Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The online economy has not only transformed business worldwide, it has also created a growing number of challenges and great opportunities for health services providers and financial service providers.

Online Challenges For The Medical Profession

Now, more than ever, businesses in the health industry 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 maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better market your business online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing activities, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be assigned to develop and maintain a website that can attract clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and increase your presence online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change in time and sections will need to be updated often. This requires implementing sound website and content management strategy.

Another challenge that health or medical-related businesses (and most other professions) face, is that you have around thirty seconds to provide visitors 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 Medical And Health Services Practitioners

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the medical-related sector that are willing to evolve to meet the demands of the digital economy and can think outside the box when it comes to marketing themselves better online.

In this detailed guide, you will discover new ways and opportunities to increase web traffic and notice significant 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-related business website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see the articles below:

• Why A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Customers And What To Do About It
• WordPress – The Small Business Owner’s Guide

Ways To Improve Your Health And Medical Center Website

We’ll start first by covering the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what web pages you need, what type of content works best, ways to improve your navigation structure, etc.

If you need specific help with website planning, visit this page: The Website Planning Process Explained: A Basic Guide For Business Owners

Improve Your Website Pages

All business websites require several basic web pages. Let’s review the pages your  need and how to structure your medical or health-related website for best results.

Description Of Products And Services

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, neurosurgery hematology, oral surgery, aged care, respiratory, urology, optometry operating theaters, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, gum disease, veneers, crowns and bridges, implants, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac surgery, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal and Postnatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, skin cancer, radiology and imaging, women’s health, magnetic resonance imaging, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration biopsy, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, natural therapy, shiatsu, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, podiatry, lymphedema therapy, physiotherapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, assisted living, home care, sexual health, medical equipment, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what your services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

Who We Are

This page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, causes that you support, etc.

It’s important to also mention any awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your medical services and set yourself above the competition.

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

Your Team

Are you searching for quicker and simpler ideas to sell more products or services online or get prospective clients to stay longer on your site? Then help your prospective clients get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.

Potential clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be very well-versed in medical or health terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas mean. It can include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow some of your staff members on their social pages.

On this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your team member’s experience, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a staff page. Screenshot source: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to create and add an easy-to-manage list of staff members to your site using a free plugin, go here: How To Add A Staff List Directory To WordPress: WordPress Plugin Tutorial

Recruitment Page

List any career opportunities available within the organization. It could include training provided, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You should also include information such as the job outlook and additional 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 contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies And Testimonials

Client reviews and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. Adding a page with case studies and client reviews also provides social proof online.

(Add a page to your site with testimonials and case studies. Screenshot image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have created a detailed article on using testimonials and reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more about this: Create Better Results Online With Awesome Customer Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should include some or all of the following information about your consulting practice:

• Business Name
• Physical location
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Contact email address
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Request for information – who to contact
• Links to social media pages
• Chat (optional feature)

If your business services several locations you want to make this clear when showing the address and contact info.

You can also include links pointing to the most commonly asked questions page, useful pages, booking request, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Medical-Related Blog

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business using timely content like news and events, product releases, educational information, informative posts, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an existing website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to create more exposure for your medical practice.

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 become both your business website and blog.

Something not many people know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that can begin driving an ongoing stream of web traffic to your website, simply by publishing new content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

For more info, see this article:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Create A Web Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Information

It’s very important for medical services practitioners businesses to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws or regulations are being breached wherever your practice is located.

Adding the following legal pages to your website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

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

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your site. If you would like to know more about this here: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

How To Improve Your Web Content

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

Providing useful content with great tips, information or advice will get your readers sharing it with others and coming back for more. Using content is a great way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about using your services and products.

For example, if your business provides services that help people lose weight, then some of the topics you can cover as content on your site:

• What is fiber and how can it help you with weight loss?
• How to identify the bad habits that need to be corrected to ensure permanent weight loss
• How you eat your food is just as important as what you eat (eat at table, chew slowly)
• 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 prospective clients gain a better understanding of your medical-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Include the keywords and terms in your articles that your 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 easy-to-digest information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your visitors and grow your website 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 website user experience (known as UX) helps to keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and user experience.

Adding RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide plenty of benefits for your site.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other businesses 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 content updates are kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• An RSS feed provides links back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are several ways readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to providing content on your site from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

You can find many useful RSS feeds for your website by searching online for relevant government departments and key industry bodies.

Below we have listed some examples of RSS feeds containing useful information that you could add to a medical or health website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and select individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Body image, Health care for women, HIV/AIDS, Mental 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 various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Journal of Neurophysiology, American Association of Neurological Surgeons, JCI – The Journal of Clinical Investigation, BMJ Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Pediatrics, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get various feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related news feeds (e.g. consumer health information, health fraud, pet health, cosmetics, 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 (www.cdc.gov) - Find various health-related RSS feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS 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 – Weekly Health and Medical News Digest: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/weeklyhealth.xml. You can also select specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Cancer, Cholesterol, Diet & Weight Management, Prevention & Wellness, Skin, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Medical News 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. Public Health, Acid Reflux/GERD, Compliance, Neurology/Neuroscience, Rehabilitation/Physical Therapy, Nutrition/Diet, Genetics, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “HPV vaccine rss feeds”, “leukemia rss feeds”, “ultrasound rss feeds”, etc.

(Using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your website’s user experience.)

Checklists & Charts

Checklists and medical forms are a great way to help increase user engagement, add value to your audience and provide something unique. They can provide useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform a task. Charts and checklists are also great instructional tools.

Forms, charts and checklists could address subjects such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post treatment
• Health checklists and charts for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Adding Online Tools

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

In part 2, we will look at a several WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your medical or health website that improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

Click on this link to continue:

• The Step-By-Step Guide To Building And Growing Your Health Practice Services Business Online Successfully – Part 2

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