Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

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

Online Challenges For Medical Practitioners

Today, more than ever, businesses in the health sector must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the community you serve, you must also develop a strong digital presence. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better promote your services online.

As well as spending dollars advertising offline, businesses in the medical or health industry are also finding that they need to allocate a greater portion of their budget towards developing and managing a website that can attract prospective clients, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help to create wider reach 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 over time and some areas will need to be updated frequently. This requires having a well-developed web and content management strategy in place.

One other challenge that health organizations face online (as other professions do for that matter), is that your site has an average of 30 seconds or less to help users find the information 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 Health And Medical Services Providers In The Digital Economy

As well as facing many challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to medical or health practices that can evolve to meet digital demands and can think outside the box in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

In this article, you will learn new ways and opportunities to find new client accounts and improve your online results.

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your health business online, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress platform to power your health or medical business website.

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

• How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Lose You Prospective Customers And What To Do About It
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Medical And Health Practice Services Website

In this section we will start with the basics and show you how to improve your medical or health-related website and get better results online. We show you what pages a health or medical website needs, what type of content works best, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, check out the detailed step-by-step guide we have written here: How To Plan A Web Site: A Comprehensive Blueprint For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improving Your Website Pages

Professional business websites need some basic pages. Let’s review these.

Services And Products Description Page

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

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, orthopedics blood disorders, cosmetic surgery, gerontology, renal, bariatric surgery, eye diseases surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, cleaning services, teeth whitening, braces, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac patient education, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screening, lung screening, x-ray, pap smears, psychosis, allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, food and water testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, trauma counselling, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, reiki, yoga, chiropractic services, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, podiatry, lymphedema therapy, rehabilitation, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, assisted living, home and community care, sexual health, medical transport, 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 why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us Page

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

This page should include any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your services and position yourself above similar service providers.

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

Staff

If you are looking for cost-effective ideas to grow your business online, then something you can do, is make it easier for your prospective clients to get to know, like and trust your business better.

You want people to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with health-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. It can include social buttons so your visitors can follow individual staff members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to highlight each team member’s qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

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

We have written a detailed tutorial on how to easily add a list directory of employees in WordPress using a free WP plugin here: Adding A Staff Directory To Your Site

Work With Us

This is a listing of job opportunities available within the company. It should include training, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. It should include stories of recruits who have worked their way up in your organization and information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the medical-related industry.

Maintain 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 updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies And Testimonials

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. Adding a web page with testimonials from past clients and case studies also helps your medical or health-related website to provide social proof.

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

We have written extensively about using testimonials, case studies and reviews to improve your business results online here: How To Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Leads Using Powerful Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A functional contact page is vitally important.

Your contact page should include some or all of the following information:

• Name Of Your Business
• Address
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media links
• Interactive chat feature

If your business services several locations you want to make this clear when displaying your address and contact info.

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, useful pages, online booking form, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health-Related Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as the latest announcements, updates, educational articles, discussions on current topics, videos, webinars, etc.

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

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing health or medical site is hard to keep updated or not giving 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 turn into an automated traffic system that can help begin attracting web traffic to your website, simply by adding content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more about this:

• WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Getting More Website Traffic For Your Business Automatically

Legal Pages

As a professional health or medical services provider, having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is vitally important. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being broken in whatever location you service.

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

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health and Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

Go here if you want to learn more adding legal pages to your site: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

How To Improve Your Content

In today’s fiercely competitive online business economy, the sooner you start engaging in the practice of content marketing, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

Providing great content with useful advice, information or tips will get your visitors sharing your web pages and coming back for more. Publishing content is a great way to educate your visitors and prospects about your business and services.

For example, if your business provides weight management services, then some of the topics you could write content about include:

• What to do before starting any weight loss program (e.g. consult with doctor, record measurements, set goals, etc.)
• Easy portion control habits (smaller plate, don’t put food on the table, more vegetables)
• Dieting pills (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
• Could a personal chef help you lose weight (what they do, is it affordable)
• And endless 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 or health services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.

Use keywords and terms in your articles that your readers will search for 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 website or blog, save money creating useful content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business online 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 user experience (known as UX) helps you keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and UX.

RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide lots of benefits for your business.

If you provide information that adds value to others, other businesses may want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are multiple ways readers can receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits to adding syndicated content to your website from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find useful RSS feeds for your website, search online for health or medical-related government departments or respected industry bodies.

Here are some RSS feeds you could add to a health 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 specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Fitness and nutrition, HIV/AIDS, Minority women’s health, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, Nutrition Journal, BMJ Injury Prevention, American Chemical Society, BMJ Postgraduate Medical Journal, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Get various health-related RSS feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get RSS feeds on fda-related news and topics like criminal investigations press releases, FDA drug shortages, recalls, drugs, etc. and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
• Department of Health UK (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 - Find many health-related feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news RSS feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness & nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet – Daily Health and Medical News: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyhealth.xml. You can also choose specific RSS feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Lung Conditions, Menopause, Cholesterol, Diabetes, Digestion, Hearing, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Bipolar, Headache/Migraine, Muscular Dystrophy/ALS, Autism, Nursing/Midwifery, Women’s Health/Gynecology, Huntingtons Disease, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific subjects, e.g. “seniors rss feeds”, “prostate cancer rss feeds”, “restless legs syndrome rss feeds”, etc.

(RSS feeds can help to improve your medical-related website’s UX.)

Provide Downloadable Forms And Checklists

Adding checklists and charts to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your audience. Forms and checklists can give them useful information and resources to get necessary tasks performed. They can also be great client instructional tools.

Forms, charts and checklists could address topics such as:

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

Add Other Tools

Providing unique tools and applications on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your visitors. Calculators are great tools you can add to your website. Other tools can include things like nutritional tools, and even recipes.

In part two, we will be discussing a number of WordPress-based tools you can add to your site that improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

***

This is the end of part one of this step-by-step article on ways to improve your medical business online.

Click on this link to keep reading:

• A Practical Guide To Successfully Growing Your Health-Related Web Presence Using WordPress – Part Two

***

***