Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only transformed businesses around the world, it has also created a number of difficult challenges and great opportunities for the medical-related profession.

Online Challenges For The Health And Medical Profession

Today, more than ever, health and medical services professionals must find smarter ways to stand out from their competition and generate new clients. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the community your business serves, you must also maintain a strong web presence. This includes having an effective website and figuring out smarter ways to market your health or medical services services online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing activities like advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television, etc., you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy medical businesses, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be delegated towards the development and maintenance of a website that drives new prospective clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and gives you wider reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your pages have to be fast-loading, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website will change over time and sections may need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a sound website and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that medical providers face online, as most other businesses do for that matter, is that your site has only about 30 seconds to provide visitors what they are searching for or they will look 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 & Medical Businesses

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available to medical-related businesses that can evolve to meet digital economy demands and think progressively about improving their online business marketing skills.

The article below will help you uncover ways and opportunities to attract new visitors and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your health or medical-related web presence, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress platform to power your medical website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), see the articles below:

• How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Lose You Money
• Learn How To Grow Your Business Using WordPress

Useful Tips To Improve Your Health Center Site

We’ll start first by going over the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results. We show you what web pages you need, what content works best for health-related websites, suggestions for improving your site’s layout and navigation structure, etc.

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

How To Improve Your Web Pages

All business websites need some essential pages. Let’s review the pages your  should have and how to set up your health-related website for best results.

Products And Services Description Page

It’s essential to include a page that explains your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, this page could list services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, orthopedics hematology, reconstructive surgery, geriatric medicine, rheumatology, weight loss surgery, eye diseases surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, cleaning services, restorations, dental implants, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screening, skin cancer, hearing, women’s health, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, marriage counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, functional medicine, massage therapy, osteopathy, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, podiatry, reproductive endocrinology, optical services, medical genetics, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home and community care, clinical information, medical transport, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, causes that you support, etc.

It’s important to list any industry awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your medical services and set yourself above your competitors.

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

Meet Your Staff

Are you looking for quicker, simpler and cost-effective ideas to sell more products online or increase user interaction on your site? Then make it easier for prospective clients to get to know you, your team and your organization better.

You want people to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be that well-versed in medical-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas mean. It should also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow individual staff members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to outline each staff member’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a ‘meet the team’ page. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to add an easy-to-manage list of employees to WordPress using a free WordPress plugin, refer to this tutorial: How To Add A Simple Staff List To Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Work With Us

This is a listing of job or career opportunities available within your business. This page would include training, benefits, professional development, social aspects of working with your business, etc. You can also include information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the health industry.

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

Case Studies

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase what kind of services you offer. Adding a page with case studies and client reviews also establishes social proof.

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

We have written extensively about using client case studies and reviews to grow your business online here: How To Get Better Results Online With Effective Testimonials

Contact Page

A functional contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should include some or all of the following:

• Name Of Your Business
• Physical location
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Google Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media networks
• Interactive chat (optional feature)

If your business operates out of several locations you will want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact information.

You could also include links to an FAQ page, frequently-visited pages, online booking request, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Medical Or Health Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business using timely content like news, updates, training information, informative posts, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an existing site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your medical business.

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

Very few people know that WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that will help begin attracting a stream of targeted traffic to your 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:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Grow Your Web Traffic For Your Business

Legal Information

It’s extremely important to make sure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being contravened in whatever location you provide services.

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 legal threats or inconveniences:

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

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Improving The Content On Your Site

In today’s fiercely competitive global economy, the sooner you begin engaging in the practice of content marketing, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from the competition.

By providing useful content with great tips, advice or information, you will get your visitors sharing it with others and coming back for more content. This is the most effective way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about using your services.

For example, if you provide products that help people manage their weight, then some of the topics you can cover in your web content include:

• What to do before starting any weight loss program (e.g. consult with doctor, record measurements, set goals, etc.)
• What are calories and how understanding them aids in weight loss
• Incorporating exercise into your busy schedule
• Useful tips that will help you curb the late night urges for a snack (e.g. sleep earlier)
• Etc.

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your health or medical-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Include the keywords in your content that your prospective clients would 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 that will show you how to drive more traffic to your web 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 completely FREE!

Ways To Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

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

If you provide valuable content, other sites may want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared
• Allows for subscribing
• It provides links to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are several ways readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits to providing valuable information on 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 health-related government departments or well-known industry bodies.

Here are some examples of RSS feeds you could consider adding to your website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog 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. Emergency preparedness, Environmental health, Illnesses and disabilities, 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 list of feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. PhysiologicalReviews, JAMA & Archives, Stem Cells, BMJ Journal of Clinical Pathology, BMJ Postgraduate Medical Journal, 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 RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find RSS feeds on fda-related news like consumer health information, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), product recalls, tobacco news, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Find many feeds on health-related news and topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news RSS feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – 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. Allergies, Mental Health, Cholesterol, Depression, Eyesight, High Blood Pressure, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also select individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Hypertension, Complementary Medicine/Alternative Medicine, Compliance, Flu/Cold/SARS, Endocrinology, HIV/AIDS, Crohn’s/IBD, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “caregivers rss feeds”, “general practice rss feeds”, “psychology rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists And Charts

Checklists and charts are a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. Charts and checklists can provide useful instructions and resources to complete necessary tasks. Forms and checklists are great educational tools.

You can provide a range of online or downloadable checklists, charts and forms (or links to these) covering subjects such as:

• Checklists and forms for 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 exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Unique Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your users. Health-related calculators are great tools to add to your website. Other applications would include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In the next section, we will look at a number of WordPress-based tools you can add to your site that improve 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 continue:

• A Practical Guide On How To Grow Your Medical And Health Clinic Web Presence – Part 2

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