Your addiction treatment website design has a lot riding on it. The wrong approach could result in your center missing out on opportunities to connect with the prospective patients who need your services. The risks are simply too significant to neglect your website design.
But addiction treatment websites aren’t like those belonging to other businesses. You aren’t selling a tangible product. In fact, one of the biggest challenges addiction treatment centers face is defining what they “sell.” At the core, you’re providing an intangible service requiring an exchange of trust between patient and provider. Design your website with approachability to demonstrate your worthiness of this vital trust.
Your website matters more than you think. Every day, thousands of internet users search for information about addiction treatment centers. And over the last several years, there’s been a 40% increase in patients leaving their healthcare providers, including addiction treatment centers, due to poor digital experiences.1
After all, the whole point of a website is to showcase what makes your center special. When your website is lacking, prospective patients may assume your services are too. But planning and executing high-quality web design is easier said than done. So how do you communicate your center’s value and excellence?
Addiction Treatment Website Design Best Practices
Implementing best practices for your addiction treatment website means you’ll be offering answers to the questions visitors have. When designing your site:
- Design the site for mobile first
- Include online booking and chat features
- Incorporate photos and videos
- Follow the rules
These simple steps are the foundation of high-quality, results-driven addiction treatment website design that attracts and converts your ideal target patients.
1. Design for Mobile First
More than half of web traffic comes from mobile devices—and the same goes for your website!2 Today, more patients seek information about your addiction treatment center on their phones than on their computers.
As a result, Google cares more about your mobile site than your desktop one. Designing your site with a mobile-first mentality ensures your addiction treatment website design will be helpful to users on the devices they use most. And as a bonus, mobile-friendly design is great for search engine optimization (SEO) too!
2. Include Online Booking and a Chatbot
The stigma around addiction has long been a barrier to care. Many prospective patients fail to get the treatment because they’re embarrassed. Online booking, contact forms, and chatbots remove some of the embarrassment of seeking help.
What’s even more significant is that online booking is preferred by two out of three people when making a medical appointment.3 So to make getting treatment as easy as possible, be sure to include virtual scheduling on your site.
3. Incorporate Photos and Videos
Highlighting the humanity of your services is one of the most important roles of your addiction treatment website design. Showing the real people who work at and are treated at your center removes even more of the typical embarrassment and stigma.
Most of the information transmitted to the brain is visual.4 The more images and videos your site uses, the stronger the connections you’ll form with visitors. Show your leads precisely who they’ll see when they arrive to make them more comfortable and confident in their decision to seek treatment.
4. Follow the Rules
As great as visuals are, many laws govern their application—especially in healthcare. Getting consent to use images for marketing purposes, especially pictures of patients, is an absolute must! To learn more about the legal aspects of addiction treatment web design, review the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).5
If you still aren’t sure how to proceed, a digital marketing professional from Dreamscape Marketing can help with your addiction treatment website design. Schedule a discovery call with us by calling 888.307.7304.
For a list of references, please contact us.