The emergence of AI-driven platforms like ChatGPT and MidJourney has transformed how creative agencies approach strategy and content development. Rapid AI adoption brings both opportunities and challenges, often not fully grasped by creative and strategy teams. In this article, we explore the pros and cons of integrating AI into your creative workflow.
Will AI replace your design and strategy teams?
The bottom line is that AI tools like Microsoft Designer, Adobe Firefly, Google Bard, and the plethora of AI tools emerging each day, present a double-edged sword for creative agencies. On the one hand, they can help streamline workflows and save time and money by automating repetitive tasks. On the other hand, they also present a potential threat to agencies’ revenue streams by allowing clients to take on more of the creative work themselves. This in and of itself will create challenges for clients as they try to navigate the focused approach a professional can bring to a creative project by balancing UX, functionality, design, and business goals.
To stay competitive, agencies need to find ways to add value beyond what AI tools can offer. This might mean focusing on high-level strategy and ideation, or finding ways to integrate AI tools into their own processes to enhance their work. At the end of the day, it’s not about whether AI will replace human creatives, but rather how agencies can leverage the technology to create better work and deliver more value to their clients.
At Kanopi we believe that top-tier creative and human-centric experiences will always demand the expertise of skilled professionals. The analogy we draw is: while cell phone cameras have made photography accessible to the masses, we still rely on experienced professionals to capture our most significant life moments. In the same vein, we think clients who recognize the importance of how good design will impact their ROIwill continue to depend on the knowledge and skills of professionals to deliver their projects successfully.
All Hail our Robot Overlords: The case for using AI
We find that most of the advantages of utilizing AI tools come down to the following three categories.
Cost: AI tools are becoming more affordable and may be invaluable for smaller organizations with limited teams to be competitive with larger companies. AI tools can help to reduce the need for expensive design software and personnel, making it more cost-effective for businesses to produce high-quality designs and content.
Speed and Efficiency: AI tools can help designers and content creators to work more efficiently by automating repetitive tasks, such as resizing images or optimizing content for SEO. This can save a significant amount of time and allow designers to focus on more creative aspects of their work.
Creative Ideation: AI tools can contribute to the ideation phase of a creative project by analyzing data from social media trends, consumer behavior, and industry insights to help creatives better understand their target audience. By fine-tuning their ideas with this information, creatives can then create impactful and innovative work that delivers more to their clients.
The Ghost In the Machine: The risks of using AI tools
Legality: The use of AI tools in creative work raises concerns about copyright, sourcing, and how AI consumes work as part of its algorithm. Currently, legislators and legal scholars are grappling with the question of who owns the rights to AI-generated works. We suggest a balanced approach. It is recommended that agencies and individuals use AI as a tactical tool within their creative process rather than relying on it as the sole centerpiece of their ideation and research.
Less creative and unique solutions: AI tools are limited by their algorithms and data sets, resulting in less varied and unique outputs. Even with impressive individual pieces, looking at collections like those in MidJourney’s sample galleries reveals an overreliance on certain design elements, such as teal and blue color schemes. These limitations emphasize the importance of the human touch in creative ideation, intuition, and truly customized designs that AI tools cannot replicate.
Potential for misuse and AI Bias: While AI tools have the potential to revolutionize industries, they are not immune to biases. Human input and limited data can result in skewed outputs that discriminate against certain groups of people. As demonstrated by Amazon’s AI recruiting tool, an over-reliance on data without human oversight can lead to biased outcomes. Agencies need to train their staff to identify and counteract bias in AI tools to prevent potential misuse.
As AI tools continue to evolve, we anticipate the emergence of ethical AI practices and increased transparency regarding how AI processes and interprets data. These factors will become increasingly important for the widespread adoption and acceptance of AI as a viable business tool in the future.
AI tools can be a valuable asset to creative professionals, providing increased efficiency, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness. However, it is important to balance the use of AI with a human touch to ensure that creative outputs are engaging, usable, and can meet project KPIs. Additionally, it is important to be aware of the potential for misuse and to use AI tools ethically and responsibly. As AI technology continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how it is integrated into the field of graphic design and content strategy.
With 89% of patients in the US Googling their health symptoms before going to the doctor, your hospital website is essential to serving your community’s needs and providing accurate and trustworthy information.
Your website serves as a virtual front door for patients and potential visitors, providing them with essential information about the hospital’s services, specialties, and facilities. A user-friendly design instills credibility and enhances the patient experience by allowing easy access to important details, such as appointment scheduling, contact information, and directions.
To ensure your hospital’s website is doing all it can for your community, we’ve created this guide, which covers:
As you review this information, keep in mind that Kanopi is prepared to step in at any stage to take your hospital web development to the next level. Let’s get started!
Why Healthcare Website Development Matters
Before someone goes to the doctor, they’ll likely browse through a couple of physicians, make sure they’re in their healthcare network, scroll through times for an appointment— and do it all online.
People also turn to your website to answer medical queries, get updated on recent healthcare news, donate to your institution, and access an online health portal where they can update appointments and pay bills. A well-developed site helps to:
Craft a recognizable, highly reputable brand. If your hospital website doesn’t exist or contains outdated resources, it’s more than likely that people will take one look at it and deem your institution unreliable.
Differentiate yourself from other hospitals. A well-designed website communicates your commitment to patient-centered care, innovation, and technology, which can set you apart from competitors.
Build customer loyalty. To build customer/patient loyalty, your website needs to establish itself as a reliable medical web resource so that individuals can use it to make appointments, contact doctors, and pay bills.
Offer 24-hour patient communication and information. Your website provides patients with important information and resources outside of normal office hours.
Simplify marketing for hospital events and needs. Use your website to promote hospital events, streamline donation appeals, and attract more patients.
While it may feel daunting to get started with hospital web development, it’s a worthwhile investment. Improving your online presence is the first step toward attracting and retaining more patients.
Features to Include in Your Hospital Website
Whether someone is coming in for a quick check-up or a visit to the ER, your hospital website is an integral part of their journey. To ensure it’s serving your community to the best of its ability, your website needs these specific site features:
A list of services
Appointment booking
Contact details
Interactive advanced search functionality
Doctor/team information
Online chatbots
Online payment portal
Blog/news/press releases
Description of departments
Medical advice
Feedback forms
Hospital directions and parking information
Use these features as a checklist to ensure your website is a comprehensive resource for your patients, staff, and community members.
7 Hospital Web Development Examples and Best Practices
The best way to determine if your hospital website is up to par is to look at other successful site examples. Review these seven examples of hospital websites to inspire your own web development efforts.
1. Simple navigation: Global Brain Health Institute
The Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI), an organization dedicated to protecting the world from brain disease and other health threats, wanted to ensure that visitors could easily navigate their site and locate different programs, services, and projects.
As a result, they worked with Kanopi to add a navigation bar that is logically organized and prominently placed throughout the website, so users can quickly find what they need. The site also features a fellowship directory that includes a search bar and filters. This is useful for medical students interested in pursuing a fellowship in a particular specialty, as well as for patients who want to learn more about the expertise of the hospital’s staff.
Why simple navigation is essential for hospital websites: As soon as someone lands on your hospital website, they should be able to find the content or service they seek. To ensure your site is easily navigable, consider mapping out the patient journey to better understand how people get to your site and what they do once they get there.
2. Clear CTAs: Mayo Clinic
The Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit academic medical center, known for its expertise in many areas of medicine and for providing high-quality care to patients. Their homepage features multiple calls to action (CTAs) that encourage visitors to schedule an appointment, donate, or learn more about a particular medical condition or procedure.
By including clear CTAs on their website, the Mayo Clinic helps visitors understand what medical services they provide, what treatments are available, and how to seek help if they need it.
Why clear calls to action matter for hospital websites: Carefully-placed CTAs let website visitors know exactly where and how to complete their intended action. As you create your own, consider the specific actions that you want visitors to take. Then, use clear and concise language to convey your purpose. For example, you might say “Schedule an Appointment Today” or “Learn More about Our Cancer Center.”
3. Consistent, bold branding: Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland Clinic is one of the top multispeciality academic medical centers in the country. To establish a strong, recognizable brand and reinforce their reputation, they included bold, eye-catching colors throughout their website.
Notice how all of the elements on their homepage are blue and green. When patients come across these colors in other mediums and materials, they’ll likely associate them with Cleveland Clinic.
