Results: Top 10 Eye Center Websites
Here are the results of my website competitive review for eye surgery. Only four sites ended up in my “Great” sites folder which means I had to go back through the “Passable” sites to find some that stood out to make a top 10 list. Also, I didn’t find any one site that I thought did everything “right” from an internet marketing perspective. However, since my goal is to convince my client that his site looks pretty bad and that he needs a new one, I want to create a top 10 list that is well-rounded and has all different kinds of websites that, together, illuminate all the elements that create Visual Value.
#1 - Pacific Vision Institute
- Initial Attractiveness – YES!; Soothing, yet crisp and professional
- Creative is on target – Yes; Lifestyle and regional focus
- Clear Primary Call to Action & Associated Functionality – No
- Intuitive Site Navigation – Yes; clear, simple and easy
- Intuitive Relational Content – Yes; and it does not usurp the main content area for attention; kudos!
- Balanced Dynamic Functionality – There is very little dynamic content on this site, yet the site is able to exude the sense of excellence and technological prowess through understatement.
#2 EyeTech Lasik
- Initial Attractiveness – Yes; However, there is a little bit of visual imbalance with the content below the main graphic.
- Creative is on target – Yes; Banner messaging, which rotates, is particularly engaging
- Clear Primary Call to Action & Associated Functionality – YES!; Both phone number and form with call to action are placed prominently, yet are unobtrusive so a user can peruse the site easily
- Intuitive Site Navigation – Yes
- Intuitive Relational Content – Yes; but it’s not integrated that well with the overall design; looks like it was tacked on
- Balanced Dynamic Functionality – Yes
#3 Hines Sight
- Initial Attractiveness – Yes
- Creative is on target – Yes, captures both the regional outdoorsy sporting lifestyle folks as well as Denver Broncos connection; Dr Hines is the “official” eye doctor/surgeon for the Denver Broncos.
- Clear Primary Call to Action & Associated Functionality – No
- Intuitive Site Navigation – No, but uses great relational paths
- Intuitive Relational Content – YES; good use of relational content to draw users down their own paths
- Balanced Dynamic Functionality – YES; there’s a lot of dynamic content here, yet it all works and does not “fight” each other for your attention. They did a good job optimizing the download/streaming process as well and the site loads fairly quickly given the amount of dynamic content.
- #4 Ken Moadel, MD
- Initial Attractiveness – Yes; this site has an obvious specific audience in mind; It’s male-centric with a focus on tech and sports.
- Creative is on target – Yes; Here’s an example of how a company can take a template and bring it to the next level with exciting unique content that is relevant to a specific audience or consumer base
- Clear Primary Call to Action & Associated Functionality – No/Yes; This is one of the few sites I saw that successfully balanced multiple calls to action within the main content area – they did an exceptional job of it.
- Intuitive Site Navigation – No
- Intuitive Relational Content – YES!; this site makes up for lack of intuitive navigation by offering many balanced relational paths for users. It would be very easy for this site to be overwhelming due to the overabundance of content, yet it is perfectly balanced visually so it is not overwhelming
- Balanced Dynamic Functionality – Yes; It would have been all too easy for the site producers to ruin this site with a bad audio clip or an awful rotating graphic, yet they did not do it. It is like they pushed it to the edge of acceptability and then stopped before they overdid it.
#5 Christianbury Eye Center
- Initial Attractiveness - Yes; This site does something interesting by breaking up one long image into several blocks. This creates a visual tension that is engaging. The woman is running freely (the freedom of seeing clearly without glasses) yet because the image is methodically broken up, the viewer is engaged in the tension that all is not perfect – because perfection can only be achieved by fixing your vision. Of all the sites I looked at, this one kept lingering in my mind because of that tension. What’s even more impressive is that this is a stock photo that I saw in several other sites yet the designer took it and made completely unique despite it’s ubiquitousness.
- Creative is on target – Yes BUT the content could have focused more on consumer issues/needs rather than products. However, if you hover over each of the four long blocks in the main area, a “hidden” consumer-focused graphic comes into view. This puts the onus on the user to find the hidden content which is a liability to this site. The “hidden” content is excellent.
- Clear Primary Call to Action & Associated Functionality – No; this site could have done a better job with Call to Action
- Intuitive Site Navigation – No
- Intuitive Relational Content – Yes/No – See above for more info
- Balanced Dynamic Functionality – Yes; site is visually interesting without being distracting or overwhelming. Site loads quickly.
