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155 OPHTHALMOLOGY BUSINESS April 2016 digital.ophthalmologybusiness.org line: Keep as much as you can sim- ple while also ensuring your content covers important information about your practice. 4. Focus on quality content. Although you naturally want your website to rank well in search engine optimization, content is still king, Mr. Ferguson said. Your site always should have easy-to-find informa- tion about what you do, your hours, locations, and a call to action. 5. Make sure the call to action is obvious, said Max Cron, creative strategy director, Online Optimism, New Orleans. For instance, this is a way for patients to contact you by phone or an online submission form. "Having a strong call to action is vital for any website looking to generate leads," Mr. Cron said. However, these calls to action can be disrupted by having a site that is not responsive on all devices. Check that your calls to action are visible on the various versions of your site. 6. Use a larger text size. With vi- sion-impaired patients, the need for larger text is clear. However, there seem to be 2 schools of thought. You could add a font size toggle to the site that allows users to resize the text, Mr. Binder said. Or you could make the font size on the mobile deployment large enough for even vision-challenged readers, Mr. Ferguson said. Although people using desktop searches may take the time to change font size, mobile users are more likely to just hop off the page if they can't read it easily, he explained. 7. Consider color blind patients. There are online technologies avail- able for use with color blind patients that allow users to toggle between color schemes and black and while, Mr. Binder said. 8. Test your site across various platforms. "While small text may look great on large screens, that same text may be impossible to read on a tablet or mobile device," Mr. Cron said. Check your website's various image and text sizes to make sure they are appropriate on each device. EW Contact information Binder: info@growmypractice.com Cron: max@onlineoptimism.com Ferguson: aferguson@etnainteractive.com toward desktop use and 1 toward mobile device use. "One trend that we see happening more frequently with responsive design is that our clients are abandoning mobile sites because there is no need for them," he said. "Having a separate mobile site will harm your search engine optimization because you will be serving duplicate content and es- sentially competing with yourself." In contrast, a responsive site means you only serve the content once, and you make it available on every device. 3. Opt for a design that loads easily. One thing that makes users leave a page is a long loading time. A 2014 Huffington Post report found that 57% of mobile users leave a site if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load, Mr. Binder said. If your website has complicated design elements, that will make it harder to load. A website with a flat design is simple and streamlined, so it's easy to read and quick to load, Mr. Binder said. That said, a material design is also becoming more popular because it takes the simplicity of a flat design and adds a subtle element. "Think Google—a basic white background with a slightly elevated picture as the focal point," he said. Bottom page layout, there may just be 1 column, and the elements from the page are stacked down the page, Mr. Ferguson said. However, the colors, font choices, and images used on a site viewed via a mobile device or desktop stay the same for brand continuity. As you talk to your web de- signers to make sure your site is responsive, here are a few things to consider. 8 tips for an attractive, responsive practice site 1. Find the right web designer. Ask your web designer for samples of his or her responsive mobile work, said Mr. Ferguson, whose company has designed sites within ophthalmol- ogy as well as for other practices. The web design business should take the lead on responsive design, said Adam Binder, founder of Grow My Practice Online, Manahawkin, New Jersey. "I make sure that any website our team designs is responsive across all platforms, so this is included in the base price rather than as an added feature," he said. 2. Consider 1 site that works across all platforms versus separate sites, Mr. Binder advised. This would be in contrast to having 1 site geared 8 tips to ensure your website works well on mobile devices T hink about the last time you needed to find infor- mation about a local busi- ness using a mobile device. Maybe it was to order a pizza or find hours for a retail store. Or maybe it was to find contact in- formation for another physician. Was the webpage you were looking for quick to load and in a font size large enough to see easily? Could you access the information you wanted? Those kinds of issues are what you need to consider with your practice's website to make it easy to use across desktop and mobile platforms. "As a medical practice, your mobile site needs to fulfill the user's basic expectations and be a way to learn about the top services of the practice, have a 'click to call,' get directions, and submit a contact form—all while displaying equally well on various screen sizes," said Al Ferguson, business development manager, Etna Interactive, San Luis Obispo, California. Last year, Google announced that more online searches were done via mobile devices than with desktops. Google also said last year that its search engine favors mobile-friendly websites. "If your website is not mobile-friendly, it will hurt your chances of showing up at the top of mobile search results, which represent more than half of the searches made in North Ameri- ca," Mr. Ferguson said. When people are searching on a mobile device, they're more likely to be searching for goods and services near their location, according to a 2015 study from Mediative Lab, Montreal. The company found in an earlier report that the majority of mobile searches result in action tak- en within an hour, compared with a week for desktop searches. So what does it mean exactly to make your website responsive? It means that the site will respond to the various screen sizes that might be used and that the content will still be easy to navigate. For exam- ple, instead of 2 columns in your A responsive website will help grow your business by Vanessa Caceres EyeWorld Contributing Writer

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