Why consistency and bold branding is important for hospital websites: Consistent branding builds trust between patients and your hospital, which can be especially important in the healthcare industry where patients often have significant concerns about their health and well-being.
Adding color is a popular medical website design trend, with vivid and deep colors being sported on many successful hospital websites. Consider your site’s color palette before diving into web development to make sure your website branding is consistent throughout its pages.
4. Accessibility: Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai’s healthcare system prides itself on providing a wide range of services to diverse populations, including medical education, research, and patient care. To meet their patients’ varied needs, they prioritized creating an accessible website.
The accessibility tool in the bottom footer allows visitors to use a screen reader, navigate using their keyboards, and change the color contrast, if needed.
Why accessible design matters for hospital websites: Having an inaccessible hospital website will not only turn away those who might need your services the most but paints your entire establishment in a negative light. Because of the industry that you’re in, maintaining full compliance with the ADA and WCAG is essential. You want your entire community to feel accepted and at ease with your services, especially when it concerns medical care.
5. Inclusivity: Northwestern Medicine
Northwestern Medicine has a number of hospitals, all of which are committed to providing inclusive care to patients of all backgrounds and demographics. Maintaining an inclusive website is important for Northwestern Medicine, as it allows them to better connect with their patients and provide them with the resources and care they need.
Their Patients and Visitors page is extremely comprehensive, with CTAs that address a wide variety of concerns and questions.
Why inclusivity is important for hospital websites: Your hospital website content needs to represent the voice of all of your users, whether it’s patients, frontline workers, researchers, or caregivers.
6. Mobile-friendliness: Johns Hopkins Medicine
Johns Hopkins Medicine is known for its world-class medical facilities, including hospitals, clinics, and research centers. As a leading healthcare provider, they needed to keep up with changes in technology by creating a mobile-friendly website.
Their mobile-responsive site design allows patients to schedule appointments, access medical information, and communicate with healthcare providers, regardless of the device they’re using.
Why mobile-friendliness matters for hospital websites: With over 60% of the global internet population using a mobile device to access the internet, your hospital web design must work on all different screen sizes. For patients or families already in the hospital or waiting room, the ability to quickly look something up on their phone or tablet is critical.
Most content management systems (CMS) can create a mobile-responsive site automatically. However, there are some easy ways you can ensure your site’s responsiveness. For instance, use large buttons, a vertical layout, and avoid large chunks of text.
7. Accurate, updated information: Yale New Haven Hospital
Yale New Haven Hospital provides a wide range of medical services to its local community. As with any hospital, their website needs to provide accurate and reliable information about their services, facilities, and medical personnel. That way, patients can make informed decisions about their care.
Perhaps most notably, Yale New Haven’s homepage features emergency room wait times, informing patients where to seek care and what to expect when they arrive.
Why accurate and updated information is essential for hospital websites: When it comes to healthcare, accuracy is non-negotiable. It’s critical that your web content is consistently updated and provides the most high-quality information available.
Tips for Maintaining Hospital Website Compliance
Your hospital website will likely have multiple services that collect and store patient data, whether it’s a health portal, appointment tool, or bill payment.
HIPAA is an act created by the American government that aims to protect patient data like names, phone numbers, email addresses, social security numbers, and medical records.
HITECH is an extension of the HIPAA requirements that brings additional benefits and protection to patients. This establishes that patients should always have access to their health information online, and if hospitals do have a data violation, patients should be notified immediately. Depending on the seriousness of the data breach, there are also various penalties and fees.
To ensure your website and software solutions comply with HIPAA and the HITECH Act, you need the following safeguards:
Tech safeguards include encryption software, data backups, and firewalls. Assess the state of your current healthcare cybersecurity system to ensure you have the proper safeguards in place.
Physical safeguards include material records or electronic devices with the aforementioned data with access granted only after the proper authorization.
Administrative safeguards include the guidelines your hospital sets up to ensure that internal procedures comply with HIPAA.
Once these safety nets are in place, add a privacy policy statement to your website that explains your commitment to complying with HIPAA and HITECH regulations. This will help you build trust with patients.
How to Maintain Your Hospital Website
Hospital website maintenance is crucial to ensure your site remains a high-performing, accessible, and convenient resource for your audience. Follow these best practices to maintain your website over time.
Adopt a continuous improvement approach
Traditional website design and development takes a linear approach, with a clear pathway from strategy to implementation. However, a growth-driven, continuous improvement approach involves an ongoing, iterative process of:
Strategizing new website innovations
Implementing website changes to test your hypotheses
Tracking results and adjusting your approach based on feedback
This perspective pushes you to constantly update your website based on evolving best practices. Plus, you can avoid major site overhauls, which can cost your organization time and money.
Update your website according to accessibility innovations
New accessibility innovations are released constantly, helping to improve the online experience for users with temporary or permanent disabilities. Intelligent eyewear, a hands-free mouse, and AI-powered assistants are just a few of the exciting innovations we’re seeing this year.
Your website maintenance process should include accessibility updates to ensure your site stays usable and functional for all users. Take the time to adjust to the impacts of the following potential changes:
New assistive technology. Innovations in screen reader technology, AI assistants, assistive voice solutions, and other accessible technologies change how individuals interact with your web content. Make sure your website is structured properly, with clear navigation and heading structures, so it’s compatible with all assistive technology.
Accessibility testing techniques. Alongside updates to assistive technology itself, the way web designers can test sites for accessibility constantly evolves as well. Stay up to date on the best automated testing tools available as well as techniques for manually assessing your site. Resources like Kanopi’s guide to accessibility testing can be a huge help because our developers use these tools every day to ensure the sites we build or refresh are completely accessible and compatible with assistive technologies.
Changes to legal requirements. Laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act govern web accessibility in the United States. Keep this legislation in mind as you refresh your website for accessibility. If you want to expand into new markets in other countries, be aware of their accessibility legislation to remain compliant.
Here at Kanopi, we take a holistic approach to web accessibility, learning about your website’s visitors and their unique accessibility needs to build a strategy that works best for your organization. Learn more about our approach in this short video:
Conduct technical fixes
The technical elements of your hospital website play a major role in your users’ online experience. Technical issues can slow down your website and leave it vulnerable to security breaches.
To keep your website in top shape, prioritize fixing the following technical issues:
Broken links. Broken links can hurt your SEO performance and create a negative user experience. Use an automated tool like Semrush or Google Search Console to identify and correct broken links with mass updates.
Security risks. Run core updates for your CMS and plugins or modules, encrypt sensitive data, require strong passwords for CMS users, and enable two-factor website authentication. In addition, host regular security training sessions with your team to ensure everyone is up to date with the latest security risks and best practices.
Slow page loading speed. Measure page load speed using a free tool like Google’s PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse. Common performance issues include large image files, unused JavaScript or CSS, and large network payloads.
Set up recurring technical reports to get ongoing updates about your site’s health. Continuously monitoring your site and fixing performance issues will help you avoid smaller problems snowballing into major complications down the line.
Update your content
Your website’s content equips your audience with the crucial medical information they need to make informed decisions about their health. Updated, accurate content helps raise your hospital’s authority level and gives more credibility to your institution.
In your website maintenance process, make the following content updates:
SEO updates. Use SEO tools like Ahrefs or Moz to keep an eye on your search engine rankings. If any of your website’s most important pages, like high-value blog posts or your homepage, start slipping in the rankings, make a plan to refresh the content to enhance its SEO appeal. For example, you could better incorporate the main keyword, add more engaging visual elements, or refresh the page with updated health information.
Audience shifts. Your hospital’s core audience and their content preferences may change over time. New people could move into your coverage area with new online medical needs. Or, audience members may begin expressing interest in different blog post topics than what you normally cover. Pay attention to metrics like blog post engagement rates, time spent on each page, and audience demographics to ensure your content aligns with your audience’s interests and needs.
Interactive content additions. Interactive content is on an upward trajectory right now as more consumers seek out these engaging online elements. Interactive content can also lead to 2x the conversion rate of passive (or static) content. Find opportunities to incorporate this content into your hospital website, whether through online health assessments, quizzes, maps, surveys, or polls.
These content updates and the website maintenance process in general are most successful when working with a dedicated web development partner that has expertise and experience in maintaining websites like yours. Read on for an inside look at how the Kanopi team approaches hospital web development support.
