Your website is the liaison between your potential new patient and your physical location, so you must ensure it’s done well. Part of that is making getting in touch with you as easy as possible. In this episode, we discuss the best things to have on your Contact Us Page, including some nuggets of information you would never have thought to put there!
Here’s what you can expect to take away from this episode on the essential elements of your Contact Us Page:
What MUST be on your Contact Us Page
What to keep off of your Contact Us Page
Links you can add to the Contact Us Page to make a better user experience
How to ensure your users take the actions you’d like them to on your Contact Us Page
And more
Creating your Contact Us Page is about to get a lot less challenging, so grab a seat and take a listen to the ins and outs of designing a great page that your users will find easy to navigate. Are you ready to learn the Contact Us Page basics?
Hit the link, and let’s dive in!
Listen to the audio version:
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Show Notes:
- [00:03:04] Does my Contact Us Page have anything to do with the user experience (UX)? Definitely, so meet Google’s UX criteria, your Contact Us Page needs to offer users everything they need to find you!
- [00:03:51] What info do users want to see on my Contact Us Page? General contact info, but also forms to fill out if applicable, specific numbers to specific areas of the business, etc.
- [00:04:50] Can I use a generic Contact Us form on my website? You can, but it’s not the best-case scenario. You may find it hard to weed through spam and find your emails, etc.
- [00:05:26] How do I ensure I get the correct people filling out the Contact Us form? Be specific and clearly define what the form is for so you don’t waste the user’s time (or yours).
- [00:06:08] Can I only offer one form of contact info? Nope, offer them all. Some people love a chat with a human; others want a chat box, and some like to email- give all your details so all can feel comfortable getting in touch how they like best.
- [00:06:56] A Contact form seems confusing. Do I need one? Nope! If it’s too much trouble, don’t bother, but again, be sure you have multiple ways for people to get in touch.
- [00:07:35] Should I show images of the outside of my office building on my Contact Us Page? It’s a super smart way to ensure your patients know they’re going to the right spot!
- [00:09:00] How do I tell my visitors how to get in touch with me? Make it prominent and easy to see so they know exactly what steps to take to get in touch with you
- [00:10:00] What are smart ways to help my visitors find my physical location? Include landmarks, a Google Map, walking directions from public transport, etc.
- [00:11:35] What if I DON’T want users to contact me a certain way? Just leave that contact info OFF your Contact Us Page.
- [00:12:13] What about my social media channels? Definitely include those links. It’s a great way to get more visitors, likes, shares, etc.
- [00:13:00] How do I make my Contact Page even more accessible? Have a link to it in the header and footer of every page for easy access.
- [00:13:39] What are other ways I can increase my online presence? Check out our free masterclass Five SEO Secrets to Owning the First Page of Google Without Buying Ads
Selected links and other resources related to this episode:
On this episode of Propel Your Practice, we're talking about how to create the perfect contact us page for your website.
Hello and welcome to the Propel Your Practice Podcast, where we discuss actionable marketing strategies to help clinic owners propel their practice’s presence online. I'm your host Darcy Sullivan with Propel Marketing & Design, and this podcast is presented by Propel Marketing & Design.
On today's episode, we're going to be talking about how to craft the perfect Contact Us Page for your website. Now, if you're familiar with Propel, we have tons of other resources to assist you with creating the perfect content for other pages of your website as well.
You can visit propelyourcompany.com, where you can do a search, or simply take a look at today's Show Notes for this episode, and you'll find links to other content we've put together on how to put together an About Page. And what information you should not only include on your Homepage of your website but other pages that you specifically need for your website.
And again, you can find the links to those resources in the Show Notes of this episode or by visiting propelyourcompany.com.
Before we dive in, I'd like to take this opportunity to invite you to a new workshop that I put together on the Five SEO Secrets to Owning the First Page of Google Without Buying Ads. You can find the link to sign up for this free training in the Show Notes for this episode or by visiting propelyourcompany.com/learn.
