Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health and medical services professionals today are facing increasingly difficult challenges brought about by the online economy.

Online Challenges For Health & Medical Businesses

Today, more than ever, businesses in the medical industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community you serve, you must also maintain a strong digital presence. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better market your business online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing, businesses in the medical-related industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be directed to develop and manage a website that will attract prospective clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and help to increase their marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of the website may change over time and sections will need to be updated frequently. This requires the implementation of a sound web and content management strategy.

Another challenge that health or medical businesses face (as do all other businesses for that matter), is that your site has an average of thirty seconds or less to give visitors the information they need or they will 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

Online Opportunities For Health And Medical Services Practitioners

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to businesses in the health or medical-related profession that are willing to adapt to meet digital economy challenges and can think progressively when it comes to marketing themselves better online.

In this guide, you will learn ways to attract more visitors and create noticeable improvements in your business results online.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your medical business website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), see these articles:

• How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Lose You Business
• The Complete Guide To Growing Your Successful Business Using WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

In this section we’ll show you ways to improve your health or medical-related website and get better results. We show you what web pages you need, what content you need, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, see this guide: A Practical Guide To Website Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Essential Website Pages

Professional websites require a number of essential pages. Let’s review the pages your  need to have and how to set up your website for best results.

Description Of services And Products

You need to include a page that describes your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, this page can list services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, orthopedics diabetes, cancer, hyperbaric medicine, respiratory, endoscopy, ophtalmology operating theaters, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, children’s dentistry, oral hygiene, restorations, dental braces, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, coronary care
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, skin cancer, audiology, gynaecology, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration biopsy, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, reflexology, colloidal silver therapy, tai chi, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, podiatry, reproductive endocrinology, rehabilitation, medical genetics, prosthetics, mobility, home and community care, community health, medical transport, etc.

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and why they should choose you.

About Us Page

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

Remember to also list any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your medical services and position yourself above your competitors.

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

Staff

If you are searching for cost-effective ways to sell more products online or increase user interaction on your site, then make it easier for your visitors to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

You want people to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be very well-versed in health or medical terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. This page should include social buttons so your site visitors can follow your team members on their social networks.

On this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your person’s experience, how their skills contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

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

To learn more about how to easily create and add a directory of staff members in your site using a free WordPress plugin, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff List For Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

Recruitment Page

List any job or career opportunities within the company. It would include type of training provided, employee benefits, professional development, social activities promoted by your business, etc. You should also include stories of recruits who have worked their way up in your company and information about additional career opportunities in the health-related industry.

Also include a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, subscribe to your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials from previous clients are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. Adding a web page with reviews from clients and case studies also helps your health or medical website to provide visitors social proof online.

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

To learn more about using client testimonials and user reviews, refer to this article: Convert More Visitors Into Prospects Using Sales Boosting Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is crucial.

It should include the following information:

• Company Name
• Your address
• Phone
• Fax
• Email address
• Google Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Request for information – contact details
• Links to social media pages
• Chat/Skype

If you operate in multiple locations you will want to make that clear when showing your address and contact info.

You should also include a few links point to the most commonly asked questions page, useful pages, online booking request, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content such as events, updates, training information, informative posts, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Not many people know this, but WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation system that will drive new visitors to your web site, simply by adding new content on a consistent basis to your website.

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

For more details:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Getting More Website Visitors For Your Business Automatically Using WordPress

Legal Information

It’s extremely important to have a compliant website. This is not only important for building credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being contravened wherever you practice.

Adding the following legal pages to your site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:

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

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more about this: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Ways To Improve Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, having a sound content marketing strategy has become one of the key differentiators for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

Providing useful content with great tips or information will get your readers sharing your information and coming back for more content. This is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospects about your services.

For example, if you provide products or services that help people lose weight, then some of the topics you could write about include the following:

• What is BMI (what it stands for, what it does, how to calculate yours)
• How to ask for support when embarking on a weight loss program (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• Comparing different diets, e.g. Paleo diet, GI diet, Volumetrics diet (what these are, how they can benefit you, how effective they are)
• How to incorporate a little fast food into a healthy diet plan
• And many other content topics

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

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

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

Ways Of Improving Visitor Experience

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

Syndicating Content Using RSS Feeds

Using RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in several ways.

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

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

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

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to providing great 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 loads of useful content for your website by visiting sites of medical and health-related government departments and respected industry bodies.

Here are some examples of RSS feeds you could add to your site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and choose specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Environmental health, Illnesses and disabilities, Minority women’s health, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Journal of Applied Physiology, JAMA & Archives, American Cancer Society, BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, BMJ British Journal of Ophthalmology, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find many feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find feeds on fda-related news and topics like criminal investigations, health fraud, tainted products, foods, etc. and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (www.gov.uk) – 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 various feeds on health-related topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news RSS feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes 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 choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Cancer, Chronic Pain, Depression, Exercise & Fitness, Hearing, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Eye Health/Blindness, Lupus, Asbestos/Mesothelioma, Regulatory Affairs/Drug Approvals, Medical Devices/Diagnostics, Cleft Palate, Alzheimer’s/Dementia, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “urology rss feeds”, “parkinson’s disease rss feeds”, “statins rss feeds”, etc.

(Using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your medical-related site’s UX.)

Provide Online Checklists & Charts

Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a fantastic way to increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and set yourself apart from the competition. Forms and checklists can provide visitors with useful step-by-step information and resources to complete a necessary task. Checklists and forms are also great educational tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms could include subjects such as:

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)

Add Online Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to potential clients. Health-related calculators, for example, are popular tools for your website. Other tools could include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In the next section of this guide, we take a look at a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your site that improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

Click here to read Part 2:

• Grow Your Health Clinic Website – WordPress Plugins & Themes For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Better User Engagement And Web Traffic Generation

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