#5: 5 Reasons Why Patients Leave Your Website & Why Patient Experience Is Important

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Huyen - Hey there, welcome to another episode of Online Marketing For Doctors Podcast, the place to be to grow and scale profitable practices. I am your host Huyen Truong and this is Steven Tait .

Today we are going to talk about the top 5 reasons why patients leave your website and why patient experience is so important.

Patients may leave your website for a variety of different reasons, including things outside of your control -like getting distracted or interrupted, losing their internet connection, and so on.

There are, however, reasons why patients leave your website that you have the power to control, fix, and improve. So we're going to outline common problems that negatively affect the patient experience, and also how you can keep more patients on your website for a longer period of time-  and ideally convert website visitors to quality leads.

Steve - Why Patient Experience Matters

So as Huyen was saying, there are many reasons patients may leave your website - and in recent times, there has been a notable increase of online searches about healthcare services and facilities.

Research from Beckers’ Hospital Review shows almost 80 percent of patients conduct an online search before making an appointment with a physician. So this means most prospective patients' first impression of a provider or healthcare organisation occurs online, before they even step foot inside a facility.

Therefore, a strong online presence is a critical factor that will lead to a positive patient experience and an increase in your practice’s credibility.

Online marketing provides an opportunity for healthcare practitioners to reach more patients via the web. A healthcare facility with an active online presence is more likely to attract a higher volume of prospective patients than an offline, off-the-grid practice.

We put together the 5 most common (and recoverable) problems affecting the patient experience via your website:

 Huyen – The first problem is Poor Design

Steve was exactly right - patient experience is so important.

And it begins with a first impression - and as we know, first impressions are no longer limited to face-to-face interactions.

As the old saying goes, first impressions last and although another saying is you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but it often does ring true. So this is why your website design is so important.

For most medical and healthcare practices, a website is usually the first impression between a prospective patient and a medical practice - making it your most valuable online asset. Your website is your front door. If it’s not appealing, people won't want to come inside.

A sub-standard, dated website decreases your hard-earned credibility and reduces patient trust.

Steve – The second problem we have seen quite a lot is slow loading time  

Let's delve a little further into that, starting with this very crucial point:

One out of four website visitors abandon webpages that take more than 4 seconds to load.

Mobile users are a little more forgiving; generally, they will wait 10 seconds before abandoning a web page.  However, don’t bet on patients returning to a slow-loading site because 3 out of 5 people will not return to a site they already abandoned due to slow load times. If your website is not optimised to load quickly, you risk losing patients to a faster competitor.

Even more so, in July 2018, Google will make website speed loading an official ranking factor, so if you don’t want your website ranking tosuffer on Google search results, you need to get on top of this.

In our show notes below, we put the link of the website speed testing tools so you can see how your website speedscores on mobile and desktop - and then you can send the results to your web developer if you need to speed things up. You can also reach out to us to fix this problem - our team are always happy to help!

Huyen – the 3^rd problem is non-responsive or not mobile friendly

As Steve pointed out website speed loading is so important.

And responsive website designs should adapt to all different screen sizes and resolutions without affecting quality or patient experience. Catering to mobile devices ensures a seamless experience for people who access your website on-the-go. Optimising your website for mobile devices increases your chance of attracting new visitors and converting them into new patients.

Another important reason to have a mobile friendly website is that More than 56% of all healthcare website traffic comes from mobile devices, according to Marketing Land magazine. If your site isn’t responsive or mobile friendly yet, the chances are very high that you're losing leads - and maybe even patients.

Patient feedback is so important - have any of your patients told you that your mobile site is hard to use, or your information is hard to find?

If so, you should be considering the following:

• Does your website load quickly on multiple browsers?
• Does every section on your website scale correctly on a smartphone?
• Is critical information on your website easy to find on a mobile device?

If you can’t answer “Yes” to these questions, it’s likely that your website is not mobile-friendly.

