You’ve put up a website… so naturally your web presence is a guaranteed thing, right? It absolutely isn’t. Why? Because drug rehab website design mistakes can seriously jeopardize your ranking.

 

It’s surprisingly easy for websites to be nearly invisible on the web. How is that possible? Remember that the web is an extremely crowded place where everyone is jockeying for position every hour of every day. You have to be at the top of your game to keep your website competitive. The web has never been more critical to the success of a business. Keep in mind that the 86.75% of the US population using the internet has become quite critical of websites that don’t satisfy their expectations.

 

Dreamscape Marketing has compiled a list of classic drug rehab website design mistakes made all across the web. Here are some of the most prominent:

 

The website takes too long to load

When people land on a professional page, they don’t expect it to load slowly. They expect it to load fast. Lightning fast actually. A recent study indicated that people online will wait a grand total of four seconds for a page to completely load. Any longer than that and they move on. Drug rehab website design mistakes like this may seem minor but given the lack of patience that most people have when they land on web pages, it’s necessary to address.

 

The Solution

Look at obvious things like excessive photos or excessive photo file sizes. Use of Flash can be a problem if your files are too large. There can be other causes that aren’t as easy to discern, however. To get your website to load faster, it’s always advisable to work with professionals who won’t wind up making classic drug rehab website design mistakes.

Your Website Doesn’t Look Right In Some Browsers

If you design and view your website in one browser only, you may get an unpleasant surprise when you view it through a different browser. The difference may not necessarily be dramatic but it could be enough to make something you worked hard on look sloppy or careless.

The Solution

You don’t want to make what may look like design errors when viewed through another browser. If you work in Internet Explorer, make sure your site looks OK in other popular browsers like Firefox, Chrome, and Safari as well.

 

You Have Broken Links

The navigation of a website is of paramount importance. Getting effortlessly from page to page is essential for a good reader experience. However, a reader’s experience can be soured when he or she runs into a dead link on your addiction treatment facility’s website.

When people click a link on your website and get an error message, their progress is stopped dead. Their first reaction is, “Why is this link dead? Why didn’t the site fix this? Do they even monitor their own website? Isn’t this lazy on their part?” All of these questions serve to undermine whatever trust readers will have for your facility. It also means that they could decide to leave your site right at the moment because they’re annoyed.

As you undoubtedly know, when you delete a page, you’re affecting all of the cross links you’ve created that led to that page. If it’s been awhile since you’ve created those cross links, it’s quite easy to forget about later on when you delete a page.

The Solution

Closely monitor your website at all times. To prevent dead links from happening, you need to set up a “301 redirect” to point to another page. This is one of the classic drug rehab website design mistakes that some developers make. Be smart and don’t fall into this trap.

 

Content Mistakes Are Obvious

People can forgive many things but misspelled or missing words stand out and are annoying. It makes readers believe that you haven’t put much time or thought into your creation, which creates a trust issue. In the drug rehab marketing industry especially, you can’t afford to have potential patients experiencing trust issues with your facility due to mistakes you’ve made on your website. To a reader, if you can’t get your website right, will you be able to deliver effective treatment and successful outcomes?

The Solution

Put time and effort into every aspect of your website. Proof-read pages and blogs over and over. Sometimes, errors can persist even after repeated revisions. Periodically, check all links on pages to make sure they are functional.

 

Information on your website is obviously out of date

It may have been a great idea to have a big splash about a new therapy or a new doctor. However, if many months (or years) roll by without more events being posted, that says that your facility hasn’t done anything of note for some time.

The Solution

Keep all information updated on your website. There should always be “events” to be reported on at your addiction treatment facility. If there aren’t any recent events to talk about, that’s a whole separate problem that needs to be addressed.

 

Want to Avoid Drug Rehab Website Design Mistakes?

Consider partnering with a digital marketing firm that fully understands the unique needs of addiction treatment and the power of effective web design. Dreamscape Marketing has created award-winning websites for hundreds of drug rehab facilities. Call us at 888.307.7304 or email us today. Let’s talk about taking your website to the next level.