To achieve good drug rehab website design, you must have a clear idea of what you want (and don’t want) on your site. In its experience designing hundreds of websites for addiction treatment centers, Dreamscape Marketing recommends keeping the following guidelines in mind:
No excessive links in text
A few cross links and outbound links are things that Google wants to see when it crawls your pages. However, too much of a good thing isn’t going to help you. Excessive links can make your page undignified, which is certainly not a word that you ever want to be associated with your addiction treatment facility. Performing an audit can help find the problem. A couple of links will do the job as far as Google is concerned. However, a sea of hyperlinked text isn’t an aspect of good drug rehab website design.
No blue text and no underlined words
At first, this may seem like an odd thing to avoid. The reason for steering clear of blue text and underline words is actually very simple. Over the years, people have become conditioned to expect that every underlined word is a link. The same is true for many shades of blue text. Don’t frustrate readers by showing them something that may look like a link but isn’t. Never mess with a viewer’s expectations. You should always cater to them.
No text clashes with its background
A busy background can make it difficult or even impossible to read the text on a web page easily. Even if you have great marketing content, it does no good if it isn’t readable. Text should always jump off the page at the reader. It shouldn’t be a challenge to read text against a competing background. Text that clashes with the background pushes viewers away when it’s supposed to be welcoming them in. This is another reason to view the website on a variety of monitors. If a color combination only looks right at a perfectly calibrated, top-of-the-line monitor but a mess on every other monitor you use, it’s time to consider rethink your color choices.
No page counters
Page counters were all the rage on the web 20 years ago. But those days are long gone… and so are page counters. Using one now makes a website look amateurish and very out of date. Appearing out of the loop is a very bad image for addiction treatment facilities because they need to show at all times that they are up to date with their various therapy methods. You want your drug rehab center to be leading-edge in every way, including your website.
No Flashing or spinning text
This is yet another remnant of the web’s early days. Any website using this now looks undistinguished—hardly a good image for addiction treatment centers. Drug rehab centers must earn the trust of prospective patients. A website that looks tacky or gaudy does nothing to build your reputation. Good drug rehab website design demands a more professional more dignified appearance.
No background music
Background music is another horrible leftover from the earliest days of the internet. For some reason, people thought that this digital media made the page more “interesting.” In fact, it made the page annoying to land upon. This is a mistake for two reasons. One, it’s annoying to most people and two, it can seriously increase load time. This practice is nearly non-existent these days (and with good reason).
No auto-play videos
As annoying as auto-play videos are, you will still see a number of supposedly reputable websites employing them. Some of these videos will play muted (which is at least less offensive). However, many have the audio turned on. To make it even worse, the video may be significantly below the fold so that the viewer doesn’t even realize where the audio is coming from until they scroll far down the page. These are both horrible practices that viewers despise. It’s best to avoid doing this at all costs. Good drug rehab website design should never involve annoying viewers.
Good drug rehab website design begins with a design team with the necessary knowledge and experience. Dreamscape Marketing is ready to take your website from good to great. To find out how, contact us at 888.307.7304 or email us.