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Naturally you want your practice website to look fantastic and make a great first impression. There are a number of ways you can achieve this.
Start by taking a good look at all of the beautiful built-in designs included in the ECPro Website Builder – perhaps one of them can meet your needs? Take a look at your existing site and see if changing the content and site sections around might improve things. Consider uploading some fresh images or photos.
If none of these solutions are enough, it might be time to speak to us about a custom design for your site. A custom design can make a world of difference to a practice. An appealing design and intelligent web site tools can turn visitors into patients and can ensure that existing patients have a great experience dealing with your practice online. Common reasons for a custom design include:
- a desire to match existing print material,
- the need for a design that focuses on a certain subject or business goal, or
- a specific vision of the impression you’d like to provide online
Once you have made the decision that a custom design is right for you it is important to understand what is involved in the process of taking your great ideas and making them a reality online.
Creative Brief Survey
The first step in the custom design process is to contact us. We will send you an introductory email that includes a Creative Brief Survey. The purpose of the Survey is to help us understand where your site is currently and where you’d like it to be in the future from a creative design perspective.
In it we will ask you to take a careful look at your existing site and try to articulate what bothers you about it, why you feel it isn’t serving your business goals or satisfying your patients’ needs. Of course we are also interested in hearing your design suggestions for color, layout and so on and seeing sites you think look great and might serve as inspiration for your own efforts.
Site Plan
Once you have completed the Creative Brief we will schedule a meeting with you to review your responses and develop a customized plan for your site. Although everyone loves to talk about color and the “visual” side of a site, it is just as important to plan out the sections and tools your site should have. For example:
- what sections belong in your toolbar?
- how many toolbars will your site have?
- do you want to provide interactive features (such as a online appt. booking)?
- would a slide show or video help your site?
- are there areas of content missing from your current site?
Following this in-depth conversation, we’ll get back to you with a written Site Plan. The Plan will list all of the toolbars and site structure elements we discussed and will also outline an approach to the visual design side of your site (inspiration sites, colors, photography, style etc.).
Mockups
Once you approve the Plan, our design team will get to work creating a mockup of a Home Page for your review. This mockup is like a “picture” of your new website’s home page. It will show all of the toolbars and elements outlined in the plan in addition to showcasing the colors, layout, photos and styles you chose.
At this point, we go “back-and-forth” with you making changes to the home page based on your input until you are satisfied that the design looks great and will meet the needs of your patients. The next step is to create a sub-page design based on the home page. The sub-page will use the same design elements and toolbars developed for the home page but will include an open area for your content to be placed. The sub-page design will be used for all of the pages in your site other than the home page (for example, the Eye Library, Doctor Profiles, Insurance information etc.).
Going Live
Once the mockups have been approved, we will program your design to make sure it will work on the EyeCarePro platform. We will add in any moving elements such as videos, slide shows, or other interactive features and you will see the whole project come together. The last step is for the new design to go live!
Taking the First Step…
EyeCarePro's custom design service is priced by the hour and can be tailored to suit your specific needs. We will we work with you through every step of the process including site architecture, visual design, content and implementation. Call 866-886-4442 email support@eyecarepro.net or visit us online now at www.eyecarepro.net.
Karri Paradi is the Director of Marketing EyeCarePro.net (http://www.eyecarepro.net), a preferred Provider of the American Optometric Association for building web sites for optometrists. Karri has a background in website design and creative direction and works directly with optometrists on improve their sites and ensuring a great patient experience.
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