How Kanopi’s Hospital Web Development Services Can Help
To ensure that you’re doing everything you can to take your own hospital website to the next level, partner with a website support and development agency.
Kanopi is a top partner for hospitals and has helped develop over 150 active sites thanks to our continuous improvement team. No matter what stage your hospital website is at, our team is prepared to either conduct a full website redesign project or even build it from scratch.
Content management system support tailored to user needs—whether you use Drupal or WordPress as a CMS, we have experts that can take each platform and customize it to align with your organization’s needs and branding.
Custom module/plugin development so even if you can’t find the right tool to perform a specific action, our coding team can step in to make it for you.
WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards to ensure that anyone can access and engage with your healthcare services as needed.
Custom integrations for an online health portal or other solutions that can expand your hospital website’s capabilities.
Responsive mobile-first design because we know that your online hospital services should be accessible from any device and from anywhere.
Technical SEO strategy and implementation so that if anyone looks up your hospital’s name, a specific doctor, or a program, your hospital website is the first option on the results page.
Even after your optimized site is officially launched, we will continue working alongside your hospital to create a full website growth plan. This ensures that your site is sustainable for as long as possible and is there to support your hospital as it evolves.
For more information on website development, check out these resources:
Drupal vs. WordPress: Which One is Right For You? Drupal and WordPress are two popular content management systems that hospitals depend on. Learn which one is right for your organization in this guide!
Inclusive & Accessible Forms. Need to collect information via a form on your website? Forms ask your users to provide personal data, so ensure those forms are inclusive and accessible.
From the streaming services we binge to the smartphone we buy, there’s no denying excellent website design matters. Great web design can mean the difference between people landing on your site and coming back daily or landing on your site and immediately leaving, never to return again.
As University of Washington designer and teacher Joe Sparano puts it:
“good design is obvious and great design is invisible.”
Although also invisible is harmful website design that’s inaccessible for some people.
Boosting revenue, increasing donations, enhancing engagement, and saving staff time are just a handful of the many measurable benefits of great website design.
Let’s dig into the details!
Boost your revenue
It’s hard to ignore the power of discovery paired with quantifiable data to drive content & user experience (UX) improvements.
Do you know who uses your site and what their needs are?
You may think you know, but the truth is user behavior shifts and changes at a rapid pace. It’s vital to regularly test assumptions about who is currently using your site and how they use it, gathering insight to inform design solutions that better meet user needs today.
The American Cancer Society (ACS) boosted its revenue by 4.5% by redesigning its website using research and data.
How did they do it? The ACS team created a new donation form on their site that sends funds only to breast cancer research. The nonprofit made it easier for their top personas to do what they came to the site to do, looking at how people interact with their site and how their needs and goals change over time.
Analytics data showed that ACS was missing out on valuable traffic between its main website and its “Making Strides” sub-site. The team got to work creating clear user pathways between the two websites, providing donors with the action they wanted to take most, as illustrated by the data — supporting breast cancer research specifically.
Well-designed nonprofit websites focus on the user experience of its donors, making it easier for them to find the information they need, including all of the ways they can support the organization while allowing them to complete donations seamlessly.
Great design backed by a donor content strategy leads with impact that’s personal, clearly showing existing and future donors how their generosity makes a difference.
Jack.org is Canada’s only charity training and empowering young leaders to revolutionize mental health. The Canadian nonprofit needed a website to help them better connect with young people nationwide.
By reviewing its donor experience, the charity boosted online donations by 80%, with a 108% increase in online donation revenue.
How did they do it? They implemented an enhanced strategy focussing on UX, followed by a redesign that included powerful, seamless fundraising and sales integrations, making their site AODA & WCAG compliant.
The University of North Carolina School of the Arts decided to redesign its website when it realized it wasn’t meeting the needs of two of its most important groups of people — students and donors.
By upgrading its information architecture, creating engaging microcontent and improving functionality, admission inquiries climbed 518%, and the university saw online donations increase by 48%:
“The storytelling as a narrative was really the way to sell and to communicate what the institution is,”
said Vice Provost and Dean of Student Affairs Ward Caldwell,
“I think one of the unique aspects of the site design is that it encourages exploration. It provides all the links to move people through the site, but it also encourages people to linger, to get an understanding of how we take students through a journey of artistic exploration.”
Twenty-five percent of what you sell on your website is your product or service. The remaining 75% is an intangible feeling from a package deal with said product or service.
What do you want people to feel from interacting with your site’s content?
A clear and consistent content style within your website design can help you engage Gen Zers (people born between 1997 to 2012.) Speak to younger folks on a personal level using language and words they recognize and use themselves daily, factoring in aggregated data that helps you better understand your user’s emotions.
Develop a tone and voice that fits your organization and resonates with your users, keeping it conversational and action-based.
Make your site more human using contextual AI to design a website that makes people feel something and achieve ROI growth as you connect with the next generation. Your ultimate goal should be to deliver a focused experience instead of just a website.
Colleges and universities are deploying user-controlled, AI-powered chatbots to connect with people faster, helping them convert more prospective applicants into enrolled students.
Ahead of a new academic year, students have many questions about programs, fees, housing, and more. Admissions departments work flat out, and responding to every question takes time.
Chatbots eliminate this problem. They’re convenient, easy to use and designed to provide automated responses to common questions from students, avoiding ambiguity and slow replies.
Students can chat with them any time, day or night, which is particularly useful for international folks living in a different time zone than their desired college or university.
Make it accessible to all
Design that addresses the unique needs, barriers, and challenges that people with disabilities face when using your site will benefit all users, ensuring your site is inclusive and accessible.
Don’t make the mistake of allowing accessibility to become an afterthought you attempt to shoehorn into a near-finished design. It’ll cost you time and money in the long run.
Fifteen percent of the world’s population, or 1.3 billion people, self-identify as having a disability, so design a website accessible to all and watch your ROI grow.
What does accessible website design look like? Do you have to forfeit captivating visuals to gain a truly accessible site? Not quite.
Are you keen to introduce motion on your site to increase engagement? Great! Though first, understand how movement on websites impacts people with vestibular disorders such as epilepsy. Avoid using excessive animation to ensure everyone can use your site, opting for thoughtfully executed motion design users can control instead, for example, prominent pause, stop, and play options on embedded videos.
Partnering with the National Council for the Blind in Ireland, Kanopi was able to design a website that’s AAA compliant (the highest level of web accessibility) without sacrificing good design.
The nonprofit’s site includes fun, engaging graphics with bright colors and relatable student imagery while nailing text-to-background color contrast, large text, and text zoom functionality. Site visitors know exactly where to go from the homepage, with straightforward user journeys for students, readers, and educators:
A site that’s well-designed and optimized for search engines can drive more organic traffic and improve search engine rankings. It’s that simple.
VITAS Healthcare, a pioneering hospice movement since 1978, improved its organic click-through rate (CTR) by 52% through improved design. A CTR is the percentage of searchers who click on a search engine result.
How did they do it? Improving their meta descriptions made them more descriptive and meaningful, adding direct telephone numbers for folks to reach them immediately.
Meta descriptions are HTML tags summarizing your webpage’s content. It’s a snippet of text, roughly 160 characters long, that appears under your page title on a search engine result page like Google.
The meta descriptions of every landing page you design may fly under the radar at times, though this behind-the-scenes component is key to great website design that ensures your site is discoverable.
Save staff time
A well-designed website can make it easier for a nonprofit or higher education institution to complete two vital tasks:
communicate with your key stakeholders and
disseminate important information.
It took staff 25% less time to respond to inquiries following the redesign of the American Cancer Society’s website. They refined their “Contact Us” page with a clear content hierarchy, providing pathways for questions by phone, live chat, or video chat and by topics such as donations and volunteering opportunities:
How does this translate to ROI? Let’s do some quick math.
Suppose your staff spends 10 hours or 25% of their 40-hour work week navigating and replying to inquiries from your website. With time savings similar to the American Cancer Society at 25%, your staff can now respond to inquiries in 7.5 hours instead of 10.
For a team of 5, that saves 650 hours per year that could be redirected to other essential tasks within your organization.
Great design starts with research and strategy
Here at Kanopi, accessibility is baked into our process at the start of every website design project. Our strategists, designers, and developers collaborate to skillfully balance website design that produces the wow factor while not compromising on building a site accessible to all.
