Hello there, Peter Brissette here, Digital Marketing Dude. Welcome to my next video: 3 Website Mistakes Healthcare Professionals Make.

Most healthcare websites are not losing patients because they’re bad providers. They’re losing patients because the website creates confusion, weakens trust, and makes the next step harder than it should be.

Welcome again. I’m Peter Brissette, the Digital Marketing Dude. We’re going to break this down today and talk about the three website mistakes healthcare professionals make.

So what’s happening? What is the problem here? Why are they losing clients?

There are three main reasons I already mentioned: confusion, lack of trust-building, and friction. Clients don’t know what they should do once they get to the website. There’s no opportunity to build trust, and there are lots of challenges with how the website is laid out. It makes it very difficult for clients, prospects, and patients to actually engage and want to do business with that business.

So what is it that visitors actually want?

They want clarity very quickly. You have anywhere between three to seven seconds to grab them, to get them to stay long enough to dig deeper and find out if they want to engage with your business or not. They want to know if you can help them. Are you the right provider for them, and are you able to help solve their problem? They also need to know what to do next. That’s what they’re really thinking about.

So why does this matter?

Well, your website is a lot more than just an online brochure. This is an opportunity for you to communicate to your ideal prospect that you are the right business for them and that you are going to solve the problem. The website is a tool that helps you build the trust you need in order to do that.

It most often is the first point of contact. When people do a search, they’re learning about you. They’re going to dig into your website to really see what you’re about and, again, whether or not you can help them.

When we look at the assets we own versus the assets we rent in digital marketing, your website is one of those things that you own. You have complete control of it. You can make it the best that it can be, and that’s what you need to do.

A high-performing website should guide visitors toward an action: downloading something, booking a meeting, calling, or filling out a form. Something needs to happen, and your website is the place to do that. We have a limited number of eyeballs. It’s not like we can get tens of thousands of views on our website from an ideal prospect. So every prospect that does hit our website, we have to take advantage of that and get the most out of that interaction.

All right. Here are the three mistakes: unclear messaging, no clear call to action, and outdated or cluttered design that hurts trust. Let’s break these down.

Mistake Number One: Unclear Messaging

What does that look like?

It looks like generic headlines such as “Compassionate Care” or “Quality Service.” What does that even mean, and why should your customer care about that? It looks like vague language, no clarity, no specificity, no explanation of services in an easy-to-understand manner, and no clear indication of who the site is for.

Often what we see on websites is that you’re talking all about your business, but you’re not talking to your customer or your prospect. You see pages and pages full of internal language instead of something that is patient-friendly in terms of how it is speaking to them.

You also have to remember the rule of three clicks. If it takes me more than three clicks to get to the information I need, I’m probably gone. That’s too much work and too much friction. When you have to click around too much to get to the right content and the right information, you lose people.

So why does this happen?

A lot of providers assume that visitors already understand what they do, so they’re not really putting themselves in the mind of their prospect or their clients. Or they’re trying to sound too broad. They worry that if they’re too specific, they might limit the right person. So instead of being specific, they are very broad and very generic. Or they try to say too many things in an unorganized way.

I think of a dentist. A dentist can have a very long list of services that they provide, but it needs to be very organized and very easy to navigate on the website. It also needs to be communicated in a way that is easy for those who aren’t dentists to understand and to see what that means for them.

So some key points to remember here:

Don’t make website visitors have to work to understand the site. Don Miller talks about this as cognitive load. If I have to think too much about what your website is saying to me, I’m probably going to go somewhere else. You have to make it very easy for people to understand.

The homepage needs to answer basic questions really quickly:

What’s the problem you solve?

Who do you solve it for?

What’s the next step I need to take?

Clear always beats clever. We’re not trying to be cute. We’re not trying to be clever here. We’re trying to communicate a very clear and specific message. Specific will always beat vague.

So how can we fix this? What do we do?

Use a clear headline at the top of the homepage that clearly states:

This is what we do.

This is who we do it for.

This is the problem we solve.

This is who we solve that problem for.

It needs to be very brief.

State exactly what you offer. Talk about who you help. Organize the pages around the patient questions or client questions. What do they need to know? What are they actually looking for when they’re on the website? What questions are they trying to answer?

Way too many websites do not have any frequently asked questions on them. None. So having questions specific to each service, along with general frequently asked questions, is very important to have on a healthcare website.

Use simple, direct language. Simplify it. Take out the jargon. Make it easy to understand. Reduce options and clutter.

So that’s the first thing.

Mistake Number Two: No Clear Call to Action

This is actually a significant problem for almost all small business websites.

So what does this look like?

No visible appointment button. The phone number is hard to find. The contact page is difficult to get to. There are too many competing buttons.

I was looking at a website just the other day, and just above the fold—in that first view—there were four different calls to action. That’s too many. We have to reduce this to a single call to action, and that single call to action should be repeated throughout the page.

If you’re using a mobile device, you also have to think about that mobile user. What’s it like for them? Is it easy for them to make a call or fill out a form? A lot of times the forms are not mobile-friendly.

Again, why does this happen?

Because businesses assume the visitors will figure it out. They focus on explaining the business, not guiding the user. You have to think of yourself as the guide in how you direct the visitor through your website.

