What’s worse is that they frequently don’t know what the problem is. They then turn to yet more designers thinking that the colour scheme or graphic design is at fault, when they should be focusing on the core proposition of communicating their information efficiently to their visitors.

The following are the top 10 most frequent mistakes that we see clinics make when they first build a website.

1. Creating a splash page. This is a page that appears before the main content that ‘introduces the tone’ of the clinic. This just gets in the way of the visitor and the information they are looking for.  RevaHealth.com usability studies have shown that the majority of visitors don’t progress to a second page.  Get the visitor to the content that matters as soon as possible.
2. Background music. You may think it is soothing – it’s not. Most people find background music irritating, especially if this is a repeat visit to your website.  Audio can be used effectively especially in the areas of treatment descriptions, however this is very much an advanced technique.
3. Original navigation. We have seen everything, even using the teeth in a jaw as way to visually navigate a site. This just confuses the visitor. As a general rule, use tabs.
4. Clinical photography of procedures on prominent pages.  Your patient is interested in results – in general it’s only other professionals that are interested in photographic details. It can be good to include these photographs but only include them on deep pages that are clearly linked to with text similar to “view detailed photographs of this procedure’.
5. Expensive, flashy design. Your site needs to look professional; however it doesn’t need to be flashy. It is very easy for clinic owners to get caught up in the design of a website and lose focus on the whole purpose, which is to inform the visitor.
6. Hit counter. You may want to boast about how much traffic your site has, however why does the visitor care. They want to be treated by your clinic, not take out advertising on your site.
7. Not doing the SEO basics. The basics of search engine optimization are simple and given that the search engine should be the #1 distributor of your content there is no excuse not to do them. Give each page a unique title; make sure your website doesn’t require JavaScript and sign up for Google Webmaster Tools.
8. If you are using an agency to create your website many will offer to supply you with stock content, such as treatment descriptions. Don’t use them. The search engines will recognise them as duplicate content and will not rank you for these pages. Worse still they may think you’re a spam site and remove you entirely. Write your own content.
9. Not including basic information that a visitor may want – like a map or opening hours. We will publish a list of the most frequently requested information by visitors in an upcoming post.
10. No call to action. Why do you want a website in the first place? Is it because you want more online enquiries? If so then there needs to be a large and effective call to action – A big red button with ‘Click Here to Contact the Clinic’ or somthing similar on it.

Let us know any common mistakes or omissions from websites that you’ve come across in the comments.

[Update: 24/03/2010]

A version of this article has recently been featured in Vital magazine in the UK. You can see this article and more on their website at http://www.nature.com/vital/index.html (registration required).