There are several important components of a good physical therapy website. Physical therapy patients have specific needs, and these need to be evident on your website.
A functional site should introduce professional and support staff, and outline the methods of treatment. It should provide an outline of standard services and procedures.
You definitely need to appeal to your prospective clients—just why should they come to you? What special value do you offer? What are some of your unique selling points?
In this age of social media, it’s important for your physical therapy website to be interactive. Provide easy methods of contact; a web form, e-mail, right there on your site. Demonstrate photos, addresses, maps, driving directions, etc., of any of your facilities.
As a physical therapist, your online presence should be concise, neat, and professional. You really don’t need extra bells and whistles on your website like Java applets, fancy flash files, or any other programming features, other than the basics. You’ll want to convey useful information and data to your target organization, all within a clean design framework.
- Aim for readability and effective and easy to see appropriate images. Have your information stand out in a neat way, filled with bold, italicized text and bullet points.
- Avoid anything that is garish or overdone.
- Basic graphic presentation is more than likely going to work well for you in producing an effective website.
- If your business cards or brochures or signs, etc., display a certain logo already representing your business, do include it on the site, for consistency and identification.
For your physical therapy website, it’s wise to exhibit your content in a clear to understand, yet fairly comprehensive fashion. Stick to layman’s terminology. Always keep your target markets in mind with respect to website design. Some usual techniques would be to display photos of all practitioners, with brief bios. Perhaps you may wish to include some staff.
Remember, you are trying to build relationships with prospective clients. When possible, be sure to include a photo of the practitioner, as well as a limited biography. Photos of in-office staff are also helpful in developing a relationship between the client-prospect and the practitioner. Be sure to enhance and individualize your worth and credibility as a practitioner, as you do these things.
Lastly, as you implement the design of your physical therapy website, there are certain pointers to keep in mind. Make sure you have enough key words and phrases in your test, as search engines use content text to figure placement, rather than meta tags. And be sure to include these key terms in hyperlinks and tags. Make sure the phrases fit you as a practitioner, and the industry as a whole. It is strongly recommended that you hire a professional, and not try and do this yourself. A website professional can help with everything from custom graphics, interactivity and search engine optimization. It will likely yield positive results for you, and save a significant amount of time that you can spend with patients.
