Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress
The digital business age has not only revolutionized the way business is done globally, it has also created new challenges and great opportunities for health providers and financial service providers.
Online Challenges For Health And Medical Businesses
Today, more than ever, health services professionals must work harder to remain competitive and find new clientele. Not only do you have to actively participate in the community you serve, you must also develop a strong digital presence. This includes having an effective web presence and learning better ways to grow your practice online.
As well as spending money in offline marketing activities like advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television spots, etc., you will probably find that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be allocated to developing and maintaining a website that can drive prospective clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and give you a wider degree of marketing reach online.
This means that your site not only has to look great, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change in time and sections will need to be frequently updated. This requires implementing sound website and content management strategy.
One other challenge that medical-related businesses face with their websites (and all other professions for that matter), is that you have around thirty seconds or less to help visitors find what they need or they will leave your site 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
Online Opportunities For Health And Medical Services
As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the medical profession that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the digital economy and who can think progressively when it comes to marketing their services better online.
In this comprehensive guide, you will learn ways to attract more visitors and establish stronger online credibility for your medical or health business.
As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system to power your medical or health website or blog.
For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), see the articles below:
Useful Tips For Improving Your Medical Services & Health-Related Website
This section covers how to improve your medical or health-related website and get better results. We show you what pages a medical site needs, what content works best for medical-related websites, suggestions for improving your navigation structure, etc.
If you need website planning assistance, see this detailed step-by-step guide we have written: A Money-Saving Guide To Website Planning For Business Owners
How To Improve Your Website Pages
Professional websites require several essential web pages. Let’s review these.
Products And Services
It’s essential to include a page that explains your services and any products that you offer. Depending on which area you specialize in, your page could list services such as:
- Medicine & Surgery – e.g. acute pain management, nephrology endocrinology, cosmetic surgery, aged care, respiratory, bariatric surgery, eye diseases emergency surgery, etc.
- Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, oral health, teeth whitening, dental implants, emergency dental, etc.
- Cardiology – e.g. heart surgery, chronic heart conditions
- Prenatal and Neonatal – e.g. birth suites, maternity services, etc.
- Child Health – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
- Diagnostic services – breast screens, lung screening, audiology, gynaecology, psychosis, food allergy testing, etc.
- Pathology – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
- Counselling services – mental health services, alcohol, tobacco & other drug services, couples, diet and nutrition counselling, social development services
- Alternative treatments – Chinese medicine, homeopathy, holistic medicine, tai chi, chiropractic, hypnosis, etc.
- Other medical services – weight management, chiropody, reproductive endocrinology, physiotherapy, inherited diseases, artificial limbs, hearing aids, home care, community health, medical equipment, etc.
Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your appointment booking page.
About Us
The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.
It’s important to include any professional awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your medical services and set yourself above other competitors.
(List all of your business awards certifications, recognitions, accreditations, associations, publications, etc. in the About Us page. Screenshot image source: squaremedical.com.au)
Core Team
Are you searching for quicker, easier and cheaper ways to grow your business online or increase user interaction with your site? Then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for your prospective clients to get to know, like and trust you and 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. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be very well-versed in medical or health terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what they specialize in. It should also explain what those specialized areas do. It can also include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow individual staff members on their social pages.
On this page, make sure to highlight your employee’s expertise, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.
(Make sure to add a page that introduces your employees or team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot source: southperthchiro.com.au)
We have created a detailed tutorial about how to create and add an easy-to-update list of staff members in your website using free WP plugins here: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee List On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required
We’re Hiring
This is a listing of career opportunities within the business. It can include training offered, employee benefits, professional development, etc. It should include stories of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your company and information such as the job outlook and new 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 this page, join your contact list, follow your social pages, etc.
Testimonials & Case Studies
Testimonials and case studies are a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your services. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials from past clients, you will also help to provide visitors social proof.
(Add a page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies. Screenshot image source: arrowsmiledental.com)
We have written a detailed article about using testimonials, case studies and reviews get better results online here: How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Sales Boosting Client Testimonials
Contact Page
A contact page is absolutely necessary.
