Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical services professionals today are facing significant challenges brought about by the web economy.

Challenges Medical And Health Services Professionals Face Online

Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical and health industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the community you serve, you must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a website and learning better ways to promote your business online.

In addition to spending dollars marketing offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete with other medical businesses, you will need to invest a bigger amount of your budget to develop and maintain a website that can attract new prospects, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help you gain wider exposure online.

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

One other difficult challenge that medical practitioners face online, as other professions do for that matter, is that you have only about 30 seconds to give visitors what they are looking for or they will leave and go elsewhere.

“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

Opportunities For Medical & Health Services

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also many online opportunities available for health practices that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and think strategically about marketing their services better online.

In this detailed guide, you will discover a number of ways to drive more traffic and build more online credibility for your business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress CMS platform to power your health website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform, go here:

• How A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Prospective Clients
• Using A WordPress Blog To Grow A Successful Small Business Online

Ways To Improve Your Website

This section will show you how to improve your medical or health website and get better results. We show you what web pages you need, what type of content works best, tips for improving navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your health-related website, go here: How To Plan Your Business Web Site - A Useful Blueprint For Non-Technical Business Owners

Essential Web Pages

All business websites need some essential pages. Let’s review these.

Your Services

It’s essential to include a page that lists your products and services. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, your page can include services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, nephrology endocrinology, maxillofacial surgery, geriatric medicine, rheumatology, bariatric surgery, eye diseases palliative care, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral hygiene, restorations, dental implants, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, lung screening, radiology and imaging, women’s health, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, aromatherapy, colloidal silver therapy, shiatsu, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, sports medicine, reproductive services, physiotherapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, hearing aids, home care, sexual health, medical equipment, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment with you.

Who We Are

This page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, sponsored community activities, etc.

It’s important to also include any awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your practice and set yourself above other competitors.

(List all of your awards certifications, recognitions, accreditations, associations, publications, etc. in your About page. Image source: squaremedical.com.au)

Your Team

If you are searching for cost-effective ways to sell more products or services online, then something you can do, is make it easier for your prospects to get to know you and your business better.

You want your business to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in health or medical-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas mean. It should also include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow individual team members on their social pages.

On this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each team 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.

(Add an employee page. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to add an easy-to-update directory of staff members in WordPress without coding skills, refer to this tutorial: Tutorial: Adding An Employee Directory To WordPress

Career Opportunities

This is a listing of career opportunities within your clinic. This page can include training offered, benefits, advancement opportunities, social aspects of working with your business, etc. You should also include case studies of trainees who have risen within your business and information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the health or medical-related industry.

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

Testimonials

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase the services you offer. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials from past clients, you will also help to provide social proof for your business.

(Add a page with case studies and client reviews. Screenshot image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

If you would like to learn more about using case studies, testimonials and client reviews to grow your business online, go here: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online With More Effective User Testimonials

Contact Us

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should include some or all of the following information about your center:

• Company Name
• Address
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Google Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media URLs
• Live Chat/Skype

If your business operates out of multiple locations you will want to make this clear when showing the address and contact information.

You can also include links to an FAQ section, main pages, online booking request, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health Or Medical Blog Section

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business using timely content like news and events, updates, training articles, discussions on current topics, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established medical or health website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to market your medical company.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing medical site is hard to keep updated or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can be used both as your website and business blog.

Something few businesses know about, is that WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that can instantly begin attracting a stream of targeted traffic to your web site, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Getting More Website Traffic For Your Business Automatically

Legal Information

Having a compliant website is crucial. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being contravened in whatever area or location you do business.

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

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

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your site here: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Ways To Improve The Content On Your Website

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content that educates and informs readers has become one of the key success factors for businesses selling similar products or providing similar services.

Providing great content with tips, advice and information will get your visitors sharing your web pages online and coming back for more content. Publishing content is a great way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about using your services.

For example, if you provide solutions that help people lose weight, then some of the topics you could write content about include:

• Being overweight vs. being obese – what are the differences?
• How to set realistic, but achievable weight loss goals
• How to develop an exercise regime you can enjoy and will stick with
• Useful tips that will help you curb the late night urges for a snack (e.g. sleep earlier)
• And many other content topics

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Remember to include keywords and terms in your content that your prospective clients will be searching for online.

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

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

An RSS feed provides plenty of benefits for your website.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other sites may want to syndicate your content.

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

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

There are also a number of benefits to adding syndicated content to your site from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find RSS feeds with loads of useful content just visit sites of medical or health-related government departments and industry bodies.

Here are some feeds you could add to a medical website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also select individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Healthy aging, Illnesses and disabilities, Menopause, Smoking and how to quit, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Rheumatology, BMJ Journal of Medical Genetics, CDC USA, BMJ Archives of Disease, 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 many health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find feeds on fda-related news and topics like consumer health information, food allergies, tainted products marked as dietary supplements, radiological health, 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) - Get many RSS feeds on health-related news and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Asthma, Cholesterol, Oral Health, Digestion, Hearing, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News 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. Colorectal Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, Pregnancy/Obstetrics, Hearing/Deafness, Endocrinology, Nutrition/Diet, Crohn’s/IBD, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “lung cancer rss feeds”, “tropical diseases rss feeds”, “wearable technology rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS feeds to improve your site’s user experience.)

Add Downloadable Checklists & Charts

Checklists and educational charts are a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. Charts and checklists can provide users with useful step-by-step information and resources to complete a necessary task. Charts and checklists can also be great instructional tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms can address topics such as:

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Unique Tools

Providing useful tools and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to potential clients. Health-related calculators are useful tools to add to your website. Others can include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part 2, we look at a several WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your website that can also help improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

***

This is the end of section 1 of this article on ways to grow your medical-related web presence.

Click here to continue:

• Tips For Health And Medical Services Providers – WordPress Plugins That Can Help Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation

***

***