Hospital Homepage Gets a Makeover

Last fall, the homepage of Children’s Hospital’s website received a makeover. A little more than two years after the entire site was redesigned, the most recent upgrade focused on making information easier to locate and enhancing the look with animation, photographs and an improved graphic design.

“When the site was originally created,” said Matt Brady, Web Content Coordinator, “the homepage was very plain and featured text without pictures.”

While the structure of the web site remains unchanged, the new homepage provides quick links to directions, appointment scheduling and ways to get involved plus new content like a health tip of the day. A six-slide rotating graphic, or flash animation, debuted in early December about six weeks after the new homepage was revealed. Located at the top of the homepage, the rotating animation provides links to information about the hospital, outpatient services, physician specialty services, careers, patient and community testimonials, and donations.

“The flash animation allows us to react quickly,” commented Matt, “and get the word out in a neat way.”

Since the new homepage debuted on October 14, 2008, the bounce rate, or number of visitors who get to the homepage but leave before entering the site, has decreased by 5.2 percent from the three months before that date to the three months after. And once a link was added to take visitors directly to the site’s career section, traffic increased from 1,000 hits per month to 1,500 hits per month. In addition, after adding quick links to many of the hospital’s service pages (outpatient, dental, Children’s Feeding Program), Matt reported an increase in the number of hits for those pages too.

“Part of what we’ve done is present the right face to anyone coming to our site,” Matt said.

Work is continuing to enhance the career section, add an archive for publications, improve information on the core service pages and increase search engine optimization, or how Children’s Hospital is ranked when users conduct information searches on the web.

The information on this site is provided for informational and educational purposes only; it does not contain specific medical advice. If you have specific health questions or problems, consult a health care professional for personal medical advice.