Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The web economy has not only revolutionised business globally, it has also created new challenges and opportunities for health-related businesses.

Online Challenges For The Medical Profession

Now, more than ever, businesses in the health and medical industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. 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 searching for better ways to market your practice online.

As well as investing dollars in offline marketing activities like advertising on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., you will probably find that in order to compete, you will need to allocate a more significant amount of your budget towards the development and maintenance of a website that will attract prospects, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and give you a wider degree of marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, load fast, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of the website will change in time and some aspects will need to be updated frequently. This requires the implementation of a sound web and content management strategy.

One other problem that health or medical businesses face (as all other businesses do for that matter), is that you have only around thirty seconds or less to help users find the information they are looking 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

Online Opportunities For Medical Professionals

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to health or medical-related businesses that are willing to adapt to meet online economy demands and can think outside the box when it comes to improving their online business marketing skills.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn about a number of ways to source more potential clients and build more online credibility for your business.

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your health-related website, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your medical or health business website.

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

• Why A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Potential Clients
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

This section explains ways to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what pages a medical or health website needs, what content works best, navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your health-related website, go here: A Money-Saving Guide To Website Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Basic Pages

Professional business websites need several essential pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Services And Products

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. acute pain management, neurosurgery blood disorders, reconstructive surgery, stroke, rheumatology, weight loss surgery, optometry surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, teeth whitening, implants, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac surgery, coronary care
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, lung screening, oral health, gynaecology, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration cytology, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, homeopathy, functional medicine, shiatsu, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, chiropody, reproductive services, physiotherapy, inherited diseases, prosthetics, assisted living, home and community care, sexual health, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and why they should choose you.

Who We Are

This page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropical donations, etc.

Remember to list any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your medical, dental, chiropractic, surgery services, etc. and to set yourself above similar service providers.

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

Team Profile

Are you searching for simple ideas to grow your business online? Then help your visitors get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.

You want people to relate to your business. A 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 bio. Since most visitors won’t be that well-versed in health-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. It can include social buttons so your visitors can follow some of your team members on their social networks.

In 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 each employee’s experience, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

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

To learn more about how to add a simple and easy-to-maintain simple team directory in your site using a free WordPress plugin, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Adding An Employee Directory

We’re Hiring

This is a listing of job opportunities available within your organization. It would include training provided, benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You should also include information about upcoming career opportunities in the medical and 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, subscribe to your contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials from previous clients are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies, you will also help to provide social proof for your business.

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

We have written a comprehensive article about using testimonials and client reviews to improve your business results online. Go here to learn more: How To Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects Using Standout Client Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is vitally important.

It should provide:

• Name
• Your physical address
• Telephone number
• Fax
• Email address
• Google Map and directions
• Web address
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Social media links
• Chat/Skype

If your business services multiple areas you want to make that clear when showing the address and contact info.

You could also include a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, booking request, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health Or Medical Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business using timely content like events, updates, useful articles and tutorials, discussions on current topics, promotional videos, webinars, etc.

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

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing health-related site is very hard to manage or not delivering 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 become an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly begin to attract targeted visitors to your website, simply by publishing new content to your website on a consistent basis.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

For more details, go here:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your WordPress Web Site Into A Traffic Machine

Legal Information Pages

Having a compliant website is crucially important. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being broken wherever your practice is located.

Depending on what products and services you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions Of Use
• 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
• and others

Go here to learn more about adding legal pages to your website: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips On How To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s ultra-competitive online economy, having a well-planned content marketing strategy has become one of the key business differentiators.

You will want to provide great content with useful information, advice and tips that will get your visitors to share your information online and come back for more content. Using content is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

For example, if you provide products that help people lose weight, then some of the topics you can write content about include:

• Emotional causes for weight issues (possible causes, identifying yours)
• Tips for developing portion control habits (smaller plate, don’t put food on the table, more vegetables)
• Is using a measuring tape better than a scale when it comes to weight loss progress?
• Could a personal chef help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
• And many other content topics

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your readers gain a better understanding of your medical or health-related services, by explaining benefits, procedures, costs (including payment plans, insurance coverage, etc).

Remember to include the same keywords and terminology in your content that your readers will be searching 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 teach you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your presence online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Experience

Improving your user experience (generally referred to as UX) helps to keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and user experience.

Syndicating Content With RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and user experience in many ways.

If you provide useful content, other sites will want to syndicate your content.

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 feed can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• RSS feeds allow for subscribing
• A feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. read your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of 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.

You can find RSS feeds with loads of useful content by searching online for relevant government departments and key industry bodies.

Here are examples of useful RSS feeds you could add to a health site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also choose specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Healthy aging, Illnesses and disabilities, Mental health, Smoking and how to quit, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Quality and Safety in Health Care, The Psychiatrist, JCI – The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Journal of Cell Science, Cambridge Journals Online, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find many RSS feeds on health-related news and topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find RSS feeds on fda-related news and topics like consumer health information, food allergy reports, recalls, tobacco news, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find many feeds on health-related news and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds in places like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Medical research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Mental Health, Migraine Headaches, Diabetes, Digestion, HIV, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Medical News 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. Medical Students/Training, Multiple Sclerosis, Blood/Hematology, Hearing/Deafness, Primary Care/General Practice, Medical Innovation, Crohn’s/IBD, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “urology rss feeds”, “children’s health rss feeds”, “liver disease rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS feeds can help to improve your website’s user experience.)

Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and charts to your site is a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your visitors and provide something unique. Checklists and medical forms can provide users with useful information and resources to perform a necessary task. They can also be great instructional tools.

You can provide a range of forms, charts and checklists (or links to these) covering areas 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, general dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Online Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your users. Health-related calculators, for example, are great tools to add to your website. Others could include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part two, we will look at a number of WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your health or medical website that can also help improve seo, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this guide on ways to grow your medical or health business presence online.

Click here to keep reading:

• The Complete Step-By-Step Guide To Growing A Medical & Health Clinic Services Presence Online Using WordPress – Part 2

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