One of our own favorite niches, and easily one of the most profitable web design niches in the industry, is the medical niche. Whether it's medical billing, doctor's offices, or websites for medical technology vendors, what's true of almost every kind of business, is also true here:

The most-demanding clients are the most profitable, and the most profitable, the most demanding.

Like with legal sites, medical website design requires extreme attention to detail. And the client isn't the only one at risk.  Going into this kind of web design contract half-ready, can get someone sued. Taking a contract without vetting the client can lead to fraud.

There's no room for messing around when it comes to medical advertising, and when it comes to medical websites, every detail must be exactly right.

Learning Medical Lingo

So which is your client:  A gynecologist, an obstetrician, or both? A neurological diagnostician, or a neurologist? Sports medicine or sports physical therapy?

You don't need experience in the medical industry to successfully complete medical website design projects, but you definitely need to make sure that you don't misplace a single word.

For the client, there's no quicker way to complete professional embarrassment, than having your peers be the first to notice that your website states your field of work incorrectly. But, it can actually get worse than that.

State that your client does reproductive medicine when, in fact, they're only a gynecologist? You've just put the client at risk of a lawsuit. And we're sure that some people reading this article were under the impression that gynecology was reproductive medicine. Close, yes... related, yes... synonymous, not at all.

The bottom line is that you'll always need your client to carefully proofread any copy that you write or edit before it goes into a medical website design.

Speeling it Rite

Another matter of potential embarrassment: Not every medical term under the sun comes standard in your spell checker.

If you're writing or editing copy for a medical website design project, you'll need to look up a great many unfamiliar words, and add them to your spell checker by hand. It might seem obvious, but when as much as 50% of the words in your client's content has little red squiggles under them, don't be tempted to assume you know the right spelling for any of them without checking.

Avoiding Legal Drama

Another matter of avoiding legal drama in medical web design projects, is to make sure you know the correct titles. Not every doctor is an M.D., or a Ph.D.  Not every dentist is a D.D.S. Once again, adding titles that don't apply can be a road to a lawsuit.

Distinction and Respect

No matter their specific credentials, whether they're qualified in neurosurgery, neuropathy, or neurodiagnostics, these people are in the business of compassionate healing, and deserve every bit of the respect they've earned. Every pixel of published material for a medical professional should convey that.

Which brings us to...

Marketing Medical Websites

Without giving away our own trade secrets, here are a few points to be aware of when you market medical websites:

• Know the difference between being aggressive, and being unethical.

• Make sure to avoid any hint of impropriety in your marketing tactics, especially in copy writing, but generally in all things.

• If you have any doubts, ask the client about their sensitivities on a question.

• Never try to rank for keywords that imply specialties which the client isn't qualified in.

• Never imply association memberships which the client doesn't hold.

• Beware of any and all assumptions.

• When in doubt, ask the client.

Medical website design is extremely profitable because there are so many things to get right, and such high risks for getting anything wrong. Good luck!