Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The web economy has not only transformed business worldwide, it has also created an increasing number of challenges and great opportunities for medical-related businesses.

Challenges Medical Services Providers Face Online

Today, more than ever, medical and health services practitioners must find smarter ways to stand apart from the crowd and generate new clients. Not only do you have to maintain an active presence in the community your business serves, you must also develop an active presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better promote your practice online.

As well as spending money marketing offline, businesses in the health-related industry are also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be delegated to develop and maintain a website that drives prospects, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and gives them a wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of the website may change over time and many aspects may need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a well-developed website and content management strategy.

Another challenge that health organizations (and most professions) face with their websites, is that your site has only around 30 seconds to give visitors what 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 Services

As well as facing many challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to businesses in the health or medical industry that are willing to adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and who can think strategically about improving their online marketing skills.

In this detailed guide, you will learn new opportunities to generate more traffic and build more online credibility for your business.

As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your health-related web presence, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform to power your health-related website.

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

• Learn How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Lose You Customers And What To Do About It
• Using A WordPress Site To Grow A Successful Small Business Online

Ways To Improve Your Website

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

If you need help with website planning, visit this page: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Improving Your Web Pages

Professional business websites need a number of essential web pages. Let’s discuss these.

Services And Products

You need a page that describes your services or products. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, this page could list services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. anaesthetics, nephrology diabetes, oncology, geriatric medicine, rheumatology, urology, eye diseases palliative care, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, teeth whitening, dentofacial orthopedics, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac surgery, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, skin cancer, radiology and imaging, gynaecology, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social work services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, reflexology, holistic medicine, massage therapy, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, sports medicine, reproductive services, occupational therapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, sleep therapy, home and community care, clinical information, medical supplies, etc.

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about what these services do and why they should book an appointment with you.

Who We Are

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

It should also list any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your business and to set yourself above other competitors.

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

Your Staff Page

Are you looking for quicker, simpler and cheaper ideas to sell more products or services online and get prospects to stay longer on your site? Then help your prospects get to know you and your organization better.

You want your business to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with health-related terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page can also include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow selected staff 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 highlight each staff member’s experience, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your team to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to easily create and add an updatable simple team members directory in your website without messing around with code here: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee Directory On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Career Opportunities Page

List any job opportunities available within your business. It can include training, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can include information such as the job outlook and additional career opportunities in the medical industry.

Also include a positions available section in this 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

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

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

We have written extensively on using testimonials and client reviews to grow your business online here: Learn How To Improve Your Sales Conversions Using Engaging User Testimonials

Contact Us

A clean contact page is absolutely vital.

Your contact page should provide some or all of the following information about your organization:

• Name
• Physical address
• Telephone
• Fax
• Contact email address
• Google Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Live Chat/Skype

If you operate out of multiple areas you should make this clear when displaying your address and contact information.

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

Add A Health Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful business marketing tool. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content such as events, updates, educational articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

You may not know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that will deliver new visitors to your web site, simply by adding regular content to your site.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can drive traffic automatically to your website)

For more details, go here:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your WordPress Blog Into A Traffic Machine

Legal Info Pages

It’s crucially important to have a compliant website. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being contravened wherever your business is located.

Adding some or all of 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 and 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/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

Go here for a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improve Your Web Content

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

By providing useful content with great tips, information or advice, you will get your visitors sharing your information online with others and coming back for more. This is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about using your products and services.

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

• Emotional causes for weight issues (possible causes, identifying yours)
• What calories really are and how they play a role in weight loss
• Is using a measuring tape better than a scale when it comes to weight loss progress?
• How to modify recipes for healthier results (e.g. replacing sugars, fats, etc.)
• Etc.

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

Use keywords and terminology in your content that your prospective clients will search for online.

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

Improve Visitor Experience

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

Syndicating Content With RSS Feeds

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

If you provide useful content, other businesses may want to syndicate your content.

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
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides links to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are several ways readers can receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your site 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 useful content by searching online for medical and health-related government departments and key industry bodies.

Here are a few feeds you could add 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 choose individual RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breast cancer, Healthy aging, Heart health and stroke, Mental health, Screening tests and vaccines, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of feeds from leading medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. BMJ Disease in Childhood – Education and Practice, Bionet RSS, Journal of Cell Biology, Occupational Medicine, BMJ Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 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 feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find RSS feeds on fda-related news like consumer health information, health fraud, recalls, foods, 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 (www.cdc.gov) - Find many 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 feeds section (e.g. Research: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Research.xml)
• MedicineNet.com – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also select individual RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Mental Health, Chronic Pain, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Exercise & Fitness, Thyroid, etc.)
• Medical News Today – MNT Medical News Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also choose individual feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Lung Cancer, Caregivers/Homecare, Sexual Health/STDs, Pancreatic Cancer, Parkinson’s Disease, Sports Medicine/Fitness, Restless Legs Syndrome, etc.)

You can also search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “nephrology rss feeds”, “endocrinology rss feeds”, “clinical trials rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better UX.)

Checklists And Forms

Adding checklists and medical forms to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. Checklists and charts can provide step-by-step instructions and resources to complete necessary steps. They are also great educational tools.

You can provide a range of forms, charts and checklists (or links to these) covering areas such as:

• Checklists/forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for pre or post surgery
• Health checklists for specific systems
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, maintenance program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and exercise program checklists
• General charts & infographics (e.g. caloric level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Other Tools

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

In the next section of this detailed article, we look at a several WordPress plugins you can use in your health site that can also help to improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this comprehensive guide on ways to build your medical-related business presence online.

To view the rest of this article, click here:

• A Practical Step-By-Step Guide To Building And Growing Your Medical Clinic Website Successfully – Part 2

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