Good website design isn’t just “sparkle and boom.”
The real boom happens when you use research to develop a strategy that enhances your user experience and improves your conversion rates.
Are you after more donations? More enrollment? More memberships?
It is invaluable to gain an accurate, up-to-date picture of how people use your site and what they expect to find. Find that sweet spot where content meets both the needs of your users and your organizational goals by developing a content strategy based on user research.
The tried and tested way to turn one-page website viewers into repeat visitors and continuous supporters is by designing a website with user experience at its core.
We’ve provided only a handful of examples of how great website design can impact a nonprofit or higher education institution’s ability to achieve its goals and boost its ROI in the process. From increasing revenue, giving and organic traffic to engaging the next generation, improving accessibility, and saving staff time, we think the proven results of excellent site design speak for themselves.
In today’s highly digital world, most patients do their research before they make an appointment with a healthcare provider. In fact, Google sees over 1 billion health-related searches per day.
To break it down further, last year’s health-related searches focused on physical fitness and mental health specifically. Searches like “exercising for mental health” and “how to handle stress” topped the charts. People now expect to know how to get healthy and stay healthy as soon as possible.
What do these things mean for your organization’s healthcare website? Accurate and accessible healthcare information is more crucial than ever. Whether your organization is a health institute, medical school, or hospital, your website is an essential resource for your community.
In this guide, we’ll review top healthcare website design examples and the features and best practices that make these resources effective. Here’s what to expect:
Although not every search result will lead to a doctor’s appointment, users will still engage with you in some way online. Make the most of their online visit with a great design that meets their needs and establishes your organization as a credible source. With thoughtful design, your healthcare website can:
Grow brand awareness: A robust, well-designed website establishes your organization as a credible, knowledgeable institution.
Build trust among current audience members: When visitors see that your website is professional and comprehensive, they’ll place more trust in your organization.
Offer your audience convenience: A comprehensive healthcare website gives community members access to a 24/7 resource that’s available with just a few clicks.
Your website should give current and prospective patients confidence in your quality of care. Its design should echo your medical expertise and put their minds at ease.
What Makes a Good Healthcare Website Design?
Put yourself in a patient’s shoes. What would they expect from a professional healthcare website? Speed, responsiveness, credible content—all of the above! How your website delivers on these expectations defines your site’s performance.
To summarize, a good healthcare website incorporates the following elements:
User-friendly design
An easy-to-use internal search function
Accessible content
Heightened security for sensitive information
Responsive design
As a best practice, it’s essential to review and update each of these elements regularly. For example, your organization must keep its sensitive information secure at all times. This means you must bolster your infrastructure with updated security measures to protect against attackers and mitigate system vulnerabilities.
Accessibility is another must as Healthcare sites in particular have users with a large variety of needs. This means the site must follow WCAG guidelines and accessibility best practices so those with temporary or permanent disabilities can easily access the content.
To get a better idea of great healthcare web design, it’s helpful to research organizations that thrive in this area.
However, great design should always be representative of your organization’s specific audience. For example, a university healthcare website will have student health services and resources while an urgent care might provide interactive symptom checkers.
That said, let’s review top healthcare website examples and the best practices used that make these examples so great.
1. Clear FAQs: San Francisco Health Service System
Great design anticipates needs. The San Francisco Health Service System’s homepage excels at providing relevant, helpful prompts to guide visitors. Its FAQs encompass the six most common reasons why a visitor may need their services. Each FAQ then directs visitors to an accompanying page that provides them with useful information.
This design is also mindful of visitors’ time and mental state. People searching for medical assistance might be feeling stressed or anxious, making it critical that you answer their questions and concerns quickly.
2. Comprehensive internal search: Mayo Clinic
As the number one hospital in the U.S., the Mayo Clinic provides accessible web design that assists visitors’ road to recovery. One feature worth spotlighting is its comprehensive internal search that prompts visitors to find the right resources for their circumstances.
For example, a visitor may enter “kidney disease” into the search bar. Then, the results page would direct them to related articles such as Chronic Kidney Disease or Lupus. From there, visitors can discover the diagnosis and treatment options, or make an appointment.
3.Connecting those in need to funding: The Colorado Health Foundation
The Colorado Health Foundation’s web design provides helpful resources for communities in need. This speaks to the organization’s desire to further health equity.
More specifically, the Colorado Health Foundation’s “Find Funding” section allows visitors to either apply for funding or connect with a program officer for more information. Each option leads to a page that provides helpful information such as phone numbers and email addresses that connect those in need to funding opportunities.
4.Spotlighting personnel: Global Brain Health Institute
The Global Brain Institute’s fellows directory is a great example of connective design at work. Its comprehensive directory spotlights interprofessional leaders that are experts in brain health and dementia prevention. The page allows visitors to search by name, and filter by topic, region, or cohort, so visitors can connect with fellows and/or apply for the fellowship. This well-designed page acts as a promotional tool as well since visitors can observe the caliber and variety of the fellowship body.
5. Useful CTAs: The Cleveland Clinic
The Cleveland Clinic’s welcoming design assures visitors that their organization is ready to meet their needs. Just below this home page tagline, visitors can access three main resources to meet their needs—doctors, directions, and appointments.
These sections are known as CTAs (calls to action) and invite visitors to take the next action to complete their website journey. For instance, if a visitor clicks “Locations & Directions” they are led to a page where they can enter their location and find one of the 310 clinics that is closest to them. Google Maps then provides visitors a glimpse of their route so they can best prepare.
6. Inspiring testimonials: Boston Children’s Hospital
Your healthcare organization probably does some incredible work. Take a page out of the Boston Children’s Hospital’s book and highlight your work through inspiring testimonials. Their web design is personal as it introduces visitors to children who have recovered from necessary procedures. Each child is pictured and has a link for visitors to learn more about their story.
Visitors who find themselves on this page are most likely parents who are anxious about their child’s health. This design approach makes them feel hopeful and increases their trust in this organization’s capabilities.
7. Incorporating visitor feedback: CDC
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website design thoughtfully acknowledges user experience. Its built-in survey encourages visitors to provide feedback so that the CDC can offer the best online experience.
Additionally, the CDC’s web design policies take user communication preferences into account. Their policies stipulate that they are committed to using plain writing, so users can find what they need without having to interpret medical jargon.
8. Bold, consistent branding: National Women’s Health Network
A well-branded site makes your organization stand out and boosts your credibility. The National Women’s Health Network is a great example of effective online branding at work. The site’s colorful collage of women highlights its target audience and invites visitors to explore the organization’s mission, vision, and values.
Colorful titles also help break up the content and guide through the homepage’s main sections. This way, visitors can assess the homepage quickly and easily without excessive scrolling or losing interest.
9. User-friendly content: BetterHelp
As the world’s largest online therapy service, BetterHelp sees many visitors who desire to connect with licensed professionals. Its user-friendly design addresses visitors’ desires through clean, organized page content.
The first three home page CTA options give visitors a choice to find help for themselves or their loved ones. Then, the visitors are directed to complete a questionnaire that recognizes their needs and offers relevant help.
10. Member-Exclusive Benefits: Eye Recommend
Many healthcare organizations thrive on member involvement, including Eye Recommend. Eye Recommend is a professional group for independent optometrists in Canada. Its goal is to empower members with technology, services, and resources to expand their clinics.
Eye Recommend partnered with Kanopi to strategize the best ways to bring valuable, exclusive content to their members. Ultimately, we helped their team create a convenient online job marketplace where members can easily browse open positions. Members can filter listings by location, allowing them to find roles within their local area. Features like this, in addition to a user-friendly internal search function for the organization’s full website, provide clear value to members and improve the user experience.
Maintaining Your Healthcare Website Design Over Time
An effective healthcare website isn’t static; it must change and grow over time to continue meeting your community’s needs.
We’ve compiled a list of the most common healthcare website design maintenance considerations, adapted from our guide to website maintenance for nonprofits. Ask yourself the following questions to continually assess your website and maintain it over the years:
Design
Is your design outdated?
Does your design effectively adapt to mobile screen sizes?
Is your design cluttered or visually inconsistent across pages?
Content
Are your multimedia elements, like photos and videos, functioning properly?
Is your content accessible to all audience members, following the WCAG guidelines?