It should provide visitors with the following:
- Name
- Physical location
- Phone
- Fax
- Contact email
- Map and directions
- Web URL
- Contact form
- Request for more information – contact details
- Social media links
- Live chat feature
If your business operates from different areas you should make that clear when displaying your address and contact information.
Consider also including links to an FAQ page, frequently-visited pages, online booking form, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.
Add A Health Blog Section
A blog is a powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content like news, updates, educational information, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, webinars, etc.
If you already have an established medical-related site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your practice.
If you don’t have a website yet, or if your existing site is hard to add new content to or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act both as your website and business blog.
Something few businesses know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic system that will begin to deliver new visitors to your business, simply by adding regular content to your website.
(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)
Go here to learn more:
Legal Pages
As a professional business, having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is essential. This is not only important for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being broken in whatever area or location you provide services.
Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your health or medical-related site will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimer
- Affiliate Agreement
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- DMCA Notice
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Health/Financial Disclaimers
- Refund Policy
- Video/Audio Terms
- and others
We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your site here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website
Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Website
In today’s fiercely competitive digital economy, the willingness to deliver valuable content at no cost has become one of the key differentiators for businesses selling similar products or services.
By committing to providing great content with information, advice or tips, you will get your visitors sharing your information online and coming back for more. Using content is the most effective way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about your services.
For example, if your business provides weight management services, then some of the areas you could write about include the following:
- Potential health issues caused by being overweight
- The role portion control plays in helping you achieve weight loss results
- Why using a measuring tape is better than a scale when it comes to weight loss progress
- What salad dressings can ruin your weight loss program (and healthier choices)
- Etc.
You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your readers gain a better understanding of your services, by explaining benefits, procedures, terminology, etc.
Use keywords and terminology in your content that your readers would search to find you 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 exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content for your site visitors and grow your website using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
Ways Of Improving User Experience
Improving website user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and UX.
Add RSS Feeds
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in many ways.
If you provide useful information, 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 in one place
- Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
- Your feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
- Feeds allow for subscribing
- A feed provides a way for links to point back to your site
- Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
- There are several ways your 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 adding syndicated content to your site from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.
You can find RSS feeds with useful content by searching online for relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.
For example, here are some RSS feeds containing useful information that you could consider adding to a health or medical site:
- US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also select specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Emergency preparedness, Environmental health, Illnesses and disabilities, 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 RSS feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Journal of Neurophysiology, BMJ, BMJ Sexually Transmitted Infections, Toxicological Sciences, 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 feeds here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
- FDA – Get FDA-related feeds (e.g. enforcement reports, FDA drug shortages, pet health, cosmetics, etc.) and podcasts here: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ContactFDA/StayInformed/RSSFeeds
- Department of Health UK (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. NSW – http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pages/rss.aspx
- Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Find many RSS feeds on health-related news and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
- Medical News Feeds: You can search medical news feeds in places like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness & nutrition: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Nutrition.xml)
- MedicineNet.com – 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. Alzheimer’s Disease, Cancer, Chronic Pain, Diabetes, Exercise & Fitness, HIV, 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. Colorectal Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, Radiology/Nuclear Medicine, Menopause, Heart Disease, Breast Cancer, Restless Legs Syndrome, etc.)
You can also search online for general RSS feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific topics, e.g. “immune system rss feeds”, “neurology rss feeds”, “IBD rss feeds”, etc.
(Use RSS feeds to improve your medical site’s UX.)
Add Online Forms
Checklists and charts are a great way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your visitors and set yourself apart from the competition. They can provide visitors with step-by-step information and resources to complete a necessary task. Checklists and forms can also be great client instructional tools.
You can provide forms, charts and checklists (or links to these) covering a range of topics such as:
- Checklists/forms for booking appointments
- Checklists for post-surgery recovery
- Health checklists and charts for specific systems
- Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, oral maintenance 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.)
Adding Unique Tools
Providing unique tools and applications on your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to potential clients. Health-related calculators, for example, are useful tools you can add to your website. Others could include things like diagnostic tools, and even recipes.
In the next section, we discuss a number of online tools you can add to your site using WordPress plugins that can improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)