Grow Your Medical Or Healthcare Business Online With WordPress

Health and medical services practitioners today face a growing number of challenges brought about by the online economy.

Online Challenges For Health Services Professionals

Today, more than ever, health-related businesses must work hard and find smarter ways to stand apart from their competition and source new clientele. Not only do you have to become more involved in the community you serve, you must also maintain an active presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better promote your health services online.

As well as investing dollars in offline marketing, businesses in the health or medical-related industry are now finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be allocated to develop and manage a website that can bring new clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and increase their 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 may change over time and sections may need to be frequently updated. This requires a well-developed website and content management strategy.

Another problem that medical services providers face online, as all other professions do for that matter, is that your site has around 30 seconds or less to give users the information they are searching for or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.

“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 The Medical Profession In The Web Economy

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the health-related sector that are willing to evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and who can think strategically when it comes to improving their online business marketing skills.

This detailed guide will help you uncover new ways to generate more web traffic and create noticeable improvements in your medical or health business presence online.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform to power your health or medical website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see the articles below:

• How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Lose You Money
• How To Grow Your Business With A WordPress Site

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

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

If you need website planning assistance, go here: Planning A Website: A Basic Blueprint For Business Owners

Essential Pages

All business websites need several basic pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need and how to set up your medical website for best results.

Services And Products Page

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

• Medicine & Surgery – e.g. pain management, nephrology hematology, maxillofacial surgery, rehabilitation medicine, respiratory, weight loss surgery, ophtalmology surgical outpatients, etc.
• Dental Services – e.g. general dentistry, holistic dentistry, bad breath treatment, teeth whitening, dental implants, emergency dentistry, etc.
• Cardiology – e.g. heart monitoring, coronary care
• Prenatal & Postnatal – e.g. birthing, maternity services, etc.
• Child Health services – paediatrics, child development, children services, etc.
• Diagnostic services – breast screens, skin cancer, radiology, gynaecology, magnetic resonance imaging, food allergy testing, etc.
• Pathology services – lab testing and analysis, routine pathology testing, occupational and environmental testing, speech pathology, etc
• Counselling – mental health, alcohol, tobacco & other drug counselling, trauma counselling, wellness, social work services
• Alternative treatments – acupuncture, reflexology, holistic medicine, yoga, chiropractic, hypnotherapy, etc.
• Other medical services – weight management, othopedics, fertility services, stomal therapy, medical genetics, artificial limbs, assisted living, home and community care, sexual health, medical transport, 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 these services and why they should book an appointment with you.

Who We Are

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.

Remember to also include any business awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your services and to set yourself above similar service providers.

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

Meet The Team

Are you looking for quicker and simpler ways to grow your business online and get people to stay longer on your site? Then make it easier for your prospective clients to get to know, like and trust your business better.

Prospects need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with medical-related terms it 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 site visitors can follow your team members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your team 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 staff page. Image source: southperthchiro.com.au)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about how to easily add a list of employees or team members in your website using free plugins, go here: WordPress Plugin Tutorial: Adding An Employee List Directory

Career Opportunities

This is a listing of job or career opportunities available within your business. It could include training offered, benefits, professional development, social aspects of working with your business, etc. You can also include case studies of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your organization and information about upcoming career opportunities in the health or medical industry.

Include also a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, subscribe to your contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

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

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

We have created a detailed article on using client testimonials and reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more: How To Create Better Results Online Using Profit-Boosting Customer Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is vitally important.

It should provide the following information about your center:

• Name
• Your physical address
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – contact details
• Links to social media networks
• Chat feature (optional feature)

If you operate from several locations you will want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact information.

Consider also including a few links point to commonly-asked questions page, frequently-visited pages, booking request, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content like news, updates, training information, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established medical website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your organization.

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

Not many people know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic machine that can help drive a stream of new visitors to your business, simply by publishing content on a consistent basis to your website.

