DIY (Do it yourself) Website builders are tools that help you build your own website without the help of a professional. While they might sound like a great idea at first, once you realize what they are, they are often not the best choice.

A good website is more than a single-page of content, a couple of photos and your phone number. It is the most valuable marketing tool you have and should be built with your patients in mind so when they visit your site, they are able to find what they need when they need it. But that’s not all. Your site should also be built to support – and grow – your medical practice in several ways, including:

–        Raising awareness of your practice by introducing you and your services to the local community, and new patients

–        Enhancing your patient services with downloadable forms, as well as easy directions to your practice

–        Reducing the amount of time you and your staff spend on the phone by providing educational materials and resources, as well as online appointment scheduling

So why shouldn’t you use a DIY website builder?

1.     No customization

Website builders take a ‘cookie-cutter’ approach, which means you can only use one of their supplied templates and you can only add the functionality they allow which tends to be limited. This means you’ll never have a fully customized look and feel, and your site won’t necessarily meet the needs of your practice or your patients. Do you really want your healthcare practice represented by the same website design as everyone else? How will you stand out? (For example, Wix.com offers approx. 500 templates to its users. This means if you are using their site builder, you probably have the same website design as 180,000 other people!)

2.     Amateurish

First impressions are everything. Studies show than 48% of people cite a website’s design as the number one factor in deciding the credibility of a business, and 94% of people cited web design as the reason they mistrusted a website. You want to build trust and brand awareness with patients, which means letting them know you are a legitimate healthcare provider who spends more than a few dollars a month to build an online brand. When you go the cheap route with your website, you will get cheap results.

3.     Limited pages

Website builders typically limit you to a single-page site or a few pages at best. This means you decrease the amount of content that search engines like Google and Bing can search for… Which means fewer keywords… Which means fewer searches and fewer visitors to your site. It also means that users can’t easily find out all the information about your practice, the conditions you treat and so forth.

4.     Not always mobile-friendly

Mobile usage has taken over desktop web browsing, according to the latest statistics. This means your website needs to be mobile responsive. Unfortunately, some website builders sites0 aren’t optimized for cell phones or tablets, and often ‘turn off’ mobile users due to their slow-loading sites that only desktop users can view properly. It’s more important than ever that your website works on all devices!

So, using a website builder in an option when building your website – but not one that we recommend.

Medical professionals come to iHealthSpot for medical website design because they know they need a site that fits the unique needs of their healthcare practice. It needs to look great: it should be intuitive and clean, not confusing and clutter. It needs to function properly, both now and in the future. And it needs to set you apart from your competitors while inviting your patients to learn more by delving deeper into your site.

If you are interested in learning more about our medical website design and marketing services, contact us today, toll-free at (877) 709-0999 for your FREE consultation with our web experts today!