Does your clinical trial website intrigue potential patients and spark an interest in participation? Or does it drive them away and have them looking for other treatment options elsewhere? Your trial’s website is your public representation and should be an extension of everything you strive for: professionalism, expertise, dedication, and trust. The website is often the first place that patients will be introduced to and get familiar with your trial – make the best first impression that you can.
Clinical trial information can come across as overwhelming to a patient visiting your website for the first time. Information should be concise, appearance should be clutter-free, and navigation should be easy. Think about age, gender, accessibility, and requirements of the demographic that you are trying to reach. Take the time to really plan out how to the appearance, function, and content of your website can all come together to provide a patient-friendly experience.
Let’s take a look at ways to keep your website in the best condition for potential clinical trial patients:
Be User-Friendly
A great way to quickly lose potential patients is to have a website that looks unprofessional or is difficult to navigate. Trial information, eligibility requirements, questionnaire forms, and contact information need to be easy to find. Make your website easy on the eyes and keep it free of unnecessary clutter. If you find yourself stuck, consider hiring a user experience consultant to ensure
Cater Your Content
When it comes to the content for your clinical trial website, choose quality over quantity. Based on your research of desired patients, create a narrative that you know will resonate with that audience. If you want visitors to stick around on your website, you need to give them a reason to do so. That means providing them with interesting and helpful information that will enhance their experience. Content to consider includes:
- Interviews or features with doctors and staff
- Patient testimonials
- Photos/videos of the office
- Information on other studies you are running
- FAQ and Contact sections
- And, of course, a blog…
Blog Away!
Every company with a website can benefit from hosting a blog. As a means to gain digital traction, the blog will play a very important role in your overall social media and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies. You can spark conversations and show that you are a reputable community presence. Post content that shows off your expertise and establishes trust. Additionally, make sure that content is easy to read or watch. Internet users have incredibly short attention spans, so you really want to make the time you have with them count. Here are some tips on “snackable” content: stick with short sentences, break up content into shorter paragraphs, keep videos brief, and utilize bulleted lists!
Don’t Keep Them Waiting
Again, people browsing the internet tend to have short attention spans. A surefire way to lose visitors is a slow, lumbering load time for any page. People get bored, lose interest, get annoyed and they’re off to another site – perhaps that of a competing trial.
Do what you can to keep pages loading as quickly as possible:
- Compress images to reduce size and increase loading speed
- Enable browsing cache so that visitors can store temporary data and don’t have to wait for your page to load every time
- Get rid of superfluous code on the back end and minimize your resource files
Find your ideal clinical trial candidates by creating a website that provides an enjoyable and stress-free experience. A site that is informative, professional, and engaging will help to establish trust in your trial and encourage visitors to take the next step toward becoming a patient.
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