There are too many options instead of a clear primary call to action. And the site was designed more for looks—which is important—but it had no conversion thought to it, no thought about how we’re going to help people actually do business with us.

Key points here:

A website should guide visitors toward an action.

The next step should be very obvious on the page.

Every page should support movement toward contact, booking an appointment, or some type of inquiry—a phone call, whatever it might be.

So what should we do instead?

Choose one primary call to action. What is the number one thing you want a prospect to do when they get to your website? Make that very clear and obvious.

It should be in the header of the page. It should be repeated throughout the page, particularly the homepage. It has to be mobile-friendly. I have to be able to do it on my phone.

Use very specific language, and match that call to action to your business model. Are we trying to book an appointment? Is that what we’re after? Are we trying to get them to make a phone call? Do we want them to fill out a form or request a consultation? What is it we want them to do? Be very specific about that.

All right, mistake number three.

Mistake Number Three: Outdated or Cluttered Design That Hurts Trust

So let’s talk about what that looks like.

Pixelated images. Blurry images. Stock photos that don’t really align with who you are and what you’re doing. There’s a cognitive dissonance there. There’s a separation between the words I’m reading and the image I’m seeing, and the image is totally throwing me off. So having quality images is really important.

Maybe it’s old branding or inconsistent branding. Maybe you have print materials or social media that don’t match the branding on your website. You want to have consistent branding throughout.

It can also look like a crowded layout, too many colors or visual elements, the wrong kind of contrast, hard-to-read text, text that’s too small, or text that doesn’t have a strong enough color. A lot of times, instead of being solid black, it’s a slight gray, and that makes it very hard to read.

It also shows up as not enough spacing, things too close together, pages loading slowly, and sites struggling to actually be mobile-friendly. Pages should not be loading slowly at this point. With all the technology we have now, pages should load quickly, particularly on mobile devices.

So why does this happen?

Because we built the website a few years ago and haven’t touched it since. The last blog post is dated from seven years ago. A website is really never finished. It should be constantly worked on and constantly updated. It’s a never-ending project. It’s a tool to be used, and to be used often, to help promote your business.

Another reason is too much packed into a page. I think you can design a lot of content onto a page as long as it makes sense and as long as it’s a flow that takes people step by step through it. But if you try to put too much information on the page and it’s all over the place with no flow, that’s a problem.

There is often no clear strategy on conversion. How are we going to actually convert people in this process? The site was built quickly and never improved, never updated, never changed. And there isn’t enough thought about why visual trust matters and how important it is.

So what does this hurt?

It hurts trust. That’s what it comes down to. I’m associating your website and how your business operates with the quality of your business. Is your practice going to be the same way your website is? How am I actually going to experience engaging with you and your business?

The clutter makes the site hard to use. Poor design can reduce confidence before a patient ever calls. Building those moments of trust is critically important, and if the website has been neglected, it’s going to call things into question.

Some key points to remember here:

In healthcare, trust is everything.

Your website is your first impression.

Invest in it.

Make it quality.

Make sure it does what it needs to do.

A clean design does not just look better; it performs better. Simplicity helps people feel more confident in your business and in doing business with you.

So how do we fix this?

Use clean layouts. That is easier than ever to do with websites.

Improve the image quality.

You can use some AI images, but so many healthcare sites are very heavy with stock photos. Getting professional images done is a game changer, and if you really want to set yourself apart from your competition, get some professional images made. Hire a photographer and get some really good-quality images.

Make sure fonts and spacing are clear and easy to read. Make sure there is lots of open space on the site. Make it easy to scan. Use more bullet points. Use icons to separate information.

Make sure the mobile experience is dialed in. A higher percentage of people are probably experiencing your website on a mobile device versus somewhere else. Make sure speed is good, responsiveness is good, and the site looks great on different screen sizes.

And take out any unnecessary clutter.

So again, on the homepage you want:

a clear headline,

a short supporting statement,

one main call to action.

In that first above-the-fold view, those three things have to be there and they need to be dialed in. You also want a good, strong supporting photo that supports the headline, the statement, and the call to action. They all go together.

Then below that, you want your trust-building elements:

reviews and testimonials from your clients,

a brief listing of your services,

why people do business with you,

and the quick, easy steps they can take to solve the problem they have.

Those are the kinds of things that will build trust.

So those are the three things:

unclear messaging,

no clear call to action,

and outdated, cluttered design that hurts trust.

So what can you do next here?

We’d like to give you some feedback on your website and point out where some of the challenges are, while also giving you specific recommendations on how you can fix them. You can get a free review of your website.

To do that, go to freewebreview.com. Put in your name, your email address, and your website. We will take that information and build a personalized video walkthrough of your website with very specific suggestions on how you can make improvements.

We’re going to look at your homepage. We’re going to look at your headline, your supporting headlines, and your calls to action. We’re going to run this through our tools and look at how your website is being viewed by AI. Are you even showing up in the AI tools, and do you have the things necessary built into your website right now so that you can support Google E-E-A-T?

We’ll talk more about that when we follow up, but it’s very important to have those things ready and in place. We’re also going to send you some checklists to help you review that. It’s going to be a very detailed report that we send out to you.

It takes us a couple of days to do this because we actually use human power—not just AI power—to evaluate your website.

So please check out freewebreview.com, and be looking for our next video out here on YouTube and on social media.

We’ll talk to you in the next video. Take care.