Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical providers face many new challenges in the web economy, especially when it comes to growing a business presence online.

Challenges Health & Medical Professionals Face Online

Now, more than ever, businesses in the medical and health sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the community your business serves, you must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better promote your services online.

As well as investing money in offline marketing, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete, you will need to allocate a larger amount of your budget towards the development and management of a website that will drive clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and help to give your business wider marketing exposure online.

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

One other problem that medical-related organizations (and most other businesses) face with their websites, is that your site has only around thirty seconds or less to give users what they are searching for or they will find what they are looking for 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 Health Services Practitioners

As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to health or medical-related practices that can adapt to meet online challenges and can think outside the box about improving their online marketing skills.

This guide will help you uncover a number of ways to generate more traffic and create noticeable improvements in your online results.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your medical or health-related website or blog.

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

In this section we’ll start with the basics and show you how to improve your health-related website and get better results. We will look at what pages your site needs, what type of content works best for medical or health-related websites, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, read this guide: A Basic Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Basic Website Pages

All business websites need a number of basic pages. Let’s discuss the pages your need and how to structure your website for best results.

Services And Products

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

Medicine & Surgery – e.g. acute pain management, pulmonology endocrinology, reconstructive surgery, continence management, renal, infection control, optometry surgical outpatients, etc.
Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, gum disease, teeth whitening, dental braces, emergency dentistry services, etc.
Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, coronary care
Prenatal & Postnatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
Diagnostic – breast screening, lung screening, x-ray, gynaecology, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, wellness coaching, social work services
Alternative treatments – acupuncture, aromatherapy, reiki, yoga, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
Other medical services – diet and nutrition, othopedics, reproductive services, occupational therapy, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home and community care, clinical information, medical transport, etc.

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

About Us

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

It should include any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your practice and position yourself above other competitors.

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

Meet The Team

If you are searching for quicker, easier and cheaper 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 you, your team and your business better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors are probably not well-versed in medical or health terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialized areas mean. It should include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow your staff members on their social networks.

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

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your staff members to prospective new clients. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to add an easy-to-manage list directory of staff members in your web site here: WordPress Plugin Tutorial: Adding An Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site

Job Opportunities

List any job opportunities available within the clinic. It can include training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities encouraged or sponsored by your business, etc. You can also include information about career opportunities in the health-related industry.

Maintain 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.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase the services you offer. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials, you will also help to establish social proof online.

(Add a page with testimonials and case studies. Screenshot source: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written extensively about using client testimonials and reviews to grow your business online. For more details, go here: Learn How To Improve Your Sales Using Powerful User Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should provide:

Business Name
Physical location
Phone
Facsimile
Contact email address
Google Map and directions
Web URL
Contact form
Name of person to contact
Social media web addresses
Online chat feature (optional)

If your business operates from several areas you want to make this clear when displaying your address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links point to the most commonly asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, booking request, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using content such as announcements, updates, training information, opinions and discussions, educational videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an medical or health-related website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your organization.

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

Something not many businesses know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic machine that will begin to attract web traffic to your site, simply by publishing content to your website on a regular basis.

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

Go here to learn more about this:

Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Create An Automated Traffic-Getting Machine

Legal Information

It’s extremely important for medical practitioners companies to ensure they have a compliant website. This is not only important for building trust with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being broken wherever you do business.

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

Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Terms 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 about adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more about this: Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s fiercely competitive digital economy, having a sound content marketing strategy has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.

By providing great content with information, advice or tips, you will get your visitors to share your information and come back for more content. Using content is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospects about using your products and services.

For example, if you provide weight management services, then some of the areas you can write about include the following:

What’s the difference between being overweight and obese?
Weight loss surgery – benefits vs risks (who should get it, risks, success rates)
Why using a measuring tape is better than a scale when it comes to weight loss progress
How to incorporate a little fast food into a healthy diet plan
And many other content topics

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your readers understand your health or medical services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Include keywords in your content that your readers would 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 exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your website’s user experience (known as UX) will help to 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 lots of benefits for your website.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other businesses 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
Feeds can be shared online
Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
It provides a way for links to point back to your site
Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
There are a number of ways readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your 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 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 by visiting sites of relevant government departments and respected industry bodies.

Below we have listed some examples of useful RSS feeds you could consider adding 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 feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Environmental health, Heart health and stroke, Minority women’s health, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Disease in Childhood – Education and Practice, JAMA & Archives, BMJ Emergency Medicine Journal, Medscape, 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 topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
FDA – Find feeds on fda-related news like criminal investigations, food allergy reports, tainted products, drugs, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
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 RSS feeds in places like the NYTimes RSS 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 RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Cancer, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Oral Health, Exercise & Fitness, HIV, etc.)
Medical News Today – Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
Medical News Today – You can also choose specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Colorectal Cancer, Caregivers/Homecare, Cervical Cancer/HPV Vaccine, Aid/Disasters, Endocrinology, Tropical Diseases, 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. “lupus rss feeds”, “transplants rss feeds”, “hepatitis rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Provide Forms

Adding checklists and medical forms 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 step-by-step information and resources to perform necessary steps. They can also be great instructional tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms can cover areas such as:

Booking appointments
Checklists for pre or post surgery
Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, caries prevention program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
Weight loss and nutrition program checklists and charts
General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Add Unique Tools

Providing useful tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Health-related calculators are useful tools you can add to your website. Others can include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part two of this guide, we take a look at a several WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your health-related website that can 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 1 of this comprehensive guide on ways to grow your medical web presence.

To view the rest of this guide, click this link:

Grow Your Medical Website – WordPress Plugins For Improving SEO, Increasing User Engagement And Web Traffic Generation

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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)