Your clinic website is typically the first thing that potential clients see, and first impressions count.
According to a Harvard Business School study, people form opinions about others in seven seconds, and 55% of people base their opinions on how they look. In similar studies, researchers from California State University, Northridge, and Columbia University found that clothes influence what we think about people, especially when it comes to trust.
Your practice website effectively represents the clothes your practice wears when meeting a new client online for the first time. If your website features common errors in website design like poor color schemes, confusing navigation, non-responsive design, conflicting fonts, and other traffic killers, people are more apt to quickly form the opinion that your practice appears untrustworthy. When you showcase the professionalism and trustworthiness of your practice with a clean, beautiful, modern website, you engender higher trust to help attract and convert more clients.
How to Attract and convert your veterinary website visitors to clients
1. Cookie Cutter Designs Don’t Always Cut It
Cloud-based website creation platforms like Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly are certainly simple and convenient as drag-and-drop tools to quickly create a web presence. And many of their customizable website design templates reflect the clean, modern designs previously mentioned. Yet such cookie-cutter templates have their limitations when it comes to the specific needs of practices.
For example, Wix provides a wide selection of copyright-free images, and images are certainly important to any website’s visual appeal. Yet Wix (and similar sites) cannot provide your practice with more important things, like industry-approved pet health content.
Practices have unique needs when it comes to websites that truly serve pet owners and ultimately attract more clients, and there’s a big difference between general website tools and a website creation service with the knowledge, experience, and assets to deliver what veterinary clinics need to meet the specific needs and expectations of pet owners.
2. Include friendly pages that help the visitor get to know you and your team.
For instance, a Meet Our Team page or What to Expect page can be extremely helpful to a new prospect, especially if the content is conversational and focused on the prospect’s concerns.
3. Invite visitors to tour your hospital with photos.
Show them the front of your building (so they recognize it when arriving for the first time), plus your lobby, an exam room, boarding area, water therapy room (if you have one), etc. Ideally, your photos include staff and animals (not just rooms and equipment) so prospects can picture being there.
4. Include cheery “Join the conversation!” social invitations.
Facebook is a top social network for practices because it’s a popular place to share funny photos, community pet news, answers to common questions, team member news, events at your practice and more. Include your social media buttons prominently on your site, so visitors can find your social accounts.
5. Bring your practice to life with videos.
Veterinary video marketing is huge because it allows pet parents to experience why your practice is a great place to bring their pets. When you tell them, in your words and images, why you chose the animal health industry, how you take a caring approach to pet health, and how your team works harmoniously to provide an exceptional experience, prospects can’t help but feel comfortable choosing you. When posting videos on your site, include a sentence on why they should watch it! Don’t make them guess. The practice shown here invites visitors to “Meet Dr. Todd.”
6. Ask visitors to get helpful news via a newsletter or specific service feature.
Pet parents sign up for email newsletters when there’s an incentive to do so. In the screen shot here, the practice is offering “advice on being a better pet parent.” Who doesn’t want to be a better pet parent? This practice also offers new information on wellness plans, another invitation to learn more.
7. Add a New Clients section to your website.
The easier it is for a pet owner to connect with your practice, the more likely it is that they will. Create a section in your navigation designed specifically for new clients. Include pages such as “What to Expect,” “Make an Appointment,” “Take a Tour,” or even “Register With Our Clinic,” if that is an option on your website. By mentioning them, you can immediately grab the attention of new clients and direct them to the pages on your website that will benefit them most…making it far more likely that you’ll see them walking through your practice doors.
8. Provide Valuable Pet Health Content
Research shows that pet owners still view veterinarians as trusted sources of pet health information. As an example: According to research by Packaged Facts, 62% of pet owners expressed the greatest degree of trust in pet food information from their veterinarians. In fact, during a presentation at Petfood Forum, David Sprinkle, publisher and research director at Packaged Facts, said, “Dog owners turn to vets for food advice nearly as much as for medication.”
Providing valuable pet health content on your website shows both existing and prospective clients that your practice is a primary source of trusted pet health information, which keeps people returning to your website to help improve engagement and boost appointments. Providing pet health content also helps increase compliance, improve SEO for increased online discovery, and more.
The challenge in any website refresh, of course, is time.
As a done-for-you solution, LifeLearn offers WebDVM, custom-built veterinary websites that come with the things listed above, plus more, including:
- Pre-written weekly news to keep pet owners engaged
- Pet Health Checker, an integrated client triage tool
- Pet food and product recall links to the AVMA’s pet product recall list
- Responsive design created for smartphones and other mobile devices
- Custom external links to external sites such as your online pharmacy
You can see all of WebDVM’s features by clicking here.
9 Ways to Keep Pet Owners Engaged on Your Website
1. Clarity is a website’s best friend
As dogs are to mankind, clarity is to websites. Without clarity, websites cannot thrive. According to Dale, “The key to engaging your visitors is to offer them value in a clear, user-friendly, and visually appealing manner.”
The majority of pet owners visiting your website are looking for specific information, and they want answers quickly and accurately. Clarity is your biggest ally here, because it impacts everything from language and fonts to graphics and navigation. Your veterinary website should be easy and quick to read, with consistent fonts, image styles and more, to avoid looking sloppy and unprofessional.
“A confusing site is a frustrating site,” Dale advises, “and people just aren’t willing to be frustrated with a tool you’re using to earn their business.”
2. How can you simplify your website?
If you want to keep things simple on your veterinary website, you should start by making it easy to navigate. Dale suggests that you keep the primary navigation bar somewhere easy to find (like at the top of the page), and to organize each item into clickable, logical categories featuring only three to six of the most important pages.
