As a practitioner with a clinic, you want to stay relevant and make yourself accessible to patients in need of your services. One of the ways in which you can do this in the age of the Internet is through a clinic website. Your clinic website should comprise all your essential information, including but not limited to your services, your practicing doctors, your locations, and your opening hours. You should also ensure that you include a contact form for the ease of patients trying to get in contact with you. 

However, clinic websites can be challenging to maintain as Google holds healthcare services, products, and content to strict guidelines. Additionally, with thousands of searches on Google every single day pertaining to healthcare, these clinic websites also require a strong presence and recognition to succeed online.

When setting up your clinic website, you need to ensure that you’ve checked all the existing rules and regulations about services, promotions, product advertisements, and relevant content surrounding healthcare. 

This article is all about the challenges your clinic website may face and how you can handle them.

Why Is a Clinic Website Important & What Do You Need to Know?

Healthcare organisations and clinics should also note that with the constant advancements in technology, services for patients have also changed and developed. 

Healthcare services and content are increasingly being delivered through new modes of communication, including social media and various other online channels. However, when placing your clinic’s services and content online in Singapore, one must adhere to the Health Care Services Act (HCSA). 

HSCA guidelines are designed to safeguard patients in the ever-changing healthcare environment. It aids in keeping the patient’s wellbeing as a top priority as clinics advertise services such as diagnosis, prevention, and treatment through both traditional and modern methods. If you are also going to promote a clinic website or any health-related services, we recommend ensuring that it is licensable under the HSCA guidelines.

What Are Some of the HCSA Guidelines?

HSCA guidelines are beneficial in maintaining the quality of health-related content on the clinic and other healthcare websites. HCSA also holds some restrictions on healthcare marketers to offer regulatory clarity to the patients. There are a few of the services whose promotion is banned, some medical terminologies are not allowed to use in the content, and some other limitations as to the language used.

You Are Not Allowed to Promote Certain Services

According to the HSCA guidelines, the policy for drugs and their advertisement is stringent, and healthcare organisations must adhere to them. Additionally, there are few services and products that Google cannot promote in any case. Healthcare marketers should also note that the advertisement of products such as CBD oil and other Cannabis products are prohibited in Singapore.

Likewise, some services for specific conditions are also banned under Google Ads. In which case, clinics and organisations should work on ensuring that their content and clinic website is strong enough to reach their target audience organically. This can be done through a proper SEO strategy.

Certain Words & Phrases Are Off Limits

Besides products and services, when marketing your healthcare products and services, you must be aware of the content you choose to publish in your blogs, sales copies, web copy, and landing pages. Under the HCSA, using terms that imply your products are superior to another clinic is not allowed. 

Additionally, Google may reject such content if it finds that it includes these banned phrases or words. For instance, when promoting content about a men’s health clinic, one must avoid using restricted terms. The content of sexual context, gambling, alcohol, and other dangerous services is highly prohibited, and Google will typically remove it. 

To tackle this problem, ensure that your content is angled towards helping those in need recover. It helps to remain neutral when explaining the services and treatment options that your clinic is able to provide.

Specific Words & Phrases Should Be Used Instead

Healthcare marketers in Singapore must be very mindful of their content when advertising on Google, as they must adhere to both the HCSA’s guidelines and Google’s restrictions. 

It is important that when listing content pertaining to your services and products that you include a disclaimer. For example, when displaying the testimonial of before and after on landing pages, healthcare advertisers should inform patients that results may differ between individuals. 

Google’s algorithm is efficient when detecting a particular type of content, especially when it comes to healthcare. Remember, Google works to optimise its user’s experience and protect them where necessary. Therefore, including a disclaimer alerts Google that you are transparent with their users. Additionally, you are also being honest with your patients and managing their expectations, leading to increased patient satisfaction.

Retargeting Is Not Allowed

Retargeting is an advertising strategy to rebound a website’s visitors once they leave the site. It can be done by displaying the ads again on other websites to lure patients into purchasing or subscribing to your services.

On average, initial visits convert only 2-3% of users, whereas retargeting aids in converting 97% of the audience. Healthcare marketers are not allowed to use retargeting for getting traffic and sales in any means. They are advised to drive traffic through organic means by improving the SEO of their websites. 

Moreover, Google recommends designing the landing pages to grab the audience’s attention at first glance and ideally have their visits result in sales organically.

Bidding for Google Ads

Digital marketing for clinics or organisations can be challenging as the competition is high. Bidding for Google Ads is one of the best solutions for every brand struggling to grab the top 3 spots on Google. 

Bidding for Google Ads can perform as intended if you operate with a bidding strategy. They depend upon several factors such as location, targeted audience, desired keywords, and other parameters while setting the ad. 

Additionally, clinics and healthcare organisations should note that your website’s quality score will affect the cost of your ads. A better quality score and a page optimised for specific keywords will mean a lower required budget.

Conclusion

To sum up, the healthcare niche is diverse and competitive when it comes to its products, services, treatment options, and essentially sales. While your primary goal is to help as many patients as you possibly can, you should pay attention to the existing guidelines that have been put into place.

The healthcare market is very competitive and challenging. Therefore, clinics and healthcare organisations need to stay cautious when promoting specific services. The content of landing pages, web copy, and ads must be precise and up to the mark when following Google policies and regulatory scope.