User journeys
Do you have clear user pathways for your core audiences?
Does every user have clear next actions they can take on your website to find the information they need or get involved on a deeper level with your healthcare organization, whether through volunteering, donating, etc.?
Are your navigation elements (like your main menu) and CTAs aligned to drive user engagement?
Security
Does your website have any security vulnerabilities that need to be addressed?
Does your website align with healthcare legislation including HIPAA and HITECH?
Does your website leverage advanced security features like SSL to maintain compliance?
Scalability
Can your website’s network effectively scale up and adapt to heavier traffic loads?
Is your code optimized to facilitate fast load speeds?
Does your website have caching mechanisms to improve load speeds for subsequent visits?
Technical elements
Do you need to conduct any of the following technical maintenance tasks?
Does your website accurately reflect your healthcare organization’s current priorities?
Does your website have content and messaging that appeals to every audience persona?
Does your blog content promote your organization’s mission and goals?
Do all website pages reflect your organization’s branding, voice, and tone?
Approach website maintenance as a continuous, ongoing process, rather than a major task you complete every so often. It can be helpful to work with a professional web design firm to support your website over time so it doesn’t lose traffic or face security issues.
For example, here at Kanopi, we support healthcare organizations with a continuous improvement approach. We do more than just security patches and software updates—our designers and developers act as strategic partners to support your website with a clear growth plan and adaptive execution. Whether your site is a new online resource or an established healthcare website, we can step in to provide the ongoing, reliable support you need to reach your goals.
What does your web design say about your healthcare organization? A responsive, accessible site communicates credibility, helpfulness, and authority. Welcome site visitors to your platform by incorporating elements from these example sites to ensure optimal user experience. This way, you’ll create a positive brand image and heighten your relevance.
At Kanopi, we’ve partnered with a wide range of healthcare organizations to enhance their online presence. Our personalized approach incorporates your organization’s unique online needs to help you reach your audience more effectively. No project is too large or complex for our web designers. Interested in collaborating? Check out our work.
Additional Web Design Resources:
Hospital Web Development: What You Need To Know. A hospital website redesign requires careful planning and implementation. Review our hospital web development guide for insight into the process.
How to Use Healthcare Content Marketing to Drive Engagement. Inspiring, educational healthcare content is another essential component that will help serve your audience’s needs. Build a content marketing strategy with the help of this guide.
The ROI of Great Web Design. What can a great website do for your organization’s budget? Read this article for an inside look into how effective web design can dramatically boost your ROI.
Many people assume that the Internet is a more environmentally friendly way of sharing information; businesses and organizations are no longer printing materials on paper or plastics, using inks, and shipping mail as they did before the Internet became the primary marketing hub. There is a large environmental impact with supply chains, but building websites feels less impactful.
But is it? Not necessarily. In fact, creating and maintaining websites uses a lot of electricity. And websites that are heavily trafficked use even more energy.
There’s a carbon footprint involved with all we do digitally. As businesses become increasingly digital, we must ask ourselves how to ensure sustainability online. That means more than just making sure your website is up and running so you can eliminate other forms of communication — it means harnessing the power of green energy, cloud use, and building sustainable websites so that our digital presence is as eco-friendly as possible.
This Earth Day, we’d like to provide some quick tips on how to be more proactive about sustainability when creating your next website project.
But first, how “green” is your current site?
How does your website fare now? Use tools like Ecograder and Website Carbon to estimate your digital footprint. It’s an eye-opener to see where your website could be making improvements.
If you follow website UX and coding best practices, here’s the good news: by default, best practices for web design and accessibility translate into more sustainable websites. They are built using lightweight code that can load quickly even on slow connections Since they are designed to prioritize user goals, and performance less time is spent loading or trying to find information … which translates into time, energy, and ultimately cost savings.
Sustainable websites also use fewer resources overall, which helps conserve energy. They are often made as fast and performant as possible, particularly if they are more heavily used on mobile devices. And don’t forget about accessibility: sustainable websites tend to be more accessible for users with disabilities too!
But if you need your website to be more sustainable, let’s dig into where you can make some impactful changes.
Harnessing green energy in the Cloud
Green energy is a key component of sustainability online. After all, each time you access the internet, you are using electricity. But what if you could use renewable sources of energy such as solar or wind power instead of relying on fossil fuels?
Cloud computing makes this possible. By hosting your data in the cloud and taking advantage of green energy sources, companies can reduce their carbon footprints while still getting access to all the same features they would with traditional hosting services. Plus, it’s often cheaper and has lower maintenance for your internal teams.
In short, work with your hosting provider to make sure your website is powered by renewable energy.
If you’re looking for a new hosting provider, a great place to look is The Green Web Foundation’s directory, a listing of over 500 hosting providers around the world with a tangible commitment to using green energy in their data centers.
Fun fact: Kanopi is hosted with Pantheon, which offers container-based, serverless hosting. And they’re built on GCP, a green platform.
Practice sustainable web design
Practicing sustainable web design will help make your site efficient while reducing website carbon emissions. This includes being smart about how you use images and how they load on the page; one example is using responsive images, which serve the correctly sized image for the user’s device to avoid unnecessary resource usage.
User Experience (UX) optimization is an ever-evolving practice, and Kanopi is constantly refining our approach to how users consume and interact with websites. By optimizing the user experience of your website, you can expect to see increased user satisfaction, shorter interaction pathways, and a reduction in overall energy consumption associated with your site. Essentially the better the usability of your site, the better it is for the environment. So make sure you know what your audiences are looking for so they can find it fast.
This also applies to content: create content that is meaningful to your users in order to keep the overall site lean, and avoid content that adds unwanted complexity or bloat to your site. Video content is especially energy dense and should be deployed in a purpose-driven and user-focused manner.
The faster your site loads and users find what they need, the less energy is used. The more efficient, the better. It really is that simple.
How the site is built and developed is key. Due to the collaborative nature of open-source tools and the community, software tools are optimized for better performance and efficiency (something proprietary solutions don’t often consider). Open-source tools can also help lean teams start small and test ideas before scaling, thereby reducing waste.
Website optimization is not a “set it and forget it” activity. It’s an area where you can always make iterative improvements, and ongoing optimization of your website is essential to reducing your energy footprint.
This can be done in several ways:
Ensure your codebase is meeting or exceeding current best practices. Over time, these efficiencies will result in less energy consumed overall and will allow your site to stay evergreen.
Performance reviews. Looking at the key metrics that inform Google’s Core Web Vitals is a great way to impact your page speed (and rank higher in search results, too). UX patterns play a role here as well, since patterns like carousels are tricky to implement without noticeably affecting your page load times.
Only track what you need to track, and use a tag manager. Third-party trackers are one of the biggest culprits when it comes to slowing down your site. Think hard about how, when, and where you’re using the information, and only collect what you need. It’s also better for user privacy, which your users will appreciate!
Sustainability is good business.
At the end of the day, harnessing sustainability online is essential for businesses looking to remain competitive in today’s digital world while still being mindful of their environmental impact.
So when you’re thinking of more ways to be eco-friendly around the office, think beyond ways you can make your physical space greener or how your IT infrastructure could have a greener footprint. Consider how you can also apply eco-friendly techniques to your entire digital environment. In tandem with websites, sustainable digital marketing strategies go hand-in-hand. When it comes to digital marketing campaigns, it’s important to think about how you can minimize your environmental impact while still achieving your goals. This includes focusing on organic search traffic rather than paid ads whenever possible, and utilizing email marketing over direct mail campaigns which require physical materials like envelopes and paper.
We recommend regular UX and code audits as the improvements they can provide are not only essential to the long-term health of your website but also have a direct impact on the amount of energy consumed (Kanopi can help with audits). Taking a holistic approach to sustainability will ensure your business is doing its part, and opportunities for positive impact exist at every level and scale.
By keeping these tips in mind, CMOs and marketing managers can make sure their businesses are doing their part for people AND planet alike.
How does your website conversion rate affect your business?
Your website conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who take specific actions on your site (e.g., sign up, download, purchase). Your website conversion rate affects revenue, customer acquisition cost, return on investment (ROI), and customer engagement and loyalty — some of the most critical factors determining your business’s long-term success.
So how do you create a great homepage? Let’s walk through 7 key strategies you can apply immediately to your homepage to improve conversion rates.
