Most plastic and cosmetic surgeons stay on the cutting edge of their field to keep competitive in a crowded marketplace. But from our perspective, there’s one area where even the best plastic surgeons lag – and that’s Web design.
If your practice has a Website that is five, or even three, years old, we promise that you have a website that is out-of-sync with today’s social patient – and their devices. In today’s social economy, that’s a serious problem.
So how can you perform plastic surgery on your web site? Here are four tips from our team.
Embrace flat design. Remember the days when companies would create websites with dense logos and complex icons? Well, those days are over. In today’s mobile environment, less is truly more.
Social patients (such as your plastic surgery patients) are using hand-held devices with small, flat screens. Designers have taken note. They are now using elements that work better on small devices. They call these elements “flat design.”
These “flat designs” remove the more complicated textures, patterns, shadows, bubbles, gradients, and other shiny effects that we once loved to love on our mammoth desktops. Instead, flat designs focus on simplicity and ease of use. These are two key drivers of satisfaction for today’s small-screen users.
Think responsive (not mobile). As noted above, mobile truly is the future. By 2015, most users will surf the Internet on mobile devices. Not on conventional laptops and desktops.
Perhaps your plastic surgery practice has anticipated this trend by creating a specific mobile website. In our view, this isn’t the best use of your resources.
Creating a mobile site alongside a desk top site essentially means conducting two separate online campaigns. This translates into more work and more time. What it does not translate into is more search engine success. In fact, Google itself recommends responsive web design.
So don’t make unnecessary work for your plastic surgery practice. Build a responsive web site that can work across any device, from a mobile phone to a mini-tablet. One website – beautifully and functionally designed – can truly do it all.
Scroll more (click less). Today’s social patient doesn’t want a web site with dozens of links (and pages) of services and products. These links can be annoying to navigate on a smart phone. In fact, many users will simply abandon your website and never return if they encounter too many links.
Social patients do love to scroll, however. Increasingly, they want to view all that you have to offer in a single page scroll. Good web design embraces scrolls not clicks.
Think HTML5 videos. HTML5 videos are videos that can be run in the background of your web-pages. They are NOT a distracting video link that is plunked in the middle of a page.
Why do this? The human brain processes visuals more rapidly than other forms of information. This technique can highlight core services with more impact, all in a matter of seconds.
Designers use many methods to imbed videos in HTML pages. A number of big brands have already begun including this element in their web design. Check out these award winning examples from Adidas and Greenpeace.
Summary: These are just some tips and tools. When it comes to building responsive websites (and complete digital marketing platforms) it’s always easier to let CCDM do the heavy lifting for you. So you can perform the real plastic surgery.