“The best advice I can give to help improve your navigation is to make it clear, complete and consistent,” says Dale. That said, navigating your website on a desktop looks very different from browsing on mobile, so be sure to optimize your design on multiple screens to reach as many pet owners as you can.25789
3. Optimize for mobile users
If your page doesn’t load properly or quickly on smartphones, pet owners will find their information elsewhere. With over 91% of smartphone users bound to their mobile screens for data, your website needs to be mobile-responsive to stay connected with a growing pet owner demographic of millennials.
“Having a site that responds well and looks great on mobile is only half the battle; it also needs to be user-friendly and effective,” Dale suggests. You can accomplish this by devising a separate design infrastructure to accommodate each viewing platform.
Consider the difference in browsing habits between mobile users and desktop users. When using mobile, pet owners are more likely to search for quick and easy information like your contact details, hours of operation and your location.
4. Cater to pet owners, not trends
When it comes to web design, there’s never any shortage of industry trends vying for your attention with flashy new features and glossy appearances. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with these trends, it’s important to consider your audience first.
Before you pick the best design for your veterinary website, you must “understand the needs of pet owners—what they’re trying to do on your website—and define your objectives—what you’re trying to achieve with your website. By understanding these factors, you can tailor your site specifically to meet the needs of your clients, and objectives you’ve set,” says Dale.
For example, many visitors to a veterinary website may be looking to book an appointment for their pet, so you should make it really easy for them to do so by adding an appointment button, or your practice’s phone number, to your homepage.
5. Be social
The whole purpose of building a veterinary website is to engage with pet owners, but this is no “if you build it, they will come” scenario! If you want to get pet owners involved with your practice online, try making the first move. As Dale advises, “people love interacting with the person behind the curtain, so let them see the real you, and talk to them!”
That’s what makes a website so appealing—not just for business, but for the health, safety and well-being of pets everywhere. You can educate, update and communicate by showing the people behind your practice to keep pet owners engaged so they’ll visit your site (and clinic!) regularly.
One great way to keep pet owners coming back for more is to include an opt-in newsletter option on your website. This could be a pop-up when they land on your homepage or a sidebar. The point is that it invites pet owners to provide their email addresses to receive emails from your practice about upcoming news and events.
Together with your blog and social media, newsletters are a great way to build a loop of returning visits to your website.
Tip: WebDVM websites come with WebDVM Social built right in, which can help you set up newsletters and other communications easily and quickly.
6. Always add value
“Good content is arguably the most important part of audience engagement with your website,” says Dale. When your content is awesome, it’s easier to build a website that pet owners can use as a resource whenever they have a question about their pets.
Aside from pleasing pet owners with your perfect prose, providing great content means you can set yourself up as a go-to resource for your clients. To reinforce your expertise, Dale says, it’s important to make sure that pet owners can find that great content.
Strategies like internal linking (including links to other content on your website whenever it’s relevant) can help direct pet owners to other content they may be interested in, but ideally, every page on your website should be accessible from some type of menu structure. Your mission is to ensure the health of pets—and your website’s mission is to be an extension of that core purpose. If you put these tips into practice to engage pet owners online and keep them involved for the long run, it is possible! When all of your content is clear, easy to navigate, and valuable to your clients, they will keep coming back for more—which is good for business, and pet health too.
7. Make Your First Impression Count
People form opinions about others in seven seconds, according to a study by Harvard Business School, and 55% of people base their opinions on how you look.
Similarly, a recent study by Northumbria University shows that people form opinions about businesses in seconds based on how their website looks, and 94% of website first impressions are design-related.
This means, if your website features common errors in website design like poor color schemes, confusing navigation, non-responsive design and other traffic killers, people are more likely to quickly form a negative opinion of your practice. When you showcase the professionalism and trustworthiness of your practice with a clean, easy-to-use website that follows established principles of design and best practices in user experience, you engender higher trust to help attract and convert more pet owners.
8. Tell Website Visitors Exactly What to Do
Whether your practice goals involve booking more appointments or increasing compliance with existing clients, clear calls to action for website visitors more effectively help you achieve business goals. So, gently guide clients toward the activities that you wish them to complete and make the process simple. If you want to increase appointments, for example, placing a clearly worded “Make an Appointment” button on your homepage makes it clear and simple for pet owners to complete the action. Well-designed calls to action will leave website visitors feeling satisfied that they were able to achieve what they wanted—and leave you satisfied that the investment in your practice website is paying off.
9. Provide Valuable Pet Health Content
Studies show that pet owners still view veterinarians as trusted sources of pet health information. As an example: According to research by Packaged Facts, 62% of pet owners expressed the greatest degree of trust in pet food information from their veterinarians. In fact, during a presentation at Petfood Forum, David Sprinkle, publisher and research director at Packaged Facts, said, “Dog owners turn to vets for food advice nearly as much as for medication.”
Providing valuable pet health content on your website shows both existing and prospective clients that your practice is a primary source of trusted pet health information, which keeps people returning to your website to help improve engagement and boost appointments. Providing pet health content also helps increase compliance, improve SEO for increased online discovery, and more.
Start with LifeLearn WebDVM custom veterinary websites Design!
The challenge in any website refresh, of course, is time. As a done-for-you solution, LifeLearn WebDVM custom veterinary websites are designed to make you stand out from the competition and attract more appointments, and LifeLearn’s proven implementation process makes set-up a breeze.
To discover more about what a custom WebDVM website can do for your practice, book a free consultation. Drop us your contact info and one of our team members will get back to you.
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