- #6 Pacific Laser Eye Center
- Initial Attractiveness – Yes. This site does something that could have felt “gimmicky” yet somehow did not; when you first load the site, it’s completely blurry and it eventually comes into focus. It caught my attention and made me smile. It gave me what I call the “warm fuzzies” which is something that is entirely difficult to do given the nature of my search. Normally, a site with something on the gimmicky side like this would quickly fade in my memory but then the banner images captured my attention. The banner has several images that slowly rotate through. Each one starts off blurry and slowly gets clearer. The one above says “Imagine… seeing the leaves on trees again.” Overall, the site quickly made me feel as if these people “get it.” There is nothing like being able to see leaves clearly. Then I noticed one more thing that further pulled me in, 4 little tabs at the top of the page that arrange content by your age: “For your 20s,” “For your 30′s,” “For your 40′s,” “For your 50′s & Better.” At this point they stole my heart. I have been looking at eye surgery centers for months now and have even visited several for free exams. I have asked about my concerns as related to the aging process and I was brushed off by everyone I spoke to. I have looked at hundreds of sites and this is the first one that at least considered addressing my concerns.
- Creative is on target – Yes (see above). One thing that is a negative about this site is that the initial creative is great but the deeper content is flat and boring – it’s not engaging after that. They are all cover and no book. This counteracts and nullifys the great work they did initially grabbing my attention. They need to work on fixing this by offering: calls to action (short inline forms on each page would work great), better written internal content and related graphics.
- Clear Primary Call to Action & Associated Functionality – No; Needs serious work.
- Intuitive Site Navigation – No.
- Intuitive Relational Content – Yes! The alternate content path by age range is exceptional.
- Balanced Dynamic Functionality – Yes. The initial load rate that is fuzzy might loose potential consumers, however, the site was coded so that once you’ve been there, it always shows you the “in-focus” version so you don’t have to wait for it to load and zoom into focus. This was well conceived and planned.
#7 Larson Eye Center
- Initial Attractiveness – Yes. This site did not originally land in my “Great” folder but of all the sites with a technology focus, this was among the best. If you compare it to #1, The Pacific Vision Institute, it does not do as good a job of relating the idea of excellence. Here’s why: they tell you they are excellent first before they show you how excellent they are. We all know that when someone tells us they are excellent, we are a little turned off. What we want is someone else, a non-partial person, to tell us how excellent Larson Eye Center is.
- Creative is on target – Yes
- Clear Primary Call to Action & Associated Functionality – Yes, but not as prominent as it could be. The Phone number placement is clear and excellent but for potential consumers who do not want to call, it is not quickly noticeable where to go. You have to scroll down the page to get to the inline “Ask a Question” form, This form should be shifted up the page so users do not have to scroll to find it.
- Intuitive Site Navigation – No
- Intuitive Relational Content – No
- Balanced Dynamic Functionality – No; the flash banner takes too long to load
- #8 William Goldstein, MD
- Initial Attractiveness – Yes
- Creative is on target – Yes, this site is a little overwhelming visually. They made a great choice by featuring what the viewer perceives to be a “customer” in the banner but it visually fights with the image of the doctor below it. This site looks like it’s struggling with not having one unique value proposition. Do they want to be “LASIK in Michigan” or do they want to be “America’s Top Ophthalmologist” or do they want to be the “easy” solution: “20/20 Vision has never been easier” or do they want to be “William Goldstein, MD”? They have a minor identity crisis which they need to clarify.
- Clear Primary Call to Action & Associated Functionality – Yes, could use an inline form
- Intuitive Site Navigation – Yes
- Intuitive Relational Content – Yes, The calendar link to schedule an appointment is well done
- Balanced Dynamic Functionality – Yes
- #9 Pacific Laser Eye Center
- Initial Attractiveness – Yes
- Creative is on target – Yes
- Clear Primary Call to Action & Associated Functionality – Yes, phone number is prominent but they could use an inline form
- Intuitive Site Navigation – No
- Intuitive Relational Content – No
- Balanced Dynamic Functionality – No; the flash banner takes way too long to load and takes up too much screen space so that there’s not a lot of extra room for call to action and value proposition.
- #10 Prado Vision
- Initial Attractiveness – Yes; This is the only site I saw that is about LASIK as style/fashion. They do a lovely job of it. It’s also quite amazing that this site was created in 2004 yet is still viable and on target. One thing they did was photograph real customers for the site in very stylish sets; the photos then acted as testimonials. This is extremely engaging because they are showing us results instead of telling us they get results. They were ahead of their time in the design of this site.
- Creative is on target – Yes, for a niche market focused on style. They may need to consider developing an alternate UVP given the current economic climate. The site looks “expensive.”
- Clear Primary Call to Action & Associated Functionality – No; they need to develop this. There’s a form at the end of the page if you scroll but it does not have an engaging call to action or page placement
- Intuitive Site Navigation – No
- Intuitive Relational Content – No
- Balanced Dynamic Functionality – Yes, this site is really quick. Given the average time you have to deliver the content users are looking for — about 3 seconds*, they have this nailed.
*Most of the recent studies show that a user will leave your site if they do not see what they are looking for within the first 3 seconds. You can quickly assess if are not engaging your consumers by checking your site’s “bounce rate.” The higher the bounce rate, the more serious the problem. This “3 second rule” is also why it is highly important to not slow down your site with too much dynamic content.
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