3 guidelines for making your veterinary website easy to navigate

When a potential client comes onto your veterinary site looking for answers, the last thing you need is for them to be sidetracked trying to navigate around. At the same time, it’s unlikely that you can address every question in a single brief page. Balancing those two needs is a big part of properly creating your veterinary website from scratch. And while you can opt for one of those generalized internet site developers, most likely you’ll find yourself trying to force templates to fit your veterinarian practice’s needs . Here's a few tips to make it easy for others to navigate your website.
 
Dropdown Menus

Have you ever been on a website that has a dozen of different section titles across the top of the homepage? Probably not in the last decade, we hope. Dropdown menus are an efficient way to organize your veterinary website’s pages. This may include your ‘About Us’ facts for more than one doctor, for example. Some clinics have veterinarians with sturdy reputations in the community and need to focus on them. Just remember to avoid having too many tabs inside tabs on your dropdown menu, as it can be irritating to use if the cursor slips on or off the web page.
 
Another essential use of the dropdown menu is on your services web page. Potential customers can use a well planned dropdown services menu tab to look for exactly what they need and in the process get an overview of the different services your veterinary clinic offers. Certainly, they may be looking for records on vaccinations or getting their dog neutered. But in the process, additionally, they will see that you provide doggie daycare and grooming.
 
Effective naming strategy

For many reasons, you’re going to want to use the most reliable naming strategy for your veterinary website pages. Clients appreciate it, and so do search engines like Google. A few rules of thumb include choosing names that your clients will acknowledge, making sure the page title isn’t deceiving, focusing on shorter names and the usage of titles that your potential clients might use. While other veterinarians understand what you mean by ‘Geriatric Cat and dog Preventative Care,’ it won’t look good to pet owners. ‘Senior pet Care’ is short, understandable and likely a phrase they might enter into a search engine.
 
Fix broken links

In case you link to outside assets, such as the AAHA or pet insurance websites, you need to make sure to have those checked regularly to make sure they work. The same is going for inner links. In case you link your surgery page for extra information inside your spay and neuter page, any adjustments you make on your veterinary website could create a broken link along the way.