Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Medical & Health professionals today face increasing challenges brought about by the web economy.

Challenges Professional Medical And Health Services Providers Face Online

Today, more than ever, businesses in the health and medical industry must work harder than ever to remain competitive. 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 market your practice online.

In addition to spending dollars in offline marketing activities like advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television, etc., businesses in the medical or health industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be allocated towards the development and management of a website that can drive new clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and help to increase their marketing exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website will change over time and sections may need to be updated frequently. This requires a well-planned website and content management strategy in place.

One other challenge that health or medical businesses face with their websites (as do other professions for that matter), is that your site has only around 30 seconds to provide visitors with what they are looking 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 And Medical Businesses In The Digital Economy

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to health-related businesses that are willing to adapt to meet online economy demands and can think strategically about marketing their business services better online.

This guide will help you uncover a number of ways to attract and engage more visitors and see noticeable improvements in your health-related business presence online.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your website, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform to power your health or medical-related website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System, see these articles:

• Why A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Business
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To Using WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

Let’s start by covering the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages you need, what type of content works best for health-related websites, navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your health-related website, read this guide: The Web Site Planning Process Explained - A Comprehensive Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Web Pages

Professional websites need some basic web pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need and how to structure your health-related website for best results.

Services And Products Description Page

It’s essential to have a page that describes your services and products. Depending on which area of health or medical services you specialize in, this page could include services such as:

• Medical And Surgical – e.g. pain management, neurosurgery diabetes, oncology, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, renal, weight loss surgery, ophtalmology surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. preventive dentistry, children’s dentistry, bad breath treatment, restorations, dental braces, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, coronary care
• Prenatal/Neonatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic – breast screens, lung screening, radiology and imaging, pap smears, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – laboratory testing and analysis, emergency pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, domestic abuse, wellness, social development services
• Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, natural therapy, shiatsu, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, sports medicine, fertility services, physiotherapy, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, sleep therapy, home care, clinical information, medical supplies, etc.

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what these services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

Who We Are

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, sponsored community projects, etc.

Remember to include any professional awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your business and set yourself above the competition.

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

Team

If you are looking for quicker and easier ways to grow your business online or get people to stay longer on your site, then help prospective clients get to know, like and trust your organization better.

You want people to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in medical or health-related terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialized areas mean. This page should include social buttons so your visitors can follow selected staff members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your 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.

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

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to add a simple team members directory in your website using a free plugin here: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee List To Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Career Opportunities

List any career opportunities within the business. It could include training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You should also include information such as the job outlook and 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 this page, subscribe to your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials from past clients are a great way to attract prospective clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with reviews from clients and case studies, you will also help to provide visitors social proof.

(Add a page to your site with reviews from clients and case studies. Screenshot source: arrowsmiledental.com)

To learn more about using case studies, testimonials and client reviews, see this article: How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Lead Conversions With Meaningful Client Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is vitally important.

It should include some or all of the following information:

• Business Name
• Your physical address
• Telephone
• Fax
• Email
• Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Live Chat/Skype

If you have multiple areas you should make that clear when displaying your address and contact info.

You can also include links pointing to commonly-asked questions page, useful pages, online booking form, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Health-Related Blog

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using content such as news, updates, educational articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, educational videos, webinars, etc.

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

If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing website is 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 blog.

You may not know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly deliver an ongoing stream of targeted visitors to your website, simply by publishing new content to your website on a consistent basis.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more about this:

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

Legal Information

It’s important for professional businesses to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. This is not only important for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening laws or regulations wherever your practice is located.

Depending on what products and services you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

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

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Improving Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the ability to deliver valuable content at no cost has become one of the key business differentiators.

By providing useful content with advice, information or tips, you will get your visitors sharing it with others and coming back for more. Using content is the most effective way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and services.

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

• Nutrients your body needs on a daily basis (protein, carbs, fats, vitamins, minerals)
• How to identify the bad habits you need to correct to ensure lifetime weight loss
• How to incorporate exercise into your busy schedule
• Useful apps for tracking calories and exercise
• Etc.

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

Remember to include the same keywords and terms in your content that prospective clients will search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User 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 different ways to improve visitor engagement and user experience.

RSS Feeds – Content Syndication

An RSS feed provides plenty of benefits for your website.

If you provide valuable content, other sites will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

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

• All of your content updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• An RSS feed provides links to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are multiple ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• 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.

To find RSS feeds with useful content just visit sites of health or medical-related government departments and key industry bodies.

Here are a few feeds you could add to a health-related website:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can search by departments and select individual feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Health care for women, Heart health and stroke, Minority women’s health, Violence against women, 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. Nucleic Acids Research, Human Molecular Genetics, BMJ Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, BMJ Tobacco Control, Neuropsychopharmacology, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health - Find various RSS feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Get FDA-related news feeds (e.g. criminal investigations, food allergy reports, pet health, drugs, 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. 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 RSS feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds by going to publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness and nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
• MedicineNet – MedTerms Medical Word of the Day: http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/dailyword.xml. You can also choose individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Allergies, Cancer, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Diabetes, Digestion, Heart, etc.)
• Medical News Today – Medical News Headlines: http://rss.medicalnewstoday.com/featurednews.xml
• MedicalNewsToday.com – You can also choose specific feeds here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsfeeds-rss (e.g. Stem Cell Research, Ebola, Fibromyalgia, Hearing/Deafness, Endocrinology, Dyslexia, Statins, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “complementary medicine rss feeds”, “asthma rss feeds”, “alzheimer’s rss feeds”, etc.

(Using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your website’s UX.)

Add Checklists & Charts

Checklists and explanatory charts are a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your audience. Checklists and medical forms can give them step-by-step information and resources to complete necessary steps. Charts and checklists are also great educational tools.

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

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral hygiene program, cosmetic dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and exercise program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, sleep requirements at different ages, etc.)

Provide Unique Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add value to your users. Health-related calculators, for example, are great tools you can add to your website. Others would include things like diagnostic tools, or even recipes.

In the next section, we discuss a number of WordPress-based tools you can add to your medical site that improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

To view the rest of this guide, click this link:

• How To Build And Grow Your Medical-Related Website Successfully – Part 2

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