Comparison pages, done responsibly

What a comparison page is for

It serves stage three of the journey from Module 03, The patient journey, from symptom to booking: the patient knows roughly what category of thing they want and is trying to choose within it. This is a large amount of searching and it is consistently underserved, because comparison pages are difficult to write without bias and most clinics do not try.

The reader's need is specific. They are not asking which is better in general. They are asking which is better for them, and they know that a clinic cannot answer that from a website. What they want is the information required to have an informed conversation, which is a much easier thing to provide.

The six rows

Six rows, the same six for every comparison, and a paragraph under the table for anything that does not fit a cell.

• What it does. The mechanism at the level a patient needs, which is usually one sentence.
• How long it lasts. As a range, with the variables stated.
• Recovery. In days, with what is visible and for how long.
• Who it suits. Specific situations rather than general descriptions.
• Who it does not suit. The row that makes the page useful.
• Typical cost range. Consistent with your fees page, per Module 12, Price, and what you may say about it.

Filling the table is straightforward and takes about an hour per comparison once you have the underlying treatment pages. The discipline is to fill every cell for both options with equal care, including the option you would rather the patient did not choose.

The closing section

Every comparison page ends the same way and the ending is fixed for a reason. It states that which option is right depends on the individual anatomy, history and goal, that this cannot be determined from a website, and that a consultation exists to determine it.

That is not a cop-out. It is the truth, it is what any competent practitioner would say in person, and it is the only closing that does not make a clinical claim about a person the writer has never met. It also happens to be the closing that generates better consultations, because the patient arrives with a genuine question rather than a decision made from a table.

When you only offer one of them

This is the common case and it is where comparison pages most often become advertisements. The handling is simple and requires discipline: state plainly which of the two you offer, describe both with the same care, and where the option you do not offer is the better fit for a described situation, say so.

Clinics that do this well acquire a reputation quickly, because the behaviour is rare enough to be remarked upon. Clinics that do it badly produce a page whose bias is obvious to every reader and which damages the credibility of every other page on the site.

What you may never compare

Named businesses. A page comparing your clinic to another named clinic makes a comparative claim that must be capable of substantiation under the CAP Code, and no clinic can substantiate a claim about the quality of work it has not examined.

The same applies to ranked lists of providers of any kind. A list of the best clinics, or the best anything, purporting to be editorial while being written by a party with a commercial interest, is an advertisement in the shape of an article. Module 08, Reading the local market without naming names covers the market survey that tempts people into this, and why the output of that survey stays private.

Compare treatments, which you can describe. Never compare businesses, which you cannot assess.

Keeping it accurate

Comparison pages date faster than treatment pages, because a change to either treatment invalidates a row. Put them in the quarterly review from Module 31, What to measure, and what to ignore and check the table against both underlying treatment pages each time.

Where a row can no longer be filled accurately, remove the row rather than guessing. A table with five rows and a note explaining why the sixth was removed is more credible than six rows where one is out of date.