Medical Website Design for doctors

What is Medical Website Design?

Medical website design is the process of creating a website for a healthcare organization, for example a Doctor, hospital, or medical clinic. It differs to regular website design insomuch as there are unique considerations for medical websites, such as the necessity to be HIPAA compliant.
medical website design for doctors
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Why hire a Medical Website Design Agency?

As a doctor, you know that specialization leads to better results. The same is true in website design. That is why we focus exclusively on building medical websites for doctors and healthcare practices.

There are specific requirements for medical websites, such as HIPAA compliance regulations, Online Patient Forms, creating medical content and more.

Additionally, if you intend on promoting your website online with Google Ads for Doctors or Facebook Ads for Doctors, then you need to be sure that your website is fully compliant and not promoting any healthcare products or services that fall outside of advertisers' strict healthcare advertising policies—otherwise your entire ad account could be blocked.

So do you really want a generalist building your medical website? No! You should work with a Website Design Agency that specializes in medical website design for doctors.

9 Questions to Ask Before Choosing a Medical Website Design Agency

As with medical doctors, not all medical web design agencies are the same. The type of agency you need will depend on the specific needs of your medical practice. In order to help elicit these needs, we have listed below 9 questions you should ask before choosing a medical web design agency.

1. Who will own the Domain Name and Medical Website Files?

Doctor, ask yourself this: If you left your digital marketing agency today, would they allow you to take your domain name and website files with you?

Unfortunately, there are some agencies out there that do not. PatientPop, for example, provides medical practices with a website, but doctors are not allowed to keep the site in the event that they cut ties with the company.

From an SEO perspective, this is disastrous. What is the point of investing in an SEO campaign—for example creating backlinks and optimizing on-page content—if all your work is lost the moment you leave your agency?

For this reason, be sure to think through about site ownership before jumping into bed with any healthcare web design agency.

doctor who owns your medical website
facebook ads for doctors

2. How much does Medical Website Design cost? 

The price of medical website design ranges from almost free to thousands of dollars.

At the lower end of the scale, there are very affordable platforms with drag-and-drop options allowing you to create a website yourself. However, these often come with limitations, such as a lack of customizability, poor optimization for search engines, plus no guarantee that the site is HIPAA compliant. 

At the higher end, bespoke agencies can charge over $30,000 for a new website. While they can offer a site with all the bells and whistles, such a price often falls outside the marketing budget of an average physician practice.

Here at Red Castle Services, we provide customized HIPAA-compliant medical website design—with high-speed hosting for optimum SEO performance—for just $129 / month.

3. How long does it take to build a new medical website?

Creating a new medical website can take anywhere between a few hours and a few months, depending on factors such as urgency, availability of existing content and images, the capacity of the digital agency, as well as login access to pre-existing website files and hosting.

If you are like most medical practices we work with, then you want your new website ready 'as soon as possible'. So be sure to ask your medical web design agency how long it will take them. And beware—when it comes to web developers, there is a general rule that you should take the timeframe they quote and double it as there are often delays.

That being said, it is often possible to launch a new site in a matter of days. The same goes for revamping an existing website—assuming you have the login information, making updates and improvements can be done relatively quickly.

medical website design for doctors
Orthopaedic Surgery Associates - sample medical website for doctors

4. What Functionality does the Medical Website need?

Before getting started with building a new medical website for your practice, it's important to first consider what functionality you require. Possible medical website functions include:

5. Does the the Medical Website Design Agency offer SEO?

What's the point of having one of the best medical websites if no one can find it?

For this reason, we specialize not only in building medical websites but also performing online marketing for doctors and medical practices. One of the best digital marketing strategies is medical SEO. This is the process of positioning a medical website at the top of search results on search engines—such as Google.

In addition to SEO, you may also consider the following ways to promote your medical website:

SEO for doctors & medical practices
medical website maintenance

6. Who will maintain the website and make updates in future?

As with any business, medical practices are not static—they change over time and often need to update their website to reflect these changes. Such changes typically include:

  • Providers join or leave the practice
  • New procedures or services
  • Change of address
  • News items
  • Special offers or discounts
  • Hiring advertisements

Most web developers charge a fee per hour for making such edits. This can add up. But with Red Castle Services, all ongoing changes are included in the monthly fee.

