Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress
The digital information age has not only transformed business globally, it has also created new challenges and great opportunities for businesses offering medical services.
Challenges Professional Health Services Providers Face Online
Today, more than ever, medical practitioners must find smarter ways to remain competitive and find new clientele. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community you serve, you must also develop an active presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better promote your business online.
In addition to investing dollars advertising offline on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., you will probably find that in order to compete, you will need to assign a bigger amount of your marketing budget towards developing and maintaining a website that will drive prospective clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help to increase your reach online.
This means that your website not only has to look professional, your pages have to be fast-loading, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of your website will change in time and sections may need to be frequently updated. This requires having a sound web and content management strategy.
Another difficult challenge that health or medical businesses face with their websites, as do most professions for that matter, is that you have only about thirty seconds to give users what they are looking 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
Opportunities For Medical Professionals In The Digital Economy
As well as facing many new challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for health or medical-related businesses that can evolve to meet digital economy demands and can think strategically when it comes to improving their online marketing skills.
In this detailed guide, you will discover ways and opportunities to attract and engage new visitors and establish online credibility for your business.
As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your medical-related web presence, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your medical-related website.
For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), see the articles below:
Useful Tips For Improving Your Website
We’ll start first by covering the basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages your website needs, what type of content works best for health-related sites, tips for improving your layout and navigation, etc.
If you need assistance or help planning your health website, read this detailed step-by-step guide we have written: Planning Your Web Site - A Comprehensive Primer For Business Owners
Basic Website Pages
All websites need several essential web pages. Let’s review these.
Products And Services
You need to include a page that lists your services and products. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page could list services like:
- Medicine & Surgery – e.g. acute pain management, pulmonology hematology, reconstructive surgery, rehabilitation medicine, renal, urology, ophtalmology operating theaters, etc.
- Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, restorations, implants, emergency dentistry, etc.
- Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, chronic heart conditions
- Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
- Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
- Diagnostic – breast screening, lung screening, medical imaging, pap smears, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
- Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
- Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, wellness coaching, social work services
- Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, reiki, massage therapy, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
- Other medical services – weight management, chiropody, fertility services, speech therapy, neurosciences, prosthetics, assisted living, home care, sexual health, medical equipment, etc.
List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what these services do and why they should choose you.
About Us
This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, causes that you support, etc.
It should also mention any business awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your medical services and position yourself above your competitors.
(List all of your awards certifications, recognitions, accreditations, associations, publications, etc. in the About page. Screenshot source: squaremedical.com.au)
Core Team
If you are searching for simple ways to sell more products or services online, then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for prospective clients to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.
You want prospects 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 brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with health or medical-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page can include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow individual staff members on their social networks.
In this page, make sure to outline each team member’s qualifications, how their skills and knowledge add value or 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. Screenshot image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)
To learn more about how to easily create and add an easy-to-update directory of staff members in your website without coding skills, go here: How To Add A Simple Employee List On Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code
Job Opportunities Page
List any job opportunities available within the clinic. It can include training offered, benefits, professional development, etc. You can include information about upcoming career opportunities in the health or 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, join your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.
Case Studies And Testimonials
Case studies and client reviews are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. Adding a page with case studies and client reviews also establishes social proof online.
(Add a page with client reviews and case studies. Screenshot image source: arrowsmiledental.com)
We have written a detailed article about using client case studies and client reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more about this: Improve Your Conversions With Compelling Client Testimonials
Contact Page
Having a contact page is absolutely necessary.
It should provide visitors with the following information about your business:
- Company Name
- Address
- Telephone
- Facsimile number
- Contact email address
- Map and directions
- Web URL
- Contact form
- Contact name
- Links to social media profiles
- Live Chat/Skype
If you operate in several locations you should make that clear when showing the address and contact information.
You should also include links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, useful pages, online booking request, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.
Blog Section
A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using timely content such as the latest announcements, updates, training articles, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.
If you already have an existing site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your organization.
If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing medical or health website is very hard to manage or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can serve as both your business website and blog.
Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic system that can instantly begin attracting an ongoing stream of targeted traffic to your business, simply by publishing regular content to your website.
(WordPress can drive new traffic automatically to your website)
For more details:
Legal Information Pages
As a professional business, ensuring that you have a website that complies will all legal requirements online is essential. This is not only important for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being breached wherever you practice.
Adding the following legal pages to your website 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 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 about adding legal pages to your website. To learn more, go here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website
Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Site
In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin to publish good content on your site, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from other competing businesses.
You will want to provide useful content with information or tips that will get your visitors to share your information with others and come back for more content. Publishing content is the most effective way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.
For example, if you provide products or services that help people lose weight, then some of the topics you can publish content about include the following:
- What to do before you start any weight loss program (e.g. consult with doctor, record measurements, set goals, etc.)
- Weight loss surgery – benefits vs risks (who should get it, risks, rates of success)
- Tips for developing an exercise regimen you can enjoy and will stick with
- How a personal chef can help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
- And many other content topics
You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients understand your medical services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.
Use the same keywords 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 a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site 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!
Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience
Improving your site’s user experience (generally referred to as UX) helps you keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and user experience.
Syndicating Content Using RSS Feeds
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide plenty of benefits for your site.
If you provide valuable 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 kept in one place
- Doesn’t rely on email
- Your feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
- Users can subscribe to your feed
- A feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
- Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
- There are multiple ways readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the content on their mobile device using different applications)
- It’s built into WordPress
There are also benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your website from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.
To find useful RSS feeds for your website, search online for medical-related government departments or industry bodies.
For example, here are examples of feeds you could add to your website:
- US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Latest news feed: http://www.hhs.gov/rss/news/hhsnews.xml, etc. You can also select specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Health care for women, HIV/AIDS, Minority women’s health, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
- US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of RSS feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Disease in Childhood – Education and Practice, JAMA & Archives, Stem Cells, Current Psychiatry, BMJ Postgraduate Medical Journal, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
- National Institutes Of Health - Find many feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
- US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get RSS feeds on fda-related news like enforcement reports, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), recalls, vaccines, blood and biologics, 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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
- Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Find many RSS feeds on health-related topics and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
- Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
- MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Menopause, Neurology, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Senior Health, Skin, etc.)
- MedicalNewsToday.com – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
- MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose individual RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Pharma Industry/Biotech Industry, Acid Reflux/GERD, Cervical Cancer/HPV Vaccine, Swine Flu, Diabetes, Pediatrics/Children’s Health, 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. “eating disorders rss feeds”, “heart disease rss feeds”, “cancer rss feeds”, etc.
(Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)
Add Charts And Checklists
Checklists and medical forms are a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your audience. Checklists and medical forms can give them useful step-by-step information and resources to get necessary steps performed. They can also be great educational tools.
You can provide online or downloadable checklists and forms covering a range of areas such as:
- Checklists and forms for booking appointments
- Checklists for pre or post treatment
- Health checklists for specific medical conditions
- Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
- Weight loss and exercise program checklists
- General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, sleep requirements at different stages of development, etc.)
Adding Unique Tools
Providing unique online tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are great tools you can add to your website. Others could include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.
In part 2, we will be discussing a several online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins and themes that can improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.
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This is the end of section 1.
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