So, if you're not sure whether your site's mobile friendly, why not test it today? We've shared the link for the Google Mobile Friendly testing tool in our show notes so you can check out your score, and then share it with your web developer to fix any issues.

Steve – 4^th problem is Lack of patient centric information

Online visitors (or prospective patients) are simple: if you provide them with valuable information, they will keep reading and will remain on your website. If not, they will find another resource that provides them with more robust information.

Each page of your website should cater to the patient experience - and content is particularly important. On the clinical pages, it’s important to highlight your practice’s expertise by providing detailed information about specific conditions and treatments, but be sure to use layman’s terms in order not to confuse your audiences.

To further improve the patient experience, write from an angle that emphasises how your practice is unique – Do you always put the patient first? Are your wait times short? Is your office location convenient? Are the staff members extra friendly? How is your treatment process different from your competitors?

On applicable pages, such as the “About Us” section, include as much information as possible about your practice, your staff and the services you offer. This will demonstrate your professionalism, your patient-focused approach and your commitment to the patient experience.

Huyen – Do you know that on a medical practice website, 52 percent of visitors want to read “About us” information?

Your message is how patients connect with your brand. The “About Us” section is where you tell your story on how you started, your passion and your core expertise.Try to keep the tone simplified and conversational, rather than using complicated wording or corporate speak.

Your “About Us” page should tell target users who you are and what you do. Since this page is one of the most visited pages on a website, it should be personal, compelling and up-to-date. It must outline your mission, vision and goals.

This page can also be used for displaying success stories, before and after images, and videos.
The biggest problem with About Us page is that they can be too wordy. It’s important to keep the page simple and give readers enough information to be informed - but not bored. You can display images of main doctors and your team to break up the long text. It’s always more comforting for patients to see where they are going - and who is taking care of them - before their first consultation.

Always remember to try and put yourself in your patient’s shoes when developing your online presence.

Steve – 5^th problem is missing strong call to actions or lead magnets

This is a key step that most healthcare professionals often miss - or are not even aware of - when running an online marketing campaign. You need to have lead magnets or offers for every single main service that you want to promote.

With so much noise and distraction from all sorts of saturated media channels nowadays, it’s no wonder that up to 98% of your website’s visitors leave without subscribing, enquiring or calling. Create lead magnets on your website so you can capture their information before they leave, and then you can follow up your offers with a brief call or relevant email.

Remember, effective lead magnets come in various forms. Keep testing and trying different offers to see which one works the best for you.

Some ideas for general lead magnets could be an ebook “Top 10 Eyelid Surgery FAQs – What you really need to know before going under the knife” or “Free Information Evening Session” or“Webinar – 5 Latest Updates about Prostate Cancer Treatment”

More specific promos can be offered as a voucher, free initial consultation, complimentary assessment for laser eye surgery, or a detailed price list - for example “Complimentary Assessment, Save $120”

Huyen - By now, you must be wondering what other specific elements you can include on our site to attract more patients. So, check out our video What Website Elements Will Bring More Patients that we've created to specifically help you out with this - the link is in our show notes.

For those planning to design a new website, these 13 essential elements will help you to build a successful website and, more importantly, a website that will work for you.

And if you need help building a successful sitethat drives your medical practice, talk to our team of highly trained medical website designers. We understand what elements are needed to build a professional quality website that will turn your visitors into patients!

To get an idea of our initial general website pricing, check out the link in our show note: www.onlinemarketingfordoctors.com/website-design-quote/

At Online Marketing For Doctors, we take the headache out of medical website marketing and let you focus on what matters: your practice.

Steve - Thanks so much for tuning in and, as always, we'd love to hear from you.

So before you go, we have one last question for you: What do you think are some reasons a patient might leave a website? Our medical practitioner community would love to hear your comments so please leave your comments now, and while you are there be sure to subscribe to our blog and become OMD insiders - to get instant access to our training, videos, podcasts and eBook library.

I hope that you enjoyed this episode and we'll see you next time.