7. What do their Example Medical Website Designs look like?

Prior to choosing the website developer, it's a good idea to look at other websites they have built. This will give you a good idea of their style and expertise. 

Additionally, if you can identify the templates you like, this information will help the developer when creating your site.
Medical Website
medical website testimonials

8. Testimonials—What do other Doctors say about their Medical Web Designs?

Google’s crawler bots constantly check for updates to websites. This will identify if your page has added any fresh content. Sites that regularly add new content are considered ‘fresher’, which is said to be one of the factors in Google’s algorithm. This is logical. Google wants to put the best and most current sites at the top of search results. For example, if one doctor’s website has not been updated since 2005, then the content is likely to be outdated (especially in an ever-changing industry such as medicine). This subsequently decreases the chances of it ranking high on search results. Learn more about our medical blog content creation services.

9. How to Track the Performance of a Medical Website?

Ok, so imagine your website is live. What next? How do you know how well the site is 'performing'? This is where healthcare analytics come into play. Be sure to ask your agency to set this up. Data points you may want to monitor include the following:

  • Website Traffic
  • Page Visits (to see which pages are the most popular)
  • Landing Page Stats
  • Exit Page Stats (on which pages are patients leaving your site?)
  • New Patient Leads (via phone, contact form, chat request, online appointments)
  • SEO rankings

Read more about Medical Marketing Analytics.

website traffic

Other Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Medical Website Design for Doctors

As with medical doctors, not all medical web design agencies are the same. The type of agency you need will depend on the specific needs of your medical practice. In order to help elicit these needs, we have listed below 6 questions you should ask before choosing a medical web design agency.

facebook ads for doctors

2. How much does Medical Website Design cost? 

The price of medical website design ranges from almost free to thousands of dollars.

At the lower end of the scale, there are very affordable platforms with drag-and-drop options allowing you to create a website yourself. However, these often come with limitations, such as a lack of customizability, poor optimization for search engines, plus no guarantee that the site is HIPAA compliant. 

At the higher end, bespoke agencies can charge over $30,000 for a new website. While they can offer a site with all the bells and whistles, such a price often falls outside the marketing budget of an average physician practice.

Here at Red Castle Services, we provide customized HIPAA-compliant medical website design—with high-speed hosting for optimum SEO performance—for just $129 / month.

3. How long does it take to build a new medical website?

Creating a new medical website can take anywhere between a few hours and a few months, depending on factors such as urgency, availability of existing content and images, the capacity of the digital agency, as well as login access to pre-existing website files and hosting.

If you are like most medical practices we work with, then you want your new website ready 'as soon as possible'. So be sure to ask your medical web design agency how long it will take them. And beware—when it comes to web developers, there is a general rule that you should take the timeframe they quote and double it as there are often delays.

That being said, it is often possible to launch a new site in a matter of days. The same goes for revamping an existing website—assuming you have the login information, making updates and improvements can be done relatively quickly.

medical website design for doctors
Orthopaedic Surgery Associates - sample medical website for doctors

4. What Functionality does the Medical Website need?

Before getting started with building a new medical website for your practice, it's important to first consider what functionality you require. Possible medical website functions include:

5. Does the the Medical Website Design Agency offer SEO?

What's the point of having one of the best medical websites if no one can find it?

For this reason, we specialize not only in building medical websites but also performing online marketing for doctors and medical practices. One of the best digital marketing strategies is medical SEO. This is the process of positioning a medical website at the top of search results on search engines—such as Google.

In addition to SEO, you may also consider the following ways to promote your medical website:

SEO for doctors & medical practices
medical website maintenance

6. Who will maintain the website and make updates in future?

As with any business, medical practices are not static—they change over time and often need to update their website to reflect these changes. Such changes typically include:

  • Providers join or leave the practice
  • New procedures or services
  • Change of address
  • News items
  • Special offers or discounts
  • Hiring advertisements

Most web developers charge a fee per hour for making such edits. This can add up. But with Red Castle Services, all ongoing changes are included in the monthly fee.

7. What do their Example Medical Website Designs look like?

Prior to choosing the website developer, it's a good idea to look at other websites they have built. This will give you a good idea of their style and expertise. 

