“My website sucks.”
Not only that it doesn’t achieve the hopes you might have had for it (patient acquisition, efficiency or dare I say… celebrity?!) but that you may actually be ashamed of it.
- Maybe it’s outdated?
- Or is it hard to navigate?
- Does it just not represent you well or look great?
When it comes to your website, it is vitally important that you not miss the mark.
Your website is your entry point. It should raise your stature in the community and be the first place a person says “yes” and chooses to take the next step toward becoming your patient.
And if it does this well, you are definitely on the way to attracting more and better patients, over and over.
But here you are today, and for whatever reason the vision hasn’t materialized. Traffic isn’t coming regularly, the content isn’t there and the functionality you see in other websites seems a long way away.
Here’s the cold, hard truth: Whatever you’ve done until now just didn’t work. You may have invested time (and money), but it is only the results that should drive the actions you next take regarding your website. Because this is your gateway to a long line of great clients who are willing to invest to work with you.
But they have to find you and your site has to work for you, not against you. It has to create a compelling “yes”, or at the very least inspire them to take the first step.
Sound about right?
>> Are you ready to learn more? To dive deep and figure this out? Click here.
How did this happen? Why does your website suck so bad?
Unless you’re also a web designer – and a marketing strategist – this isn’t your fault. You may have accepted the hype of one (or more) website companies or believed the strategy; it’s much easier than it really is.
Here’s the simple truth.
Don’t worry. We have all been there. You can’t be out there learning how to build a great website, because you are busy being great at what you do – and that’s the way it should be. Let’s face it, you are selling something different than the average person.
I feel your pain.
Way before we started the Functional Forum, my wife Rachel and I owned and ran a website company for 5 years, and worked with practitioners just like you – so we had many, many of these conversations.
And through all those conversations, we learned that there is a deeper truth about why most practitioner websites are so terrible, and what it really takes to create something that works…
The Secret Truth About Why Practitioner Websites Fail
First, it’s not just that technology is harder to use than people think, it’s that there are fundamental principles of psychology and conversion that dictate whether a practitioner’s website will be successful.
You are selling the possibility of a better life. Presenting that in a way that goes far beyond who you are and what your credentials say about you is vital. Your website must create a compelling invitation.
Getting this right goes way beyond that one person – when that person mentions you to their family and friends, what happens next? They Google you, and what comes up? Your website.
If your website gets it right, it is your ever-present invitation for hope and possibility and why you are the ambassador to help create change. If it does not convey those things and, in fact, go further than just that invitation, your ability to change one life, many lives, a community… it ends two seconds later with the click of the mouse.
We all want this community to take its rightful place in medicine (right at the front) and to do that, physician and clinician entrepreneurs have to make lots of good decisions about which company to choose to build their site, and this is not at all easy. We’ve heard so many stories of web design companies charging exorbitant fees or disappearing without warning (we call is “ghosting”!). It sucks.
The real problem is, however, that a practice that has an optimized website is well set up to drive long term success, but when we look around at the industry, so few of them are set up right. It’s not just about getting new patients consistently, it’s also about having a “digital home” for your increasingly technology-driven practice.
Think about it…
Where do patients go to book their appointments online?
Your website.
Where can you house the patient education videos you make?
Your website.
Where do you get people onto your email list?
Your website.
Where is the first place patients go when they hear about you?
Your website.
Clearly, your website is a critical piece of the puzzle that is your success. So how can you make it work for you, instead of against you?
How To Build a Practitioner Website That Works?
First, your website needs to powerfully engage the person that arrives there.
It directs people’s attention in the right way and captures their contact information.
Next, it begins a conversation, positions you as an authority and showcases how many lives you’ve helped to change.
Then, it should offer a list of things…
- The place where you bring your uncommon expertise
- When it comes to your prospect’s symptoms and situation, you are the practitioner to talk to.
- Peace of mind that although in aggregate it feels like way too much for your prospect to figure out their healing process on their own; you are there for them.
This sounds great in theory, but how do you translate it to a working website in practice?
The good news is, solving this problem is really quite doable. Over the last three years, the ease of which one can build and operate a stellar and very effective website has got exponentially easier. Integration with all sorts of technology, from online schedulers to blog content to email systems is all so much easier than it used to be.
Also, we know a lot more about the best practices for this industry now. The optimal website for a functional or integrative medical practice targeting local patients and clients (as opposed to selling information products worldwide) probably didn’t exist a few years ago.
But they do now, and we’ve been part of helping to create them with a huge focus on acquisition systems and making an impact the community, with the systems in place to amplify and organize those efforts.
How to Fix Your Broken Website (Challenge and Solution)
The benefits of a working website are huge. In practice it’s about getting discovered, engaging someone, capturing their contact information, making it super easy to book appointments, house your educational content so they come back to your site often.
By accomplishing those things, your impact and client list accelerate rapidly.
We take our leadership role in this community seriously, and so we have decided to pay it forward.
We know that implementing all of these best practices is challenging.
Do you cut your own hair, or do your own taxes? No. You have a trusted professional.
For the first few episodes of the Functional Forum, we ran a lot of the technology ourselves – but after a time, it just became crystal clear that a great team, who understood digital technology, would help us reach so many more practitioners. So we went with that. We got the highest recommendations we could, from our board of advisors, and we soared forward, exponentially growing our audience.
We feel so blessed to have had that support, and we recognize that in many ways, we are your “board of advisors” and that our role, as a leader in this community, is to save you from dozens of so-called experts who sound great, but don’t even know the best practices for websites in our community.
The challenge is this… are you too close to the problem?
We are going to offer some “website audits” and give feedback and strategic advice.
If you have a practice and a current website, (however bad it may be) and would like to spend 20 minutes reviewing it with our COO, Uli Iserloh, we are going to make a few slots available in the next few weeks.
Uli has built everything here at EvoMed and the Functional Forum and really knows his stuff.
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