient or client what the next steps are.

Do you want them to make an appointment online? Call your surgery? The CTA is the design element you need to nudge site people toward completing the desired action.

However, it is not just enough to have a CTA on a page, it must stand out from every other element around it. Use of negative spaces, colour contrast and bold typography are a couple of ways to highlight the call-to-action.

Optimize the CTA to be more persuasive by making it as specific as possible. Eliminate anything that could be confusing in your audience’s mind. The call-to-action should communicate exactly what they would get once an action is completed.

Limit the number of choices users have by using one CTA per page. Eliminating the need for decision-making will boost conversion as the user only has one action to take on the page.

Leverage Color Psychology – This Web Design Trick is very useful.

We have known for a long time now that color influences us. We know that a certain color will trigger a particular emotion. Leverage this knowledge to drive conversion for your small business.

When choosing a color combination for your website however, be sure to select a color scheme in your web design that evokes the emotion you want customers to feel whenever they come in contact with your brand.

For instance, most financial institutions use blue in their branding. Blue evokes the feeling of stability, calm and reliability.

The colour red signifies excitement. It is also associated with confidence and love.

White signifies sterility, that is why hospitals use it. While selecting a colour scheme it is essential that you take note of the negative feelings those colours evoke too.

Incorporate testimonials and user reviews to build trust

Ever wondered why Amazon and other big eCommerce sites integrate a user review feature on their platform?

Or why almost all successful brands you know have a section where they feature testimonials from satisfied customers?

The thing is, reviews and testimonials work – they are the fastest way to build trust and credibility with your audience. This is especially true for medical and health-related websites. The user who comes to these sites are looking for authenticity and authority – including social proof.

Think of these reviews as word-of-mouth marketing, and as you know, people are more likely to do business with you if someone they know recommends your brand.

Ask your clients if they can leave a review about their experience with you on review sites or request if they can write a testimonial you can use on your site.

However, be sure to ask nicely and make the process straightforward. While at it, ask for permission to include their picture, organization and position in the review as these little details make the reviews look more genuine.

Write Compelling Web Copy

When it comes down to it, the content on your website is probably the design element that would impact the site’s conversion rate the most. Sure enough, other elements play a part in boosting conversion rate.

If the content on your site cannot persuade and effectively communicate your niche to a visitor, they will leave without looking back.

Hence, while you pay attention to other design elements, the copy that would go on the website deserves equal attention too. For professional services in the medical field, it’s paramount that they speak with certainty, and in a tone that people are used to hearing in the medical profession.