Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The web economy has not only transformed business around the world, it has also created growing challenges and opportunities for health providers.

Challenges Professional Health And Medical Services Providers Face Online

Today, more than ever, health services professionals must find smarter ways to stand out from their competition and find new clientele. Not only do you have to maintain a strong presence in the community you serve, you must also maintain an active web presence. This includes having a dynamic website and figuring out smarter ways to market your services online.

In addition to spending dollars marketing offline, businesses in the medical or health-related industry are also finding that they need to designate a bigger share of their budget to develop and maintain a website that will drive clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and help to give their business a wider degree of reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your pages have to load fast, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs will change in time and some areas will need to be updated frequently. This requires having a well-developed web and content management strategy in place.

Another problem that medical and health services professionals face with their websites (and all other professions for that matter), is that you have around 30 seconds to help visitors find what they need 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 The Medical And Health Profession In The Digital Economy

As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to medical businesses that can adapt to meet the challenges of the online economy and can think progressively when it comes to improving their online marketing skills.

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

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system to power your health-related website or blog.

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

• How A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Business And What To Do About It
• An Online Guide To Building A Successful Business With A WordPress Blog

Tips To Improve Your Website

In this section we’ll start with the basics and show you how to improve your health website and get better results. We show you what web pages you need, what type of content you need, your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, see this article: A Money-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Improve Your Web Pages

Professional websites need some basic pages. Let’s review these.

Services And Products

You need a page that describes your products or services. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, your page could include services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. pain management, nephrology blood disorders, plastic surgery, neurology, respiratory, infection control, ophtalmology surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, gum disease, restorations, orthodontics, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, skin cancer, x-ray, pap smears, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, reflexology, reiki, tai chi, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, sports medicine, fertility services, stomal therapy, neurosciences, artificial limbs, assisted living, home care, clinical information, medical transport, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these services and why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us Page

This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, community events, etc.

It’s important to also list any professional awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your medical services and to position yourself above similar service providers.

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

Your Staff

If you are looking for quicker and simpler ideas to sell more products online, then help your prospects get to know, like and trust your organization better.

You want your business to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be very well-versed in medical terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. It should include social buttons so your site visitors can follow selected team members on their social networks.

On this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your staff member’s expertise, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your employees or team members to prospective new clients. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to easily create and add an easy-to-update simple employee directory to your website with no coding skills required, go here: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff List In Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Recruitment Page

This is a listing of job opportunities available within the company. It should include training provided, benefits, professional development, etc. You can include information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the medical and health industry.

Include also a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, join your contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

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

(Add a web page with case studies and testimonials from past clients. Screenshot image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

If you want to learn more about using testimonials and client reviews, refer to this article: Achieve Better Results Online With Highly Effective Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is vitally important.

Your contact page should provide:

• Company Name
• Physical location
• Phone
• Fax number
• Contact email address
• Google Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media URLs
• Live Chat/Skype

If your business services multiple locations you should make this clear when displaying the address and contact info.

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

Add A Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful business marketing tool. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content like news and announcements, updates, educational articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an existing health or medical-related site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to market your organization.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing website is hard to add new content to or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act both as your business website and blog.

Not many people know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly begin delivering new visitors to your web site, simply by adding new content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

To learn more about this go here:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your WordPress Blog Into A Web Traffic Machine

Legal Pages

It’s really important for professional companies to ensure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws or regulations are being broken wherever your business is located.

Depending on what services and products you provide, adding the legal pages below to your health-related site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website here: Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Improving The Content On Your Site

In today’s ultra-competitive digital economy, the sooner you begin engaging in the practice of content marketing, the sooner you will begin to differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

Provide useful content with information, advice or tips that will get your readers sharing your information online with others and coming back for more content. This is the most effective way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about using your services.

For example, if your business provides weight loss services, then some of the areas you could write content about include:

• What is BMI (what it stands for, what it does, how to calculate yours)
• Advice on ways to develop portion control habits (smaller plate, don’t put food on the table, more vegetables)
• How to develop an exercise routine you can enjoy and will stick with
• How to incorporate a little fast food into a healthy diet plan
• Etc.

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your your readers gain a better understanding of your medical or health-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Use keywords and terms in your articles that readers will search for.

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 site, save money creating useful content for your site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Tips For Improving User Experience

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

Syndicating Content - RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.

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

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other sites using RSS feeds, include:

• All of your updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• RSS feeds allow for subscribing
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are a number of ways readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also 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 useful content for your website, search online for relevant government departments and well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are some examples of RSS feeds containing useful information that you could add to a health or medical-related website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Latest news feed: http://www.hhs.gov/rss/news/hhsnews.xml, etc. You can search by departments and select individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Health care for women, HIV/AIDS, Minority women’s 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. The Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), Bionet RSS, BMJ Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, Neurology.org, Infectious Agents and Cancer, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get many feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. criminal investigations press releases, health fraud, pet health, foods, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (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 various RSS feeds on health-related topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Arthritis, Migraine Headaches, Oral Health, Eyesight, Travel Health, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Cystic Fibrosis, Immune System/Vaccines, Radiology/Nuclear Medicine, Sleep/Sleep Disorders/Insomnia, Primary Care/General Practice, Biology/Biochemistry, Genetics, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “ALS rss feeds”, “leukemia rss feeds”, “dementia rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS feeds can help to improve your health or medical-related site’s user experience.)

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and explanatory charts are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement and add value to your readers. They can give them step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a task. Charts and checklists are great client instructional tools.

Forms, charts and checklists could include areas such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Online Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Calculators, for example are great tools you can add to your website. Others could include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In the next section of this guide, we discuss a several online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins that can also help improve seo, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this article on ways to grow your health business presence online.

Click on this link to continue:

• How To Grow Your Health Clinic Web Presence – Part Two

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