Appearance Matters: Tips for Effective Visual Website Design

In the modern on-line marketplace, your website is the face of your business or health care practice.  It represents you, acting as an advertising billboard, customer service contact point, and even a virtual storefront all rolled into one.  That’s why designing a clean and effective website is often the first step in any new marketing strategy.  As a full-service advertising and public relations firm, website design and maintenance is just one of the many things we do at McCauley Marketing Services.  We know that you want your website to be visually appealing and to reflect both your personal taste and your larger brand identity, but we also know that the visual design alone can also do much more.  Specific choices that you make in the earliest design stages can have subtle effects on how people see your website and your business or health care practice.

CHOOSING YOUR FORMATTING

First and foremost, spend time planning the layout and organization of your site in detail.  An intuitive and well-organized web page layout and user interface not only draws your reader in but also makes it easy for them to find the information they want while guiding them to the areas where you want them to focus.  This is particularly useful for search engine optimization in healthcare marketing, which often requires making your site a recognized authority on highly technical information.  Optimize your user experience by taking advantage of natural psychological tendencies.  For example, most people tend to visually scan web pages in a “Z” pattern, so locate essential information at the top left, middle, or bottom right of the page. Work on developing a clear and easy-to-follow organizational structure that reduces user stress and uses visual breaks in the text to make key pieces of information really stand out, but remember that some compromises may need to be made to optimize your search engine results.

CHOOSING YOUR COLOR SCHEME

Next, pay close attention to color.  While some of the major choices will, of course, be dictated by your brand logo and color scheme, it is important not to underestimate the psychological effects that subtle, background colors can have on a visitor to your site.  Many viewers associate specific colors with specific feelings, and taking advantage of that information can help you affect a user’s experience.

• BLUE: inspiring feelings of trust, calm, and loyalty, blue is often used by banks and social networks. It is generally a good choice for a positive and professional background color.
• GREEN: reminiscent of nature and health, green is often employed in healthcare marketing. It also stands out well against blue/white color schemes, so is useful for buttons and accents.
• YELLOW/ORANGE: implying haste and urgency, yellow can make some viewers uncomfortable, so it is best used only sparingly to attract attention to “limited time” offers.
• BLACK: associated with elegance and sophistication, black is a good choice when you want to convey seriousness or a sense of luxury. It can be useful when “upselling” products or services.

CHOOSING YOUR TYPEFACE

Finally, your choice of typeface or font can also do a great deal to establish the “tone” of your writing by subconsciously influencing how your audience reads the content on your website.  Serif fonts, for example, can be seen as old-fashioned, but also give the impression of tradition and authority.  They work well for news outlets, legal firms, and healthcare providers that want to emphasize a long-standing and well-established reputation.  Conversely, sans-serif fonts are usually seen as clean and modern.  They are best used by practices that want to emphasize their technological sophistication or in the context of social media marketing.  Comic sans is usually seen as childish and unprofessional, but may be useful in specific cases, like pediatric practices, where evoking a child-like tone might be helpful.

Your website is nothing less than the on-line representation of your business or healthcare practice, so putting in the effort to make sure that it accurately and positively reflects what you want to convey is absolutely vital.  The cosmetic considerations outlined here only represent the tip of the iceberg, but our marketing specialists have been developing and maintaining websites for businesses and health care practices for more than twenty years.   We can give you all the insights and strategies to make sure that your website does everything that you need, including bringing in new patients and profits.  Schedule a meeting with McCauley Marketing Services to find out more about our website design skills, along with all the other ways that our team can enhance your marketing results. For all the latest healthcare marketing tips, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.