Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health and medical professionals today face an increasing number challenges thanks to the web economy.

Challenges Medical And Health Services Providers Face Online

Today, more than ever, health services professionals must work harder to remain competitive and source new clientele. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the community your business serves, you must also develop a strong presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and figuring out smarter ways to grow your health or medical services services online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing, businesses in the health or medical industry are also finding that they will need to invest a larger amount of their marketing budget towards developing and maintaining a website that can attract prospective clients, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help to increase their marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change in time and sections will need to be updated often. This requires a sound website and content management strategy.

One other problem that medical or health businesses face (and most professions for that matter), is that they have around thirty seconds to provide visitors with what they are looking for or they will leave and 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 Medical And Health Services Providers In The Web Economy

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available for medical-related businesses that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and can think progressively when it comes to improving their online marketing skills.

The guide below will help you uncover ways to source new bookings and establish online credibility for your business.

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

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

• Learn Why A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Business And What To Do About It
• WordPress For Small Business – A Complete Guide To Growing A Successful Small Business With A WordPress Blog

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

We’ll start first by reviewing some basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages a medical-related site needs, what content works best, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, go here: A Money-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Web Pages

All business websites need some essential pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need to have and how to set up your website for best results.

Description Of services And Products

You need to include a page that describes 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. anaesthetics, pulmonology diabetes, plastic surgery, rehabilitation medicine, respiratory, urology, ophtalmology operating theaters, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. cosmetic dentistry, holistic dentistry, cleaning services, veneers, crowns and bridges, implants, emergency dental, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. cardiac surgery, chronic heart conditions
• Prenatal & Neonatal – e.g. birthing, midwifery, etc.
• Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, lung screening, radiology, women’s health, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, insurance and corporate testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, domestic abuse, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
• Alternative therapies – acupuncture, reflexology, natural therapy, yoga, osteopathy, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services/therapies – diet and nutrition, podiatry, lymphedema therapy, occupational therapy, medical genetics, prosthetics, hearing aids, home care, community health, medical supplies, etc.

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

About Us

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

It’s important to include any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your medical services and position yourself above other competitors.

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

Your Staff

Are you searching for quicker, simpler and cost-effective ways to sell more products or services online? Then something you can do, is help visitors get to know you, your team and your business better.

You want prospective clients to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors are probably not that well-versed in health-related terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page should also include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow some of your team members on their social pages.

On this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each staff member’s qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a ‘meet the team’ page. Image sourced from: southperthchiro.com.au)

To learn more about how to create and add an easy-to-manage directory of staff or team members to your site using free plugins, go here: Adding A Staff Directory: Step-By-Step Tutorial

Work With Us

List any job or career opportunities available within the business. This page would include training provided, benefits, professional development, etc. You can also include information about new career opportunities in the health 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, join your contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials from past clients are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase the services you offer. Adding a page with case studies and client reviews also establishes social proof.

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

We have written extensively on using testimonials, case studies and client reviews get better results online here: How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Sales Conversions With Compelling Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A functional contact page is essential.

It should provide visitors with the following information:

• Name
• Your physical location
• Phone number
• Fax
• Email
• Google Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Chat/Skype

If you operate from multiple areas you will want to make this clear when showing your address and contact information.

Consider also including links pointing to the most commonly asked questions page, useful pages, online booking request, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Blog

A blog can be a powerful business marketing tool. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing content such as events, updates, useful information, opinions and discussions, videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an medical or health site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to promote your organization.

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 giving you the results you want, then WordPress can be used both as your website and your blog.

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic system that can instantly begin delivering a stream of targeted visitors to your business, simply by adding content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can generate new traffic automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more about this:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Automatically Grow Your Web Traffic For Your Business With WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s vitally important 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 breaking local, regional and federal laws or regulations wherever your practice is located.

Depending on what services you provide, adding 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 legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• 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.

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website. For more details: Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Improve The Content On Your Site

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

By committing to providing useful content with great advice, information and tips, you will get your readers to share your web pages and come back for more. Using content is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

For example, if your business provides weight loss services, then some of the areas 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.)
• How to identify the bad habits that need to be corrected to ensure lifetime weight loss
• Diet sodas (common ones, side effects, long term results, do they work?)
• What salad dressings can derail your weight loss program (and healthier choices)
• Etc.

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

Use keywords in your content that prospective clients will be searching for.

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 you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Tips For 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 ways you can improve your visitor engagement and UX.

Adding RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in a number of different ways.

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

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• A feed provides links to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are multiple ways readers can receive your content (e.g. view the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits to providing valuable information 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 for your website, visit sites of medical or health-related government departments or key industry bodies.

Below we have listed some examples of feeds you could add to your website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and select specific feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Health care for women, Illnesses and disabilities, Mental health, Screening tests and vaccines, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of RSS feeds from well-known medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. The Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), The Journal of General Physiology (JGP), RadioGraphics, BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, Cambridge Journals Online, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Get various RSS feeds on health-related topics here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find RSS feeds on fda-related topics like FDA drug safety, MedWatch safety alerts (human medical products), tainted products, radiological health, 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 - Get many feeds on health-related news and topics 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. 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 specific feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Mental Health, Migraine Headaches, Diabetes, Eyesight, Heart, etc.)
• Medical News Today – 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. Ovarian Cancer, Dentistry, Asbestos/Mesothelioma, Veterinary, Food Intolerance, Prostate/Prostate Cancer, Liver Disease/Hepatitis, etc.)

You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “pregnancy rss feeds”, “breast cancer rss feeds”, “cancer rss feeds”, etc.

(Use RSS feeds to improve your site’s user experience.)

Checklists & Charts

Adding checklists and charts to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and provide something unique. Forms and checklists can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary steps performed. Checklists and forms can also be great instructional tools.

You can provide online or downloadable checklists and forms covering a range of topics such as:

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

Unique Tools

Providing useful online tools and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your visitors. Calculators, for example are useful tools you can add to your website. Others would include things like nutritional tools, or even recipes.

In part 2, we discuss a number of WordPress plugins you can add to your website that can also help to improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this comprehensive guide on ways to improve your health business presence online.

To view the rest of this article, click here:

• Your Health & Medical Services Website – WordPress Plugins & Themes That Can Help Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Drive More Visitors To Your Website

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