Building a website might initially seem straightforward, but as you delve deeper into the process, many questions arise: Should the design be custom or template-based? Should the visual style be formal or playful? What features will effectively capture the attention of potential customers? The complexity increases significantly when creating a healthcare website, as it must comply with various legal regulations and present extensive health-related information.

In the article, we discuss what's important to consider when designing and developing a website for your medical organization. We also compiled a list of essential design features that can help convert more visitors into loyal patients. And if you are ready to design a website for your business, check our UI/UX design services page for more information.

Essential healthcare website statistics

First of all, let's have a look at some of the stats that prove how important it is for a healthcare organization to have a good-looking website. While many contemporary medical facilities might prioritize investments in equipment, infrastructure, and staffing over a high-quality website, the data shows that maintaining a strong online presence is equally crucial.

• According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 59% of adults in the US use the Internet to research health-related information, 42% use it to communicate with their doctors, and 46% use the web to look up the results of lab tests — all in all, users need websites and web apps to do all kinds of health-related activities.
• Users make 70,000 health-related queries on the Internet per minute every day — online resources are one of the first places users visit to find information about disease symptoms, medication, or health organizations.
• Search engines drive 3 times more users to healthcare providers' websites than any other internet resource — it means that your corporate website will most likely be the first point of contact based on which users will judge your services.
• Users who are making an appointment online make 3 times more queries than others — this means, potential patients run deep research and compare offers to choose services that suit them best.

Examining these statistics reveals that users search for healthcare providers in much the same way they seek out any other service. A well-designed, user-friendly website significantly influences the impression a commercial healthcare provider makes and can be a deciding factor in whether a user chooses their services. Therefore, we can conclude that healthcare website design is worth the investment.

Custom website design vs. template-based design — which one matches healthcare websites better?

There are two approaches you can choose from when you decide to delve into medical web design. Here are their descriptions, pros, and cons.

Custom website design

Custom websites are unique resources created from scratch to meet individual requirements and the vision of the business. Designers and developers work together to build a website design and tech parts of the website to make it look unique and function smoothly. Considering the pros and cons, a custom website offers the flexibility to incorporate both simple and complex features, branding elements, and custom animations. It is also capable of handling a large influx of users. However, the downside is that the website owner typically depends on freelancers or an IT agency for ongoing maintenance.

With this approach, you can not only design and develop a website but also get a web app of any kind, including a complex dashboard or an app that would work by the SaaS model.

Template-based website design

These websites are built with the help of pre-made templates offered by website builders like Wix, Heek, WordPress, and others. These platforms provide ready-made templates that allow business owners to quickly assemble a corporate website. Organizations choose a template that closely matches their needs and then customize it by adding their own content, branding, and sometimes limited design tweaks. Template-based websites are often seen as cost-effective and easy to create, but they offer limited options for customization and uniqueness.

Here's the table presenting key differences between these web design approaches.

To sum up, we would recommend opting for custom healthcare website design for the following reasons. Custom design and web development provide unlimited opportunities for the creation of personalized features and integration of specialized technologies such as patient portals, appointment booking systems, and others. Due to enhanced data security, a custom healthcare website would be compliant with HIPAA regulations which are essential to all technologies in the healthcare industry in the USA.

However, templates are also not useless. For instance, you may create a website blog using third-party templates or a CMS. You may also start with a template website if you urgently need to gain an online presence, and then go to a professional designer who can build a custom healthcare website at your own pace.

5 healthcare web design examples to inspire from

To create a robust website design one should explore a variety of examples first. That's why we have decided to gather some examples of medical websites that feature beautiful designs and cover a range of medical topics.

Mayo Clinic

🔥 Responsive web design, convenient navigation, enhanced search functionality

Many of us try to find info about symptoms and diseases on Google first. Mayo Clinic website is one of the sources that offers a wealth of information about diseases, conditions, and treatments, helping users understand various medical issues and available treatment options. With the help of the website, users can also schedule an appointment and obtain virtual care.

We like the Mayo Clinic website for its clean and professional layout with a predominantly white background that enhances readability and ensures that medical information is presented clearly. Another hallmark is a well-structured menu that helps users navigate data about conditions, treatments, appointments, services, and more, simplifying the user journey. All these cool features are spiced by a responsive layout that makes the website accessible to both mobile and PC users.

Cleveland Clinic

🔥 Integration of interactive tools, responsive web design, clear call-to-action buttons

Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit medical center that provides healthcare services in Ohio. They are known for providing high-quality healthcare, conducting pioneering medical research, and offering a comprehensive range of medical education programs.

Users can navigate any section of this medical website design using a home page, which is a really cool design trick. Apart from the links to key website sections, users can find multiple phone numbers that users can use to ask questions and schedule appointments. Furthermore, dynamic banners and interactive hover effects create a vibrant and engaging experience, making the website feel lively and interactive.

