Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health and medical services providers face many new challenges in today’s web economy, especially when it comes to growing a successful business online.

Challenges Professional Medical Providers Face Online

Now, more than ever, medical and health services professionals must work harder to remain competitive and generate new clients. Not only do you have to become more involved in the community your business serves, you must also maintain an active digital presence. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your medical or health services services online.

As well as investing money advertising offline on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv spots, etc., you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete, you will need to invest a greater part of your budget towards the development and management of a website that brings in prospective clients, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and helps to increase your marketing reach online.

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

One other difficult challenge that health-related organizations face online (and most other businesses for that matter), is that your site has around thirty seconds to help users find the information they are searching for or they will go 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 Providers In The Web Economy

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for health businesses that are willing to evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and think outside the box when it comes to marketing their business services better online.

In this detailed guide, you will learn opportunities to attract and engage more visitors and establish online credibility for your medical or health-related business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress CMS platform to power your health business website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system, go here:

• Learn How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Cost You Business
• Learning WordPress – The Business Owner’s Guide

Practical Tips To Improve Your Health Website

In this section we will show you ways to improve your medical or health website and get better results online. We show you what web pages you need, what content works best for medical-related sites, ways of improving your navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, check out the detailed step-by-step guide we have written here: A Cost-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Your Website Pages

All business websites require a number of basic pages. Let’s discuss these.

Services And Products

You need a page that lists your services or products. Depending on which area you specialize in, this page can list services like:

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. anaesthetics, pulmonology hematology, maxillofacial surgery, incontinence, respiratory, weight loss surgery, eye diseases surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dentistry – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, gum disease, veneers, crowns and bridges, implants, emergency dentistry services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac monitoring, coronary care
• Prenatal & Postnatal – e.g. obstetrics, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, skin cancer, hearing, gynaecology, MRI scanning, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, fine-needle aspiration, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, domestic abuse, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, reflexology, reiki, yoga, chiropractic services, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – diet and nutrition, othopedics, lymphedema therapy, occupational therapy, neurosciences, prosthetics, sleep therapy, home care, clinical information, medical supplies, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment.

About Us

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

This page should list any awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your practice and position yourself above other competitors.

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

Your Staff Page

Are you searching for quicker, simpler and cheaper ideas to sell more products or services online? Then help your visitors get to know you and your business better.

You want prospective clients to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with health or medical-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas do. This page should include social buttons so your visitors can follow individual team members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to outline your employee’s qualifications, how their skills and knowledge add value to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your staff or team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to add an easy-to-maintain list directory of staff members in a WordPress site using a free WP plugin, see this tutorial: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Job Opportunities

List any job opportunities within your organization. It could include training offered, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can include information about new career opportunities in the medical or health-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 this page, subscribe to your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase what type of services you offer. Adding a web page with reviews from clients and case studies also establishes social proof.

(Add a page to your site with case studies and client reviews. Image sourced from: arrowsmiledental.com)

We have written extensively on using client testimonials and user reviews here: Achieve Better Results Online Using Standout Customer Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

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

• Name
• Your address
• Phone
• Fax number
• Email
• Google Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media networks
• Online Chat/Skype (optional feature)

If your business services different locations you should make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

You can also include links to an FAQ section, main pages, online booking form, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health Or Medical Blog Section

A blog is a powerful business marketing tool. Many blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business using timely content like news and announcements, updates, useful articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an existing health or medical website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to create more exposure for your organization.

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing site is very hard to keep updated with new content or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can be used as both your website and blog.

Not many businesses know this, but WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation machine that will begin attracting a stream of targeted visitors to your website, simply by publishing content to your website on a regular basis.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

To learn more about this go here:

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

Legal Information Pages

As a professional business, ensuring that you have a compliant website is extremely important. This is not only important for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws and regulations are being breached wherever you provide services.

Depending on the services you provide, adding the legal pages below to your health-related 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 Policy
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your site. To learn more, go here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Improve Your Web Content

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

Providing great content with information, tips or advice will get your visitors to share your web pages and come back for more. Using content is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospects about your services.

For example, if your business provides products or services that help people lose weight, then some of the topics you can cover in your content include:

• What is BMI (what it stands for, what it does, how to calculate yours)
• How to identify the bad habits you need to correct to ensure sustainable weight loss
• Characteristics of different diets, e.g. HCG diet, GI diet, Jenny Craig diet (what these are, how they work, how effective they are)
• How to modify recipes for healthier results (e.g. substituting sugars, fats, etc.)
• And many other content topics

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

Use keywords in your content that your readers will be searching for online.

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 you how to drive more traffic to your website, 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!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Syndicating Content Using RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide plenty of benefits for your website.

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

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are various ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to providing great content on your site from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find useful RSS feeds just search online for relevant government departments or well-known industry bodies.

Below we have listed some examples of useful RSS feeds you could add to your 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. Body image, Environmental health, HIV/AIDS, Menopause, Screening tests and vaccines, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a list of RSS feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Journal of Applied Physiology, BMJ, CDC USA, BMJ Archives of Disease, 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 - Find various health-related news feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• FDA – Get FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, health fraud, pet health, 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 health-related news feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news RSS feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes RSS 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 choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Menopause, Neurology, Diet & Weight Management, Senior Health, Travel Health, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – MNT Featured Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• Medical News Today – You can also select specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Schizophrenia, Vascular, Infectious Diseases/Bacteria/Viruses, Body Aches, Men’s Health, Mental Health, Obesity/Weight Loss/Fitness, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “pharmacist rss feeds”, “children’s health rss feeds”, “ultrasound rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and explanatory charts are a fantastic way to increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and set yourself apart from the competition. They can give them step-by-step information and resources to complete necessary steps. They are great educational tools.

You can provide a range of checklists, charts and forms covering subjects such as:

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

Add Online Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are useful tools to add to your website. Other tools can include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.

In part 2, we will look at a number of online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins and themes that can improve seo, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

Click here to keep reading:

• The Complete Guide On How To Grow A Medical-Related Online – Part Two

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