2024 Healthcare conversion rate optimization: Strategies & tips
Summary: Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a critical part of enhancing healthcare websites. By analyzing and optimizing key points of conversion like self-scheduling, healthcare marketers can show increased ROI in their digital efforts.
As healthcare becomes more consumer-centric and healthcare websites become more patient-focused, creating engaging, frictionless user experiences that engage your target audience should be top of mind for your 2024 digital strategy.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is the process of testing hypotheses designed to improve performance of specific element(s) across your website. It can be used to optimize overall engagement with your website or to drive targeted metrics such as conversions.
Successful CRO strategies target elements of a website including navigation, content, layout, and forms. By analyzing user behaviors and engagement, conversion rate optimization tests optimize these website elements and enhance the overall user experience (UX).
“While conversion rate optimization can seem complicated, all it means is creating more opportunities to increase your conversion rate.” - Neil Patel
There are a number of ways a data-driven conversion rate optimization strategy can impact your healthcare website’s performance.
Improving patient engagement
Healthcare websites have a monumental task of providing timely and valuable information and services to patients and website visitors. When patients and visitors are more easily able to find the information they need, they engage more with the website, have a more positive online experience, and are more likely to convert. The average conversion rate for healthcare websites is 3.2%.
By optimizing the rates at which users engage with online information and services, these websites will better interact with visitors and lead to increased engagement rates with healthcare resources such as scheduling an appointment, finding a doctor, finding a location, accessing health information, or signing up for newsletters.
Increasing online appointments
Most healthcare websites want to improve their online appointment bookings. By utilizing conversion rate optimization testing to streamline the appointment booking process or test incentives for booking appointments online, healthcare providers can ultimately increase the number of appointments scheduled through their website. Did you know there are multiple ways you can achieve this?
Drive more traffic to the page.
Decrease the drop-off rate of users who start the online booking process but exit before completing the booking.
Increase the online booking conversion rate (# users booking online / total # users)
Building trust and credibility
Trust and credibility aren’t nice-to-haves in healthcare; they are crucial. Internet sources have a significant effect on healthcare decisions, and trust and credibility weigh heavily on this. A website optimized with a user-friendly design, clear messaging, and easy-to-find information builds trust and credibility not only with search engines but also with patients and visitors. By using data-driven conversion rate optimization strategies to optimize engagement and conversions, healthcare websites show visitors they can be trusted to provide a positive user experience. This leads to higher conversion rates downstream for actions like checking symptoms online or looking for a doctor online.
Maximizing ROI
Through digital channel strategies, healthcare companies are actively working to acquire new patients and retain current patients, all while sending them to their website to take certain actions. Conversion rate optimization is a marketing channel designed to optimize ROI of not just CRO, but of all digital channels sending traffic to their website.
A simple change, like altering the button color of a key CTA, can yield insights and results for your hospital.
By continually testing and optimizing various elements of the website, healthcare providers can ensure that their cross-channel marketing efforts generate the highest possible conversion rates. Wouldn’t it be great to implement conversion rate optimization testing to improve the performance of a page on your website that currently receives traffic from emails, ad campaigns, social media, and other referral sources?
Overall, conversion rate optimization plays a key role in helping healthcare websites achieve their goals of providing valuable information and services to patients, increasing patient engagement, and improving patient outcomes.
Got a key area of your website that is struggling to convert? We can help! Drop us a line and let's chat!