Website Content to Help New Patients Feel at Home

Have you ever felt anxious before meeting a new healthcare provider? It’s completely normal to have questions and concerns when visiting a healthcare practitioner for the first time. As a health and wellness business owner, it’s important to do everything you can to help your patients feel comfortable and confident in visiting your clinic. Your website can be a powerful tool for achieving this. By providing clear and informative content, you can help your patients know what to expect and ease any anxieties they may have. In this post, we’ll discuss how you can use your website to help your patients feel confident and comfortable when scheduling and attending their first appointment.

As I mentioned in my previous post about how marketing & branding can help improve the patient experience, your website can help patients feel more comfortable and confident in scheduling and showing up to their first appointment. One of the most important ways to do this is by providing clear information. When someone is looking for a new healthcare provider, they want to know what to expect. They want to feel confident that they’re making the right choice for their health and well-being.

Considerations When Adding Content to Your Website

Before you begin trying to write new copy for your website, start by thinking through what someone entirely new to your clinic (and maybe even to your specialty) might feel unsure about. Have you ever felt anxious when going to an appointment with a new provider? What kind of things would you like to have known ahead of time?

Here are some things to consider:

Common Questions and Concerns

What are the most common questions and concerns? Are there any questions that you often get before someone schedules their first appointment? Are there any points you may normally address during a patient’s first visit that may be good to include? (ex. As a chiropractor, you may tell someone that they may feel a little sore after their first adjustment, like a workout-type of sore. Or if you offer cupping, you make sure that the patient knows that those dark circles may stick around for a few days.)

Feedback from Current Patients

What stands out to your current patients about your practice? Have any of them ever made a comment about being nervous about something ahead of time, even if they didn’t specifically ask you about it then? You can get this type of information from discussions you already have with your patients, as well as by reading what they write in Google Reviews. If those particular things aren’t already mentioned on your website, it may be beneficial to add them. Keep this in mind over the next few days while talking to your patients. Don’t ask them any specific leading questions, just listen for comments they may make naturally and take note of the way they talk about it, so that you can also reflect the words and phrases they actually use when writing your website copy.

Put Yourself in Your Patient/Client’s Shoes

How do you schedule an appointment? Do they take your insurance? What is it like to find your office? Is it easy to park and find the entrance to your clinic? Is it really obvious where to go and what to do after they walk through your entry door? Do they need to complete forms ahead of time? Where do they find them? Do they need to wear anything specific? Is the treatment going to be uncomfortable? Do you regularly recommend vitamins or supplements, and is there an average of how much that may cost?

What staff members will they interact with while they’re there? Is part of their first appointment done with an assistant instead of the main provider? Consider including not only information about the primary provider(s) in your clinic, but a little bit of information about the rest of your team as well.

Tips for Informative and Engaging Content

Keep the content simple and easy to understand. Avoid using overly technical language or medical jargon that can be intimidating to someone who may not have a background in healthcare. Use explanations and examples that patients can relate to, the way you likely already do when talking to them in person. If you feel like your writer-self tends to learn more toward technical language, but you do well explaining in simple terms when talking to someone, try creating your initial draft with voice-to-text.

Include photos of your team and your clinic. Patients are more likely to feel comfortable coming to your clinic if they can see what it looks like and who they will be interacting with.

Organize the information effectively. Think about the best way to structure your website so that it’s easy for patients to find the information they’re looking for. This could mean creating a general “What to Expect” page, or it could mean creating specific pages for each treatment option.

Keep the information up-to-date. Set a reminder in your calendar to read through your website every few months and make sure that the information is still accurate. This is especially important if you’ve made changes to the way you run your practice or your policies.

Adding Content to Your FAQ Page

If you already have a FAQ page on your website, you may cover some of these topics already. After thinking through that last set of questions, did anything else come up that you may need to add? Some questions may not need to be answered as a FAQ, but by providing high-quality photos on your website or a short video tour walking them through the clinic.

By following these tips, you can create a website that helps patients feel comfortable and confident in choosing your practice. By providing clear and engaging content, you can help them make an informed decision and feel good about their choice.

Example: Motivity Chiropractic

Here’s an example of a simple What to Expect page: Motivity Chiropractic - What to Expect

Many new patients at Motivity Chiropractic have never been to a chiropractor before and are unsure about what to expect. It’s not uncommon for those patients to have some degree of anxiety about their first appointment. Dr. Ray is very personable and is great at explaining what he’s doing as he’s working on you and what to expect a particular treatment or adjustment may feel like. The goal of the website is to extend that warmth to patients before they arrive for their first appointment.

The bottom of that page has two call-to-action options: one if the potential patient is ready to schedule, and the other if they have more questions and want to read the FAQ page, which covers some additional common questions that aren’t necessarily a part of what to expect at the actual initial 3 appointments.

Don't let your website be the obstacle that hinders your success. Crafting attention-grabbing content can make all the difference in attracting and keeping loyal patients. Need help getting started? I’m here to help! Contact me today to learn more about how I can help your practice thrive!