1. Understand your audience
Create meaningful connections with your customers by understanding who they are and what they want. You must understand their needs, goals, behaviors, and values. The best way to do that is by using quantitative and qualitative research methods and building personas.
Google Analytics: What are people coming to your site for? What pages are they landing on? How much time are they spending on the site? These questions can reveal valuable insights about how customers interact with your homepage — and where you might fall short.
User research: You can also learn a lot by analyzing user interaction with heat mapping. Better still, interview your audience directly about the problems they’re trying to solve, what pain points or frustrations they are experiencing while trying to complete their tasks, and what improvements they would like to see implemented.
Personas: After quantitative analysis and user research,youcan create personas, which are fictional characters that represent your target audience. Ultimately, personas help prioritize content, design solutions, and user experience to meet better user needs. They also establish messaging that can be used across different channels — from social media to email marketing — to better communicate with customers.
Create a one-sentence description of why your company exists. It goes beyond the obvious — “we make great software” — to explain what makes your product special and unique.
The best value propositions have three characteristics:
They are specific: They use quantifiable metrics or measures (number of customers, dollars saved, etc.) to show how your product works for the customer.
They are unique: You should describe how your product differs from and is better than competitors’ offerings.
They tell a story about how customers will benefit from using your product or service.
Many websites with strong value propositions effectively communicate the benefits of their products or services to potential customers. Here are a few examples:
Grammarly – Great Writing, Simplified: The value proposition is specific and unique in helping users improve their writing skills by eliminating grammar errors. It also tells how using Grammarly can help users make a better personal and professional impression.
Grammarly’s home page
Slack – Credibility and Productivity: Slack’s value proposition focuses heavily on the remote teams’ pain points by offering workplace communication and collaboration solutions. They also tell a story about how using Slack can help users stay connected and productive no matter where they are.
Slack’s home page
Uber – Offering Convenience: Uber’s value proposition centers on providing a convenient, reliable, affordable transportation service through a user-friendly mobile application. They target two distinct audiences with different value propositions: passengers and drivers.
Information architecture (IA) is the structure that supports the organization of content and functionality on a website. It is how visitors navigate a site and find the information they’re looking for. It is not supposed to be a reflection of how your organization is structured; instead, information architecture aims to provide users with access to information in a way that makes sense to them.
High findability and discoverability results from a goal-based information architecture and well-designed navigation system. It reduces the number of unnecessary clicks by offering straightforward user journeys, which can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
As you think about building your site information architecture, keep these components in mind:
Organization: How we categorize and structure information.
Labeling: How we represent information.
Navigation: How users browse or move through information.
Search: How users look for information.
4. Offer a More Engaging User Experience
Make sure your website is easy to use, engaging, and relevant. Here are some tips to help you do that:
Include search functionality: Searching is one of the most popular and efficient ways to navigate online. So help your visitors find the information that interests them without having to click through multiple pages or scroll through lengthy content.
Create easy-to-scan web pages: Nowadays, people rarely read web pages word-for-word. Instead, they scan them to get the gist of what’s being said. It is especially true for users with low reading skills or who are in a hurry. To help with this, break up your content into digestible chunks that make sense and get your message across, and be strategic about how you use images to aid in understanding.
Offer live chat support: Live chat support allows visitors to contact someone from your organization immediately if they have questions about products or services before buying.
5. Improve Page Load Time
Speed is a significant factor in the success of a website. The faster your website loads, the more likely it is to convert your visitors into customers. If your site takes too long to load, people will leave and go somewhere else.
Images are often one of the biggest causes of slow-loading pages. Ensure you’re using the correct image format (JPEG or PNG) and compressing them as much as possible without losing quality. Also, don’t forget to check image dimensions — if they’re too large, they’ll slow down your site even more.
The content of your page is another major factor in its speed — especially if you’re using some plugin or lots of external resources, such as fonts. You should also make sure that both your CSS and JavaScript files are cached by browsers. You can add expired headers or move them to a CDN (Content Delivery Network).
Use loading progress indicators or skeleton screens for any action that takes longer than one second. Skeleton screens provide a blank version of the page into which information is gradually loaded. It creates the immediate sense that data is incrementally displayed on the screen and lets people have a great experience while waiting.
PageSpeed Insights by Google is an excellent tool for checking your site performance and getting recommendations for optimizations.
6. Design for Mobile Devices
Designing a mobile-friendly website is one of the critical things you can do to improve your conversion rate. While desktop computers are still the most common devices used to browse the Web, over 50% of all online searches happen on mobile devices. Mobile users also make more purchases on their phones and tablets than desktops (which means that your forms should be easy to use as well).
Here are some helpful tips for designing for the small screen:
Make your site mobile-friendly and responsive: A mobile-friendly website displays correctly on any device — including smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers — without requiring users to scroll horizontally or zoom to view content on their screens. Responsive design adjusts the layout of a page depending on whether someone is viewing it on a mobile device or desktop computer.
Reduce Clutter: Mobile screens are smaller than desktops — so it’s important to reduce clutter and focus on the most critical information. You can remove unnecessary graphics and text and minimize content that isn’t crucial to the user’s primary task.
Minimize user input: Reduce the amount of information required from users. Limit forms to only those essential fields, allowing users to submit data without entering it manually and taking advantage of touch controls.
Keep Mobile Navigation Simple: Refine navigation to be discoverable, accessible on mobile, and easy for users to explore and complete all primary tasks without explanation. Navigation should always be available, not just when we anticipate that the user needs it. Ensure the labels are clear and concise, and all links are visually distinct to make them clear when users have activated them.
7. Craft strong call-to-action (CTA)
A strong CTA is the most crucial part of your homepage. It should be clear and compelling but not pushy or salesy. It should also take visitors to a page that matches their intent — one that’s relevant to their interests and needs.
It’s tempting to think of your homepage as an opportunity to get people excited about what you do but remember why they’re there first: because they want something from you. The best CTAs are specific and measurable (for example, “sign up for our newsletter”) rather than vague (“learn more”). If visitors need to know what they’ll get from signing up for something, there’s no reason for them to do it!
A good CTA has three key elements:
Clear: It’s clear what visitors should do when they click the button (e.g., sign up for your newsletter).
Compelling: The button should inspire visitors to take action, not just give them an option. An effective CTA will lead people through the funnel and get them closer to conversion than a weak one.
Concise: Your CTA needs to be short enough that it doesn’t distract from the rest of your content but long enough that it still feels like an actionable step for visitors.
Start converting!
This suggestions list, while extensive, is not exhaustive. But by following these essential strategies and keeping them in mind when developing a website, you will be able to create a powerful and effective homepage that is useful for users and drive conversions that result in loyal customers and fantastic ROI.
Want to learn more about how you can leverage your website to generate demand and drive conversions? Contact us, and we’ll guide you through these strategic processes.
The economy is ever-changing, but one thing is certain: websites are here to stay, and are increasingly critical to the success of any business. The world continues to navigate through the pandemic, inflation, and bank closures while some economists predict a recession in the near future. Through all that uncertainty, it’s important to make sure your website is recession-proof so you can maintain your business during tough times.
As luck would have it, these tips are best practices regardless of whether there’s a recession or not. If you’re already doing these steps, well done! You’re already set up for success if times get tough.
If you aren’t, what are you waiting for? Whether you’re just starting out or already have an established presence online, there’s no time like now to make sure your website is prepared for whatever lies ahead.
Let’s take a look at some of the best ways to make your website recession-proof:
Know your audience
Improve the user experience
Develop an SEO strategy
Focus on quality content
Optimize for mobile devices
Build brand loyalty
Perform regular maintenance on all the above
Know your audience.
This may seem obvious, but don’t dismiss this step. One of the most important aspects of running a successful website is understanding who your audience is and what they want. Knowing your target demographic can help you create content that resonates with them, resulting in higher engagement and more conversions.
Use analytics tools such as Google Analytics to track user behavior on your site so you can identify trends and adjust accordingly. Additionally, use surveys and polls to gain direct feedback from customers about their experiences on your site.
Improve the User Experience.
User experience (UX) is also key when it comes to making sure your website stands out from the competition during a recession. People don’t have time to waste hunting around for information or struggling through an overly complex navigation system — they want answers quickly. Make sure your site has a simple and intuitive design, attractive visuals, and easy-to-find information about products and services so users can find what they need without wasting time.
