Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical professionals face many challenges in today’s web economy, especially when it comes to growing their business presence online.

Challenges Medical Providers Face Online

Now, more than ever, medical services providers must work harder and find smarter ways to remain competitive and find new clients. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community your business serves, you must also develop a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better promote your medical or health services services online.

As well as investing dollars in offline marketing activities such as advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television, etc., businesses in the medical or health-related industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be allocated towards the development and management of a website that attracts prospective clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps to increase their marketing exposure 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 even more importantly, your site’s needs may change in time and sections may need to be updated often. This requires a well-planned web and content management strategy.

One other challenge that health services practitioners (and most other businesses) face online, is that you have an average of 30 seconds to provide visitors with 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

Online Opportunities For Health Practitioners

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the medical or health profession that can evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and who can think strategically about marketing their business better online.

In this detailed guide, you will learn about a number of ways to attract new visitors and create significant improvements in your business presence online.

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your web presence, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system to power your medical website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), see the articles below:

• Why A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Potential Customers
• Using WordPress – The Small Business Owner’s Guide

Practical Tips For Improving Your Medical And Health Clinic Site

This section explains how to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what web pages you need, what content works best for health or medical websites, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, see this article we have written: How To Plan A Website: A Comprehensive Blueprint For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improve Your Website Pages

Professional business websites need some basic web pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Description Of Products And Services

You need to include a page that explains your products or services. Depending on which area of health you specialize in, your page can include services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. acute pain management, orthopedics haematology, maxillofacial surgery, stroke, respiratory, colon/rectal surgery, optometry operating theaters, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, holistic dentistry, bad breath treatment, restorations, implants, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient rehabilitation, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, skin cancer, x-ray, gynaecology, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, clinical trials, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, aromatherapy, natural therapy, massage therapy, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, reproductive services, optical services, medical genetics, prosthetics, assisted living, home and community care, sexual health, medical equipment, etc.

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, community events, etc.

It’s important to also list any industry awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your services and to set yourself above other competitors.

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

Your Staff

Are you searching for quicker and easier ways to grow your business online? Then make it easier for prospects to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.

You want prospective clients to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with health or medical-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. It should also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow your team members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your staff member’s expertise, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your staff or team members to prospective new clients. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to easily create and add an easy-to-maintain simple team directory to a WordPress site using free WordPress plugins here: How To Add A Simple Staff List To Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Career Opportunities

This is a listing of career opportunities available within the clinic. It would include training offered, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You should also include information about new career opportunities in the health or medical-related industry.

Also include a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, subscribe to your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials

Customer reviews and case studies are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with client reviews and case studies, you will also help to are also providing visitors social proof.

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

If you want to learn more using case studies, testimonials and reviews to improve your business results online, go here: Create Better Results Online Using Profit-Boosting Testimonials

Contact Us

A functional contact page is absolutely vital.

It should provide:

• Company Name
• Street address of premises
• Phone
• Fax number
• Contact email address
• Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media URLs
• Live Chat/Skype (optional feature)

If your business services different locations you will want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact information.

You can also include links to an FAQ section, useful pages, booking request, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content such as news and events, updates, educational information, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established medical-related website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to create more exposure for your medical services.

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

Something few businesses know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic-generation machine that will help begin attracting targeted visitors to your website, simply by publishing new content to your website on a consistent basis.

(WordPress can generate web traffic automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more about this:

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

Legal Pages

It’s crucially important for medical services professionals organizations to make sure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching laws or regulations wherever you practice.

Adding some or all of the following legal pages to your medical or health-related site will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• 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. To learn more, go here: Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Ways To Improve The Content On Your Site

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

Provide useful content with great advice, information and tips that will get your visitors sharing it with others and coming back for more content. Content marketing is a great way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about using your services and products.

For example, if you provide services that help people manage their weight, then some of the topics you could write about include the following:

• Emotional causes for weight issues (possible causes, identifying yours)
• Easy portion control habits (smaller plate, don’t put food on the table, more vegetables)
• How you eat your food is just as important as what you eat (eat at table, chew slowly)
• What salad dressings can derail your diet (and healthier choices)
• And endless other content topics

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

Include the keywords in your articles that prospective clients will be searching for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating high-quality content for your site visitors and grow your website using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Ways To Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

Using RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in several ways.

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

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other businesses using RSS feeds, include:

• All of your updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• It provides links to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides various ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. view the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to providing valuable content on your site from other websites, 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 visiting sites of health-related government departments and respected industry bodies.

Here are some 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 RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Environmental health, HIV/AIDS, Mental health, Pregnancy, 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. The Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), Bionet RSS, European Heart Journal, Current Psychiatry, Pediatrics, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get many health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get feeds on fda-related news and topics like FDA drug safety, FDA drug shortages, recalls, animal and veterinary news, etc. and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• UK Department Of Health (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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Get various health-related news feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. 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 select specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Asthma, Cholesterol, Diabetes, Sexual Health, Infectious Disease, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT 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. Anxiety/Stress, Dentistry, Eczema/Psoriasis, Conferences, Back Pain, Tropical Diseases, MRI/PET/Ultrasound, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “cervical cancer rss feeds”, “veterinary rss feeds”, “oncology rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS feeds can help to improve your medical or health-related site’s user experience.)

Add Forms

Checklists and medical forms are a great way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your visitors and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and charts can give them step-by-step instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. They are also great client educational tools.

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

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

Other Tools

Providing unique online tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your potential clients. Health-related calculators, for example, are some of the most popular tools for your website. Other tools could include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In part two of this detailed guide, we will be discussing a number of WordPress-based tools you can use in your site that improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part 1.

To continue reading, click here:

• The Complete Step-By-Step Guide To Growing Your Health Practice Services Business Online – Part Two

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