What’s Best For Your Hair Restoration Practice’s Website Presence

Leveraging Your Website to Capture Market Share

The hair transplantation and hair restoration markets are booming!  

Already a multi-billion-dollar industry today, they are expected to experience a compound annual growth rate of more than 20% from 2024 to 2032, according to Market.us.  

So, how will your clinic use its website to capture increased market share?

Better yet, what happens if your clinic’s website doesn’t help you grow?  

Your website constantly works for you while you and your medical team service patients.

It is your most vital marketing and sales enablement tool. Your website works 24/7 to guide potential clients to a consultation, provide a seamless booking experience, establish credibility, and reinforce credibility by showcasing your extensive work.  

You know, too, that as advancements in procedures and technology develop, so must your practice. The same is true for websites. Your website must be updated frequently and maintained constantly to capture market share. 

Consider a website redesign or a website refresh to ensure you keep pace and are ready to increase your market share.

Both options allow hair restoration clinics to modernize their site’s visual design, improve functionality, and optimize for user engagement and conversions. However, the scope and effort involved differ significantly. 

What’s the Difference Between a Website Redesign and Refresh? 

A complete redesign involves rebuilding your hair restoration business’ website from the ground up, while a refresh offers a more targeted approach, updating the existing site.

You should consider your budget, marketing strategy, growth goals, and current website performance.

Understanding the Differences 

A website redesign involves rebuilding the website from the ground up. It requires significant time and budget but allows you to transform your website’s look, feel, and functionality completely. 

With a redesign, you can: 

• modernize the visual aesthetics 
• improve mobile responsiveness 
• enhance user experience 
• add new capabilities and features 
• reorganize content and navigation 
• optimize for conversions and ROI 

A redesign lets you overhaul your site to align with new business objectives, branding, and target audience. It is the most comprehensive way to update your online presence. 

Definition of a Website Refresh 

A website refresh involves making targeted updates and improvements to the existing site. The core design, layout, navigation, and architecture remain intact.  

A refresh focuses on updating specific elements like: 

• color schemes 
• images 
• text content 
• page templates 
• plugin upgrades 

The goal is to give the website a fresh, modern look without the cost and effort of a complete redesign. Refreshes take less time and budget compared to redesigns.  

They work best when the underlying website architecture and UX are still sound, but the aesthetics need polishing. 

However, you are limited by the constructs of the original site. Refreshes offer a “facelift” for the site vs. transforming the entire experience. 

Why a Redesign Might Make Sense for Your Hair Transplantation Clinic 

There are three key reasons why a hair transplant medical practice may want to consider a full redesign: 

1. Outdated Design 

If your website design looks dated and stale, this can reflect poorly on your practice’s image. An outdated design gives the impression that your practice is behind the times or unconcerned with aesthetics.  

Patients may wonder if this carries over to your medical services and expertise. A modern, sleek website design demonstrates that your practice is up-to-date and cares about appearance and perception. 

2. Poor User Experience 

An outdated or cluttered website design likely creates a poor user experience. If your site is difficult to navigate, confusing, or frustrating visitors, this results in a negative impression of your practice. A redesigned website focusing on usability and user experience ensures patients can easily find information, book appointments, and convert. 

3. Low Conversion Rates 

Your website’s ultimate goal is to generate leads and convert visitors into patients. If your site has low conversion rates, it’s a clear sign that a redesign is needed.  

According to Christine Skopec, a Semrush contributor, factors like poor navigation, lack of calls to action, excessive steps to booking appointments, and more can cause low conversions.  

A redesigned site tailored to boost conversions through clear CTAs, streamlined booking, responsive design, etc., will help capture more leads. 

Why a Website Refresh Makes Sense for Your Hair Transplant Business 

A website refresh focuses on relatively minor updates and improvements to the existing site.  

Here are three reasons a refresh may be the best approach: 

1. Minor Design Tweaks Needed 

Over time, certain elements of a website’s design can start to feel stale or dated. A refresh allows you to make minor tweaks to the layout, colors, fonts, images, and other design components. You can modernize the aesthetics without doing a complete overhaul. Subtle changes like updating the header, footer, buttons, and icons can give the site a fresher look. 

2. Keeping Up with Current Trends 

Website design trends come and go, so evaluating your site against current best practices is important. Visitors expect sites to have modern designs that reflect the latest styles and functionality. A refresh can help implement trendy design elements like responsive layouts, card-based grids, animated interactions, etc. 

