A small site, kept accurate, doing one job
Our website is deliberately short. A family practice does not need dozens of pages, and every extra one is another thing that can quietly go out of date. What people want to know when they find us is whether we are taking new patients, whether we handle what they need handled, and who they would actually be seeing. That is the home page, the services page and the about page, and the rest of the site exists to support those three rather than to compete with them for attention.
Most of our new patients are not discovering that family medicine exists. They have moved, or their previous doctor retired, or a plan changed at work and a list of names arrived with it. They are checking us against a name on that list. So the line about accepting new patients sits at the top of the home page where it can be read in a second, and the new patients page explains registration and what to bring before anyone has to phone and ask.
A short site has nowhere to hide a stale detail
Our hours, our address and our phone number appear on the contact page and in our maps listing, and keeping those two identical is worth more to us than any amount of new writing would be. People searching for a family doctor nearby filter on distance and on whether the practice is open to them, in that order, and almost nothing else. The about page usually settles it, because by that point the choice has stopped being about a clinic and become about a person.
The three questions every registration starts with
Are you taking new patients, do you take my plan, and what do I need to bring. Our new patients page answers all three in the order people actually ask them, and the services page sets out what we do here and where we would refer instead. We would much rather someone read that and conclude we are not the right practice for them than discover it sitting in our waiting room. The contact page is short because a first message should not require an essay.
Making sure an assistant repeats the right facts
Plenty of people describe a symptom to an assistant before booking anything, then arrive wanting to know whether the practice can help. We are not trying to answer clinical questions on a website, so what matters is that the practical facts are unambiguous: what we do, who we see, whether we are open to new registrations, and how to reach us. Those are the details an assistant repeats when someone asks for a family doctor in the area, and a wrong one is worse than a missing one.
One thing advertised, and a long list that is not
We advertise that the practice is open to new patients. We do not advertise treatments, we do not describe conditions in a way that could be mistaken for advice, and we publish nothing at all about anyone we have seen. Our privacy page is written to be read rather than to satisfy a requirement, because a person handing over a medical history has a fair reason to check what happens to it. Everything else on the site is description, kept current, and nothing beyond that.
Family Medicine marketing questions we get asked
What does digital marketing look like for a family medicine practice?
Smaller than people expect. The whole site is a handful of pages, and the work is keeping them exactly right rather than adding more. Correct hours, an address matching the maps listing, a current registration page, and a plain line saying the practice is open to new patients.
Is local SEO worth bothering with for a small practice?
It is essentially the whole strategy. Somebody looking for a doctor close to home narrows by travel distance and by whether the practice is accepting anyone new, then reads the about page to see who they would be sitting with. Getting those right beats anything else we could publish.
How do patients usually reach you in the first place?
Through a change in circumstances rather than curiosity. A move, a retirement, a new plan at work with a list of names attached. They are checking us against that list, so the note about registrations sits at the top where it can be read in seconds.
Do you write health content to bring people to the site?
No. A general practice website is the wrong place to answer clinical questions, and an article that could be mistaken for advice is a liability rather than an asset. The writing is practical instead: what happens here, where we refer, how to register, and what to bring along.
What do you refuse to put on the website?
Anything about a person we have seen, in any form. No stories, no quotes, no anonymised examples. We also avoid describing treatments in a way that reads as a recommendation. The privacy page is written in plain language because somebody handing across a medical history is entitled to see where it goes.
This site runs on WorkspaceCMS, and the campaigns described above are run by its team. See how Family Medicine campaigns work.