Zocdoc

🔥 Vibrant branding, custom illustrations, detailed doctor info

Zocdoc is an online healthcare platform that helps users book in-person or virtual appointments and search for specialists by their specialties, locations, insurance accepted, and availability. The platform allows users to filter healthcare professionals by the insurance plans they accept, helping ensure that patients can find providers within their network.

Our design team is excited by the vivid UI elements and custom hand-drawn illustrations featured in this web design. They can become one of the main points that engage users and help Zocdoc break away from its competitors. Another appealing feature is the prominently placed search bar at the top of the homepage, enabling users to input all necessary information immediately upon entering the site, thereby facilitating quick access to their desired services. Lastly, we want to highlight detailed doctor information enhanced with reviews. This design feature fosters user trust in this web platform.

Rachel Paul's Body Program

🔥 Sophisticated typography, mobile optimization, prominent call-to-action buttons

A clean and memorable website design is a must not only for a healthcare organization but also for private professionals and coaches. One example is Rachel Paul's website dedicated to her weight loss program. The mission of Rachel Paul's Body Program is centered around empowering people to make informed, sustainable dietary choices without feeling overwhelmed by rigid dieting rules.

Rachel Paul's personal photo is the first thing users see when they enter the website, it adds a personal touch and helps build trust and relatability with visitors. The website provides an aesthetically pleasing experience due to its clean and uncluttered layout and a vibrant greenish color palette that makes the website look fresh and effectively resonates with its youthful target audience. The well-organized content structure and numerous reviews make Rachel Paul's resource one of the best healthcare websites to explore online.

Calm

🔥 Personalization options, simple navigation, interactive elements

The mission of Calm is to make the world happier and healthier by providing accessible tools for mindfulness, relaxation, and mental well-being. Calm is a mobile app, with the help of a beautifully designed website they are trying to attract users to their mobile app that users can download and use for meditation.

Serene visual aesthetics is a thing that strikes first in this web design. The website employs soothing colors and tranquil imagery, such as natural landscapes and calming visuals, to immediately evoke a sense of relaxation and peace. The interface features straightforward navigation, making it simple for users to find meditation sessions, sleep stories, or resources they need without hassle.

Ronas IT

Our team also has profound experience in designing healthcare websites. We can gather your requirements, create a compelling healthcare website design for your medical or mental health service, and finally help you with the web development. You can ask us to design a website from scratch or redesign an existing one.

Here's a concept our design team has created for Mercy Hospital's website. The key feature of this medical website design is a clean layout with a white background that eases up reading of extensive medical information. More than that, we have arranged the navigation so users can find the necessary info directly from the website's main page.

Key elements of successful healthcare website design

Just like any other business, organizations in the healthcare industry seek to build long-term relationships with their customers and sell more health-related products. That's why healthcare services may be promoted using typical marketing techniques we use for any other business. According to McKinsey, some healthcare providers that set up a marketing strategy have already seen much success.

During the digitalized era, creating a robust web resource and gaining an online presence can be a significant part of effective healthcare marketing. To make a website hit the point, its design needs to comply with several principles and display special elements. We have described them below.

Thought-out UX

An intuitive website interface is one of the most important things that would make your website useful for patients. Most often we are searching for health-related information and medical providers when we already feel unwell and we are not ready to spend time on a poorly designed and confusing interface.

The essence of good UX lies in creating clear content structure and navigation that help users quickly find the required information. There are many different ways you can organize your website layout but the key lies in creating a straightforward menu or a tab bar, adding multiple search features, and adding a visual hierarchy to the content so the most important data points are highlighted.

The Healthline website can be called an example of good UX and healthcare website design. Healthline's website offers a well-structured navigation bar that organizes content into clear sections like “Health Topics,” “Nutrition,” “Fitness,” “Mental Health,” and “Tools” enabling users to quickly find relevant information.

The mega menu of this medical website provides a broad overview of content categories, allowing users to explore subtopics without loading new pages, thus saving time. Breadcrumb trails on article pages highlight the user's location within the site and facilitate easy navigation back to broader categories or related topics. Overall, this intuitive layout efficiently guides users through the site.

Patient-centric features

To make your healthcare website design not only convenient but also lovable, add interactive features. Include features like appointment scheduling, patient portals for accessing personal health records, and telemedicine capabilities, so users could book our services straight at the website without the need for any other actions.

Search functionality

Add different types of search features so users can quickly find desired data. A search bar is one of the most obvious options. You may ask your designer to put the search bar right at the first screen of your website like the Mayo Clinic and Zocdoc do so users can quickly navigate the website. Apart from the bar, your search functionality may set up filters, voice search, or a location-based search so users can get the most suitable doctor and service options.

Detailed doctor descriptions

As we have already learned earlier, the users who are searching for healthcare services make 3 times more search queries than regular users. This means patients prefer to thoroughly research information about physical therapists, nursing homes, optometrists, and other healthcare providers. To establish trustful relationships with potential customers, you need to provide them with in-depth information about doctors and healthcare providers whose services you offer.