Additionally, if you can identify the templates you like, this information will help the developer when creating your site.
Medical Website
medical website testimonials

8. Testimonials—What do other Doctors say about their Medical Web Designs?

Google’s crawler bots constantly check for updates to websites. This will identify if your page has added any fresh content. Sites that regularly add new content are considered ‘fresher’, which is said to be one of the factors in Google’s algorithm. This is logical. Google wants to put the best and most current sites at the top of search results. For example, if one doctor’s website has not been updated since 2005, then the content is likely to be outdated (especially in an ever-changing industry such as medicine). This subsequently decreases the chances of it ranking high on search results. Learn more about our medical blog content creation services.

9. How to Track the Performance of a Medical Website?

Ok, so imagine your website is live. What next? How do you know how well the site is 'performing'? This is where healthcare analytics come into play. Be sure to ask your agency to set this up. Data points you may want to monitor include the following:

  • Website Traffic
  • Page Visits (to see which pages are the most popular)
  • Landing Page Stats
  • Exit Page Stats (on which pages are patients leaving your site?)
  • New Patient Leads (via phone, contact form, chat request, online appointments)
  • SEO rankings

Read more about Medical Marketing Analytics.

website traffic

What clients say about our work

LET'S TALK
  • Over the past two years, the Red Castle team has more than doubled our website traffic! They are quick to respond and a pleasure to work with.
    Matthew Emig
    PREMIUM PLAN, Physician Marketing Liaison
  • Red Castle got us the results we wanted and got them fast, with our number of patients up by 37% in just 4 months.
    Tera Welch
    PREMIUM PLAN, Neulife Rehabilitation, FL

Medical Website Design for Doctors - FAQs

Does a Medical Website need to be ADA Compliant?

All websites, including medical websites, need to be ADA (American Disabilities Act) Compliant. Specifically, websites need to ensure that they are accessible to people with disabilities.

In practice, this means adding descriptive tags to your website content, so that people with visual disabilities can use audio tools to hear the description in lieu of seeing the content. 

Can I update my existing practice website instead of building a new website?

Yes, it is sometimes quicker, easier, and cheaper to update an existing website rather than build a brand-new site. That being said, you should consider the long-term goals of your practice and decide accordingly. For example, if your current site is loading slowly and has low conversion rates, it may be wise to switch to a template that is proven to generate high rates of patient conversion.

Please note also that, even if you choose to build a new site, much of your current content can still be salvaged. The content is simply repackaged in a better-looking and faster-loading template.

Do I need more than one medical website?

Doctors with multiple locations or multiple specialities often ask us if they need more than one website. In some circumstances, this may make sense, especially if in the long term you intend on dividing your practice (and perhaps selling the components separately). 
 
However, from an SEO perspective, it's much better to have one strong website than two (or more) weak websites. For example, if you are an orthopedic surgeon also offering physical therapy, it's much better to keep it all on one website, using tabs to divide the different services. This will lead to much better search engine rankings.

How can I ensure my medical website is HIPAA compliant?

As a doctor or medical practice, it is very important that your website is HIPAA compliant. In practice, this means ensuring that—if any patient data is exchanged via the website—that this data is kept secure and only shared with those who strictly need it.

A good example is a new patient appointment form. You need to make sure that any data entered by the patient is stored securely and only shared with members of staff who strictly require access. Additionally, if data is shared with third parties, then not only must this data be secure, but a HIPAA compliance agreement must be signed between the two parties. For this reason, medical website design agencies usually require their clients to sign HIPAA compliance agreements.
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About Red Castle Services — specializing in Medical Website Design for Doctors

Here at Red Castle Services, we believe that creating a medical website is a two-stage process. First, there is the stage of creating an amazing website that meets all of your practice's needs. That is the easy part.

Second, there is the stage of digital marketing for the website—to ensure that patients can find it. After all, what is the point of an amazing website if no one can find it?

If you are a doctor who likes to keep the end goal (more patients!) in mind, then we would love to work with you. Read more about us—including WHO WE ARE and WHAT WE BELIEVE.

 

Book your free Strategy Session HERE

Book your free strategy session today.

Dr. Richard Girling
CEO & Founder
Free of charge. No obligations. Learn more about how we can help grow your practice.
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