During this workshop, we'll do a deep dive into strategies to help you improve your online presence, including your Google Business Profile, that's what used to be called your Google My Business listing and what controls the Google Maps section along with voice SEO.
And you'll find out exactly what it takes to dominate the first page of Google without spending a dime on ads. Again, you can find the link in the Show Notes, or you can visit propelyourcompany.com/learn.
Okay, back to today's topic: How to craft the perfect Contact Us Page for your website.
On this show, we talk a lot about creating a great user experience for your website. So, when someone visits your site, it's a big part of SEO (search engine optimization). It goes without saying that your Contact Us Page should have a clean design that directly correlates to the visual representation of your organization and your brand identity.
The Contact Page should not just be a page that includes your phone number and address because let's get real, in most cases, that exact information already exist in the footer of your website.
So one question that I want you to ask yourself is what information are people seeking when they contact you.
Do they need to fill out a form to make an appointment with you, and instead, they're calling you when they really should be filling out a specific form on your website? Do they call the general number when they should actually be calling the billing extension or a specific extension within your organization?
These are the things that we want to consider when we think about what elements to put on a Contact Us Page. Now, in most cases, whenever you visit a Contact Page, you see that generalized contact form. If you are a person who set up your website, usually there's a generalized Contact Us form that comes equipped with all of the templates.
The problem is, is that it's very general. It's got its own original fields and sometimes not only can those contact forms generate a lot of spam, but other times the emails get lost or it takes too long for somebody to reply or somebody really shouldn't have actually filled it out, they should have taken other actions, whether it was calling somebody at a specific phone number or clicking a specific button on your site to fill out a form that was needed.
So if you're going to use that Contact Us form, you want to make sure that you set clear expectations when somebody fills it out in regards to who should actually fill it out, how long it should take for you to get a response from them, and that type of information.
You don't want to ask for unnecessary information either. As I mentioned a lot of times, these forms are general and they've already been pre-created. So you want to take a look at what the fields are that are included and ask yourself, should I customize this or are the fields that are included in the contact form really needed?
We also want to make sure that we offer multiple ways for somebody to get ahold of you. That includes phone numbers and email addresses when appropriate.
And we'll get into this a little bit later when we talk about exactly what are the pieces of content that you should include on the Contact Page. But, back to the Contact form. If you're using one, you want to make sure that you've got it personalized. And that means you don't even have to use that title, “Contact form.” I mean, people look at it and they know what's a contact form.
So you can label it differently. You can call it, “Drop us a line”, you can label it, “Get in touch”, “Reach out”, “Let's chat”, “Talk to us,” or “How to get ahold of us.”
But I just want to be honest with you, you don't necessarily need to have a Contact form on your website. And in fact, a lot of companies that we work with have ended up removing the Contact form on their website because it just didn't serve the purpose that it was initially intended to do.
So again, you want to say, hey, what is the purpose of the Contact Us Page? What information do people need? Do they need to reach the billing department?
Do they need to reach the scheduling department? What information are people looking for and how can we make it as easy as possible to get that information to them, which leads us to what elements do you really need on the Contact Page?
Since most of our audience listening are chiropractors, acupuncturists, physiotherapists, I strongly recommend since you're a local business, that your Contact Page includes a photo of the outside of your building. This makes it easier for people that are visiting you for the first time to know that they're in the right location and when somebody has an easier time finding your office, they're going to be in a better mood when they get to your location and they're going to be more likely to leave a positive review.
You don't want somebody spending time circling and circling and circling the neighborhood trying to find your location. When if you had included just a few more details on your Contact Us Page, it would've made the process a lot smoother for them.
If you are a chiropractor or acupuncturist or physiotherapist, oftentimes people come to your Contact Us Page to book an appointment with you. If you prefer that they book an appointment by calling you, then blatantly say on your website and on the Contact Us Page, “Call us to book an appointment.” Or if you are one of the people that likes to use texting, “Text us to make an appointment.”
If that is not the way that you prefer for people to make appointments, if you prefer for people to make appointments and book them directly online, make sure that you have those links available very obviously on your Contact Page.
