408-694-3773
Medical Website Design
Articles
Home About Jigsaw Testimonials Things to know Clients Contact us
Web Design > Medical Website Design
What Our Competition Does Not Want You To Know
Pricing
There are a lot of medical website development companies out there as opposed to other website design companies. The reason for this is most companies will charge doctors and surgeons more because they think they have deeper pockets. We at Jigsaw Design do not believe that is fair. There is no reason why a website designed for a doctor or surgeon should cost ten times more than a website created for a plumber. Another thing these companies do is charge outrageous prices for hosting and SEO services. What if every company did that? Would you expect to pay $100 for a cup of coffee just because you took the time to learn your profession? Below is an example of pricing from an actual medical website development company.
Other Medical Design Company
Jigsaw Design
5 Page Website $6,000+
($1290 per page)
5 Page Website $800
10 Page Website $10,000+
($1,000 per page)
10 Page Website $1,200
15 Page Website $13,000+
($900 per page)
15 Page Website $1,400
20 Page Website $16,000+
($800 per page)
20 Page Website $2,000
Flash Additions $4000 and up
Flash Additions $included
Additional Website Pages $750 - $1,500
Additional Website Pages $20 - $100
Basic Website Hosting $1,000+ per month
Website and Maintenance Hosting $200 per month. Everything is included.
Advanced Website Hosting $2,000+ per month
They charge $6,450 for a five page website? That is crazy! At the most (even with a very difficult client), a five page website can be built in one week by one person. (We have built 30+ page websites in a day.) That means you are paying (based on a 40 hour week) $160 an hour to have a simple website developed. The top Fortune 500 companies would not pay that. Why should you have to pay it simply because you are a doctor or a surgeon?
Competitor pricing is based on an average of 5 different research sources and may not be current, feel free to research these prices yourself.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
You will hear a lot of companies claim on their websites that they will get you into the top ten for your desired keywords yet never show any proof of this. They will charge you between $5,000 and $20,000 for the privilege, plus monthly fees ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. I'm sure our client, Dr. Leonard Gray of Bay Area Plastic Surgery, is happy enough with being in the number one spot on Google for the last three years under the search terms:
Bay area plastic surgery
Bay area breast augmentation
Bay area breast lift
Bay area liposuction
bay area breast reduction
bay area rhinoplasty
Bay area face lift
And at least 50 more
Not only does Dr. Gray appear under the Bay Area prefix, but also under prefixes like San Jose and San Francisco. The cost for this site, which is a 20+ page site, was $2,000, plus $200 per month for updating, hosting and maintenance. This is a far cry from the $16,000+ and $3,000 per month our competitors charge.
The truth is -- getting a site to the top is not as hard as some people lead you to believe. All you need to do is create a good site with lots of unique content and put it into a good link neighborhood. You shouldn't pay enormous fees to some directory, which will make your customers have to search twice; once to find the directory and then again to find your site in the directory. It would be better to take that enormous fee the directory will charge you and put it into some targeted pay-per-click advertising.
Design
There is no difference in designing a website for a doctor or surgeon than designing a website for any other type of business. The four key elements exist in all design:
Know Your Market - Successful design is not just about making things pretty. It's about making the customer/ patients comfortable. Some elements that work on a sports site will not work on a medical site, even if your viewer is into sports. When you go anywhere in life, you expect things to be a certain way. If you go into a sports store, you expect to see team logos, bright colors and an bold theme. When you go into a doctor's office, you expect to be greeted with calm, professionalism and understanding. This is the same for a website. When you go to a medical website, you are there to find information, not be bombarded with the flashy intros, in-your-face advertising techniques of anything else that will make your viewers feel pressured or irritated.
Image - Your website should match your product or service. If you sell high-end automobiles, your website should reflect the same refinement and class that your dealership does. This is the same with medical websites. If patients walk into your practice and they are greeted with clean, muted colors and a calming, relaxed atmosphere, then your website should reflect this atmosphere as well. Use the colors in your practice. After all, a website is an extension of your business and not just a marketing tool.
Deliver Your Message - A medical website is all about the content. There should be a lot of information on what you do, how you do it, why you do it, examples of what you have done, and testimonials from satisfied patients. All this needs to be presented in a way that is easy for the viewer to understand.
Ease of Use - Navigation is the key to any website. Whether you are a doctor or a plumber, your viewer needs to be no less than two clicks away from the information they want. Your website needs to be laid out the same on all pages, so the viewer can easily find what they are looking for.
People who use the internet are used to a certain format. Deviating too far away from that format can confuse or even irritate your viewers. These viewers are people you may never meet.
Myths About Medical Website Development
Below is a list of common sales tactics medical website design companies use to get you to part with ridiculous amounts of money.
"We will list you on our local directory that gets 5,000 visitors a day." Ask yourself this -- why would you want to spend money on having yourself listed in a directory with maybe 20 to 30 other practices in your area that all offer the same service? You are basically paying to be added to another search engine and taking the chance that the viewer will pick your listing over the other 30 on the page. Chances are they are not going to read them all. If you want to be listed in a local directory that gets millions of visitors per day, then add your site to http://local.yahoo.com/ or http://local.google.com/. It's free.
"We understand all the security issues and rules for a medical website." All websites should be secure and have the customers' privacy in mind. You should not have to pay extra for this.
"You need to redesign your website every year so it is fresh." Your website is not an apple. It doesn't go bad, unless it was bad from the beginning. Companies will tell you this to charge you for a redesign, which is usually around the same cost of the original design. Your website will be new to every new person that shows up at your site and familiar to all your current patients. You should, however, be updating your content regularly.
"We can guarantee you top placement on all search engines." No legitimate company can guarantee this. Even the search engines themselves will tell you this. Read for yourself with these links: yahoo Google MSN . Basically, all an SEO company can do is design your site with search engines in mind, have good navigation for the web crawlers to search and place it in a good link neighborhood so you are getting relevant links to and from your site.
"We have spent years learning what works when it comes to creating a website for a doctor or surgeon." Years? What happened to all those clients you used for learning purposes? The fact of the matter is, if it take you years to work out how to make a successful website, then you should really think about your career choice. Could you imagine a doctor telling a patient that it took them years to work out how to perform a surgery, but now they feel they got it right? Chances are you are not going to see much of that patient again!
"We specialize in medical web design, which means we have more understanding of your needs." "Specialty" is sometimes another way of saying "limited". The reason why there are so many "specialists" in medical web design is due to the fact they know they can charge more to doctors and surgeons who, for the most part, will pay it. There is absolutely no difference in creating a website for a doctor versus for a retail store. All websites follow the same four principles no matter how they reword it.
We understand that some design firms have overheads and, thus, need to pay for it. Of course, this gets passed on to you, their client, via over-inflated rates. If you're prepared to take a chance on an equally qualified, if not superior, web design firm, please give us a call.
We are so confident in our pricing and services bookmark this page and go check out competitors' websites:
Once you have found out their costs and have seen their work, come back and find out what Jigsaw Design can do for you.
We recently received an email from somebody that claims to be one of our competitors, they had some pretty interesting comments. Click here to read email.
Home About Jigsaw Testimonials Things to know Clients Contact us