Additionally, utilize customer feedback to see where improvements could be made and keep track of customer engagement on each page of your site so you know what works best and where changes should be made.
Develop an SEO strategy.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for getting your website noticed by potential customers. When people search for a product or service related to what you offer, they want to find relevant results quickly. This means that you need to optimize your website with the right keywords so that it appears on the first page of search engine results pages (SERPs).
How do you do this? Use tools like SEMRush or AnswerThePublic to study what keywords people search for. Next, create quality content that uses those keywords (but don’t engage in keyword stuffing! That will have a negative effect). Lastly, you’ll want to create backlinks from other websites back to yours, such as providing a guest post on another site that provides a link back to your blog.
An effective SEO strategy will help increase organic traffic which in turn can lead to increased sales during times of economic uncertainty.
Focus on quality content.
Piggybacking off the SEO needs, your content should always be king when it comes to making sure your website stands out from the competition. Quality content not only helps attract new visitors but also keeps existing ones coming back for more. Aim to provide valuable information through blog posts, videos, images, and other media. If you’re able to answer frequently asked questions or provide helpful advice regarding topics relevant to your business, even better! This will help establish authority and trust with potential customers while also boosting SEO rankings.
Additionally, make sure you’re optimizing your content. In addition to using the right keywords, ensure that all titles, tags, headlines and images are accurate and relevant to what customers are looking for.
With more people turning to their phones and tablets as their go-to device for browsing the web, optimizing for mobile devices has become increasingly important. When it comes to mobile, you’ll want to make it easier for users to find what they’re looking for quickly and efficiently.
Make sure all page elements are sized properly so that they fit within a phone or tablet screen without having to zoom in or scroll horizontally. Additionally, consider utilizing responsive design techniques so that pages automatically adjust based on the size of the device being used to view them.
Build brand loyalty.
Engaging with customers on a personal level can be key when it comes to staying afloat during economic downturns. Building customer loyalty through social media campaigns and newsletters can be an effective way of connecting directly with potential customers and encouraging them not only visit but also return to your website frequently. You can also use surveys or feedback forms on your website so that customer opinions can be taken into account when making decisions about product offerings or services in order to better meet their needs.
Perform regular maintenance on all of the above.
Creating a website is not a “set it and forget it” activity. As the internet evolves, your site needs to evolve with it. It’s best to keep your site updated regularly with iterative updates rather than let it sit for too long; if you leave too much to fix at once, you can get stuck making expensive fixes later.
Revisit your audiences biannually to make sure you’re still addressing their needs. Review your data regularly to see what’s resonating with your audiences, and where you’re losing them, and make UX edits accordingly. Audit your content regularly as well to modify content that’s underperforming and update content that’s performing well to keep it that way. Check your site’s performance regularly to make sure it’s loading quickly, which will cut down on bounce rates and site abandonment.
Making these changes now will pay off in the long run.
A recession doesn’t have to spell doom for businesses operating in the digital space — not if they take proactive steps toward ensuring their websites are optimized in every way possible. By following these steps today, you can ensure that your website will remain competitive tomorrow no matter what economic conditions may come your way.
WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) by far, powering 43% of all websites. WordPress hosts sites for a wide variety of organizations, including media groups, nonprofits, higher education institutions, and corporations. But is WordPress for enterprise the right platform for your business’s complex needs?
Enterprise-level companies require reliable and scalable websites to grow and compete with other large organizations in the digital era. Often, enterprise leaders turn to expensive and complicated customized web solutions to host their sites.
WordPress has evolved into a powerful and flexible solution to handle complex enterprise needs. Now, well-known brands like Facebook, Microsoft, and Spotify run their websites using WordPress.
In this guide, we’ll walk through the following sections to give you a better sense of how WordPress for Enterprise can benefit your organization:
Let’s start by answering some of the most frequently asked questions about WordPress for Enterprise.
WordPress for Enterprise: FAQs
What does WordPress for Enterprise mean?
WordPress for Enterprise is the application of the WordPress platform to meet the needs of large businesses. These organizations are usually multinational corporations with multiple domains and thousands of users accessing their sites at once.
According to WordPress, their enterprise solutions are used “wherever there’s a requirement for flexible, cost-effective, and secure creation and distribution of content.” Media and publishing organizations, E-commerce sites, and other large-scale businesses use this solution for their online marketing, communication, and commerce needs.
What features do enterprise websites need?
Enterprise websites require the ability to handle significant traffic and user engagement. Often, these sites will need to support features like:
Localization. Localization requires adjusting site content to the cultural and linguistic norms and context of different target audiences. Localization involves translating text and adjusting images and text to ensure all website elements are culturally appropriate and relevant.
E-commerce. Some enterprise websites require e-commerce functionality that allows visitors to browse products or services and complete secure transactions. This involves an online storefront and a secure payment processor with multiple payment options.
Microsites. A microsite is an individual web page or site made to function as a separate entity while still being a part of your existing website. Some corporations use microsites to promote sub-brands or special events.
Control over user permissions. Enterprise websites need to only allow specific users permission to access certain features. This promotes greater security across the organization.
Enterprise websites must connect with a diverse, often global audience. These features make it easier for marketing professionals to promote their businesses while maintaining reliable security and other core features.
What’s better for an enterprise — WordPress or Drupal?
As you search for a new CMS, you might also come across Drupal as a top option. Drupal is another open-source CMS that organizations with complex needs, like enterprises and government institutions, use to create robust and secure websites.
Drupal also offers multilingual functionality, security, and control over user permissions. In addition, Drupal has strong accessibility for both back- and front-end users. The release of Drupal 10 in 2022 unveiled the platform’s most modern, accessible editing experience yet, along with a host of additional advanced features. When choosing between Drupal and WordPress, consider your corporation’s unique needs and what CMS features you will prioritize. Explore our guide to Drupal vs. WordPress to learn more about the primary differences between these platforms and help determine which CMS is right for your enterprise.
Common WordPress for Enterprise Misconceptions
Due to the early days when it was primarily a blogging platform, several misconceptions about WordPress’s capabilities have prevailed over time. Here are a few common misunderstandings:
WordPress is only for blogs and is not a true CMS.
As mentioned, WordPress powers 43% of all websites (including websites for some of the biggest brands today), meaning it can do much more than just blogging.
WordPress is not great for security.
Third-party plugins may create a little bit of risk, but WordPress’s core system is incredibly safe.WordPress has also invested in fast security releases, with a team of 50 experts managing them. Even whitehouse.gov is on WordPress, showing how far the platform has come in regard to security.
Open source is not reliable at the enterprise level.
Enterprise-level organizations can safely use an open-source CMS. Massive sites like Facebook and Google use open-source systems to power their tech.
WordPress doesn’t offer a lot of support.
WordPress’ extensive open-source community facilitates access to tons of contributors and developers that create new plugins, themes, and features every day. As a well-known and popularly-used CMS, WordPress has plenty of support from millions of users and experienced developers.
12 Benefits of WordPress for Enterprise
What’s the true story about what WordPress can do for your enterprise website? Let’s take a look at the top benefits of WordPress for enterprise:
1. High ROI
WordPress’s return on investment is very high compared to proprietary systems, especially in terms of the total cost of ownership (WordPress is free!) and implementation speed. Building and testing new features can be completed in just a few weeks because of easy access to themes and plugins.
2. Strong security
As mentioned, WordPress offers consistent updates and security releases to protect users from common hacks. You can also look to additional security plugins to further protect your site.
3. SEO friendly
Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial to help boost the visibility of your enterprise website across search engine results pages. WordPress offers built-in SEO-friendly features, such as optimized URL structures and category and tag options that help search engines better understand your website’s structure. Plus, using an SEO plugin like Yoast, All in One SEO, or SEOPress can make the optimization process even simpler.
4. Access to integrations
Because WordPress is so popular, there is already a vast number of third-party tools that are ready to integrate with your system. This means your enterprise business can quickly add features and make site updates without needing to invest in expensive custom solutions. Besides the many free tools, enterprise businesses can also invest in premium paid plugins with added support!
5. Easy to use
Once your site is up and running, the WordPress platform is perfect for non-technical users. The Block Editor (also known as the Gutenberg editor) offers an intuitive backend experience that arranges content into a series of blocks for text, images, videos, and other page elements. This ensures that any of your enterprise businesses’ team members can jump in and make necessary changes.
