Most aesthetic clinic website checklists focus on design, SEO, testimonials, before-and-after galleries and booking buttons.
Those things matter. But they miss a more basic question:
Can a prospective patient find enough information to understand their options and decide whether taking the next step makes sense?
In our structured audit of 200 UK aesthetic clinic websites, contact was rarely the problem. 196/200 websites offered at least one contact route, and 170/200 had an action on the selected treatment page.
The information supporting that action was less consistent. On 102/200 websites, a page-level action was available without the complete core information set used in the audit. On 96/200, neither risk nor suitability information was found for the selected service within the audit conditions.
So this checklist starts before the booking button.
It is not a regulatory or clinical-compliance checklist. It is a practical test of what a new patient can actually find on your website.
How to test your clinic website
Choose one treatment you offer and one common concern that might lead someone to it.
Then open your website on a phone and approach it as if you know nothing about aesthetic medicine. For each check, ask a simple question: could a first-time visitor find this without calling the clinic?
Finding the right treatment
1. Can someone start with a concern rather than a treatment name?
A visitor may know they dislike their dark circles, acne scars or jawline. They may not know which treatment, device or injectable is relevant.
2. Are treatment names understandable without industry knowledge?
Brand names and device names are useful once someone knows what they are researching. They are poor substitutes for orientation.
3. Does a concern lead to relevant treatment options?
In our audit, 109/120 non-surgical websites listed treatments, but only 30/120 connected the tested concern to relevant options.
4. Does every important treatment have its own useful page?
A treatment name in a menu is not the same as an explanation. A visitor should be able to move from the option to information about it.
5. Can patients understand when several treatments may address the same concern?
A good website does not have to select a treatment for the patient. It should help them understand why several approaches might be discussed.
Understanding the treatment
6. Does the page explain what the treatment or procedure actually is?
Avoid assuming visitors already understand the technique.
7. Does it explain who may be suitable?
Suitability matters before someone reaches the booking flow.
8. Does it explain important reasons someone may not be suitable?
This can include relevant contraindications or circumstances requiring individual assessment.
9. Are risks or side effects mentioned?
This was one of the biggest gaps in our study. Neither risk nor suitability information was found for the selected service on 96/200 websites, including 77/120 non-surgical sites.
For doctors offering cosmetic interventions, GMC guidance also states that marketing must not minimise or trivialise risks or present interventions as risk-free.
10. Is downtime or recovery explained?
“Minimal downtime” is much less useful than explaining what a patient may realistically need to plan around.
11. Are expected results and limitations described realistically?
Patients need to understand what a treatment is intended to improve as well as what it cannot promise.
12. Is it clear when assessment or consultation is required?
A website should not make an individualised medical decision. It should make the next decision point understandable.
Price and consultation expectations
13. Can a patient find a treatment price or realistic starting point where appropriate?
Across the 200 websites, 99 showed the selected treatment price directly on the public website.
14. If the exact price varies, does the page explain why?
“Price on request” gives less information than explaining that cost depends on treatment area, product quantity, complexity or an individual treatment plan.
15. Is the price available before the visitor commits to a booking flow where practical?
Another 30/200 websites revealed the selected treatment price only after the visitor entered a booking or selection flow.
16. For consultation-led services, is the consultation price clear?
This is particularly relevant for surgery, where an immediate procedure booking is not the expected journey.
17. Does the website explain what happens at the first consultation?
Among 61 surgical or mixed journeys with a procedure page, consultation pathway and page action, 29 showed neither a consultation price nor an explanation of the first-consultation process.
Practitioner transparency
18. Can the visitor see who actually provides the treatment?
A general team page is less useful if the patient cannot connect a service to a particular practitioner.
19. Are relevant qualifications or professional credentials visible?
“Expert” and “highly qualified” are marketing descriptions. A qualification or professional registration is something a visitor can understand and, where applicable, verify.
20. Is the practitioner clearly linked to the service being researched?
Only 107/200 websites in our audit completed the full chain of a named practitioner, selected-service linkage and visible professional registration or qualifying credential.
Taking the next step
21. Is there a clear next step on the treatment page?
Once someone understands the treatment, they should not have to return to the homepage to work out what to do.
22. Does that action suit the service?
“Book now” may work for some established-patient treatments. “Request a consultation” or “ask a question” may make more sense for treatments requiring assessment.
23. Can someone ask a basic question without immediately becoming an identifiable lead?
Only 6/200 websites in our audit passed the strict question-first test: the visitor could begin a question without first giving a name, email address, phone number or other identifying contact detail.
If you use live chat or an AI assistant, test more than whether it answers 24/7.
What does the tool collect before the first question? Are conversations stored? Does it create identifiable lead profiles? Which providers process the message? How long is the data retained?
These questions matter particularly in healthcare. Under GDPR, health data receives special protection. For US clinics subject to HIPAA, identifiable health conversations can also raise questions about PHI, vendor responsibilities and whether a Business Associate Agreement is required.
We compared the privacy documentation, retention, browser storage, DPAs, subprocessors and health-data positioning of 14 AI chatbots and assistants used on clinic websites.
A useful principle is simple: if a visitor only wants to ask a general treatment question, consider whether the system needs their identity at all.
Basic access
24. Are the clinic location and opening hours easy to find?
These are simple questions, but they still create friction when the information is hidden, incomplete or scattered across several pages.
25. Does the whole journey work comfortably on mobile?
Check menus, treatment pages, expandable FAQs, price tables and booking interfaces—not just the homepage.
Only 12/200 websites in the study achieved a green 90–100 mobile PageSpeed performance score. PageSpeed is a lab indicator rather than a measurement of an individual patient’s exact waiting time, but mobile friction should not be treated as an afterthought.
A useful website is more than a booking funnel
The point of this aesthetic clinic website checklist is not to make every page longer.
It is to put the right information at the right stage.
A visitor beginning with “dark circles” needs orientation. Someone considering a specific treatment needs suitability, risk, recovery, price and practitioner information. Someone who has understood those things needs an appropriate next step.
Booking technology solves only the last part.
Our audit found plenty of booking buttons, forms and contact channels. The bigger opportunity was connecting concern → information → practitioner → action more clearly.
That is a much better test of an aesthetic clinic website than asking whether it has enough CTAs.