Website planning
Hospital Website Audit: What Should It Check and Recommend?
When commissioning a hospital website audit, the more useful question is often “What should we fix first?” rather than “What score did the site receive?” You may want to understand poor search visibility or decide whether a website with few inquiries needs rebuilding.
An audit should do more than identify problems. It should name the pages to change, the work required and how the results will be checked. That gives the hospital a basis for setting priorities and comparing development quotes.
Start with the problem your hospital wants to solve
A hospital planning a new website starts from a different position than one improving an existing site. For an existing website, identify which of these concerns matters most:
- Few visitors arrive through search.
- People ask where to find service or medical team information.
- It is difficult to complete an inquiry or booking request on a phone.
- AI answers omit the hospital or describe it incorrectly.
- Medical team and operating information are difficult to update.
These are questions to investigate, not confirmed causes. They help separate search traffic, page information and inquiry processing. Knowing what you want to resolve also helps define which pages to inspect.
Distinguish public-page checks from search records
The public website lets you review menus, text, links and mobile layouts. A page loading correctly does not by itself confirm indexing or successful receipt of an inquiry.
If you have access to Google Search Console, examine the indexed page information and the live URL test separately. A successful test of the current page does not establish that it is indexed.
For a site that loads content with JavaScript, also check the text processed by the search engine. Google describes crawling, rendering and indexing JavaScript pages. Checking whether the necessary information reaches the search engine is more useful than judging the site by its technology name alone.
Check inquiry systems or the CRM through a method agreed with hospital staff. If only public pages were reviewed, the report should say so. Leave items that could not be inspected because of missing access as follow-up checks.
Record AI questions and the conditions of each check
For an AI search review, knowing what was asked matters more than having a single screenshot showing the hospital's name.
Record the AI service, date, exact question, hospital information in the response and cited sources. Record the language and any conditions included in the question so you can compare later checks. Check separately whether the hospital is named, whether information about the medical team, location and visiting arrangements is accurate, and which pages are cited.
Read these records alongside the website findings to distinguish missing information from incorrect information. BlinkAd's AI search review approach explains the areas we assess.
Give each recommendation a page URL and a verification method
“Improve the content” or “Improve SEO” is not specific enough to commission work. Examples of actionable recommendations include:
- If first-visit information lacks contact instructions, link the relevant inquiry channel and check the submission process on mobile.
- If service information exists only in images, add hospital-reviewed explanations as text and check what the search engine can read.
- If medical team information is outdated, have the hospital confirm the current facts, then update the relevant pages and any associated structured data.
For each task, name the responsible person, prerequisite checks, whether it is possible on the current site and how completion will be verified. Separate copy that needs hospital approval from changes the developer can make directly.
Ask for evidence before deciding to rebuild
An audit does not automatically mean you need a new website. You need to know what can be fixed in the current system and what requires additional development.
If a rebuild is recommended, ask which problems the existing site cannot readily solve and how repairs and rebuilding differ in cost and ongoing management. A recommendation that limited changes will be enough also needs evidence.
The audit becomes useful for decisions when it leads to a clear quote and work brief. Send BlinkAd your current website URL and the problem you most want to solve.