Every day, more websites go online. The truth is, we have never had so much information at our fingertips, which has led more and more people to seek ways to filter online content to find information that is clear, easy to access, and fast.  Especially within the Healthcare Industry. 

This methodology has significantly impacted the healthcare market because specific medical vocabulary related to surgeries, treatments, and preventive measures remains essential despite efforts to simplify website content. These terms often require a basic understanding of medications, procedures, and related concepts.  

That is why it is crucial to use a CMS that makes it easy to update and create new content on your website. This way, you can stay connected and ensure that your patients or potential new patients can easily access the information they need or, at the very least, contact you without hassle.   

At Online Medical, we have decided to transition from Drupal to WordPress. In this post, we will explain the reasons behind our decision.  

We found a problem  

After 15 years in the website development industry for medical practitioners, we realised that the content of many medical practices changes continuously due to new laws, new surgeries, or new treatments becoming available.  

As true professionals, we give our clients complete control, allowing them to edit their website content, add new blog posts, update contact details, or change images.   

We have seen Drupal fail in this specific area, as our clients did not find the CMS (Content Management System) user-friendly, which often led to clients unintentionally breaking their websites, getting stuck while updating important content, or having to wait for our support or their technical team to complete the updates.  

These issues are often unacceptable, as patients rely on accurate information, new patient forms, and up-to-date treatment recommendations.    

The Search  

We have spent several hours trying to fix this issue for our clients. We tested different CMSs and modules for Drupal, and after comparing the pros and cons of all the different options, we decided to use WordPress.   

WordPress meets all of our clients’ needs. Whether they want to edit content, upload new images, create new forms, or create a blog on their website. With WordPress, changing, creating, updating, and deleting content is easy.    

We also wanted to ensure that our clients had opportunities to expand their websites with various modules, allowing them to integrate with medical software or booking systems. Since WordPress holds 62.1% of the CMS market (source: Kinsta), its extensive support and wide range of modules enable us to deliver high-quality websites to our clients.  

Other Benefits  

During our research, we discovered that WordPress offers several additional benefits. Since WordPress has been used in 43.6% of websites worldwide (source: Kinsta), we found numerous integrations that enhance security, speed, and design for our clients’ websites. Some of these tools include:  

• Elementor: This plugin allows us to design and create modern, responsive layouts and designs for our clients. The efficiency of the module and the user interface makes content and image editing seamless. Elementor is so effective that even our competitors use and recommend it. Additionally, it integrates with third-party plugins/modules like Gravity Forms and Google Reviews, which makes it easier to add new features to the website to fit the needs of our clients.  
• Wordfence: This plugin is the leading cybersecurity plugin for WordPress. It increases the security of your website and server, gives you peace of mind, and stops annoying spam from coming through your contact forms.  
• Yoast SEO: Marketed as the #1 WordPress SEO plugin, Yoast SEO automatically optimises websites to improve Google rankings. It provides content-writing tips and offers premium features that clients can opt for. 
• WPRocket: This plugin optimises images, content, and styles to ensure optimal website speed and responsiveness for both Google and its users.  

At Online Medical, we also utilise other plugins to guarantee that our client’s websites are fast, reliable, and tailored to the specific needs of medical practitioners.  

The Results  

After implementing WordPress for some of our new clients and upgrading several of our Drupal projects, we have noticed significant improvements in various aspects of our business.   

• Our clients are happier with their website’s stability and ease of editing and adding new content. As they have expressed on many occasions, “at least now it’s easy for me to change one phone number.”   

• The Security Updates are easier to install and monitor, allowing us to ensure that our client’s websites have the latest security measures.   

• More clients can now request high-quality websites on a smaller budget. WordPress enables us to develop websites in a tenth of the time Drupal used to require, allowing us to add better design and animations for our clients without increasing costs.  

• Emails are not tagged by SPAM filter measures. Most of WordPress integrations with external mail servers, including ours, are more reliable and easier to set up. As a result, our clients’ contact forms function smoothly without being blocked or tagged as spam since our mail server employs high-security measures.  

• The SEO Meta data is much easier to edit and therefore easier for us to target the audience our clients need. With Drupal, the meta tags were difficult to track and, in many cases, autogenerated. With WordPress, we have been able to have full control of the Meta Tags, showing better results on Google Ranking.   

Conclusions  

What are our conclusions? While Drupal offers greater customisation than WordPress, the truth is that WordPress provides better practical value for healthcare professionals. It allows them to create modern, professional websites more quickly, with improved speed and efficiency compared to Drupal sites. Additionally, WordPress offers a vast range of integration and expansion opportunities tailored to medical practices.  

Therefore, we recommend using WordPress if you are looking for a fast, secure, and reliable website. We would be happy to meet with you to explore strategies for expanding your patient base and enhancing your online presence. Contact us now and get the website you are looking for!