And if you are working with a scheduling system that has separate pages for people to book, if they're a new patient or a returning patient, make sure you simplify the process by- on that Contact Us Page- include links separately for both the returning patient and new patient.
If it makes sense, also consider including some of the forms on the Contact Page or links to the forms on the Contact Page. If people are continually looking for this information, we want to make it very easy for them to find it.
You obviously want to include your address on your Contact Page. Besides your address, you want to include an embedded Google Map. Now if you are conveniently located near landmarks, include those in the Contact Us Page to let people know. If you're in a metropolitan area and people will be taking public transportation to get to your address, you want to include that as well. If you are directly near a specific subway stop, include directions that make it as easy as possible for somebody to find you.
If parking is difficult at your location, please leave parking directions on the Contact Page. If somebody should park in a specific parking garage, please leave that information on your Contact Page. Next, again, we want to think about why are people continually picking up the phone and calling you.
Again, if they're calling to schedule an appointment, then we want to include those appointment links. If you have systems in place for people to book online, you want to include those on your Contact Page. If people are continually calling a general phone number, but they should be entering a specific extension, you want to include the different ways that people can reach each of the different extensions when they're going to call you.
If you want people to email, you include your email address on the Contact Us Page. If you do not want people to email, you do not include your email address on the Contact Us Page.
We mentioned the phone number before, but I think it's definitely worth repeating, you want to make sure that your phone number is clickable. With the growing number of people that are doing searches on their phones, we want to make it as easy as possible for somebody to click on your phone number and it actually calls you.
You can also include social media links on your Contact Us Page. And if people need to send you any faxes, you can include your fax number on the Contact Us Page.
For the chiropractors and other clinic owners that are listening, if people constantly call because they have questions that are commonly asked in regards to insurance or payment information, then you could also consider adding links to those specific pages on your Contact Us Page, if you feel like it would help avoid the bottleneck of people calling in for information that they could have easily found on your website- if they knew where to find it.
So we've talked about all the different elements that you can include on your Contact Us Page, now let's talk about where you should include a link to your Contact Us Page.
We want to make sure that your Contact Page is easily accessible throughout your website. So I suggest that you include a link to this page in your header menu and also in the footer of your website.
If you have a couple extra minutes today, I suggest that you take a look at your Contact Us Page and see if you can implement any of the elements that we talked about on this episode to improve the content that's already on there.
Well, hey, before we head out, I want to invite you to join in on a free masterclass I put together on the Five SEO Secrets to Owning the First Page of Google Without Buying Ads.
You can find a link to sign up for this free masterclass in the Show Notes of this episode or by visiting PropelYourCompany.com/learn.
During this workshop, we do a deep dive into strategies to help you improve your online presence. Including your Google Business Profile, that's what used to be called the Google My Business listing and what controls the Google Maps section. Along with how voice SEO plays a big role in today's search and where you should be focusing your efforts online for the biggest impact.
All right. Well, that's it for today. Again, you can join the masterclass by visiting PropelYourCompany.com/learn. And if you have a topic that you would like to hear on an upcoming episode of Propel Your Practice, please send it in by visiting PropelYourCompany.com/podcast-topics or looking for the link in the Show Notes.
Thanks so much for your time. I'll talk to you soon.
Darcy’s SEO strategies are easy to implement and effective. She’s the #1 SEO expert I refer to whenever I need help with my rankings.
SEO queen! I can’t thank Propel and Darcy enough for holding my hand through the SEO process! I’m loving the podcast and all the insight! Also loving that my business is now getting the brand awareness and sales I’ve always wanted!
Wow! Clear, concise and impactful. Excellent details and tips - already seeing a return!! Worth the 20 min listen.
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Sponsors
This episode of the Propel Your Practice Podcast is brought to you by Propel Marketing & Design. Propel Marketing & Design helps Chiropractors, Acupuncturists, Physical Therapists, Wellness Practitioners, and other clinic owners improve their website rankings.
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