Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The digital information age has not only revolutionized the way business is done globally, it has also created a number of challenges and great opportunities for businesses offering health-related services.

Online Challenges For Medical & Health Businesses

Today, more than ever, medical practitioners must work harder to stand out from the crowd and find new clients. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community your business serves, you must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having an effective website and learning smarter ways to market your health or medical services services online.

In addition to investing money advertising offline, businesses in the medical industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be delegated towards the development and maintenance of a website that can bring new prospective clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help give their business a wider amount of marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs will change in time and sections will need to be frequently updated. This requires implementing well-developed web and content management strategy.

One other problem that health providers face with their websites (as all other businesses do for that matter), is that your site has an average of 30 seconds or less to help users find what they need or they will go elsewhere to get their needs met.

“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 And Medical Profession In The Web Economy

As well as facing a number of challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to businesses in the medical sector that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the digital economy and can think outside the box in terms of improving their online business marketing skills.

This detailed guide will help you uncover opportunities to source new client accounts and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

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

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System, go here:

• How A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Customers And What To Do About It
• WordPress In Small Business – An Online Guide To Building A Successful Business With WordPress

Tips To Improve Your Website

Let’s start by covering the basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your health or medical website and get better results. We show you what pages your site needs, what type of content you need, useful tips for improving your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, visit this page: How To Plan A Website - A Comprehensive Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improving Your Website Pages

All business websites require some essential web pages. Let’s go over these.

Your Products And Services

It’s essential to include a page that explains your services or products. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, your page could include services like:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. acute pain management, neurosurgery hematology, oral surgery, continence management, rheumatology, endoscopy, eye diseases emergency surgery, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, teeth whitening, dental implants, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. obstetrics, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, skin cancer, hearing, gynaecology, MRI scanning, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, wellbeing, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, reflexology, colloidal silver therapy, meditation, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – weight management, sports medicine, lymphedema therapy, speech language therapy, inherited diseases, prosthetics, sleep therapy, home care, clinical information, medical supplies, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what these services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us Page

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropic donations, etc.

It’s important to include any business awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your practice and to position yourself above the competition.

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

Your Team

Are you looking for simple ways to sell more products or services online? Then something you can do, is help your prospects get to know, like and trust 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. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in health or medical terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page should include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow individual team members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to outline your staff member’s qualifications, how their skills and knowledge add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a ‘meet the team’ page. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have written a detailed tutorial on how to easily create and add an updatable list directory of staff members to a WordPress site using a free plugin here: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff Directory In Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Work With Us

This is a listing of job opportunities within the organization. It can include training, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities sponsored or encouraged by your organization, etc. It should include case studies of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your business and information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the health or medical-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.

Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with reviews from clients and case studies, you are also helping to will also be establishing social proof online.

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

We have written a detailed article about using case studies, testimonials and user reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more about this: Improve Your Sales Using Highly Effective Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A clean contact page is essential.

Your contact page should provide visitors with some or all of the following:

• Name Of Your Business
• Your address
• Telephone
• Fax number
• Email
• Google Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Request for information – who to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Chat

If your business operates out of several areas you will want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact info.

You could also include links pointing to the most commonly asked questions page, useful pages, online booking request, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health Blog Section

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content like events, updates, training articles, discussions on current topics, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

Something few businesses know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic system that can instantly begin to deliver new visitors to your site, simply by publishing regular content to your site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

To learn more about this go here:

• Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your WordPress Web Site Into An Automated 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 visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaching any local, regional and federal laws or regulations wherever your business is located.

Adding some or all of the following legal pages to your site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• 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. For more details: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Ways To Improve Your Content

In today’s fiercely competitive online business economy, the sooner you begin publishing good content on your site, the faster you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from other competing businesses.

By committing to providing useful content with advice, information and tips, you will get your visitors sharing your web pages and coming back for more. Publishing content is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about using your products and services.

For example, if your business provides products or services that help people manage their weight, then some of the areas you could cover in your web content include:

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• How to figure out how many calories you burn each day
• How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and suggestions
• Apps for tracking calories and exercise
• And many other content topics

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

Include the keywords and terminology in your content that 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 show 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 marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improving Visitor 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 different ways to improve your visitor engagement and user experience.

Syndicating Content With RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide plenty of benefits for your site.

If you provide valuable information, other sites may want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

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
• Can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides links to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are multiple ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can read your 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 information on your website 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 by visiting sites of relevant government departments or industry bodies.

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

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and select individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Health care for women, Illnesses and disabilities, Mental health, Pregnancy, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of RSS feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. The Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), The Psychiatrist, BMJ Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get various health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find RSS feeds on fda-related topics like enforcement reports, food safety, recalls, drugs, 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. Western Australia – http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/feed/?types=news
• Centers For Disease Control And Prevention - Get various feeds on health-related news 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 feeds section (e.g. Health news: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Health.xml)
• MedicineNet – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Asthma, Migraine Headaches, Oral Health, Exercise & Fitness, High Blood Pressure, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose specific RSS feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Eye Health/Blindness, Multiple Sclerosis, Pregnancy/Obstetrics, Aid/Disasters, COPD, Tropical Diseases, Statins, etc.)

You can also just search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “STD rss feeds”, “transplants rss feeds”, “ultrasound rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists And Charts

Adding checklists and explanatory charts to your site is a fantastic way to help increase user engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and medical forms can provide visitors with useful instructions and resources to complete steps. They can also be great educational tools.

Checklists, charts and medical forms could address subjects such as:

• Booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Fitness and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. sugar content in different foods, the importance of sleep at different stages of development, etc.)

Online Tools

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

In part 2 of this guide, we will look at a several WordPress-based tools you can add to your medical site that improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

To continue reading, click this link:

• Your Medical Practice Website – WordPress Plugins & Themes That Can Help To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation

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