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

For more details, go here:

• Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Create A Web Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress

Legal Information

It’s very important for medical practitioners businesses to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online. 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 broken wherever you practice.

Depending on the services and products 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 (e.g. Google), and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions 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 comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your site. Go here to learn more: How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips For Improving The Content On Your Website

In today’s fiercely competitive online business economy, the sooner you start to publish great content on your site, the faster you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

Provide useful content with great information, advice or tips that will get your readers sharing your information online with others and coming back for more. This is a great way to inform and teach site visitors and prospects about using your services.

For example, if you provide products that help people manage their weight, then some of the areas you could write content about include:

• Nutrients your body needs on a daily basis (protein, carbs, vitamins, fats, minerals)
• Is weight loss surgery right for you? (who should get it, risks, success rates)
• How to recover physically and emotionally after weight loss surgery – useful tips and recommendations
• How to incorporate an occasional fast food into a healthy diet plan
• Etc.

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

Remember to use the same keywords in your articles that readers would search for.

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 website or blog, save money creating useful content for your site visitors and grow your website using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways To Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.

If you provide valuable content, 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 kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared online
• RSS feeds allow for subscribing
• It provides links back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing valuable information on your site from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find useful RSS feeds just visit sites of medical-related government departments or industry bodies.

Below we have listed some examples of feeds you could consider adding to your site:

• US Department Of Health And Human Services – e.g. Blog posts RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SelectedHhsBlogPosts, etc. You can also choose specific RSS feeds, like feeds on women’s health issues (e.g. Breastfeeding, Health care for women, HIV/AIDS, Mental health, Violence against women, etc.) here: http://womenshealth.gov/news/rss/rss-feeds.html
• US National Libraries Of Medicine – For a directory of feeds from various medical journals, publications and websites (e.g. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention (American Association for Cancer Research), The Journal of General Physiology (JGP), RadioGraphics, Neurology.org, BMJ Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, etc.) go here: http://www.healthplusplus.com/wiki/List_of_RSS_feeds_on_health
• National Institutes Of Health (www.nih.gov) - Find various RSS feeds on health-related news here: http://www.nih.gov/Subscriptions.htm
• US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) – Find FDA-related feeds (e.g. consumer health information updates, health fraud, pet health, vaccines, blood and biologics, 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 - Find many health-related news feeds and podcasts here: http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/rss.asp
• Medical News: You can search medical news feeds in major news publications like the NYTimes feeds section (e.g. Fitness and 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 select individual feeds here (http://www.medicinenet.com/rss/article.htm) (e.g. Medications, Men’s health, Nutrition, Food, & Recipes, Pediatrics / Healthy Kids, Eyesight, HIV, etc.)
• MedicalNewsToday.com – Medical News 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. Gout, Medicare/Medicaid/SCHIP, Sexual Health/STDs, Lymphoma/Leukemia/Myeloma, Heart Disease, Mental Health, Personal Monitoring/Wearable Technology, etc.)

You can also just search online for general feeds, e.g. “medical rss feeds” or search for feeds on specific areas, e.g. “lupus rss feeds”, “prostate rss feeds”, “clinical trials rss feeds”, etc.

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

Checklists & Charts

Checklists and medical forms are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement and add value to your audience. They can provide visitors with useful step-by-step information and resources to complete tasks. Charts and checklists are also great client educational tools.

Forms, charts and checklists could address subjects such as:

• Checklists and forms for booking appointments
• Checklists for post-surgery recovery
• Health checklists and charts for specific conditions
• Dental checklists – e.g. first visit, active maintenance program, general dentistry, etc.
• Weight loss and nutrition program checklists and charts
• General charts & infographics (e.g. acidity level of different foods, the importance of sleep at different ages, etc.)

Unique Tools

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

In the next section of this guide, we will look at a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your website that can help to improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

***

This is the end of section 1.

To view Part Two, click this link:

• Your Health & Medical Clinic Website – WordPress Plugins And Themes For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Increasing User Engagement And Traffic Generation

***

***