It's necessary to show the specialist's profile in great detail: their specialization, education, years of practice, and patient reviews. The user should understand that they will receive service from a real doctor, not a call center manager or other service employee.

Reviews and feedback mechanism

According to healthcare marketing statistics, 94% of patients use online reviews to evaluate and choose healthcare providers. This data suggests that reviews play an important role in patient decision-making. Some patients may trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. That's why a feedback mechanism is one of the key things to include in your medical website design.

The more detailed the feedback, the better understanding the patients have of your services, and the better understanding they gain of your practice. For instance, on Rachel Paul's website, we can see not only textual reviews but also photo results that engage users and enhance feedback trustability.

Don't forget about a telephone number

According to other CNBC healthcare marketing surveys, 88% of appointments are still scheduled by phone. This happens because for some users it's intimidating to input all their personal data into a form on a website. That's why you should always show your phone number on your website so users can call, ask questions about your services and goods, and book appointments by phone.

UI design

In a competitive business environment, one way you can break away from your competitors is by making your website look vivid and recognizable. During the medical website design process, we recommend you make the layout clean and uncluttered with the use of white and pastel colors to create a soothing atmosphere and make the medical info easier to perceive. This clean layout can also be enhanced with branding elements, custom illustrations, and health-related visuals.

Accessibility

Medical websites are used by a wide range of people, which is why making a website design accessible to people with visual impairments is crucial to ensure inclusivity and compliance with standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

To create an accessible medical web design, try to follow these basic rules. Add alternative text to all the images, icons, and non-textual elements that visually impaired users may not see well. Use clear, legible fonts and allow text to be resized up to 200% without loss of content or functionality to accommodate users with varying degrees of vision impairment. Also, implement a high contrast ratio between text and background to make content more readable. Avoid relying solely on color to convey information that may not be discernible for color-blind users.

Health-related content

Many prominent medical websites provide users with articles, FAQs, and guides that engage users and empower patients with knowledge about their health and available treatments as well as improve the SEO visibility of your website. It is known that hospitals invest 85% of their marketing budget in Google Ads campaigns to bring traffic and leads to their website. In these circumstances, bringing some traffic from organic search would be beneficial for healthcare providers.

Tech considerations

After the healthcare website design is completed, the created visuals should be handed out to developers, who would breathe life into creative design and turn it into a fully functioning business tool. At this point, it is important to take care of the following tech points.

Make website HIPAA-compliant

All doctors, pharmacies, healthcare providers, and nursing homes that want to be online present should follow HIPAA compliance. HIPAA compliance implies that any sensitive personal information of the patients transferred within the website system needs to be thoroughly protected. If the healthcare website doesn't comply with these requirements, the medical provider may risk its reputation and be fined.

There are plenty of procedures that developers must follow to make a healthcare website HIPAA-compliant. They are required to use strong encryption methods to protect data both in transit and at rest, implement secure login mechanisms using multi-factor authentication and strong password policies, and establish strict access controls that define who can view, create, modify, and delete PHI (protected health information), create a mechanism where the minimum of essential patient data is stored.

Responsive web design

When working on medical website design, optimize the layout for various devices. This ensures a seamless and consistent experience whether accessed via desktop or a mobile device. The design and development teams have to work hand in hand to create and develop a layout that would look equally good on screens of any size.

High loading speed

It is known that most website visitors will leave the web resource if it fails to load within 3 seconds. Quick loading is especially important for healthcare websites since users may urgently need the medical information stored on the website. Apart from that, search engines prioritize fast-loading websites, therefore they get more organic traffic.

In our team, we attentively measure the loading speed of websites and applications we create using tools like PageSpeed Insights and Sentry Performance Monitoring. Together, these tools can help ensure our websites are capable of delivering a consistently good user experience even as the site scales or encounters different types of user interactions.

How much does healthcare website design cost?

The total price will largely depend on the project's complexity and the number of simple and complex features that you decide to add to your website. It will also depend on the design approach you choose, whether it is a template-based design or a custom design provided by a third-party contractor. According to Fiverr, a freelance service marketplace, the prices are the following:

• Web design with an in-house designer — $4,000–$7,500 per month or $50,000–$91,000 annually
• Web design with a freelance designer — $500–$5,000+ per project
• Web design with an outsourcing agency — $500–10,000+ per project

The prices of the design services from third-party contractors will largely depend on their experience, individual rates, as well as on tier location. In comparison, a template-based healthcare website would cost you $0–$500 per year.

Our Ronas IT team can also help you with healthcare website design as well as with its development, we have both talented designers and developers at your service. Our approximate prices are the following:

Final words

Designing and launching a healthcare website is a complex process that involves more than just development. It must comply with numerous legal regulations, offer robust data security, and provide a positive user experience to retain patients. We recommend working with professional designers and developers, as they can bring essential expertise to the project. While a custom healthcare website design may require additional time and resources, it is likely to pay off by becoming a powerful tool for building trusting relationships with your patients.