Visibility, accessibility, credibility, trust—often core values of life science businesses. They’re also foundational pillars of creative branding. Your website is one of the main factors of your business’s success and online survival. It’s the portal to all future customers, leads, sales and connections, available to a global audience 24/7. It serves as a platform to showcase your expertise, research, case studies, and educational resources, building trust with your audience.
A website is a powerful marketing tool. It allows you to implement various digital marketing strategies, such as SEO, content marketing, and social media integration, to attract and convert leads. Data analytics will offer insights on visitor behavior, preferences, and interactions—which can further be utilized to improve your marketing strategies and better understand your audience’s needs. In a competitive industry, a well-designed and informative website can set your business apart.
It’s important to keep your website updated and fresh so your brand stays relevant and continues to grow with your audience—especially in the life sciences, where change is ever-present. In this blog post, we'll outline the top 5 reasons why regularly reviewing and making valuable updates to your website is essential for staying current and elevating your brand.
Issue: It only takes 2 seconds for site visitors to decide whether or not they want to stay on your website and 38% of visitors will leave your site if the content and layout is visually unappealing. If your website is outdated, lackluster, or cluttered, visitors will often not take the time to sift through the rest of your site. Because of this, you could lose out on important leads and connections.
Solution: Design your site to be visually engaging by presenting your services or products in a clean, easy-to-navigate layout. Since visitors will spend only a few minutes on your site, make it simple for them to quickly find the information they need. Your branding should be consistent and memorable.
Issue: 40% of Internet users will leave a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. If your website hasn’t been updated in a few years and is slow to load content, it’s a surefire bet that visitors will not spend those extra seconds waiting for your site to get up to speed.
Solution: When redesigning your site, be mindful of your visitors’ time and show that you care about their viewing experience. Streamline your content by cutting out unnecessarily large files or videos. If you’re demonstrating a product, replace a full video with a quick GIF (a short, compressed moving image file). If the user is interested in viewing the full video, have the GIF link out to another page where the large video file can be hosted.
Issue: Nowadays, websites can be viewed on several screen sizes and devices. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, it shows your visitors that you aren’t mindful of their viewing experience or the usability of your site.
Solution: In keeping up with the times, make sure your site is responsive and can load efficiently on laptops, desktops, smartphones, and tablets. You don’t want to be that business who requires their visitors to squint at their screen and leave the site frustrated because it hasn’t been optimized.
Make sure text size, spacing, layout, and even certain content, changes for each device. Keep in mind that what works on a desktop might not work on a smartphone screen—find a designer who can work their coding magic on all devices!
Issue: Since launching your website several years ago, your branding, overall messaging, and target audience may have changed and evolved. If your branding doesn't reflect your current business, how can you build credibility and maintain authenticity?
Solution: Ensure your messaging and design remain consistent with your brand’s values and the services or products your business offers. For example, if your business is a doctor’s office or a biotech startup, rework your content to accurately reflect your expertise, showcase your research or treatments, and highlight the products you offer. This helps build trust in your brand.
Additionally, consider giving your logo a modern refresh, updating your color palette, or changing the typeface on your site. These are simple adjustments that can realign your brand’s image with its current identity.
Issue: It’s likely that your initial marketing strategy was simple. You might have had a page with a form to collect leads and CTA (call-to-action) buttons that matched your old marketing goals. And as for a blog—that was likely low on the priority list.
Solution: Spruce up your CTA buttons to match your new marketing plan. What are you hoping to gain when users click through? Are they being directed to a landing page where they can sign up for a free consultation or perhaps there’s a pop-up where they can input their information to download an eBook. Make sure the information is clear and easy to find. Bonus points: make it simple for site visitors to get in touch with just one click—and streamline this across all pages.
Since you’re collecting data, you’ll want to use a secure CRM system. HubSpot is a leading CRM software which helps to manage all your data and leads. If you’re a smaller business and looking to simply connect with your subscribers, Squarespace integrates email marketing campaigns and Mailchimp can be connected to your site (a great program for easily building and designing email campaigns).
Once you have contacts, creating a monthly cadence with your subscriber base, in the form of email campaigns, will build trust and credibility and make users excited to hear more about your services or products.
And don’t forget about blogging: the king of SEO. The more quality content you produce, the more your online presence will grow. Did you know that companies who blog increase their inbound links by 97%? That statistic speaks for itself!
While it's unnecessary to redesign your life science website every time design trends change, continually reassessing your marketing and design goals should stay top-of-mind. This approach ensures your business consistently meets its targets, stays ahead of the curve, and keeps users engaged, satisfied, and returning for more.
At Bracken, our marketing experts take an objective look at your website and help give it the new life it needs—from design to marketing and branding. Get in touch and let us begin your website refresh today!