Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health or medical professionals today face significant challenges.

Online Challenges For The Medical & Health Profession

Today, more than ever, medical practitioners must work hard and find smarter ways to stand out from the crowd and find new clientele. Not only do you have to maintain an active presence in the community you serve, you must also develop a strong web presence. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better market your business online.

In addition to investing dollars advertising offline, businesses in the medical-related industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be directed towards the development and management of a website that drives new clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps to increase their marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website may change over time and sections will need to be updated frequently. This requires the implementation of a well-developed web and content management strategy.

Another challenge that health organizations (and most other professions) face with their websites, is that you have around thirty seconds to provide users what they need or they will go away.

“Websites have evolved into central information hubs where service information is still present but enhanced with web portals, hyperlinks to state and federal sites, and a variety of free tools.”

Michael Alter, http://www.accountingweb.com/technology/accounting-software/tips-for-improving-your-website

Online Opportunities For Medical Services Providers

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for medical-related practices that can adapt to meet online challenges and think progressively in terms of marketing their business better online.

This comprehensive guide will help you uncover new ways to attract new clients and build more online credibility for your business.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your health website, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your medical or health business website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform, see these articles:

• How A Poorly Constructed Website Can Cost You Money
• Everything You Need To Know About Growing Your Business Using WordPress

Useful Tips To Improve Your Health Website

This section explains ways to improve your medical website and get better results. We show you what pages a medical-related site needs, what type of content you need, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need any help with website planning, go here: A Cost-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Improve Your Website Pages

All websites need some basic pages. Let’s go over these.

Products And Services Page

You need a page that explains your products and services. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, this page could list services such as:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. pain management, neurosurgery haematology, cancer, incontinence, renal, endoscopy, ophtalmology surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, restorations, dental braces, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, skin cancer, hearing, gynaecology, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, shiatsu, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, podiatry, fertility services, rehabilitation, medical genetics, artificial limbs, assisted living, home and community care, community health, medical supplies, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

Who We Are

This page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, community contributions, etc.

This page should also list any health-related awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and position yourself above similar service providers.

(List all of your awards accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc. in your About Us page. Screenshot image sourced from: squaremedical.com.au)

Meet Our Team

Are you searching for cost-effective ideas to sell more products or services online? Then something you can do, is help your visitors get to know you and your business better.

Prospects need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in health terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page can also include social buttons so your site visitors can follow your staff members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to highlight each staff member’s experience, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a staff description page. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to easily add a list of employees in your website with no coding skills required here: WordPress Plugin Tutorial: Adding An Employee List Directory

Job Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities available within the business. It could include training provided, benefits, professional development, social activities promoted or encouraged by your business, etc. You can include information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the health and medical industry.

Include also a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, subscribe to your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials from previous clients, you will also help to provide visitors social proof.

(Add a page with case studies and client reviews. Image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written extensively on using testimonials and client reviews to grow your business online. Go here to learn more: Achieve Better Results Online Using Profit-Boosting Client Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should include the following information about your organization:

• Name Of Your Business
• Location
• Telephone number
• Fax
• Email
• Google Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Live chat feature (optional feature)

If you have multiple areas you want to make this clear when displaying your address and contact information.

You should also include a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, main pages, online booking request, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Medical Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using content like the latest announcements, updates, useful articles, informative posts, educational videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established health website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to create more exposure for your business.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing health or medical-related site is hard to manage or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act both as your website and your blog.

Not many businesses know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that will help begin to attract targeted visitors to your website, simply by publishing new content on a regular basis to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Create A Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress

Legal Information Pages

It’s essential to ensure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching any local, regional or federal laws and regulations wherever you practice.

Depending on the products and services you provide, adding the following legal pages to your health or medical site will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health and Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

If you want to learn more about adding legal pages to your site, refer to this article: Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Ways To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s fiercely competitive global business economy, having a sound content marketing strategy has become one of the key business differentiators.

Providing great content with tips, advice or information will get your readers to share your information with others and come back for more. Using content is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospects about your services.

For example, if you provide solutions that help people lose weight, then some of the topics you could cover as content on your site:

• What’s the difference between being overweight and obese?
• How to set realistic, but challenging weight loss goals
• How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and recommendations
• Vitamins and minerals that aid in weight loss (chromium, calcium, magnesium, etc.)
• And endless other content topics

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your prospective clients understand your health or medical services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Include the keywords and terms in your content that prospective clients will search to find you online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your website’s user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help you keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you ways you can improve visitor engagement and user experience.

Syndicating Content With RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide lots of benefits for your website.

If you provide useful content, other businesses will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are various ways readers can receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to providing valuable content on your website from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

You can find RSS feeds with useful content for your website by visiting sites of relevant government departments or key industry bodies.

Here are some examples of feeds you could add to a health or medical-related site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also select individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Health care for women, HIV/AIDS, Mental health, Screening tests and vaccines, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Journal of Neurophysiology, The Journal of General Physiology (JGP), RadioGraphics, BMJ Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Molecular Biology and Evolution, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get various health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find feeds on fda-related topics like FDA drug safety, FDA drug shortages, pet health, vaccines, blood and biologics, etc. and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• UK Department Of Health (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-health) – Latest news: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-health.atom
• The Department Of Health (Australian Government): http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/xml/rssLatestNews.xml
• Department Of Public Health (Australia – State Level): e.g. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find many feeds on health-related news and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Cancer, Cholesterol, Diet & Weight Management, Digestion, Heart, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Hypertension, Caregivers/Homecare, ADHD/ADD, Aid/Disasters, Endocrinology, GastroIntestinal/Gastroenterology, Psychology/Psychiatry, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “bird flu rss feeds”, “physical therapy rss feeds”, “obesity rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS feeds to improve your medical-related website’s UX.)

Adding Checklists

Checklists and medical forms are a great way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Checklists and charts can provide users with useful step-by-step information and resources to get necessary steps done. They are great instructional tools.

You can provide a range of forms and checklists covering subjects such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Provide Online Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to users. Calculators, for example are great tools to add to your website. Other tools would include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In the next section of this detailed article, we take a look at a several WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your health site that can improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1.

Click here to read Part Two:

• How To Successfully Grow Your Health-Related Business Online – Part Two

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