If you need help along the way with managing your content, there are plenty of resources available—start with Kanopi’s webinar on the subject!
6. Open-source community
One of the most valuable features of WordPress is the open-source community supporting its development. These contributors create new plugins, themes, security patches, and features to help WordPress users customize their sites to their needs. This community is always growing and evolving.
7. Accessible
WordPress is devoted to creating accessible front- and back-end user interfaces. Their Accessibility Team runs ongoing audits and tests on themes and functionality using assistive technologies. Also, any code built into the WordPress core system must meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 level AA.
8. Scalable
WordPress has made great strides when it comes to improving website performance. You can ensure your website is prepared to handle a large amount of traffic by making use of these WordPress elements:
Keep your code clean and only invest in high-quality, lightweight plugins and themes.
Use a page caching tool to help improve page load speed.
Select an enterprise WordPress host that emphasizes scalability.
Scalability is necessary to ensure that your enterprise website can manage a large volume of traffic efficiently.
9. Streamlined media management
Enterprise businesses use many online media types such as documents, visual media like photos and videos, and audio files. With WordPress, you can upload and manage just about any media type in a streamlined and intuitive manner. Easily manage media on the backend and edit it visually on the front end.
10. User management and multisite domains
Your enterprise website may need to run a network of subdomains or microsites and give access to only a select number of team members. WordPress supports multisite usage with Super Admins, a user role that can set up networks and control user permissions.
11. International capabilities
Your enterprise website must be scalable on an international level. WordPress is available in over 100 languages, ensuring you can effectively reach your global audience.
12. Flexible and agile
This is the true differentiator between a proprietary and open-source system. Your enterprise business’ next goal is always going to be starting a new project, making processes more efficient, or releasing updates, all without compromising quality.
That’s why you need a system with high agility, like WordPress. With easy collaboration between content editors and developers, the WordPress system allows your team to build and expand website features quickly without breaking the bank.
Enterprise WordPress Development Services
Do you have a large-scale project in mind? Or do you already have a built-out enterprise-grade website and just need support?
Consider working with a WordPress development expert like Kanopi. Our professionals work closely with your enterprise business to understand your unique needs and strategize how your WordPress website can best support them.
Plus, Kanopi takes a continuous improvement approach to ensure that your site is always improving over time — perfect for a quickly-growing enterprise business.
Plus, we have a dedicated enterprise support tier customized to your business needs, ensuring that your website stays updated and viable over the long term.
WordPress is a flexible, scalable, reliable CMS that can take your enterprise website to the next level. If you’re looking to upgrade your CMS or switch to WordPress, the recent release of WordPress 6.1 and the improvements that come with it mean that it’s a great time to get on board.
Looking for more information about what WordPress can do for your business? Start here:
The Top WordPress & Drupal Trends for 2023. WordPress is making significant strides toward greater performance, accessibility, and personalization. Explore more WordPress (and Drupal) trends with this guide.
Kanopi’s WordPress Design & Development Projects. Interested in what a development agency like Kanopi can do for your enterprise website? Check out examples of our WordPress development projects.
At Kanopi, we’re always trying to stay on top of best practices, and also always looking forward to what’s coming so we can offer our clients the most up-to-date solutions and recommendations. With that in mind, our creative team has pulled together our thoughts on what we’ll be seeing more of in web design in 2023.
AI-generated assets
In 2022 artificial intelligence (AI) tools came to the forefront with Midjourney, Jasper, and Dall-E breaking out into the public consciousness as tools for generating (in some cases jaw-dropping) textual, illustrative and photographic assets. (note: Jasper also creates content if you need help writing blogs or social media posts).
The viability of these tools will be tested in 2023 as creative teams look for ways to incorporate them into their project pipelines. AI could potentially be a way to generate creative assets that, in the past, were cost prohibitive, especially for clients in the non-profit space. It will also allow content teams to move faster if they’ve had to rely on others for artwork to accompany their content.
Where we will see challenges arise is in the variability of AI-generated assets. You never quite know what you’re going to get, so art directing an AI bot may prove frustrating or time-consuming. AI-generated art also raises some questions about copyright, infringement, and ownership, as well as questions about ethics and if it is actually art at all. We feel these issues will need to be further clarified before AI can be fully embraced as a production tool in agencies. It will also be interesting to watch how stock photography sites respond as users create their own AI-generated content rather than searching through stock libraries.
While there are tangible issues with using AI, the speed and flexibility at which teams can create assets using platforms like Jasper and Midjourney cannot be ignored. We see 2023 as the year in which many organizations will start to assess the benefits and integrate AI-generated copy and art into their creative workflow. All hail our robot overlords!
We’ve seen the flat minimalist illustration aesthetic known (often disparagingly) as Corporate Memphis become ubiquitous over the past few years as a way for agencies to add custom illustrations to their creative product. Generators such as https://stubborn.fun/ have further reduced the time and cost associated with custom illustration and has allowed for the proliferation of this style across the web.
**Warning: strong opinions ahead**
Here at Kanopi, this is one trend we’re happy to see is coming to an end. The Corporate Memphis style was one that was intended to communicate a streamlined, minimalist aesthetic while allowing for custom messaging in a medium that has traditionally been time-consuming and costly. In practice, however, we found the opportunities presented by this minimal aesthetic were squandered in favor of presenting stiff characters in generic environments with little to no context or meaningful connection to the content they are intended to support. In essence, this style became a substitute for stock photography, but in illustrative form.
In 2023, we’re looking forward to a move towards meaningful, contextualized custom illustration. We also see a move towards incorporating geometric patterns and organic textures into illustrations as a positive move away from the rote flat designs which was a key signifier for Corporate Memphis.
This leads us to….
Greater emphasis on custom illustration
We see a move to customized illustration as a trend that will continue to blossom in the coming 12 months. The shift towards greater use of texture and naturalistic illustration styles is something we find refreshing when compared to the more mechanical illustrative styles used in recent years.
Illustration has traditionally been seen as a cost and time-intensive endeavor for website owners. The emergence of tools like Procreate and Adobe Fresco has effectively lowered these barriers. Designers now have access to simple yet powerful hardware and software tools that reduce the time and cost that are usually associated with custom illustrations.
Website owners would further benefit from customized illustrations as it helps provide specific context and meaning that can be lost if using only photographic elements. The ability to incorporate micro-interactions and animations to explain products and services presents a powerful way to captivate users and draw them further into your website experience. A great example of these concepts is the Todoist website which is a masterclass in the effective use of illustration to support content.
Lastly, who doesn’t like something that is truly unique? Customized illustration allows website owners to differentiate themselves by showcasing an experience that is wholly theirs. We think this combined with the increasing creative avenues designers have to generate custom illustration will see this trend continue throughout 2023.
The return of expressive typography
Over the past decade, typography has shifted towards placing a more practical and utilitarian (often minimalist) focus on its usage for web projects. We think 2023 will see the return of expressive typography.
We predict a greater focus on “maximalism” and adopting some of the humanist letterforms seen in vintage typography. Additionally, with the emergence of inexpensive tools like Glyphs, custom typography may also have a minor renaissance.
A return to placing greater emphasis on art-directing type will allow designers to expand the creative applications of typography in their projects. But watch out for potential pitfalls: the factors that will ultimately determine whether this is a lasting trend is how we balance user needs in the areas of accessibility and legibility with the creative treatment of typographic elements. It’s great to get creative and expressive with typography, but it’s not ok if it’s at the expense of users.
At its core, design is about telling stories, so visual storytelling has always been a crucial part of effective digital experiences. The best visual narratives help distill complex or abstract concepts into easily digestible ideas for our clients
While the pandemic ushered in a return to minimalism, now designers are starting to prioritize rich visual storytelling that goes beyond copy and videos. We see a greater emphasis being placed on incorporating 3D elements, inclusive visuals, animation, and the creative use of whitespace utilized as a way to tell engaging stories. An excellent example of this is the Population Healthier microsite.
We’d caution against going too far with this, however. You want to balance the desire to add these elements with accessibility and usability best practices. Sometimes less really is more!
And if your team is ready to take your website’s design to a new level in 2023, contact us. Kanopi always creates with the future of web design in mind.