3. Improving User Engagement 

Beyond surface-level design changes, a refresh also presents an opportunity to improve user experience. You may want to adjust page layouts, navigation, calls-to-action, and content presentation to increase engagement. Optimizing content for search engines and speeding up load times also fall into this category. Overall, a refresh aims to enhance usability and make key pages more effective at converting visitors. 

Assessing Your Current Website 

Our experience has found the two most visited pages on a hair transplantation clinic’s website are the pricing page and the “before and after” results page.

Sig Ueland writes in his post for Practical E-commerce, “Testing the performance of an e-commerce site will ensure it’s available and running at an optimal level.”  

Assessing allows you to identify any issues or areas for improvement. Here are some tips on auditing your website: 

Examine Key Metrics 

How is your website currently performing? Not sure? Here are five essential metrics to start analyzing: 

1. Traffic volume – How much traffic is your site getting? Is it trending up or down? 
2. Bounce rate – What percentage of visitors leave without viewing other pages? High bounce rates indicate issues. 
3. Conversion rates – How well is your site converting visitors into leads or customers? Low conversion rates indicate problems. 
4. Mobile usage – What percentage of traffic comes from mobile? Is your site mobile-friendly? 
5. Page speed – How fast does your site load? Slow speeds hurt user experience. 

Evaluating these key metrics will reveal whether your website needs an overhaul or a simple refresh. Drastic drops in traffic or conversions likely warrant a complete redesign. 

Review Your Website’s Design with Fresh Eyes 

Don’t be afraid to take a critical look at your website on both desktop and mobile. Take notes on what you like and don’t like.  
 
Be truthful with yourself and ask these five questions: 

1. Visual appeal – Does the aesthetic appear outdated or unappealing? 
2. Responsiveness – Does the site display well on all devices? 
3. Navigation – Is it easy to find important pages and information? 
4. Content – Is content well-structured, useful, and engaging? 
5. Call-to-actions – Are CTAs prominent and influential in driving conversions? 

An outdated or poor design calls for a complete redesign. But minor tweaks may only require a refresh. 

How Does Your Hair Transplant Website Compare to Your Competitors? 

When was the last time you looked at your competitor’s websites to see how your website stacks up? When you did, were you comparing factors like design, user experience, features, and functionality? 

A competitor analysis will help you identify any gaps or shortcomings in your practice’s website and determine the level of work your website needs. 

Your analysis will set the stage for the next phase: developing an execution plan. 

The Must Needed Steps for a Website Redesign or Refresh 

When deciding between a full website redesign or a refresh, developing a detailed plan is important to set your hair restoration practice up for success.  

Here are three key steps to take when putting together your website design strategy: 

1. Set Clear Goals 

• What main goals do you want to achieve with your new website? Increased leads or sales? Improved branding? Enhanced user experience? Clearly define your objectives so you can later measure if the website achieves them 
• Prioritize which goals are most important so your website strategy stays focused. A website redesign allows you to fully rework your goals, while a refresh builds upon existing goals 
• Consider both quantitative goals (e.g. increase conversion rate by 25%) and qualitative goals (e.g. create a modern, polished look and feel) 

2. Build a Detailed Timeline 

• Website projects require careful planning and phased implementation. Build a realistic timeline that includes discovery, design, development, testing, and launch. 
• Allow extra time for approvals at each stage. Rushed timelines can result in cutting corners 
• Schedule more time upfront for a complete redesign, which often requires rebuilding the site architecture and functionality 
• Keep timing flexible for testing and iterations, especially with a redesign 

3. Allocate Adequate Resources 

• Budget sufficient financial resources for the scale of the project. Redesigns typically cost more than refreshes 
• Assign dedicated staffing resources, whether internal team members or external partners 
• Leverage the right website expertise for technical development, SEO, design, content, etc. 
• Plan for extra resources with a redesign to account for unknowns and changes in direction 
• Secure resources to maintain the site long-term so enhancements can be made over time 

How to Execute a Website Redesign vs Refresh Project 

Redesign Process Overview 

If you have decided a website redesign is best for your hair transplantation organization, follow these 8 key steps:  

