Five ways to Create the best Biotech Websites
Creating a great biotech website, while sharing many attributes that make any corporate website work — ease of use, concise copy, attractive design, fast performance and serving the audience’s needs — presents some unique needs and challenges worthy of review.
The key content of a biotech website includes:
- the science
- the technology
- the scientists and leadership
- the drug discovery pipeline
- diagrams, illustrations or photography of the science
- the investor story
A challenge many biotechs face is that the earlier in their drug discovery pipeline they are, the less they can “show and tell” on the website, for reasons both competitive and regulatory. But as drug targets advance in the pipeline and the scientific and investor story crystallizes, the need for a compelling visual and verbal presentation grows.
Our recently launched biotech website for Toronto based Northern Biologics, a discovery stage therapeutic antibody company, illustrates four out of five attributes that make a biotech website compelling, even when content is limited.
1. Use Real Photography
We’re seeing a trend toward using real photography in the laboratory to lend credibility and immediacy, otherwise absent from stock photography driven biotech websites. Shooting real photography gives you the control to present your unique vision in the context of your business. Because so often, biotechs are like families, the teams tend to be dedicated, tight-knit units that put long hours and a great deal of passion into their work. Having that quality reflected in the photography gives a biotech a feeling of pride and brand identity.
2. Feature Key Scientists
Many biotechs have renowned scientists on their team as well as modern facilities. Including real photography of these respected team members is compelling, both for investors and prospective investors, and also serves as a recruiting tool for other top scientists to join the team.
3. Tell a story
The website is a highly visual medium. The fact that web visitors are reading less and spending more time with visual content, coupled with the web being the most widely viewed medium available, makes it THE place for visual brand storytelling. Because of mobility, today’s scrolling page websites are a great vehicle for modulating how a story unfolds — each screen as one scrolls down, should show a progression of the unfolding story.
4. Consider using animated videos that investors will understand
PIncreasingly, companies in the healthcare space are using animated video to simplify complex stories and bring them to life. Animated video is an excellent option for biotech websites that need to articulate a scientific story, yet make it easy to understand for investors and other audiences that may not have a PhD degree.
The video depicted above is one of several we recently completed for mobile healthcare provider, Airstrip. Animated videos use the latest HTML5 animation capability, which makes them perfect for the web and for businesses that need an interactive medium to tell their story in an engaging and memorable way.
5. Use strong visual diagrams to highlight important research discovery and the pipeline
The more a biotech website can visually display important information such as the pipeline, medical or technical diagrams, microscopic photography, etc., the more engaging and credible the site becomes. It also becomes a great way to engage visitors when the full story is not yet ready to be told.
Visual “Calls-to-Action” (CTAs), are also important, to keep the web visitor engaged and guide them to other valuable content.
Diagrams or photographs can also be interactive such that when someone rolls over the image, new information will pop up to tell a more complete story. We used this technique on our site for Image Stream Medical, a company that makes medical imaging software for hospitals.
Need some help making your biotech website come to life?
