Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The information economy has not only revolutionized businesses worldwide, it has also created increasingly difficult challenges and great opportunities for businesses in the health profession.

Online Challenges For The Health Profession

Now, more than ever, health-related businesses must find smarter ways to stand out from the crowd and source new clients. Not only do you have to become more involved in the community you serve, you must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better promote your health services online.

In addition to spending money in offline marketing activities like advertising on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv spots, etc., businesses in the medical-related industry are now finding that they will need to allocate a more significant part of their marketing budget towards developing and managing a website that drives new prospective clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps create wider marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change over time and sections will need to be updated often. This requires a well-planned website and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that medical or health organizations face (as do most professions for that matter), is that your site has an average of thirty seconds or less to give visitors what they need 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 The Health Profession In The Digital Economy

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the health or medical-related profession that are willing to adapt to meet the challenges of the online economy and think outside the box in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

This guide will help you uncover new ways to attract more client accounts and create significant improvements in your online results.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your health or medical-related business website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see the articles below:

• How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Business And What To Do About It
• WordPress For Business – An Online Guide To Building A Successful Business With A WordPress Blog

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

This section will show you how to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages a health-related site needs, what content works best for medical websites, suggestions for improving layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your medical or health-related website, check out the detailed step-by-step guide we have written here: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

How To Improve Your Web Pages

Professional websites require several basic pages. Let’s discuss these.

Your Products And Services

It’s essential to have a page that describes your services or products. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, this page could include services such as:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, nephrology hematology, cosmetic surgery, neurology, renal, endoscopy, optometry day surgery, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral hygiene, restorations, dental implants, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, coronary care
• Prenatal & Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, lung screening, audiology, women’s health, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, wellness coaching, social work services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, reflexology, holistic medicine, tai chi, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, chiropody, reproductive endocrinology, rehabilitation, neurosciences, artificial limbs, assisted living, home and community care, sexual health, medical transport, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us Page

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

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

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

Your Staff Page

If you are searching for cost-effective ideas to sell more products online or get people to engage more with your site, then help visitors get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

Potential clients need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be 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 do. It should also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow selected team members on their social networks.

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

(Make sure to add an employee description page. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to easily create and add a simple team directory in your web site with no coding skills required, see this step-by-step tutorial: Adding An Employee List Directory To Your WordPress Site

Recruitment

This is a listing of job or career opportunities within the company. It should include type of training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working with your business, etc. You can include information about new career opportunities in the health industry.

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

Testimonials

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

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

We have written extensively on using testimonials, case studies and reviews to grow your business online. To learn more about this go here: How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Meaningful Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is essential.

Your contact page should include the following information about your practice:

• Business Name
• Your physical location
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Social media URLs
• Chat

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

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, main pages, online booking form, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health Or Medical Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content like events, updates, training information, opinions and discussions, educational videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to market your medical business.

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

Very few businesses know that WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic system that can drive web traffic to your business, simply by publishing new content on a regular basis to your website.

(WordPress can drive traffic automatically to your website)

For more details, go here:

• WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Create A Web Traffic-Getting Machine

Legal Info Pages

As a professional business, ensuring that you have a website that complies will all legal requirements online is crucial. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being contravened in whatever region you provide services.

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

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms 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. To learn more about this go here: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips On How To Improve Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you start publishing great content on your site, the faster you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

Providing great content with useful advice and tips will get your visitors sharing it with others and coming back for more. This is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

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

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• How to ask for support when embarking on a weight loss program (friends, family, weight loss seekers)
• Recovering after weight loss surgery – useful tips and recommendations
• How to avoid late night snacking (e.g. sleep earlier)
• And many other content topics

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your your readers gain a better understanding of your medical-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Use keywords in your content that prospective clients will be searching for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips 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 business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving 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 visitor engagement and user experience.

Syndicating Content With RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in several ways.

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

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are several ways readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing valuable content on your site from other sites, 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 search online for relevant government departments or industry bodies.

For example, here are 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 also select individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Fitness and nutrition, Heart health and stroke, Menopause, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Haematologica, JAMA & Archives, TheLancet.com, Indian Journal of Psychiatry, Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find various health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Find RSS feeds on fda-related news like consumer health information, food safety, product recalls, cosmetics, etc. and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• UK Department Of Health (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. Victoria – http://www.health.vic.gov.au/rss/newsfeed.xml
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Get various RSS 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 feeds in major news publications 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 individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Asthma, Cold & Flu, Depression, Prevention & Wellness, Hearing, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News 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. Ovarian Cancer, Pharmacy/Pharmacist, Palliative Care/Hospice Care, Body Aches, Diabetes, Cleft Palate, Psychology/Psychiatry, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “ALS rss feeds”, “organ donations rss feeds”, “ultrasound rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your health site’s UX.)

Provide Checklists

Checklists and charts are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and medical forms can provide visitors with useful instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. They are also great client instructional tools.

You can provide online or downloadable forms and checklists covering a range of subjects such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific medical conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Adding Online Tools

Providing useful online tools and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to potential clients. Calculators, for example are great tools to add to your website. Others can include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In the next section, we will be discussing a number of online tools you can add to your site using WordPress plugins that improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this comprehensive article on ways to improve your health business web presence.

Click here to continue:

• Your Medical & Health Practice Website – WordPress Plugins And Themes For Improving SEO, Increasing User Engagement And Driving More Traffic

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