• Audit and analyze the current site – Review site analytics, conduct surveys, and interview patients to identify pain points and areas for improvement 
• Set goals and requirements – Define the growth goals, update criteria reflecting the needs of the patient base, and identify content needs and technical requirements for the new site 
• Create information architecture – Map out the site structure, navigation, and page hierarchies 
• Design visual brand – Create a new visual design, including a color palette, typography/fonts, and layouts 
• Develop templates and layouts – Design page templates and components to allow for a consistent look and flexible layouts 
• Migrate and create content – Audit existing content, write new content, optimize it, and migrate it to the new site 
• Build and test – Construct the entire site on a staging server and conduct usability testing 
• Launch and iterate – Go live with the new site and continue optimizing based on analytics and feedback 

Refresh Process Overview 

If you have decided a website refresh is best for your hair transplant organization, follow these 8 key steps:  

1. Review analytics and feedback – Identify improvement areas based on metrics and patient input 
2. Set refresh growth goals – Focus on smaller changes to update visuals, content, and features 
3. Style and branding update – Tweak colors, fonts, and layouts to freshen the look and feel 
4. Content audit and updates – Improve messaging, add/remove pages, and optimize content 
5. Navigation adjustments – Improve information architecture and menu 
6. New feature implementation – Add new components like forms, calculators, or video 
7. Testing and iterative updates – Test changes and roll out refinements gradually 
8. Launch refreshed site – Deploy updates to the live site for users 

What to Do After Your New Website Launches 

Remember, the increased market share across your industry is yours for the taking. The worst thing your practice can do after the new website launches is to have a “set it and forget it” mentality.

Maintaining a hair restoration website requires ongoing effort to keep it looking fresh, engaging users, and driving conversions.

Here are three key tasks you will want to do: 

1. Regular Audits 

Conduct monthly audits to review your website’s overall health. Checking factors like page speeds, broken links, metadata, alt text, etc., can mean the difference between new patients and a slow month. 

Identify any issues negatively impacting your user experience or SEO. When found, it is best to implement ways to fix and improve them immediately.

2. Adding Content to Your Website 

Regularly adding new content to your website, like blog posts, videos, podcasts, and new Google reviews, gives your potential patients new things to see, watch, and listen to. It also helps them feel good about scheduling a consultation with you.

3. Why Monitoring Google Analytics is Important 

Keep a close eye on your website’s Google Analytics reports to identify trends and opportunities. Look at traffic sources, the most popular pages, conversions for patient bookings, bounce rates, and other key metrics.  

Use this data to optimize pages and improve performance. Pay attention to changes after site updates to measure their impact. 

Bringing it All Together

While the “before and after” showcase page served as your lead magnet, you know it so much more now.

A website redesign or website refresh integrating new media is essential for an enhanced online experience. It can assuage a client’s concerns, validate a prospective client’s decision to proceed with a medical procedure, and guard against competitors, including medical tourism.

Your website is at the center of these actions, from initial online interactions with your clinic to a positive review on Google.

Meeting the expectations of your existing and potential clients across multiple touchpoints allows you to showcase the work you and your medical team perform every day. The payoff in a website redesign or website refresh is an increase in your number of patients, clients, and referrals.

FAQs What’s Best for Your Hair Restoration Practice’s Website Presence 

What are the typical costs for a website redesign vs refresh? 

The costs can vary significantly depending on the scope of work, but a full redesign is generally more expensive than a refresh.  

How long does a redesign or refresh take? 

The timeline for a full redesign or refresh depends on the scope of work. The redesign involves extensive planning, design, development, content migration, testing, and launch phases. A refresh, even an extensive one, can often be completed sooner than a redesign. 

What is the impact on SEO? 

With proper planning, neither a redesign nor a refresh should negatively impact your search engine rankings. It’s important to use 301 redirects to preserve your links and structure your site’s information architecture in a way that is similar to the previous version. URL structures and on-page content should remain consistent during the transition. 

When do you know it’s time for a full redesign vs a refresh? 

A full redesign is likely needed if your site is 3 years or older and/or built on outdated technology. However, a refresh may suffice if the overall layout, navigation, and content structure are sound, but the site looks a bit dated. Major user experience problems or extremely poor conversion rates indicate a redesign could be beneficial. 

What are the risks of not updating your site? 

An outdated site design can turn off potential patients and dampen credibility with your patient base. It also misses opportunities to improve your online marketing strategy by enhancing user experience, site speed, and conversion rates. Over time, not updating can cause you to lose a competitive edge over other hair restoration services with more modern web presences.