Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

The online economy has not only revolutionised businesses worldwide, it has also created increasingly difficult challenges and opportunities for the health sector.

Challenges Professional Health Practitioners Face Online

Now, more than ever, medical services practitioners must work harder and find smarter ways to stand out from the crowd and find new clients. Not only do you have to maintain a strong presence in the community you serve, you must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better market your business online.

As well as spending dollars in offline marketing activities, you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be directed towards the development and management of a website that will drive new prospective clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and help to increase your marketing exposure 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 over time and some aspects will need to be frequently updated. This requires the implementation of a well-planned website and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that medical services providers face with their websites, as most other professions do for that matter, is that your site has only around thirty seconds or less to provide users what 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 Medical Services Providers In The Online Economy

As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the health profession that can evolve to meet online challenges and who can think progressively when it comes to marketing their services better online.

The article below will help you uncover opportunities to attract new visitors and see significant improvements in your business online.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your medical or health-related website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, go here:

• How A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Money
• Everything You Need To Know To Grow Your Small Business Using A WordPress Blog

Ways To Improve Your Health Clinic Website

This section looks at ways to improve your health or medical website and get better results online. We will look at what pages a health or medical-related site needs, what type of content works best for medical-related websites, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your health website, visit this page: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Your Website Pages

Professional business websites need several essential pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Services Description Page

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

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. ear, nose and throat, nephrology haematology, reconstructive surgery, gerontology, renal, weight loss surgery, eye diseases surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, restorations, orthodontics, emergency dental services, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, coronary care
• Prenatal/Postnatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – mammography, lung screening, medical imaging, women’s health, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling services – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, wellness coaching, social work services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, homeopathy, functional medicine, yoga, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, othopedics, fertility services, physiotherapy, inherited diseases, prosthetics, sleep therapy, home care, sexual health, medical transport, 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 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 explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, sponsored community projects, etc.

Remember to mention any industry awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your medical services and to position yourself above similar service providers.

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

Your Staff

If you are looking for simple ways to sell more products or services online, then something you can do, is help your visitors get to know you, your team and your business better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be that well-versed in medical-related terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page can also include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow individual staff members on their social pages.

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

(Make sure to add a team profile page. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

If you need help how to easily add an easy-to-update simple staff directory in your web site using a free WP plugin, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Adding A Staff List Directory: Step-By-Step Tutorial

Job Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your business. It can include training provided, employee benefits, professional development, etc. It should include stories of recruits who have risen within your company and information about career opportunities in the health and medical industry.

Include also 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 contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Testimonials from past clients and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with client reviews and case studies, you are also helping to establish social proof.

(Add a page with case studies and reviews from clients. Image source: arrowsmiledental.com)

For a detailed article about using case studies, testimonials and reviews to improve your business results online, go here: Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects With Sales Boosting Client Testimonials

Contact Page

A functional contact page is crucial.

It should provide the following information about your consulting practice:

• Business Name
• Location
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Contact email address
• Google Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media pages
• Live Chat/Skype (optional feature)

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

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, frequently-visited pages, booking form, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Health-Related Blog Section

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically include a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content like the latest news, new releases, useful articles, discussions on current topics, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established health or medical-related site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your clinic.

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

You may not know this, but WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation machine that can help begin to drive targeted visitors to your website, simply by adding content to your website on a regular basis.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more:

• WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your WordPress Website Into An Automated Traffic Machine

Legal Pages

As a professional medical provider, ensuring that you have a website that complies will all legal requirements online is really important. This is not only important for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being breached wherever your practice is located.

Adding the following legal pages to your 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 Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

How To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you start engaging in the practice of content marketing, the faster you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from your competitors.

By providing great content with useful advice or tips, you will get your visitors to share your information and come back for more. Using content is a great way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

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

• Common medical conditions that can cause weight gain
• Advice on ways to develop portion control habits (smaller plate, don’t put food on the table, more vegetables)
• Hypnosis and weight loss
• How to incorporate a little fast food into a healthy diet plan
• And many other content topics

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

Use the same keywords and terms 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 regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content for your site 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 completely FREE!

Ways To Improve User Experience

Improving website user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help you keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you ways you can improve visitor engagement and UX.

Use RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in many ways.

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

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• It provides links back to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides a number of ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. read your 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 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 for your website by searching online for health and medical-related government departments and respected industry bodies.

Here are some examples of useful RSS feeds you could consider adding to your site:

• 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 RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Healthy aging, HIV/AIDS, Menopause, Smoking and how to quit, 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. Haematologica, American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Neurology India, BMJ Archives of Disease, Molecular Biology and Evolution, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find many RSS feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related RSS feeds (e.g. criminal investigations press releases, health fraud, pet health, radiological health, 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 (www.cdc.gov) - Get many health-related news feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news RSS feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes RSS feeds section (e.g. Fitness and 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 select individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Cancer, Chronic Pain, Pregnancy, Eyesight, Sleep, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – 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. Bipolar, Complementary Medicine/Alternative Medicine, Infectious Diseases/Bacteria/Viruses, Hearing/Deafness, Men’s Health, Respiratory/Asthma, Clinical Trials/Drug Trials, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “pulmonary system rss feeds”, “organ donations rss feeds”, “cancer rss feeds”, etc.

(Add RSS feeds to improve your website’s UX.)

Checklists & Charts

Checklists and explanatory charts are a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Charts and checklists can provide step-by-step information and resources to complete a necessary task. They are great instructional tools.

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

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

Unique Tools

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

In part two, we discuss a number of online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins that can help to improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

***

This is the end of part one.

To continue reading, click this link:

• How To Build And Grow A Health-Related Web Presence – Part 2

***

***